#I love it very much but... it is a significantly different quality than the rest of these
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Wishlist for DBDA Season 2:
A proper noir episode that plays off Edwin's fondness for traditional detective stories
Significantly more focus on Niko's character now that the traditional comic trio had season 1 to establish. Exploring her father's afterlife situation, meeting up with her Mom, discovering her own strength and skills (especially if she has supernatural powers after the polar bear figurine)
More of Charles' living backstory and family mystery possibly reflecting the comics
Edwin's living backstory and family, whom we know next to nothing about even in comics
Crystal picking up more tech/hacking skills
Cryland Crystal x Charles relationship dynamics: conflict around her bully side, trauma-bonding and conflict around the different kinds of shitty parents they have (which so far has been something Crystal's been better about with Charles than Edwin has been)
Monty, Jenny, and Cat King all move to London with the squad. Idc how or why. I'll accept any reasoning.
Happy lesbians or other wlws!!! Didn't quite get that in season 1.
More Kashi! What is going on with him? He seems important
An episode where one of the main characters is stuck floating upside down like in the Topsy-Turvey comic, and the others take turns holding their hand like they're a balloon
Squooshing and the Ghost Roads
More worldbuilding of realms (Neitherlands?) and ghost rules/abilities
Crystal resolving buried David of course
Desire of the Endless interaction with the rest of our queer characters (which is basically all of them)
Flashback montage of the silly early cases Edwin & Charles did together in the past that they referenced in season 1
Flashback on how the boys began their Detective Agency: their very first case.
Expand their first meeting in the attic scene to include if they actually spoke to Death, what happened to their bodies, and showing them realizing the school is covering them both up
Return to St. Hilarion's. Put bodies to rest. Burn it to the ground.
Edwin new outfit. Once done with the school visit and flashbacks, he should pick something mature and individual to separate the new him from the death trauma time
Jenny's new role in the agency group now that she's aware and sees ghosts. Bonus points for goth knowledge
Charles crop top for the fans
Charles figuring out his 🤞 bisexuality 🤞 this season much like Edwin worked through his internalized homophobia in season 1. We desperately need meaningfully in depth, genuine, quality bi rep in media and I trust this show with it. (Shout out to Nick Heartstopper though)
Payneland dynamics: still slow-burn figuring out their relationship as friends or more now that the confession is known. By the end of season 2 and Charles bi journey?, relationships start to shift a bit from Cryland to Payneland perhaps... [I love them both honestly]. Just when Edwin is making up his mind to put his crush on Charles aside and start looking for his "adventure of the heart" elsewhere, that's right when Charles starts to get more interested. And we may expect him to get all flirty but he actually gets more nervous and genuine with Edwin.
Monty becomes humanoid again and is learning who he is out on his own. Maybe he gets a job and apartment. Trying to figure out his purpose as an individual instead of familiar.
Cat King has a name, an animated backstory, and a new love interest that sees through his bullshit and keeps him humble
Feel free to add your own wishlist in the reblogs/comments! <3
#dbda season 2#dbda#dead boy detective agency#dead boy detectives#wishlist#season 2#predictions#text post#cat king#thomas the cat king#Monty finch#monty the crow#jenny the butcher#niko sasaki#crystal palace#charles rowland#edwin payne#cryland#payneland
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May Reading Recap
A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. Rereading A Memory Called Empire was a treat - an expected treat, but it was good to find out that it lived up to memory. I liked A Desolation Called Peace a little bit less, but only a little bit - it very much followed up directly on the themes from A Memory Called Empire that I appreciated.
The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik. I devoured these books. I'm very surprised by this fact, since I'm not generally a "magic school" person, but there we are; Naomi Novik apparently managed to make me one temporarily. The last book was a particularly strong one and did some very interesting things with its worldbuilding that'd been set up in previous books and delivered in the last one.
Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End by Bart Ehrman. I've read and enjoyed some Bart Ehrman previously, but I feel like the quality of his books has diminished from his earlier work, and this book confirmed that for me. I'm a bit of an eschatology enthusiast (the main reason I picked this up, as well as the fact that (a) it was available at the library one time and I grabbed it on a whim and (b) author recognition), but I learned very little from this book that I didn't already know.
Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge. One of the things that made me happiest about reading this book was, unfortunately, the fact that I thought I recognized the ways in which it was referring back to Classic of Mountains and Seas, which I felt (again, unfortunately) sort of smug about. Checking the Wikipedia page for the book, apparently "Additionally, each chapter begins with a brief description of the beast which, in the original writing, was written in Classical Chinese, while the rest of the book was written in standard Chinese," which is so cool and I wish had been conveyed in the translation.
In general though, this was a good one, though I feel like the descriptive copy was a little misleading. It's less a mystery than a series of interconnected stories following a central character investigating the titular strange beasts, and learning how they connect to her life and history.
Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat. I liked this one significantly more than Dark Rise - which I guess makes sense, since a lot of Dark Rise was setting up the concept that most compels me about the series (the main character being the reincarnation of a notorious villain from the past). It still feels YA in the way that YA usually does, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if stylistically less my preference (and something I feel worth mentioning in the context of a possible recommendation). The ending was a gut-punch of a fun kind. I will be looking forward to reading the third one.
"There Would Always Be a Fairy-Tale": Essays on Tolkien's Middle Earth by Verlyn Flieger. I loved Splintered Light and was disappointingly underwhelmed by most of the essays in this collection. There were a couple that were more interesting to me, but on the whole a lukewarm response.
The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Adrian Tchaikovsky wins again!!! I don't love this one quite as much as I've enjoyed the Children of Time series, but I actually think that I liked it more than The Final Architecture series. Fascinating concept, as usual fascinating worldbuilding for societies wildly different from our own, and dedicated to themes of cooperation and unity-across-difference without it feeling preachy or didactic.
Aphrodite and the Rabbis: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It by Burton Visotzky. This was a good one! I already was familiar with some of the information here, but not all of it, and the work around art and architecture was new to me. I felt in some ways like Visotzky overstated his case a little, but on the whole a very interesting read.
Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives by Phyllis Trible. This one is kind of a classic of feminist Bible scholarship - a short book that does a close reading of the text of the stories of four biblical women who suffer in some way (Hagar, Tamar, the unnamed woman from Judges 19, and Jephthah's daughter). It's a powerful work, though it felt a little basic to me on the whole - probably due to the fact that it's relatively early scholarship on the subject working from a literary angle.
Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. Books with footnotes are very hit-or-miss for me - not meaning books with contextual footnotes, but books with footnotes that are part of the conceit of the text itself. Some authors can pull it off; others really shouldn't try. In this case, the author felt a bit too taken with his own cleverness to pull it off; in general I felt like this book was trying a little too hard to be edgy and voice-y and ended up just feeling kind of shallow. It was a fun read, in some ways, but not a good one, and I'm torn on if I'm going to continue reading the series. If I do, it probably won't be in a hurry.
Tolkien and Alterity ed. by Christopher Vaccaro. I was excited about this particular collection of essays (you can probably guess why) and found them mostly uninspiring in the reading. The exception was a bibliographic essay on the treatment of race in Tolkien scholarship, which proposed more use of reader response theory, a suggestion which seems fruitful to me and more interesting than debates about whether or not Tolkien/his works are or aren't racist.
Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson. I feel like this is going to sound more critical than I really mean it to, but this was a perfectly adequate horror novel. I wouldn't call it exceptional, and it didn't freak me out, but I read it pretty much straight through and enjoyed the experience on the whole.
Thousand Autumns: vol. 4 by Meng Xi Shi. I liked this volume more than I've liked some of the others, and am enjoying the development of the central relationship, though I feel a little like I've been bait-and-switched about the level of fucked up that it's involved. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying this one a little less than I feel like I should: I was expecting more fucked-up between the two main characters based on the initial conceit and don't feel like the novel has really delivered on that. But I am enjoying Yan Wushi getting a little more...outwardly affectionate toward Shen Qiao, and Shen Qiao's concomitant confusion about it.
This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer. More than an adequate horror novel but less than an excellent one, I felt like this book relied more on gross-out horror than I typically prefer. Still, was definitely spooky, and confirmed for me that wilderness horror gets to me in a very specific way.
I'm presently reading Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, which I have mixed feelings about (not negative! just mixed). I'm not sure what I'm going to read after that, save that I'm now trying to alternate genres and might try to read some nonfiction, which I've been sort of off for a while. Otherwise I'll probably just end up reading Translation State by Ann Leckie, and possibly A Fire in the Deep by Vernor Vinge. But I'm really going to try for some more nonfiction next month.
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So far, my favorite non-English queer movies.
Paradise Lost (2018) ; The Blue Caftan (2022) ; I Dream In Another Language (2017) ; The Valley of a Thousand Hills (2022) ; Badhaai Do (2022) ; Mystère à la tour Eiffel (2015)
#international queer cinema is soooo good guys#I really will have to put effort into hyping these up a little#because NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THEM#to be fair Mystère à la tour Eiffel is just here to make the numbers nice round#I love it very much but... it is a significantly different quality than the rest of these#The first four are very beautiful and tragic and deep#Badhaai Do is a comedy#Mystère à la tour Eiffel... is trash#but it is OUR trash#queer cinema#international cinema#Mystère à la tour Eiffel#Badhaai Do#I Dream In Another Language#The Valley of a Thousand Hills#The Blue Caftan#Paradise Lost
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Wait, that's it? That's where you decided to end this game????
I'm so puzzeled by their narrative choices.
Anyway, I finished the goblin series and I think, that I'd rate them as such:
1 - Of Orcs and Men is my favorite storywize (it has characters that have arcs! And fashion!) . Also found family (I'll die on this hill). Again, problem with abrupt ending (and so many gay jokes..), but other than that pretty straightforward road trip with unlikely allies to friends to "you know what you are". And horrendous fighting. But still very unique and very atmospheric setting.
2 - Styx: Master of Shadows. Honestly? I liked it! Very pretty game, very atmospheric. I love the character study of Styx in it. I was absolutely lost all the way from very beginning to the very end. I have questions to the way they tell the first half of the story (and the rest too tbh), but maybe it's a design choice, so you'd feel as confused as the main character. Would be improved significantly if the npcs were more than plot devices. But still, good game.
3 - Styx: Shards of Darkness. I would put it lower if it was an option. If you come into it not as a fan of the series (not where I expected to find myself in the beginning of 2024 but here I am) it was a solid stealth game. I feel like they lost pretty much most of the unique atmosphere, but maybe it's because they decided to sacrifice the whole character of the protagonist to some very low quality 4th wall breaking jokes. And I do like that Styx as a character can't shut up to save his life and very bad at humor, but leave it at least canon-adjacent. You can't put a player into one of the two boss fights in the whole game and put a lotr one-liner as the line of dialogue! Have some respect for yourself? For your story?? Also your players, what the hell were these death cutscenes? Still the story feels like a very rough draft. But! We finally have other characters! Two of them! Unfortunately their motivation is not very clear especially in the story that is all over the place, that doesn't know how properly end. Speaking of it, I am very confused by this storytelling move when they clearly set up the villain, but at the last second we fight some henchmen and the story ends. It was in several games of different studios and I can't say that it's a setup for a sequel because the main characters just don't acknowledge this in any way? It's odd. What can I say.
Anyway, Happy New Year, I was planning on staying late playing the game but I guess I'll go to bed early!
#the styx games#of orcs and men#styx shards of darkness#styx master of shadows#tench plays video games
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Is It Really That Bad?
In 1974, Stephen King’s career was launched with his debut novel (one rescued from the trash can by his wife, Tabitha), and two years later we got Brian De Palma’s iconic film adaptation that launched the career of Sissy Spacek, resurrected the career of Piper Laurie, and was so good that King prefers it over the book. It really set the stage for future adaptations of his work to be of a similarly high quality… Something which has unfortunately only rarely happened. To this day, it still remains a beloved classic.
And you know how it is with beloved horror classics: If they're good enough, you know they'll get remade. Now, the thing with remakes is that, when it comes to horror, they have as many hits as they have misses. Amazing films like The Thing, The Fly, The Blob, and The Ring all exist alongside mediocre crap like Rob Zombie’s Halloween films, the shot-for-shot Psycho remake, and the Jackie Earle Haley-starring Elm Street reboot. It really comes down to the creative vision and the story you want to tell, you know?
And Carrie is ripe for that, as the original movie cut out a lot of elements from the book that would be interesting to see in a modernized context, as bullying has evolved and even gotten harsher and more deadly over the years since Carrie was pelted with tampons in the locker room. And that’s exactly what director Kimberly Price wanted to do! She wanted to make a film that can stand on its own, a retelling of the story that wouldn’t be a remake of the film, but a different attempt at adapting the book.
The studio, however, had different ideas, and made her do a bunch of reshoots and trim 40 minutes off the film to make it more like De Palma’s version of the story. Three months prior to release the Sandy Hook shooting happened as well, which combined with the editing to turn the film into a remake pushed it back to October, and I’m sure it didn’t exactly help make the film more palatable to audiences either. While not a failure by any means, the resounding critical consensus to the film was “Why did this need to exist?” Even King himself was reportedly not much of a fan, though he did appreciate the modern updates to the story.
As time has gone on, the hate towards the film has cooled and it has picked up a fandom of its own, so I figured it was high time I gave this a watch. In honor of the film’s upcoming tenth anniversary, let’s see if the 2013 take on the iconic King story is really that bad.
THE GOOD
Across the board, I think all of the performances are really solid. Chloë Grace Moretz does a fine job as Carrie (even if, like Spacek before her, she seems a bit too pretty for the part) and Julianne Moore does a fantastic job as Margaret White to the point I might even say she’s on par with Piper Laurie. Judy Greer as Miss Desjardin might be my favorite performance in the movie, though; I just love how brutal she gets with enforcing the punishments on Carrie’s bullies, and how she doesn’t give an inch to the alpha bitch when she tries to start shit. As for Carrie’s peers, they’re all decent, but none of them strike me as very memorable. They all do a good job (even certified creep Ansel Elgort) but none of them really stand out as better than the rest. Still, there aren’t any weak performances here.
I think the finale really works better even if it is a little more over-the-top, mainly because even if it was significantly cut down compared to the original vision. We actually get to see some of Carrie’s rampage taken out into the town, and while we don’t get the full-on force of nature destruction the book gives us, we do get a pretty good taste. I think it gets a little too CGI at times (the floating knives at the end being particularly egregious) but I think it is ultimately a very satisfying take on the ultraviolent ending of the story.
I also like how the story was updated for the modern age, with cyberbullying now being a key part in how Carrie is abused by her peers. Carrie is genuinely a story I feel works much better in a modern context than in its original form. The ways bullying has evolved and become so much more horrifying in the modern age lends itself well to a story of an outcast being harassed by those around her, and her ultimate snapping feels even more justified and cathartic since the bullying she suffers is even more extreme and psychologically damaging than before. Honestly, I think this Carrie is even more sympathetic than the original; I’m not going to fault a teenager who is the victim of parental abuse and then has embarrassing videos of her spread across the internet from frying her bullies with electrical wires or blowing them up in a giant fireball. Fuck ‘em! They deserve it!
THE BAD
...Which is what I'd love to say, but real life has unfortunately made that a little harder to do. In the years since the original, there has been a very unfortunate number of incidents where people were killed in schools. School shootings weren’t really a thing in the 70s, but after Columbine it seemed like one happened every other year. In light of that, cheering while a high schooler brutally massacres her peers seems a bit… tasteless. Now obviously we as the audience are privy to all sorts of details that makes Carrie’s rage justified and her ultimate vengeance cathartic, but still, it does give me pause at least. Should I be cheering while these high school students get slaughtered like pigs? Is this not horribly fucked up? It’s an interesting moral dilemma with rooting for this killer, and while I did put this down in the “Bad” section I think being uncomfortable with what Carrie does is a valid response. I think that the fact her rampage can be viewed as either justified vengeance or as woefully disproportionate violence or even as both at once is a great strength of the story.
What isn’t a great strength, though, is how this was forced into a being a remake, because boy is it ever stuck in the original’s shadow. Moretz and Moore really end up trapped in the shadows of Spacek and Laurie’s takes on Carrie and her mother, and the whole film really just plays it straight with adapting what the original film did. It might be one of the worst studio decisions ever, because despite the strength of the cast and the overall solid quality of the filmmaking, the whole thing just feels boring. Even with the new angles and the interesting takes, the fact remains that the story and plot beats are unchanged and stuff we saw in the original film. It’s not as egregiously shot-for-shot as Van Sant’s Psycho was, but there’s not much here that justifies watching this if you’ve seen the original film.
IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?
As far as horror remakes go, this is one of the most inoffensive ones out there.
Look, I’m gonna be honest: Carrie is not even close to being my favorite King work, and the original movie isn’t one of my favorites. The book is a good debut and the movie is decent enough, but they’re not something I find myself revisiting. So even going into this movie I wasn’t expecting anything worse than what I’d already seen, and that’s basically what I got. This is a very unambitious film, though as mentioned before that was mostly by studio mandate, and thus it’s mostly more of the same—and what we got before was okay, so this ends up being okay too.
I think so much of the backlash comes from the original movie being a beloved horror classic, and thus not something that should be retried lightly. This film seriously would have benefited from more closely adapting the book and modernizing it like was originally planned rather than just rehashing the original movie with flashier effects. What we’re left here is a decent redo that lacks an identity of its own, but is still competent enough to not be the worst thing ever. If you like the movie, I can’t really fault you for it because I can understand why someone would like this much like I can with the original. Even if I’m not super fond of them, they’re decent enough movies.
I think the score is right about where it belongs, though I might be nice enough to round it up to 6. It’s a decent horror movie, and if you like it, I can’t really blame you. It has a lot of good elements going for it, and I think if it had been allowed to be an adaptation of the book I wouldn’t hesitate to call it the definitive Carrie adaptation. Bumping the good parts of It to the 80s made that story a lot better, after all! But the meddling to turn one director’s vision into a mirror image of a previous one’s vision really just holds this back a bit for me. If you want to throw this on your Halloween watchlist or add it to your Stephen King movie collection, it’s a decent addition, but it really deserved to be so much more than the reheated leftovers of De Palma.
#is it really that bad#IIRTB#review#movie review#Carrie#Carrie 2013#Stephen King#chloe grace moretz#julianne moore#horror movie#horror#remake
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The Change in Art Within Fairy Tail
The Fairy Tail anime has had its fair share in change of the animation. From what I noticed, the animation changes well with the overall feeling of the current time of Fairy Tail. I’m unsure if this was done on purpose, though I am fairly certain it was, at least for the Tartaros arc.
Comparing the beginning of the story to the end, you can definitely tell there is a change which may be due to the overall change and more experience Mashima has in drawing which then reflects in the animation that the team is making.
The first season it brightly colored from the very beginning. There is never a dull moment in the color and if it does, it is to reflect on the scene. The characters are much more expressive and the magic is almost enticing. It lures you in with this thrill and whimsical colorfulness that almost reminds you of a childhood story. Of a Fairy Tale. As the story goes on, it does have darker tones but, as stated before, it is usually to keep the atmosphere going and it still keeps the expressiveness of this being fantastical.
On the other-hand, when Fairy Tail ends in order to catch up with the manga we go from the happy 2009 feel straight into the darker 2014 feel, which I will say I enjoy slightly better mainly due to the quality of the animation improving. This art style is reflected well in the story.
This is during the grand magic games, a bit before the Eclipse Gate arc is active, when the story gets significantly more intense. We have had more intense arcs before but this is a continuous moment of intensity. We have very few slow moments after this arc other than a part from a few fillers or moments between characters. Other than this, there are really no light hearted moments and instead most moments bring more tragedy to our beloved characters are an intense heartfelt moment.
This style continues though the rest of the series up until the 2019 series, or the Final Season. Some people do not like the style change and I can agree to some extent, but I still do enjoy it. It is a good mix between both of the different art styles we were previously introduced to. The Final Season has the dark mix for the more intense and serious fights where you know that something bad is going to happen, but it also has the brighter tones that we missed from the first season with the happier moments. The moments that remind us that we are dealing with our own found family. The magic still has their bright moments, but it is not as memorable as it was when we first began as we have now become sensitized to it.
I would love to know what you guys think though. What is your favorite style? As I said, I love the 2014 version just because of how the characters look and wish I could have seen characters from previous arcs in that same art style. The 2009 version still gives a nice nostalgia feeling.
Anyways, I’ll see you later in the Deep End!!
#fairy tail#fandom#fairy tail anime#fairy tail discussion#art style#anime#anime style#anime animation#fantasy anime#adventure anime#anime discussion#art study
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Will You Marry Me?
Here's the second part of this regencylark a/u. This is older and a different tense, lol, but you'll have that.
At the unlatching of the door, my eyes fly open, and I am immediately aware of two things: it is morning, and Lord Peeta is still in my room, as evidenced by the substantial weight and light snore coming from the other side of the bed.
“Oh, I am sorry,” says Delly, the maid assigned for my stay at my cousin’s home because my faithful Madge could not make the journey due to a sister’s illness exclaims.
Delly is young and seems relatively inexperienced in matters of finding unmarried ladies in bed with known rakes. I’m afraid I’ve given her a great surprise, for she twitters like a little bird in the doorway of the room, searching for the words to say. “I didn’t mean to disturb her ladyship.”
“Maybe you should return later, Delly,” I manage to get out as I pull the bedsheets and coverlet up to cover both Peeta’s and my naked bodies. Much as I might wish, there aren’t nearly enough to hide my transgressions from the maid’s eyes.
“Yes, your ladyship. Certainly.”
“One more thing,” I ask because I’m beginning to fret a great deal. What has my impetuous decision from last night cost me?
“Is the rest of the household up yet?”
Delly bites her lip. I have the distinct feeling she does not want to answer because she knows I will not like the truth.
I force myself to smile at her.
“Some are up, yes, your ladyship,” Delly says. “I believe both your mother and Lady Annie have had their trays, and most of the gentlemen are having breakfast as well.”
So there is very little chance of Peeta leaving now without getting caught.
I sigh. “Thank you, Delly. You may return in a half-hour to assist me.”
I catch Delly’s smothered giggles carrying into my room while she tugs the heavy mahogany door shut upon her exit.
Irritation sweeps through me. If Delly knows I had a man in my bed last night, the entire household will be aware of my indiscretions in half an hour, tops; they are not my servants, so they are in no way loyal to me. I shall not be able to keep this a secret, no matter how necessary it will be.
And of course, my mother and father are here for this house party as well. Drat.
“Bollocks!” I swear once the door’s shut.
A lady should not say such things, but on a morning like this, where I’ve been found in a situation that will significantly compromise my character, a small slip of the tongue seems warranted.
“Peeta, wake up!” I say to my companion, shoving his heavy arm in frustration. I choose to ignore the little zing that darts up my hand at the contact.
“Hmm, what is it darling,” Peeta murmurs, eyes still shut like he can’t be bothered to open them.
“It’s morning, darling,” I say, “and we’re in a spot of trouble.”
Sarcasm is more than evident in my words, but it doesn’t seem to phase him. Instead, Peeta lazily opens his eyes and peers up at me, the blue startling against the white sheets.
I force myself not to let my eyes wander down the expanse of naked skin peeking out of the covers, just a taste of what lies beneath.
My body aches this morning in a thorough, satisfying way. I’d no idea being made love to would be so exquisite; the experience had not been a painful one as I’d heard the rumors say losing one’s maidenhead could be.
It was beautiful.
Beautiful? How could I describe anything involving Lord Peeta as beautiful? I despise him.
Heat creeps up my chest and blossoms through my neck and up to my face while Peeta looks over me contentedly, like a cat who’s just given a bowl of cream.
Well, I suppose he is not so bad, I decide. He has at least one redeeming quality, it seems.
Despite my lack of experience in such matters, Peeta was quite a generous lover. Very skillful and gentle. So long as he keeps his mouth shut, I feel he and I could get along splendidly.
Peeta sits up finally, stretching his legs beneath the covers and matching my position on the mattress. I look away when the blanket falls around his hips, leaving his well-formed upper half uncovered.
I’m afraid I will be quite distracted with thoughts of last night if I keep my eyes on him.
“I was supposed to go before morning, wasn’t I?” Peeta asks quietly.
“Yes,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
Peeta ruffles his hair. “Have we been discovered?”
This time I nod in the affirmative. Such an indescribable mix of emotions is warring in my chest that I cannot speak. I’m finding it quite hard to breathe as the enormity of what I have done settles over me.
Peeta lets out a great sigh, and I glance his way again.
“I suppose we’ll have to marry then,” he says, turning towards me.
“What?”
Is her serious? He despises me.
“You hate me,” I say.
Peeta gets a strange look on his face. “I don’t hate you even a little, Katniss. Quite the opposite. But the question is- do you think so little of me, do you hate me?” he laughs at himself. “Wait, perhaps I don’t want you to answer that; one way or the other, I think we shall have to marry, or society will be through with us.”
“Peeta.”
“I prefer to pretend that you like me a little bit longer, I think.”
I’m surprised by his admissions, so much so that I find myself answering him truthfully. “As much as I thought I disliked you greatly, I now realize that’s not true. You infuriate me, and I don’t agree with many of the things you do, but I don’t hate you either. I enjoy discussing things with you; I enjoy laughing with you,” because last night there had been laughter as well as passion, “and I find that I quite like your company.”
“Do you think you could marry me then?” Peeta asks, tone utterly devoid of the self-preservation worn like a cloak around me for years.
I realized the man in bed with me last night and here, right now, was the real Peeta, not the snarling, quarrelsome version of him I was mostly used to encountering.
I nod. “I think that I could. We will fight as cats and dogs do, but we can figure that out later.”
“Will you marry me, then, lady Katniss?”
“Yes,” I say.
I burst out laughing when Peeta lunges across the bed at me. He rolls us over until I am flat on my back, and he’s hovering over me, smiling in a way that makes my heart hurt a little- but not with pain- with happiness.
Oddly enough, this feels right.
“I will marry you.”
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Food, glorious food
I had family over for lunch twice in a short time.
Now lunch is an awkward meal in Holland. Were this my German side, I simply would have cooked. But lunch in the Netherlands is, to the chagrin of many, a simple, bread based meal, and serving a full course meal is overwhelming to some. But I am too foreign to put a bread basket on the table, put out some cheese and a few apples and call it a day. But bloody hell how do you make something that simple as a concept- the Belgians mock us for this practice enough as it is - into something even slightly festive?
My solution was to up the quality. Serve bread I'd gone to an organic bakery to get, and some of their insanely expensive pastry. Organic smoked salmon, high end honey, several organic meats. Freshly made soup. Salad. Fresh juice. Good organic cheese, fresh butter. I will not be one of those people that the rest of the world mocks for being a terrible host.
And I noticed something.
They're putting something in the food.
Fresh, high end foods taste completely different.
I knew this, sorta, because I'd been on a self-imposed diet during chemo and I stopped because I didn't want to think about cancer every time I made a meal. I got refamiliar with standard supermarket taste, which was fine, you know?
But.
I read that people weren't eating significantly more than they did pre-fifties. Yet obesity wasn't that much of an issue before then.
And of course, I was also raised with the idea that cooking 'from scratch' is incredibly difficult and you need all kinds of products for the 'hard' things.
And yes, cooking is a skill. But I made a cake 'from scratch' yesterday and I don't see what about that would have been so much easier if I had used a box mix, time and energy wise. Not having to add the baking powder myself?
I also cooked semolina and milk into a pudding myself in January and again the taste was markedly different. Not even sure I prefer it. You know, how people tell bakers nowadays that they prefer the taste of a box mix to something made from scratch?
...what are they putting in our food?
In our service economy, certain skills are definitely undertaught. Man, why couldn't they have combined chemistry and cooking when I was 15? And that would make sense, if what we were being offered was fresh, made with quality ingredients.
But it isn't now, is it? High fructose corn syrup? There's ingredients on sale to make your own good things, but mass produced foodstuffs? Not really now, huh? If it is altered so significantly as to have a completely different taste?
Again I'm not saying I'll never have smarties again but what, pray, is in this stuff?
And also cooking "from scratch" is barely harder - I am a crip with impaired fine motor skills and impaired depth vision. But what it is, is undertaught. If my school thinks it is essential for me to read Satre in the original French by 16, well, why shouldn't it be essential for me to know how to make at least my national dishes? How to do small home repairs? I was made to study the same Greek mythology from two different teachers in two different contexts. I love telling you about Hestia, but that was overkill. And we did get taught some medical knowledge at 14, but why didn't that include cooking with fresh ingredients?
So now, many don't have enough routine not to effectively very slowly poison themselves in an effort to stay alive.
I mean, iced tea is tea that has cooled off and may have had some lemon juice and sugar added to it. Why would I pay lipton to put it in a plastic container mixed with goodness knows what else and charge me €1.99 for the privilege? And I know that this is impossible without some form of kitchen (dafuq), but Dutch homes come with kitchen areas so that isn't the issue.
Because what are they putting in this stuff to earn more profits? Methinks it is very, very weird.
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Battle of the Seasons
Once Upon a Time! I’ve gone over my opinion on this dozens of times by now, but given the subject matter I felt like it deserved its own “Battle of the Seasons” post, so here it is. It’s Season 1 (The Dark Curse Saga) vs. Season 2 (The Price of Magic Saga) vs. Season 3 (The Neverland and Wicked Witch’s Revenge Sagas) vs. Season 4 (The Frozen Storybrooke and Operation Mongoose Sagas) vs. Season 5 (The Dark Swan and Underworld Sagas) vs. Season 6 (The Savior’s Fate Saga) vs., regrettably, Season 7 (The Hyperion Heights Saga).
While judging on quality is certainly doable and how I’ve usually presented my ranking, for this post I’d rather focus on how well each season holds together when taken as a whole.
Season 1 obviously reigns supreme here. It manages to tell a complete, coherent and emotionally satisfying story in of itself, with every piece of the puzzle presented in both flashbacks and the present day narrative ultimately clicking together; nothing is wasted. Compare this opening scene with this ending scene, it’s such a great case of book ends, as is what starts with a dark cloud sweeping over everything to create a town where the clock is frozen at 8:15 ending with a different dark cloud sweeping over said town precisely as the now moving clock strikes 8:15, signaling a new beginning. The Dark Curse Saga spent the most time being fine-tuned before production, and it shows. It’s not perfect...but it’s close.
Every other season is nowhere near as stable, being either seasons where two story arcs are told in each half of the season rather than a single story arc (3, 4 and 5) or a single arc is told and botched due to showrunner Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis’ complete inability to stay on track with what they have without throwing new shit in that clutters things up (2, 6 and 7).
Out of the first kind, Season 3 is the best, which seems odd at first since the Neverland Saga and Wicked Saga don’t particularly have much connecting them story-wise, as the former is closure for all plot threads the show had been pursuing since Season 1 while the latter is something of a fresh start. In addition, the former is significantly stronger than the latter. But what ends up making the season work is the character arcs and themes, which do manage to span both story arcs in a very organic way. Themes of facing your past in order to shape your future, of learning from your mistakes and the mistakes of others, of making your own home, of family and love and redemption: they make the story arcs click together, as do the personal stories of Emma, Snow, Charming, Hook, Regina, Rumple, Belle and Neal (but not Henry!)
Season 5 comes painfully close to this same standard, with its two story arcs being even more interconnected than any other in this format. Unfortunately, it’s plagued by three glaring problems: several missteps in the first half come back to haunt the season in its second half, a number of character arcs presented in the first half don’t connect with those in the second half, and the two-part season finale is almost completely disconnected from everything that preceded it, being more of a lead-in to Season 6 than a satisfying conclusion to Season 5. Season 4, meanwhile, has its core problem summed up in one word: Frozen. Quality-wise, the Frozen stuff is the best part of the season, but when taken as a whole it’s got almost jack shit to do with the rest of the season’s narrative and even the entire series’ narrative, and the stuff that does matter narratively usually feels alien to the Frozen stuff whenever they end up sharing screentime together. The Author, the Queens of Darkness, Regina and Robin Hood’s star-crossed romance, Emma and her dark counterpart Lily, the Sorcerer and the Apprentice, the magic hat, Rumple’s backslide into villainy and how it affects his relationship with Belle, Snow and Charming’s dark past, Hook’s dark past, and Henry’s gradual coming of age...all of this is present in the Frozen Storybrooke Saga, but if you removed all the Frozen stuff that makes up the bulk of that arc from them, nothing much would be missing. It all just feels so shoehorned in...much like the Will Scarlet character from OUATIW does the whole season!
In some ways, Season 2′s structure is weaker than Seasons 6 and 7, since it ended up creating something of a double story arc situation by accident, with the first arc only being its first 9 episodes rather than the actual first half of 11 episodes, whereas Seasons 6 and 7 have a more deliberately distinct first half and second half for their story arcs. However, Season 2 still ends up getting the edge of Seasons 6 and 7 because everything that transpired in those first 9 episodes still end up mattering and continuing to develop through the next 13 episodes. Cora is still the Big Bad who seeks to influence Regina who is still fixated on Henry, Hook is still seeking revenge on Rumple who is still seeking to make things work with Belle and reunite with his son who ends up being Emma’s ex and Henry’s father, with Emma having to deal with that while still learning to bring out the magic in her and to accept Snow and Charming as her parents. Because of A&E’s incompetence, precious little of what happens in the first half of Season 6 and 7 end up mattering to the second half, and even much of what goes down in the second half isn’t important by the time of their finales.
And between Seasons 6 and 7, obviously Season 6 is the superior of the two, since it still connects to the show as it was - Emma as the ostensible lead who fought for screentime and relevance against Regina, Storybrooke as the primary setting, and a certain set of characters and plot points always sticking around for better or worse, while Season 7 is a failed attempt at a reboot that ended up instead being the final season, creating a huge whiplash effect and making everyone wonder why the Hell the show didn’t just end at Season 6, which at least seemed built like an ending. Not an especially satisfying ending, but an ending all the same.
So it’s Season 1 > Season 3 > Season 2 > Season 5 > Season 4 > Season 6 > Season 7.
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Chiappa RAK-22
So I recently purchased an RAK-22. What is an RAK-22? Simply put it's more or less an AK-47 (AKM to be more exact) that is chambered for .22 long rifle. I've wanted a semi automatic .22 plinking rifle that is interesting and unique, simple to use, clean, and maintain. And based on that criteria I would say this fits the bill.
The RAK-22 is pretty much the same as the WASR-22, made by the fine people of the Cugir Arms Factory in Romania. The WASR-22 was originally designed to be used as a training rifle from the Romanian armed forces. However the Romanians had plenty of AKM rifles and ammunition and found they didn't really need a .22 trainer. So they sold them on the civilian market as the WASR-22 exported by Century Arms, and now as the RAK-22 exported by Chiappa.
The RAK-22 utilizes a ten round plastic magazine. The rest of the rifle is hardwood and steel. One of the things I like about the RAK-22 over other AK and AR look a likes is that the RAK looks and feels like a real rifle, whereas as many others, the GSG for example, seems like a cheap toy.
Unlike a real AK, the RAK is not gas operated, rather it is straight blowback. However the internals of the RAK are pretty much the same as a standard AK with a recoil spring and bolt carrier. The only thing that is significantly different is that it is missing a gas piston and the gas tube is decorative rather than functional.
So it is very simple and easy to clean, no tools needed, no pins to be removed, the screws to unscrew, no muss, no fuss.
So far me, a friend of mine, and my dad fired 250 rounds through it. Out of 250 rounds, there were 3 malfunctions; two failures to feed and a misfire. What blows my mind, the first 50 rounds were CCI stingers, they fired with no issues. The last 200 rounds though; Remington Golden Bullet. Remington Golden is cheapass ammo. Not the absolute worst, but still pretty cheap low quality .22 ammo. And the RAK-22 ate right through it with few problems. This impressed my more than anything as golden bullets would cause annoying malfunctions with many other semi auto .22 rifles. Furthermore when I did have those three malfunctions, it was easy to clear the malfunction by merely racking the slide or opening the action and quickly shaking out the loose round that failed to feed. Another interesting feature is that the action remains open after the last round, preventing the firing pin from impacting the chamber as rimfire firearms tend to do. Overall it is a simple rifle. AK's are made to be simple rifles, so simple that children can use them ... and they do.
As far as accuracy goes, it's pretty dang good. Not the shooting pennies at 30 yards accuracy that say a Ruger 10/22 would have, but on the 30 yard plinking range my dad has I was able to hit golf ball and tennis ball sized steel swivel targets consistently with open sights firing off hand.
The major downside of the RAK-22 is there is no easy way to mount optics or other accessories. It has no rails or mountings to do so. Not that I have any intention to do so, rifle is fine. The wood is hardwood, I would have preferred laminate but oh well. Now I have to bring up the fact that this is a WASR, which back in the day was known for having some bad quality issues like reliability problems, canted sights, and a wiggly magazine. I don't know about others but mine has none of these problems.
Overall I would say the RAK-22 is a simple and fun backyard plinking rifle. Mine cost around $500, of which I had to pay $250 because I traded in a double shotgun for it. This is significantly more than a Ruger 10/22 which these days runs for around $350-400. But I wanted this because I don't much enjoy field stripping and cleaning guns, and the RAK-22 is absurdly easy to strip and clean. In addition, I just love the sheer simplicity of the kalashnikov design. I would say I am very happy with it. pew pew pew
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Albedo. I just rolled him and finished his quest.
I would love to talk about travelling with him, or at least being someone who brings in the ingredients for alchemy. Someone who goes out of their way for him and gets the best. Maybe the only gardener in Mondstadt to grow alchemical roots and grasses.
I'm happy for you, rolling the cute alchemy boyo ywy I only rolled in his banner to get Bennett in five rolls I'm sorry Albedo, my primogems are for Xiao and Hu Tao- *shot*
Back to business! I really, really like this cute idea awww thank you for distracting from the angst fics in my head haha (TUMBLR DIDN’T SAVE IT PROPERLY AND SO THE POST IS HORRIBLY SHORT WAIT- FIXED IT WOOHOO)
Albedo's Personal Botanist
Background
Most ingredients in alchemy usually come from ores and liquid ingredients formed by chemistry methods. Stuff like Tuttia, Bismuth, all that shindigs-
So while plant life can be useful for alchemy, not everyone recognizes its utility straight away, and provide for the common plants for arrangements rather than scientific inventory
I can imagine that you'd be a normal gardener at first but very passionate of their properties.
Might be a Dendro vision wielder too, the Dendro archon loves those who wield the power of knowledge, more so when they use it on nature.
You carry with you a lil book about all the plants and shrubs that you've personally cared for, down to their finest detail and properties. But you're a gardener, not a master of Alchemy, so some parts of the notes you couldn't really figure out yourself.
The first time you met Albedo, he was around a year into staying in Mondstadt. He was forced to go out and take a breather because of his workaholic schedule, and instead of relaxing in a bath, he ended up drifting to the market area to get more ingredients local to Mond.
Unlike the other flower stalls, he was pulled into yours because of the wide variety of your wares. Roots, grasses, shoots, plants you couldn't just find outside of the walls.
You were tending to your mini greenhouse in the back and left your botania book on the shelf outside, and this LIL SHI- Albedo, having no proper training for social interactions, straight up just opened that shit and read it all.
"Oh, hello there, mister- HEY, THAT'S MY STUFF, WHAT THE HECK"
Flustered, confused and alarmed, Albedo tried his best to quickly reason with your garden-spade-wielding self. And with his pretty boy self, you managed to calm down and listen.
You may or may not had smacked him with a bouquet of horsetail for good measure.
"Such vast knowledge and detail orientation, why waste away your talents in selling productive fauna when you can wield them into something more?"
Master Phytologist of the Knights of Favonius acquired!
Working with Albedo!
Your greenhouse in the Knight of Favonius HQ is most definitely connected to Albedo's laboratory! And very spacious too.
More than one occasion, you've seen the Chief Alchemist casually sneaking around the area, plucking a Flaming Flower or scraping dandelion seeds from the pot while you were busy tending to other flowers on the other side of your area.
65% of the time you caught him red-handed and you will be met with the rare sight of a fumbling, queasy Albedo.
30% of the time you just find out something is missing after checking inventory for the day, usually ends up with you hunting and shouting for Albedo. Because the guy seem to have a sixth sense as to when you find out his thieving adventures.
5% of all of that, Kaeya would be the one stealing from your 'safer' floras to woo a random citizen in Mond. And as a master of botany, your precious babies are always in tip top shape. Top quality bouquets all day, all night.
Those moments are the ones Albedo hate more than getting smacked with your spade. Those are your flowers, and by association, his. Grown to their maximum potential by your calloused yet gentle hands FOR HIM-
Kaeya: *reaching out to pluck a perfectly healthy glaze lily*; Albedo: *his short ass of a shadow looming over him*
NOW IT IS HIM WHO WIELDS THE POWER OF THE GARDEN SPADE
The atmosphere of your work area is significantly different from his own messy laboratory. The glass walls and roof that lets in just the right amount of sunlight, with a perfect view of the scenic landscape of Mondstadt and beyond.
When Albedo reaches a wall on his research, he picks up his sketchbook and just- waltz in to your workshop through the door connecting your workspaces.
The fresh air, the soft kiss of the sun, your humming, it was all a symphony of heaven concocted just for him.
He’ll find himself sketching your babies, dozen or more times you are included.
Your notebook’s illustrations are mostly courtesy of him, and he greatly basks in your pure admiration of his drawing.
To help him focus, you once took on the great task of organizing his laboratory, to no avail. Even if you manage to fix and align his inventory, it’s gonna go back to chaos after three days minimum.
It’s okay tho, it’s normal for him, more excuse to visit you-
Guilty, he wants your spacious and refreshing greenhouse and often asks for a redesign of his laboratory to share similar workspace with you.
Acting Grand Master Jean had to decline this idea just because it costs more than a million mora.
He’s definitely gonna sulk in your greenhouse after that, back leaning on the warm glass wall as he does nothing but sketch you and your plants the whole day.
Don’t stop him
Just admire the pout
Actually Working with Albedo! (Finally)
Whenever Albedo discovers/explores a new area, you’re always sure to tag along whether willingly or by force
YOU BET YOUR FROZEN ASS YOU’RE COMING WITH HIM TO DRAGONSPINE
DEFINITELY BY FORCE
I imagine that despite being his assistant/student, Sucrose and Timaeus are more focused on research and the application of Alchemy, so they’re not much of the resource gathering type. That said, Albedo is very thankful of your existence, it’s a breather to his already full schedule.
Albedo is both considerate and inconsiderate unconsciously : While he may run off to experiment on the traveler and leave you scouting the area yourself, he doesn’t willingly set you on fire from the inside.
Every time he comes back to camp after finishing the step by step experiment with/on the Traveler, he makes sure to check up on how you are doing.
TAKE NOTE: Our prince is very occupied and busy with his own work a lot, so he’s never really seen you in action when you go out to get the the materials he needs-
So he is purely horrified when he saw you hanging off the cliff with nothing but a rope around you to keep you safe, carefully investigating a petrified tree branch up close.
Suddenly, elevator.
Again, Imma bet, he’s gonna be accompanying you in all your expeditions after that. He’ll need to know where and how you acquire every ingredient outside of your greenhouse.
Does it require you to climb a mountain? Are there any Hilichurl camps nearby? Maybe mobs that are attracted to that type of flower?
He would be very attentive of your inventory reports and would recognize if a dangerous gathering journey is near. He’ll be right there with you.
Violetgrass x1000
He’s gathering more than a month’s worth just to make sure you don’t go back to make that dangerous trip. It’s very impractical, but let him rest his heart.
You and Albedo: Resource Gathering Expedition; Other Knights: Outdoor Dates Disguised as Work-Related Outings
Flower crowns are good and all but have you heard of flower bracelets?
Omg so cute hhh imagine a Flaming Flower Stamen bracelet for his Dragonspine expedition- it’s not gonna last forever but it’s so precious he’s definitely keeping that shit even when the heat already dissipated from it gah-
“Paimon wonders, what’s that thing around your wrist?”
“A flame bracelet, made to keep the cold away.”
“Woah! Sounds very useful! Sure would be handy for exploring, you think we can borrow it-”
“No.”
Something angst-y: Albedo has yet to make a Dendro affinity potion and he’s really, really devastated about it and himself. You’ll have to forcibly pull him out of his self-deprecation, force him to get a breather.
Overall, Albedo greatly appreciates not only your utility but also your consistent company. He values your tenacity and comfort, sharing unadulterated curiousity as you both venture the great unknown. There’s a lot of stuff he can pray about to thank whichever archon has graced you. And despite his Vision lacking the function to actually help in the advancement of his research, he is now thankful for it, for he has found with it a greater purpose: Ensuring the safety of his precious Gardenia.
I CANT BELIEVE IT, THIS THING WAS 30 TIMES LONGER BUT TUMBLR DIDN’T SAVE THE DRAFT PROPERLY AND HAD TO GET EVERYTHING BACK THROUGH MEMORY, AND MY MEMORY IS B A D. I’M SORRY I KNOW YOU JUST WANTED TO TALK BUT IT ENDED UP BEING SUPER LONG AND LOOKS LIKE A HEADCANON THAN ANYTHING, MY FORMATTING IS REALLY LIKE THIS AAAAAAAA- I hope you enjoy ywy I like your brain, it brings good ideas and gives me good ideas too!
#genshin impact#genshin impact x reader#genshin impact imagines#genshin impact headcanons#genshin impact albedo#albedo#albedo x reader#exile.goblet#ahahahahhahaha#this is so long and disastrous#im sorry skskksks#my first ask!#there's a double 'the' here somewhere#I just can't find it wth#exile.flower#gender neutral
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Hi hi! So the lost tombs and chronology all super confuse me. So tlt2 ended on a cliffhanger that was not resolved by tlt3 which is ultimate note, but now there is another tlt3 that I am guessing is made by the same studio as tlt2 (but not UN) that actually follows tlt2? And it has the same WPZ as tlt2 (but sadly different WX, ZQL though I’m sure these guys are great). You seem to know what you’re talking about so I’m hoping you can help!
UN also ended on a cliff hanger so I’m wondering if they’ll get a sequel from their studio that comes before tomb of the sea.
ahhh hello anon! yes ahaha the dmbj dramas are certainly very confusing--because they keep switching the screenwriters/entire production team between dramas. huanrui did tlt1 (2015), tlt2 (2019), and the sequel to tlt2 (2021). they're also technically the production company for un (2020), but linghe did like all the directing/casting/writing so its significantly different in tone and quality from the other dramas huanrui produced. npss (dmbj author) did sha hai (2018) and tltr (2020), with sha hai being in collab with linghe, so you can see lots of parallels with un and shared cast. (gonna add that i dont know much about the m9 because that’s not what im personally interested in, so i’m only going by stories with wu xie & the iron triangle.)
unfortunately, the dramas pretty have no continuity as a result of all the weird shit and multiple studios doing different dramas and messy stuff going on behind the scenes. the author's production company currently has all the rights back for filming future dramas, which is......imo, a good thing for book fans who love the author but a 😬 thing for book fans who like the original story more than what the author is now doing with it. I'll uh avoid saying too much opinion stuff though so no more on that 😅
that aside! yes 云顶天宫 “explore with the note” part 2......is the direct sequel to tlt2 and done by the same studio. unfortunately the writers are different and im not sure how much of the production team is the same either. idk how much you know about the novels so brief summary here--for the chinese version, the main story has 9 parts split among 8 books (though the official eng tls have each part being a different book) with some important content being as follows:
official eng title “cavern of blood zombies” (first time wx goes into a tomb, first t3j meeting)
official eng title “angry sea, hidden sands” (xisha seabed tomb, introduce a-ning)
official eng title “bronze tree of death” (bronze tree in qinling, wx & lao yang solo adventure)
official eng title “palace of doom” (heavenly palace on the clouds, introduce bronze gate)
official eng title “deadly desert winds” (golmud, introduce hei xiazi, desert, rainforest, tamutuo)
official eng title “graveyard of a queen” (the rest of that arc, wu sanxing & xie lianhuan reveal, jade meteorite, amnesiac xiaoge and escape, sanshu vanishes for good--also i think the official eng tl covers a couple chapters of the beginning of the next part too)
阴山古楼 (searching for xiaoge’s memories in banai, miluotuo cave, i think introduction of wu erbai)
邛笼石影 (auction/hotel iron triangle fight, introduce xiao hua & xiuxiu, wx & xh on the mountains alone while pz & xg go with granny huo)
finale (rescue from zhang family mansion, changbai mountain goodbye, 10 years promise)
after the main story are the main sequels:
zang hai hua (tibetan sea flower; unfinished & abandoned) covers wu xie a few years after xiaoge has entered the gate, searching to understand xiaoge’s past
sha hai (tomb of the sea; unfinished & abandoned) covers wu xie’s plan to wipe out the wang family, after zhh
chongqi (reunion: the sound of the providence) covers wu xie’s lung disease and how he recovers from that, set after they pick up xiaoge again from the bronze gate. thunder city and everything.
灯海寻尸&万山极夜 (still updating on wechat) don’t worry about this one since it’s still a WIP lol
btw between sha hai and chongqi there’s also ten years later (a short story) that covers how wu xie and pangzi pick up xiaoge from the bronze gate and take him home
the dramas Do Not Connect To Each Other At All, which the exception of tlt2 & tlt2 pt2 somewhat, but they go in this order:
盗墓笔记 / the lost tomb 1 (2015): covers part 1 but with major OCs and filler, and includes the auction scene from part 8 for some reason, so introduces xiao hua early.
怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 / the lost tomb 2 (2019) technically “explore with the note”: covers parts 2 & 3 but with major OCs and filler, introduces xiao hua & xiuxiu (and hei xiazi briefly) early. last couple episodes also cover the beginning of part 4. not a direct sequel to tlt1 despite being done by the same studio.
云顶天宫 / heavenly palace on the clouds (2021) technically also “explore with the note”: covers part 4 with major OCs and filler (and the same changes carrying over from tlt2). some episodes are identical to the last couple episodes of tlt2. works as a direct sequel only if you ignore the last couple episodes of tlt2 that take place in the snowy mountains. (those episodes of tlt2 were filmed after this drama was filmed, and im still not sure why they dragged the wu xie and xiaoge from tlt2 back to changbai mountain to film those episodes.)
终极笔记 / ultimate note (2020): covers parts 5-8 with minor OCs and minimal filler, also introduces xiao hua & xiuxiu early. the only adaptation that resembles its source material most of the time.
沙海 / tomb of the sea (2018): covers the second sequel with major OCs and filler. includes some bits from zhh and the short story “three days of silence”.
重启之极海听雷 / the lost tomb reboot (2020): covers third sequel with major OCs and filler.
in addition there is the prequel series mystic nine (2016) and side movies for the dramas that the author produced. there is also a single standalone movie--time raiders (2016) that is....well it’s. very strange. it’s fully subbed on youtube if you’re interested?
the best way to watch the dramas is to assume each one is its own self-contained AU set along different points of the dmbj timeline because even the dramas the author himself worked on don’t have continuity LOL (and with the exception of ultimate note & sha hai most of the time, also assume most characters are pretty OOC from the novels).
i uh regret to inform you though, that ultimate note will not be getting a sequel unless the author magically decides to not care about making money anymore and sells the rights to film the finale to linghe or something ^^;;;; it’s....unfortunate bc un is the most highly-rated dmbj adaptation on douban by A Lot, but it’s an adaptation that the author had literally nothing to do with whatsoever.
more information on some of the side movies/stage plays/manhua/donghua here.
summaries of the main novel stories (currently through zhh) here.
edited mtl (some of which has apparently been looked over by native cn speakers) of the novels following where official eng tls end here. (there are many scattered extras as well.)
you can get the official eng tl books/ebooks on amazon or elsewhere(?), but if you have problems purchasing them or like you just dont wanna support amazon or something, dm me off anon. (also i dont want to be mean but frankly the official tls are kinda bad too ^^;;;)
a rough timeline (spoilers galore) for the dmbj novels here. (fair warning im not 100% sure how accurate all of this is--they put three days of silence as 1991 but looking at the info in zhh, it seems like it should have been before the 1950s...but it’s more than fine as a general overview.)
anyway i hope that was helpful in some way? dmbj is a Very Confusing thing to get into ahahaha, one of my twitter mutuals has made a few carrds if you think they might be helpful: book, dramas (slightly out of date bc it says heavenly palace hasn’t aired yet), ultimate note (got its own carrd by virtue of being the only adaptation aside from sha hai sometimes that most og book fans acknowledge lol ^^;;;)
also anon if anything wasn’t clear or if you had more questions feel free to ask again sorry ahahaha im kinda tired rn @.@
#dmbj#shouting into the void#ask#anon#....im kinda tired bc i just finished watching ydtg so i hope that doesnt come across *too much* in this post LOL#and its probably obvious which adaptation im biased towards but after reading the novels i cant really help it
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Pairing: Taehyung x Reader
Gender of the Reader: female
Word Count: 1.6k
Rating: 16+
Genre: Fluff; Smut
AU: non-idol! AU; established relationship AU!
Warnings: soft (!) Dirty Talk; sweetest Taehyung alive; virgin! Reader; Petnames; both of them getting turned on by a sex-scene in a movie; talk about sexual fantasies; mentions of oral (female receiving); mentions of vaginal intercourse; slight talk about boundaries
Summary: It’s Sunday afternoon and Taehyung and you are watching a romantic historical movie for your quality cuddle time. This movie also includes a sensual & erotic scene which has some kind of effect on both of you. It leads to a talk where Taehyung tells you his dreams and fantasies, what he wants to do with you, whenever you feel ready for this step...
A/N: I think all of you already know that it can take me months until I finish somebody’s birthday present... here you go, my lovely @hantaev! It turned a little different out than I thought it would but I hope that you like it!! Love you 💕
Status: unedited
Movie Source:
A little Chaos - Trailer
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It is a lazy Sunday afternoon, where Taehyung and you decided to watch a movie and cuddle under the mountains of pillows and blankets you hoard in your room, preferably on your bed. Your boyfriend knows that you have a weak spot for everything that takes place in a historical era and includes a more or less dramatic and cheesy lovestory. He doesn’t mind, he loves to see your beautiful face lighten up when he mentions that he found a new movie of Netflix which might raise your interest and you get all exited about it, to watch it here and now.
For today you both choose the movie “A little chaos” for your weekly couple cuddle time and you enjoy it a lot. The love story, the historical background, the beautiful ball gowns and all of that in the warm arms of Taehyung. It’s simply a perfect afternoon and you couldn’t be happier in this moment.
The sweet and innocent kisses and touches you shared with each other beforehand, pauses in the moment where the two main protagonists, André and Sabine, gets closer to each other... very close, uhm, up to the point where they begin to undress their lover. Your breath quicken when you feel how Taehyung’s arms pull you tighter against his broad chest. You’re so close to his heart now, you can listen to the rapid beats, faster than usually and you can sense that he got a little nervous by the scenery on the screen as well. His hands still rest well-mannered and behaved on your covered stomach, even though you can almost feel his hesistance to tell you something.
You get pulled out of your stream of thoughts when soft moans finds their way out of the television speakers and fills the silent room with arousing noises. You gulp harshly and without noticing it by yourself, you rub your thighs together to ease the almost painful ache between your legs. This sweet, nowadays pretty simple lovemaking scene is doing something to your untouched body. You’re still a virgin and didn’t even touched yourself ‘properly enough’ to call it masturbation. You don’t know why it happens to be like that... it just happens? It’s not like you didn’t want to touch yourself because of other reasons, you simply never ‘desired’ to do it. Maybe just until now... now you feel an urge you’ve never felt before and you don’t know to handle it.
Taehyung knows all of that and actually encourage you to take your time until you are ready, he doesn’t want to push you in any way. Actually, he always tell you that you make the rules about your body, your sexuality and your individual experiences and make sure that you don’t feel insecure or pressed by society why you don’t have certain experiences yet, especially according to your age. That’s the reason he makes you feel so comfortable and safe, he always makes sure that you’re fine with every step you both make together in your relationship, your shared adventure. He always asks for your consent, even when it’s just a simple kiss. You love that about him, how gentle and attentive he is, sensing discomfort before you realize you weren’t 100% sure about his suggested step. Endless patience, never getting mad at you when you need more time for the next step than most other peoples. God, you love him so, so much!
Taehyung reaches out for the Remote Control of the TV to lower the volume a little bit. The rest of the movie and what’s happening after the lovemaking scene blurries into each other, your thoughts can’t focus on the movie anymore, so it doesn’t bothers you.
“Baby... I hope it’s not intruding your personal space if I tell you... if I tell you that I’d cherish your body, when the time has come that you’d be ready for that step... just like André did to Sabine’s. Are you... are you comfortable if I tell you some of my fantasies I have... how I plan to make your first time beautiful and comfortable for you?”, Taehyung rasps mit your ear. His voice dropped significantly a few octaves, giving you the hint that he got the same feeling by watching this erotic and sensual scene just like you.
A small hum leaves you throat, followed by a soft spoken “Yes”. You bite your lower lip, you’re terribly curious and exited to hear what he has planned for that special moment.
With your verbal consent, Taehyung continues: “I thought often about how I could make this moment as enjoyable as possible for you... I dreamed about how I’d scatter countless kisses all over your gorgeous body, whispering praises into your ear, telling you how flawless and stunning you look... like my personal incarnate goddess. I know, I’ve never seen you naked before but I can guess that your body will be as beautiful as your wonderful soul. I want to explore you with all my senses. I want to kiss you... I want to taste you. I would love to feel your soft skin underneath my lips and my tongue, pleasing your sensitive spots with kisses, licks and sucks... To make your nipples oversensitive with my mouth before I leave a trail of kisses down your soft belly and go down on you... I hope you don’t mind if I tell you how often I thought about to eat you out, to settle between your soft thighs and please you with my tongue.”
He pauses for a moment, waiting for your consent to carry on with his monologue. You nod slightly, a quiet “Please tell me more...” leaves your lips.
“... I want to feel your body. Against my body and underneath my fingertips, admiring your beauty and pleasing you with my digits. I want to see your face twisting in pleasure... I want to treat you so good until you fall apart, so I can catch you when you come down from your high. I want to smell your body. You always smell so good and want to bury my nose in the crook of your neck, into your hair and moan into your ear when we connected our bodies, when I am inside of you... feeling you so snug and tightly wrapped around my length. I hope the fantasies of my daydreams meet your own expectations...”
Taehyung sighs deeply after he drew this images on both of your mind. You think, that his voice just dropped even lower while talking and he can’t deny it, it’s drenched in arousal. But there is no longing, no pressure, no intrusive thought to push you indirectly through this talk to let it finally happen. He is just talking about his fantasies but it’s ‘timeless’, he don’t care if you want to take the next step today or next week or in six months. You realize, you both took a new step, at least somehow. You’re talking about your sexual fantasies but without any expectations that it has to happen anytime soon.
“...Taehyung?”, you ask with a slightly trembling voice, gnawing on your lower lip. Yes, his spoken words did definitely something to you. Something that you didn’t felt until now and it urges you to take care of. Your body feels so, so hot and the feeling in the pit of your stomach drives you almost insane. Well, you may never have experienced it by yourself yet but you can guess that it’s sexual desire. Also, you know that Taehyung would never take advantage of your inexperience, that’s the reason why you feel so safe in his arms even when your body reactions confuses you a lot.
“Yes, Honey?”
“...would you... would you mind if we take a new step today... now?”, you ask softly, a little nevousness makes your voice slightly tremble.
“What kind of new step, Baby?”, Taehyung asks you gently and turn you around, so you can face him. You smile shyly, wetting you’re lips more often as usual and make them look so terribly kissable.
“Maybe... maybe exploring each other’s body? Only if you want to of course! Maybe undressing each other and feeling the soft skin of the other one underneath our palms... Kissing other body parts than just the lips... making each other feel really good. I- uhm.. right now my body feels like it’s burning inside out and I think only you can take care of it properly... and maybe teach me how I can take care of it in the future as well...”, you mumble, almost wispering it into his ear.
“...that sounds amazing... are you sure you want this? It wasn’t my intention to cause this to happen when I told you that... you don’t owe me anything, Baby. You know that right?”, he wispers in his hoarse voice back, cupping your face in his hands and looking into your eyes with pure honesty.
“I know that, Taehyung. I know that you wouldn’t take any advantage of me. I am very thankful for that, really. But I am more than sure that I am ready to go a step further... together with you and your help.”
“Oh Baby... anything for you. Tell me what you want me to do for you.”
#kpop bts#kpop kim taehyung#bts kim taehyung#bangtanhq#purplearmynet#bts smut#thehouseofbangtan#bts x virgin! reader#taehyung smut#bts scenarios#bts fanfics#taehyung x virgin reader#bts x y/n#taehyung x reader#bts x reader#bts sex talk#bts fluff#bts imagines#taehyung fanfic#by tipsy
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Petals and Promises
Ron Weasley x Reader
Summary: A spring evening spent with Ron.
Word count: 2.5k
Warnings: none—fluff, kissing
You must say, the spring season was one that always brought with it a multitude of beauty. Whether it may be the newly blossoming flowers sprinkling colorfully just about everywhere in your slightly overgrown lawn and livening up your house, or the warming temperatures calling for open windows, even the rain showers that arrived whenever they so pleased—you can’t deny how much you love this time of year.
The air was warm yet still brisk enough for a blanket as you lay tucked comfortably within your hammock with Ron, the tattered flannel material draping over the two of you in ruffles of orange and red. It was enough to stave off the chill of the soft breeze that swept over your skin, gentle yet determined to send a shiver through you. Despite that, it brought with it the delightfully sweet scent of the flowers that surround you both, flourishing wildly in the flowerbeds and in the grass. It brought with it the ever so soothing sound as it weaved itself through brilliantly green leaves.
Perhaps the most enamoring thing to be admired out of everything was laying atop your chest, heaps of red hair blowing around softly on his forehead with every gust. The warm sunshine streamed through the branches above you, dancing across your skin, across his flushed cheeks in a golden glow. Ginger lashes curl and splay over the tops of those very cheeks, fluttering each and every time he blinked slowly as he fought valiantly to stay awake. His hand enveloped over top of your own, his grip tightening a fraction each time he needs reminding that you’re still tangled up with him. The unwavering hold on your hand had hindered your ability to turn the pages in your book, but you suppose it was worth the trouble, you knew it was.
It was his idea to come outside and enjoy the weather in the first place, particularly to enjoy it with you, though he simply enjoyed just being with you more than anything else. You knew full well he wouldn’t make it more than ten minutes without drifting off; you were right.
He didn’t entirely fit, his feet dangling over the edge, socks grass-stained and bunched at the ankles. The sunshine and singing of the birds proved to be far more soothing than he’d anticipated, and the way you’d been playing with his hair had him in and out of a slumber. That and the constant tickle of his hair on his face.
Reading the book propped open in your free hand was beginning to become a distracted effort, and you were only distancing yourself from the task the more time that had gone by. The gentle wind had a constant habit of crinkling and creasing your pages each time it’d brushed over them, eliciting an exasperated sigh from you. That, paired with the natural beauty all around you, the setting sun painting the sky in a palette of pinks and oranges; it was reason enough to pull your attention from the pages to elsewhere.
The windows of your sweet little home had been opened to let in the fresh air, the wind pulling the sheer cream curtain over your door blowing outward into daylight as it rests ajar, ruffling freely in the air before fluttering back to the ground for a few moments. Your two cats had wandered their way to the two of you through that very door, sprawled contently underneath your hammock as they relished in the evening sun. Occasionally, they’d paw curiously at Ron’s feet, always drawing a groan from him as he recoiled tighter into you until sleep had its hold on him once more.
You couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend your day if you weren’t honest; it was perfect in all aspects. One might think that the lives of two people with the ability to produce the most powerful of magic would forever lead chaotic lives, and that had been true less than a decade ago. But things were different now.
Magic was still present in your everyday life, it always will be and you would never tire of it. But it was seldom ever used to defend yourselves anymore, never used to harm another. It was used to wash the dishes when you hadn’t felt like it, to startle on another by switching the lights off from another room. It was used to douse each other with water in the backyard in goofy antics before the other could think of something more thrilling as payback. It was used to refill mugs of cocoa and coffee when you hadn’t felt like making anymore, to stir pots on the stove when you were far too caught up in dancing around the kitchen. Ron had learned that one the hard way when he nearly burnt the kitchen down when he’d been far too busy kissing you, admiring you like the lovestruck fool he knew himself to be.
Magic is used after a quidditch match gone wrong, to heal Ron with the most tender of spells and potions as possible. He refuses to go to St. Mungo’s whenever possible, preferring the care of you over anyone else. He claims your magic is much more powerful, though you knew all he’d really been wanting was you.
Magic was used for the fun you’d once imagined it to be as a child. There was far too much hurt and anguish by the hands of that very gift, and the two of you had been determined to use it for good, to use it for the lighthearted ways you’d always loved.
You had a home of your own, filled with moments to be cherished as long as your memory would allow. Filled with dancing in your living room at three o’clock in the morning, and never waking up without each other. To making a mess of the kitchen when baking a cake for the other’s birthday. Of silly anniversaries of things others might consider trivial. It was imperfectly perfect and it was bursting with a warmth and love you’d hoped to have; it was right for the two of you. It was yours.
In time, you felt the tips of his fingers dance tenderly across your wrist and up your arm a few inches more, the gentle touches bringing a soft smile to your face. They trace in unknown shapes for a short while, and unbeknownst to you he’d scrawled invisible ‘I love you’s’ there, his fingers soon splaying over your skin as he grabs your hand once more. You decide then and there that you’d never get any quality reading done beyond that very point, a soft sigh leaving your lips as you close your book and let it fall to the grass below you with a dull thud.
Your other hand brushes through his hair, a bit tangled as your fingers pass through it and you don’t fail to see the way he leans into your touch. Delicate purple flower petals are woven within the ginger locks, cream ones joining in from the two blossoming trees you lay between, and it looked soft and adorable. It was then that he lifted his head and looked at you, your fingers smoothing down his cheek. The smile gracing his lips was nothing short of adoring, and he was still very much groggy with sleep.
“Hey you,” he murmured, a soft laugh leaving his lips at the feeling of his hair sticking to his face. The humidity from that morning’s rainstorm had lingered, curling the ends of his hair.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” you beam, a laugh of your own escaping you as he makes his attempts to move.
His efforts were near futile as the hammock swayed and rocked and proved to be quite unforgiving, mere seconds from sending him tumbling out and onto the ground for what wouldn’t be the first time. But he manages somehow to avoid such a clumsy outcome, the swinging he so ungracefully caused now settling to a stop.
“What d’you mean ‘sleepy head’?” He asks, his words sleepily mingling into one another as his laughter fanned warmly across your lips.
The pad of your thumb brushed over his freckled cheek, the one that’d been significantly more pink than the other from having been pressed against you for the better part of an hour. Not to mention the sleep lines imprinted on his skin. You bit the inside of your cheek in an attempt to stifle your inevitable spill of laughter, thumb now swiping over the drool that had not quite dried at the corner of his mouth.
“You’ve been drifting off this whole time, perhaps the puddle of drool on my shirt will jog your memory,” you jest even though you felt tired yourself, his nose scrunching in protest to your words, “or maybe the snores that could be heard through the whole neighborhood.”
Your giggles intensified when he dropped a flurry of kisses to your neck with the full knowledge of just how ticklish it’d been. Giggles that were quickly muffled when he kissed you, his own having hummed against your mouth. His hair tickled against your forehead, brushing lightly against your cheek. He’d been due for a bit of a haircut; his hair had been dipping over his eyes, nearly dusting over his shoulders as it once had done when he was fourteen.
“Must you always tease me?” He mumbles, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile at the sight of yours.
“You make it so easy,” you counter, and he pressed kisses to your cheek. “How could I not?”
“So terribly mean, love,” he sighs, kissing you once more before wedging himself between you and the fabric of the hammock, tugging the flannel blanket up further.
“Yes, but I love you terribly,” you say, your nose bumping his as you look up at him.
The pale pink staining his cheeks is something not from the sunshine on his skin, rather your declaration of love. No matter how often you said it, it would always leave him blushing scarlet—you could say it a hundred times in a row and he’d flush each and every time it fell from your lips. His eyes sparkled blue-green beneath ruffles of ginger, his smile nothing short of beaming.
“I love you an awful lot,” he grins, still sleepy yet still so adoring of you as his eyes flutter closed.
Now it had been your turn to flush a rosy pink, an obvious fact that you tried your hardest to stave off as you leaned up and kissed the underside of his jaw. He tangles his legs with yours once more, pressing a kiss to the top of your head as he basks in the very moment with you. In the very way the sun glimmers over you, golden and glowing, shining upon someone who he feels is the embodiment of that very sunshine. He basked in the way the soft pink petals on the trees above you float down in a floral rain. In the way you loved him as wholly as he did you, and he couldn’t quite believe that wonderfully dizzying fact.
You yawn as you nuzzle your face against his t-shirt, picking at a loose string. Somehow, he always smelled of cinnamon, for as long as you could remember he smelled of just that. It was delightfully sweet and so incredibly Ron, and you couldn’t help but feel comforted.
“Have you finished your book?” He asks softly, the fatigue that still remained heavy having him merely hum his words.
“No,” you mumble, “too distracted.”
His chuckle shook you softly, the feeling bringing a smile to your face as you looked up at him. “What?
You narrow your eyes in a playful glare as you look at him, lifting your head from his shoulder. His smile widened at that, a soft gust of wind blowing his hair in his eyes but he hadn’t bothered to move it. “I’ve heard you reread the same line four times in a row.”
His laughter was immediate to trail after his words, more so when you swatted his chest. He tipped his head back, the action ruffling his hair entirely as he found your expression humorous. It was rather hard to stay mad at him, however, not with the way he looked at you so fondly and not that you were even mad to begin with. You exhale a sigh, finding yourself looking at him the same despite your reddened cheeks upon mention of your blunder. It must have occurred when he’d held your hand.
You drop your head to his shoulder once more, unable to fight your smile. “Not my fault.”
His response is another bout of soft laughter, and no doubt the most beaming of smiles. “Whatever you say, love.”
The same fatigue you had teased him for just moments prior had held its grip on you, your laughter dwindling as your eyelids grow heavy. You hum in a late acknowledgement to what he’d said, “exactly that.”
You splay your hand across his chest, interlocking your pinky with his. His smile went unseen by you, one of awe and knowing all the same. He knew what that meant. It was a promise as most would think of it as, a silent ‘I love you’ as the two of you know it to be. He knew exactly the day it first happened. At the Burrow under the light of the stars, he’d told you he loved you for the very first time. It was that night that you wrapped your pinky around his, joined hands settled in the grass between you. With it accompanied the very three words that made his heart race and his cheeks flush. It was then, that very first time that night, that it became an unspoken action worth a thousand words.
So he smiles, he curls his pinky around yours and he smiles. Your own grin is just as unseen as his, but you didn’t need to see each other to know of it.
“I love you,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your forehead, to your nose when you look at him.
“I love you,” you whisper, kissing the corner of his mouth in a tired attempt of a kiss. His smile was soft, and he still felt the tingle of your kiss as if it was the first time. He’s quite sure it’ll always feel that way. He knows it.
It was then that you tuck yourself against him, in the crook of his neck as the tattered flannel blanket settles warmly over top you both, the spring breeze brushing over your cheeks. You lay cradled within the canvas hammock that enveloped the both of you nearly in a cocoon. Your drowsiness was too hard to ignore by then, your eyes fluttering closed as his cheek pressed to the top of your head.
You were perfectly content to sleep there forever in the very arms, the very place you felt safest in. It was beautiful with the setting sun and the chirping of the birds. With petals falling in your hair and pinkies interlocked in a promise.
—
Tags: @vogueweasley @amourtentiaa @hahee154hq @anchoeritic @ch0colatefr0gs @harrysweasleys @snitches-at-dawn @awritingtree @writeroutoftime
#ron weasley#ron weasley one shot#ron weasley fluff#ron weasley x reader#ron weasley x you#ron weasley fanfiction#ron weasley fic#ron weasly imagine#ron weasley headcanon
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Impressions
I know I’m way behind on progression through Replicant (insofar as anybody can be ‘way behind’ in the sense of playing a video game for personal entertainment), buuuut I figured I’d share a few thoughts.
Presently I’m doing sidequest mop-up post-Barren Temple, for reference:
So just to get this overall out of the way, I am legitimately fascinated by the differences between NIER and Replicant. This is something I picked up on when I played RepliCant to grab footage for my LP, but given my extremely limited understanding of Japanese all I could get was the tone between characters and to my unpracticed ear they sounded pretty different. I always assumed that Weiss was somehow even more condescending to Brother and hah hah, wow. Even kind of expecting the dialogue and delivery differences I was not prepared for some of the dialogue and delivery differences. Weiss just straight-up insulting BroNier on the regular, not even doing sarcastic eye-rolls like he does with Papa. I don’t remember the exact line that set me off but somewhere in the Barren Temple I was just laughing my ass off at how much of a dick Weiss is.
Thought the ‘miracles’ conversation in the Junk Heap was interesting, too. I remember Papa Nier telling Weiss to stuff it because ‘those kids need a miracle’ and Weiss kind of backs down-- obviously doesn’t believe it, but he knows better than to push. And Brother tries but Weiss is just not having this optimism bullshit. Little things, but the tenor of the relationship is definitely different.
One of the more interesting aspects early on is the way the Lunar Tear is treated. Obviously I don’t know if this was part of the original game or a script adjustment, but Brother talking about the Tear as a source of money as opposed to Father saying it can grant wishes was interesting. Maybe it was to justify that Kaine just has a whole necklace of the damn things and therefore it’s rare but not literally magic, but it always sounded like it was just meant to be taken as a myth to me anyway. Then again, it’s established in the Grimoire that Brother has a fixation specifically on making money so he can support himself and Yonah (versus Papa Nier, who has obviously already established himself as an adult rather than a kid still figuring things out and hoping that enough money will solve all their problems).
Where the dialogue doesn’t diverge is interesting, too. Mostly I’m talking about the scene after defeating Hook. I always found Papa Nier exclaiming “You’re going to live, Kaine!” and “Yes, we’re friends now!” to be obvious holdovers from a younger protagonist just goddamn hilarious when Papa Nier is saying them. They’re still really funny with Brother Nier but just remembering Papa Nier doing the exact same delivery in his deep, manly voice just re-elevated the whole scene into comedy gold.
All of that is really why I was interested in getting the game so already my money is well spent. But there’s some other stuff:
They butchered the OST!
...or so people keep telling me on Youtube. I admit I do think the re-orchestrations is largely inferior to the original (although there are some that are at least as good in a different way, and whatever they did to The Lost Forest -- which was one of my least favorite tracks in the original -- I really enjoy) but I wouldn’t call it a butchering and I highly suspect that if I didn’t have the eleven years of the original OST and its association within the game itself I wouldn’t bat an eye, it still all sounds great.
Also, a weird observation, but I found that the soundtrack sounds much better coming out of the TV speakers than through headphones. I’m not sure if somehow it was optimized for play through external speakers, or maybe just not hearing the added orchestration right up against my eardrums, but when I went to the Lost Shrine with headphones on I was admittedly disappointed, but going to it again and listening through the TV it worked significantly better.
(I’m not sure if this is necessarily a factor, but the booklet in the White Snow edition mentions that the new soundtrack was all studio mixed rather than having the individual tracks layered. While I don’t think that would have an impact on music quality it almost definitely makes a difference in the way it’s produced.)
I miss chest-thrusting to double jump
Movement overall feels much more refined and polished. It’s not as slick as Automata, but it definitely feels like a natural evolution of the original game, and as an apologist for NIER’s combat I can appreciate that. A little more responsive, I appreciate being able to move while casting magic, and it still has a bit of a crunch behind weapon impact (although I wish it felt a bit heavier).
But goodness I miss the stupid animation for double-jumping. I mean sure, an aerial somersault is a classic indication of a double jump, but I just loved that Nier would chest-thrust so hard he would break the laws of physics and ascend higher.
It also feels a bit like the aerial dodge was nerfed for movement purposes? I really don’t feel as much horizontal thrust to get a running start after diving off the Library balcony.
Fully voiced? Fully voiced?!
I knew this was happening but I totally forgot until the NPC villagers started talking to me! Some of the incidental deliveries are a bit awkward, but as somebody whose glasses prescription is a decade out of date I appreciate this immensely.
The item guy in Seafront just being from the goddamn Bronx is a thing of beauty.
BroNier does fit into the Village better.
One of the little details I love in the game is that each bit of civilization has its own style. The maps aren’t large enough to really convey how long travel takes, but the different styles between the Village and Seafront just kind of helped to ‘place’ the characters in a really neat, subtle way (Emil’s sash identifies him as ‘belonging to’ Seafront, which is actually pertinent when you get that sidequest where you find the letter from his science-mom in town! I assume she always wore a kicky sash when she went to work in the underground child torture bunker.)
Facade obviously also has their own style, but it’s... hard not to appreciate.
Papa Nier’s dress doesn’t really ‘place’ him anywhere, which doesn’t feel weird for the main character, and I feel like it’s implied that he isn’t really from the Village in a meaningful way anyway and kind of drifted in at some point after Yonah had been born. But younger Brother Nier is actually wearing the local fashion and it’s a neat little detail that I didn’t appreciate back when I played PS3 RepliCant. (Probably because I didn’t bother talking to any NPCs what with not being able to read the dialogue, so I never really had him standing next to anybody for long enough to process.) Older Brother Nier takes on a very different outfit that winds up displacing him from the rest of the Village (and any other towns), which is a pretty nice visual metaphor, too.
I have a confession to make.
I still enjoy fishing in this game.
Yeah I said it. I’ll say it again too-- I like the fishing minigame. I happily blitzed through the Fisherman’s available Gambits, and then just caught five sharks while I was hanging out, and then also caught the sandfish ahead of time, and also wound up with a half-ton giant catfish (??!?) trying to remember where the black bass are located.
Cart me away.
Related but I laughed far too hard when the fisherman says “the WESTERN beach”. I wonder why they changed that line. I just can’t imagine.
And those seals.
Always a delight to go to early Seafront and just plant yourself between a couple of seals. Watch the ocean. Listen to the music and the waves. Watch the seals lazily roll around and make cute seal barks.
The most depressing thing about the timeskip is losing those seals.
My garden--!
The gardening timeskip exploit was fixed due to a difference in PS4 architecture. :/
I know there’s still an exploit involving time zones but I didn’t go in knowing that and I was horrified when I adjusted the system clock only to find my crops weren’t growing. Is Legendary Gardener still a trophy? Fffffuuuuu
My BARREN TEMPLE.
The Barren Temple is, to me, a legitimately funny dungeon, between Sechs getting himself abducted, Kaine getting herself abducted and Nier and Weiss just sighing in resignation, and the whole concept of the rules-based challenges. And the adjustment they made to the Prince’s dialogue before you meet him is so good-- the original felt a little disjointed and felt like it ended with the Prince being confused. It was still funny, but here Weiss just gives zero fucks about insulting the Prince (and presumably knows that’s exactly who he’s talking to) and it’s just great.
And I say all of that because I just died laughing when I got to the infamous Racing Wolf room and saw they outlawed evasion.
Evasion works differently in this game anyway so you wouldn’t have really been able to do the same trick before (dodge roll; in the original release you would dodge roll forward by tapping the button, but a default evasion has you backstep. Of course you could arrange BroNier to face away from the trap and then evade, but it would be significantly dicier, and I feel like the pattern on the shots was awkward enough that you wouldn’t have an opening in the second row (and probably would’ve have dodged your ass right into the bullets anyway). But just that they acknowledged the trick and then flipped you off with it was amazing. Aggravating? My amusement far outweighed my frustration since the Defend trick was still solid.
It also felt like more rooms outlawed jumping? That I can’t corroborate (I was really focusing on whether they did something to Racing Wolf, which is of course the most traumatic of the rooms) but I feel like it wasn’t as easy to cheese some of those rooms as it had been previously.
Dark Blast is amazing.
Cheesed the shit out of the actual ‘Evasive Mouse’ room, though. I remember having some difficulties when the miniboss shows up since you can’t dodge out of the way of his lava pillar attack, but I just circle-strafed with Dark Blast and he died comically quickly.
This is actually more relevant to the magic as a whole, but in the time since I first played NIER (so... probably the time I fifth played NIER) I learned more about the little intracacies of the magic system. Like, really little intricacies, like how you can use magic with just a button tap and it actually has different effects... like Dark Blast dealing significantly more damage. It’s not as easy as just holding down the button and getting the multi-shot off the charge, but for a single enemy like that just rapid-fire tapping the button chews through the lifebar.
This tap strategy is really appreciated for Dark Hand (forward thrust punch) and Dark Lance (which is even better thanks to the game’s lock-assist-- a much appreciated quality-of-life adjustment), and I look forward to getting Dark Execution because of its fast activation feature (spreading the lances in a forward cone in front of you, extremely useful for crowd control when you can’t afford to wait for Execution to charge up).
Fragile Delivery still sucks.
I don’t know why I had such a terrible time with the first Fragile Delivery but I broke that... Ming vase or whatever you’re delivering half a dozen times. Send that guy a steel rug instead, Guard #3, he is not worth whatever piece of art you had me destroy six times.
And the game still holds up.
This is probably a ‘needless to say’ thing but yeah, this is still a great game. I always have a little bit of apprehension going back to something I loved just in case there’s a rose-colored effect going on. Not that I really expected that to happen with this game (I’ve played NIER recently enough that I didn’t think nostalgia would blind me) but, you know, always a possibility.
(That and that the remaster would be... perhaps of dubious quality. It happens.)
Nope! Still engaging. Still charming. I’m always impressed to go back to this game with all the knowledge of its inevitable misery and remember that it’s also just plain funny. NIER is one of those games that’s just like I remember it but better every time I go back to it.
I’m so glad that Automata did well enough to spur greater interest in this game. It really didn’t get the chance it deserved back in 2010 and now it’s topping some of the sales charts. That’s fantastic.
Just... fantastic.
#NIER#NieR Replicant#Musings#Now I just need Threads of Fate remastered and my life is complete#SE don't do that I know you'll ruin it
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that was the winter anime 2021 that was
Still not quite ready for a dozen posts about how terrible the likes of Combatants Will Be Dispatched are, sorry. Watch Vivy though, it owns. Here’s some more things that are (mostly) good. As always, worst to best.
Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki S3
Yatogame has long run out of hot Nagoya facts and its ensemble comedy never amounted to much, so now it seems mostly content to just spam more and more wacky character designs. About the only thing that it has left going for it is that 3 minutes a week are more effort to drop than to watch, so I expect them to make a movie next. 4/10
Go-toubun no Hanayome S2
Quints is a weird one. S1 was a barely good enough (i.e., well above average) implementation of the ages old harem chestnut. S2 is actually better at the core of its appeal, since it gives all the characters a sharper profile (things like taking Nino from joke to badass and making Ichika a villain are no mean feat), but it does pay a steep price for it. You see, to deliver a steady drip feed of meaningful character moments it apparently has to rush through the source material at a breakneck pace, which completely wrecks the "story" part of this story and makes every episode seem like a recap. And it still keeps wasting precious time on vestigial nonsense like its framing device and the Kyoto flashback scenario that was already the worst part of S1. But by far the most annoying aspect is its insistence on keeping all the options valid, since it prevents any real progress and makes everything seem arbitrary and pointless. So sure enough, after a season of much ado we still don't end up anywhere — you can't really raise the stakes if all at stake was "who wins" to begin with. It's watchable and even enjoyable scene-for-scene but it's getting harder and harder to call it a solid show overall. 5/10
Skate Leading Stars
I was watching this primarily because I didn't like Yuri on Ice much and wanted to see if something that is a blatant attempt to cash in on it would be better — because while YoI delivers on one aspect (being hella gay), it really is an absolute shambles of a sports show. And sure enough, Skate Leading has none of the auteur appeal of YoI, but it just works much better. In particular I appreciate how it managed to make me care even a little about a cast of assholes, which is a nice contrast to the nauseatingly ingratiating way YoI tries to make you love its characters. Also, Skate Leading is just generally cheap and unambitious, so not susceptible to trying hard and painfully flaming out on the presentation side like YoI is. But at some point you gotta let go of these comparisons and on its own Skate Leading is... just fine, I guess? Competent, mildly engaging, not very memorable. And that's probably where it loses to Yuri on Ice in the end after all, even if I think it's "better". 6/10
Idoly Pride
Idoly Pride sold itself on me with a really good (and hilarious/tragic) first episode that was just too bizarre to ignore — I mean, how can you ignore GHOST IDOL MANAGERS. Well, the majority of the show isn't like that. It's a competent and solid version of the idol franchise show, yes, but it really had more potential than that. Especially midseason, it gets lost in these dozens of characters, and while they're all likeable, it does seem like a waste of a good story just centered on Mana/Kotona/Sakura. By the end it comes back around to the heart of the matter with a Maeda-style sob story, which could be a disaster but seasoned veteran Jukki Hanada makes it work anyway. Overall, there's quite a bit of ridiculous hacky melodrama in this, but quite honestly that's the best part and I wish it would concentrate more on it. The rest is just okay. 6/10
Yuru Camp S2
Yuru Camp is still likely the best pure iyashikei show when it gets down to business. Compared to S1 though, this seems to happen less and less. At its peaks (i.e., basically any quiet moment with Rin) it's at least as good as ever, and there's some good cast additions like Mini-Inuko, but it appears that Yuru Camp simply has run out of things you can do with camping and it fills up the time with other... stuff. This stuff includes the generic school club shenanigans it was never particularly good at, and a gigantic helping of crass consumerism. Yeah, I would say the majority of Yuru Camp is just a straight up infomercial at this point, which itself ranges from the perfectly acceptable (which cute anime isn't about food constantly), to the sketchy (I don't know whether the Izu tourism board cut this production a fat check, but if they didn't, Yuru Camp still gives its best effort to make it seem that way) to the highly irritating – I am aware that camping requires gear and you can't just ignore that, but you most definitely do not require whole arcs dedicated to talking about raising funds for the purposes of acquiring the Lamp of Comfy Happiness at your friendly local Caribou™ either. Not to mention an arc where the aforementioned lame school club does the same, for double irritation. Make no mistake, this show is so riddled with scenes that beg for a solution to embed affiliate links in video files that it makes me wish I was watching something as anticapitalist and underground as Love Live. And irritating really is the last thing a show with this core concept, as stellar as it is at that, can afford to be. Bummer. 6/10
SKOO the Infinity
Skoo has one really huge asset: ADAM, its magnificent villain. It also has one really huge liability: Reki, its not magnificent protagonist. To be more specific, it's very good at anything outrageous, physics-defying and silly, such as most scenes ADAM is in, and quite bad at anything serious, dramatic (in a serious way) and down to earth, such as most scenes Reki is in. So, what's the verdict? Well, the rest of the cast is more ADAM-like, and Reki's co-protagonist Langa is fine as the straight (yeah, right) man. The tedious buddy drama is a comparatively small part of this show, and at least it pays off quite well in the end. Seriously, I was ready to give this a 6, but the final episode is probably the best one of the show, in all of its aspects. That's really not something you see often. Skoo's a great time. Except when it's not. 7/10
Non Non Biyori Nonstop
Speaking of the rare good ending, what about we gave one of those to a slim and inconsequential slice-of-life show? NNB has always been solid, comfy and amusing quality with a couple of standout moments (usually something with Renge), and Nonstop has that plus an ending as conclusive as any show of this type is ever going to have. Besides, it does a lot of things right by focusing on more characters than the central 4 (especially Konomi has great material in S3), it expands the universe just enough to not get stale, and it moves things forward — It's definitely a lot better than the movie, is what I'm saying. Apart from that, well, we're three seasons in, if you have any interest in this you probably don't need me to explain what's good about NNB at this point. Bonus points for being nothing but an ad for the manga. 7/10
Wonder Egg Priority
Oh boy, so here's the big one. Wonder Egg is the rare Meaningful Arthouse Show About Real Issues You Guys, as you might have heard. And well, the long and short of it is that it's a very good show with quite a few glaring problems (besides not actually being finished due to production issues, but what we have is enough of an ending to be able to meaningfully talk about it). In particular, one problem: WEP is, at its core, one of these metaphorical Magical Girl-ish series that are just a thin layer of abstraction over coming-of-age or societal problems. The issue is that "metaphorical" in this case means "literal" and "thin" means "basically nonexistent". This show is not subtle regarding what it's about, at all. This is a double-edged sword — on the positive side, some things really should just be said aloud, and I'm really, really fucking tired of the Ikuhara style of "here's some wacky things, maybe a blog post will eventually tell you how it's actually about the most important thing ever" obfuscation — if it's really so important, just spell it out. On the other hand, there are limits to this and when a second, different Ai appears I don't really need a voiceover line telling me that yep, this show is about parallel universes now. WEP spells out many important things, but it also spells out many things that are implicitly clear or better left vague. Not to mention that with being so obvious up front, the show's tendency to leave figuring out what it's actually saying about it up to the viewer can leave the wrong impression. Again, I settled on the opinion that it's subtle after all where it counts the most, but you might easily get the impression that it pulls its punches (Ikuhara does this the exact other way around — once you figure out what the fuck he's talking about it's abundantly clear what he's saying about it).
In fact, this show is so good at subtle, quiet character moments that it calls into question the need for big huge fighting fantasy layer in the first place, especially since I'm not a fan of the fantasy designs and the fights aren't great. Sure, they look impressive on a technical level (this show is very good looking in general), but the lack of actual impact or rhythm makes me think this is not made by people who are very familiar with action and maybe they should have asked some seasoned shounen veterans for this — or just, you know, not do it. They can (and do) impress with character acting in quiet scenes just the same. And while Ai's character story actually does pay off quite nicely by the end we got, and Momoe and Rika are also handled well, Neiru's backstory is significantly less good, not to mention the whole Frill subplot regarding the show's mythology that they introduced just before (and that's the part to be resolved at a later date), which is a huge can of worms. We'll see how well they handle that, I suppose, but as it is it's a weird and vestigial detour that doesn't add much besides thematic headaches.
But yeah, apart from all that — I like it, a lot. Great character writing in the details, cool looks for the most part, tons of ambition, and a message that I consider to be appropriately handled — for the most part, and for now. Not quite ambitious arthouse anime at its finest, but also not a pretentious disaster like Sarazanmai, Monogatari et al. 8/10
#anime#review#winter2021#Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki#Go-toubun no Hanayome#Skate Leading Stars#Idoly Pride#Yuru Camp#sk8 the infinity#Non Non Biyori#wonder egg priority
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