You know, the WORST part is, this book has my exact writing flaws. And I KNOW that it has my exact writing flaws. I too tend to play fast and lose with worldbuilding and characterization, especially beyond my one or two protagonists. Mostly the worldbuilding, though. I KNOW that my worldbuilding sucks.

BUT AT LEAST I AM NOT A TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED AUTHOR WHOSE WORK HAS BECOME AN INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS...!

ok so larry and geeta

i really hate to rag on a character other people like for my own blorbo so uh, geeta fans i am so so sorry i would recommend skipping this post, i doubt its actually this deep </3 you are allowed to like her prommy

ok but ACtual analysis time, what the FUCK is up with larry and geeta (people who have never had a shitty two faced boss before ask. /j)

larry expresses anti institutional ideologies a lot, he wants to do things outside the system hes in will allow. he expresses a lot of negativity about his position, a lot of remarks which could rock the boat. which they HAVE with the amount of people now realizing most gym leaders have second jobs. and the system might! be kinda fucked! and deal shitty pay and is just kinda a whole gimmick of an industry in the whole universe. and larry sorta points directly at that, when he actively complains about Having to be a gym leader, Having to be an e4 member.

Geeta in this position would fucking hate Larrys guts! and would also point to her just quietly not saying anything when the player likes larry most. Because Geeta doesnt just dislike larry in this position. Geeta dislikes the ideals hes lowkey pioneering here. And when the player likes larry, its like the player is siding with larry. The player believes hes in the right, not Geeta, and it directly pits the player and Geeta at odds, in a very quiet way.

Geeta cant say shit. Geeta has to keep up the appearance of one big happy league full of amazing, positive members and they're all strong and etc etc. She keeps the facade of the entire league. Whether she genuinely loves the league or not, she has to keep an incredibly dedicated face up about the view of the league. But this same rule doesn't apply in private. The gym leaders, her workers have to keep that facade also, especially with Geeta, but Geeta doesnt have to give them that same light of day. Geeta can do whatever she wants, and the gym leaders just kinda have to deal with it.

i very much believe geeta and larrys relationship proposes this really. really sad idea. because geeta is larrys boss, and they. really dont like eachother! and geeta has. power. larry is afraid she will "dock his pay" for chitchat. but really it comes down to his chit chat going against the status quo, the status quo which Geeta benefits from. And ultimately, she does have the power to dock him for chit chat. She can rob him for being honest. And while Geeta's true treatment of the gym leaders as a manager will probably remain unknown, Larry's existence really offers the idea that it's probably not a great role.

Larry is not special. And thats the problem. Hes not breaking ass to go all out on a cute gimmick, hes not loving the institution as much as everyone else is to the point of doing more than its worth. Hes just doing the bare minimum to get by. Actively complains about his job, which for people in the right spheres it could seem like a huge deal to be a gym leader, and an elite four member. like bro! thats awesome! you just get to do pokemon battles all day! but really its not. once you live in the system, and you get sick enough of it, it loses its luster, and you realize that its just another grind, dodging pay cuts, trying to please the right people and constantly bust ass just to pay for the rent on your apartment and maybe groceries.

Larry is a pawn in the same system as everyone else. Geeta needs larry to be special. But he wont be. And Geeta doesn't take well to that.

Thats why hes the exceptional ordinary man. His ordinariness is what makes him the exception.

gahhhh the last few weeks I have been starving for fics or art where Aziraphale is clearly, legitimately fat (with adoring attention paid to his physical features which are associated with said fatness) and also clearly, legitimately loved ("desired" would be okay but oh give me cherished, give me treasured and held dear and, again, adored)

and I know that this is one of those things where I should just be the change I want to see in the world, but the last few weeks I have also been [flops face-first onto bed and doesn't move for 45 minutes], so clearly that is not happening

something so funny about matt saying "its just like shooting a deer!" about grant killing the chimera. and freddies "yeah but no one has had to TELEFRAG a DEER"

i keep thinking about how they use sonic advance 3 in particular in the one flashback in sonic prime, it's because that's where 'unbreakable bond' originates from!

Sonic and Tails' unbreakable bond is so important to sonic (the character and the series)

i don't believe in the fandom concept of problematic faves (all characters should have at least one Problem, i think, for flavor) but if i did, fiona pitch would have a permanent throne at the very top of my list. i just think she's neato-cheetos.

Maybe it is because of how Warnette and Robin x Barney (HIMYM) were such formative experiences for me, or how predicting Feysand shortly after the release of ACOTAR book 1 was my tumblr debut, but I have become a human romance detector (not in real life, thank god). I am a finely honed tool that can zero in on any interaction or throwaway line and tell you whether or not that will culminate in a canon ship, and I have never been wrong. This is why Midge x Lenny (TMMM) was so satisfying for me, I was waiting for that hotel scene since season 1. Carmy x Sydney (the Bear) will happen, and I’ve known that since season 1. I am a prophet. I prophesize.

pokeani moments that exist purely to make Me miserable:

the line where they call ash's oshawott a throwaway pokemon in the unova league so they're just flat out saying they think it's a worthless pokemon

to thine own pokemon be true (extra angst points for me bc ambipom was my second favorite on the team at the time)

the granddaughter of the guy who trains gliscor calling gliscor pathetic and weak to her face despite gliscor being an extremely sensitive pokemon

pretty much everything about that gible

blue episode (favorite color but they made it a fetish somehow and also dewott and brionne and meowstic are all there and its so bad)

boxing heracross immediately. also that battle frontier episode where it's literally the only returning ash mon (barring torkoal i think but i dont count it bc its native to AG) to get humiliated onscreen

pidgeot returning but gliscor didn't even show up in the miniseries despite being an Actual Character

Okay so I was going to do a really involved review of the Unhinged LotR Mobile Game (otherwise known as LotR: Heroes of Middle-earth) but I'm tired and don't have energy for that, so here are the quick hits:

It's a gacha game, and it's published by EA. Draw your own conclusions.

This review is based off of 100% free gameplay. I have paid $0 for this game.

Lore: Good. 8/10. Game is based on the book and plot elements were clearly designed by someone familiar with the source material. Hero lineup consists of characters from the book, characters that were mentioned in passing in the book but have been a little bit fleshed out and expanded upon, and completely original characters. The latter fit in well with the lore and have convincing names that are, for the most part, based in Tolkien's actual languages or borrowed from elsewhere in the legendarium. Dialogue is lifted directly out of the book in general; when it deviates from these the language used is noticeably different. Minus one half point for that, minus one point for using a ring of power as a leveling mechanic, and minus one half point for female dwarves not having beards.

Gameplay: Typical. It's a gacha game. 6/10. There's never enough energy to actually get anything done in one sitting, as per usual, purchase packs are WAY overpriced, and no particular effort has been expended to make plotlines coincide with the combat mechanic especially well. There has been one special event since I've been playing, where they released Arwen as a hero. There were six stages to the event and I was able to complete five. The sixth required me to have leveled Arwen to five stars in order to complete, and in order to do that I would have had to have either paid $20 for the real world money Arwen pack or got incredibly lucky with the RNG on the in-game gems Arwen pack. However, I am not torn up about this as there was no plot to the event and the rewards were gold and upgrade materials; nice to have, but easy enough to get elsewhere. I am unsure if there are any plans to repeat this event or whether Arwen and other event characters will be available after their events have ended, and this information does have a significant impact on my final opinion of the game. However I'm overall satisfied; it seems to me that the highest levels of this character are locked behind a paywall, but I got a good solid hero that I'm actively using on one of my teams. Points added back for not locking auto-battle until you've manually completed the battle already and for forwarding uncollected daily rewards to your in-game inbox, great quality of life features that other gacha games would be wise to take note of.

Graphics. Fine. 6/10. This rating will doubtless go up over time, as the game is currently plagued by graphical glitches. No apparent impact on actual gameplay but there's quite a bit of A-posing (Frodo and Sam have a combo attack that seems to cause all goblins to A-pose), the Mordor Taskmaster/Úzhan occasionally interacts with the wrong character during one of his skill animations, sometimes when closing out a gear inspection window and going back to a hero's main page will cause them to sprout a second head, which is a bit terrifying, and a few other minor gltiches that are really weighing down the score in this department. But as I've said before, the art style is really fun and unique, I love almost all the character designs, and there are a lot of really good artistic choices (for example: the homepage link to the events page takes the form of a stained glass window, with a really pretty image of whichever character is in focus in the current event). The only probably permanent issue that drags this point down is that some of the combat backgrounds are a bit silly; the heroes are standing on water, or obviously about to run into a wall as they run from one combat stage to the next. But overall the game is really nice to look at. The music is nice too.

Plot. I'm not gonna give the plot a number rating because I like it, but it's not for everyone. You, the player, find a random ring on the ground and put it on because you're not genre-savvy I guess. This ring gives you the power to influence characters from LotR in order to direct them as heroes on the battlefield. How this works is not expounded upon, and it doesn't matter because it's a leveling mechanic. But some other nefarious person is also influencing characters from LotR and they're trying to change the plot, and you have to stop them. Or at any rate, that's what I was told? It seems that sometimes I'm also helping them -- but as this is all just an elaborate excuse to pit completely random teams of heroes together I expect it wasn't thought out quite as thoroughly as it it should have been. Or maybe I just haven't got far enough in the plot to understand it yet. I'm always open to that. Anyhow, I've gotten invested in the subplots mainly through the mechanics of 'it's really mean to Aragorn' and 'they made Uglúk really funny.'

Overall I'm not gonna give it a number rating. Would I recommend it? If you like gacha games, yes. If you like that kind of plot, I'd recommend it just to run through the light and shadow campaigns and look at the pretty graphics.

EDIT: forgot to mention before that this game has been out for roughly one (1) month so that's why I'm so forgiving of the graphical errors.

IN THE HEIGHTS countdown: 23 DAYS!

song for today:

i am usnavi and you prob'ly never heard my name reports of my fame are greatly exaggerated exacerbated by the fact that my syntax is highly complicated 'cause i immigrated from the single greatest little place in the caribbean dominican republic, i love it! jesus, i'm jealous of it, and beyond that ever since my folks passed on, i haven't gone back goddamn, i gotta get on that!

Me: *Has written plenty of great opening scenes that I'm actually quite fond of*

Also me when trying to write a new opening scene for a new project: I have never written an opening scene in my life, what's an opening scene any more, has there ever truly been an opening scene to anything, there is no beginning, so there is no end, there is no one out there watching over this monstrosity, I am in the void, my mind is adrift, how do I open this scene without a key, where did I leave my keys??

dude why did ppl hate The End of Hope’s Peak High School sm

yeah yeah i got recommended that Henry Cooldown analysis video whatever. i am still not over people comparing Henry to a medieval knight, NOT even taking the time to unpack that said mental image of a knight is 'mostly' associated with the British Monarchy*, an extension of its Empire that *checks notes* did a long list of atrocities like imperialism and colonialism, and also (multiple) genocides.

Henry is NOT British, he is Irish. Although considering the history of Ireland and how poorly the British Empire has treated them (amongst SO MANY OTHER COUNTRIES AND DIASPORAS), yeah it's NOT surprising that an Irish man like Henry is essentially forced to adopt quote on quote 'British sensibilities' to 'survive'. <- intentional imagery or not, the implications are not lost on me.

Like okay, calling out the comparison is cool but it sure would be nice if people went further to unpack what that means and implies in the long term. you know, like ACTUAL CRITICAL ANALYSIS?!

for me… FOR ME..!!! and for shri’iia specifically the lock in for astarion’s romance is his graveyard scene in act 3.

i think it is too quick for shri’iia to be moving on to another relationship considering her previous one was with her mistress who essentially groomed and isolated her for like … more than hundred years. learning to chase her own desires and not moulding herself to what anyone wants her to be is something so new to her…!!! and something that she’s still learning how to be comfortable with….

and what I like abt romancing astarion with her is that I usually go for the dialogue path in his act 2 confession scene where you can ask him:

- what do YOU want to do?

and he goes like honestly idk what we’re doing but /this/ is nice. it just feels like two people exploring the option to love for the first time and taking things in their own pace rather than jumping straight into the relationship. they’re going at a snails pace… they don’t know what they’re doing but they like this feeling and the vibe and they want to more of it but they’re not ready to commit to anything yet and it’s fine for them …!! and they’re only committing by the end in the graveyard scene where significant time has passed and they’ve learnt a little more about themselves and they’re both more confident about their own desires and also how they want to be loved.

like it is so fitting I think… and sweet… not to mention astarion being a high elf & a vampire and shri’iia being a drow, they have all the time of the world for themselves so I def think they would want to take their time. except if shri’iia turns into a mindflayer or drider by the end then that plan is out the window lol

I love accidentally making a character very similar to another one without any knowledge. Like, not in design but in story.

It's so funny to make a character and then read a book and go "hey wait a minute"

I don't know if I'm ever going to get around to writing the pantifesto (pants manifesto), because it needs so many links and screenshots, so at this point I'm just going to mutter into the void no laces on their pants (except Izzy, weirdly), no belt on Ed except his gun belt I think, please just google 'fall front breeches' and also look at the crazy shit they did with Ed's whole Mad Max situation to avoid zippers, it's so worth the effort to appreciate the work that went into those costumes when you are writing about taking them off