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houseoflibra-if · 3 months

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"House of Libra? It's best not to talk about them, lest you wish to end up silenced like how they once were."

House of Libra.

Once the peacekeepers of the kingdom, now reduced to nothing but a lost tale. They were well respected by many for maintaining the balance of the lands, yet betrayed by those who wished for too much.

However, without House Libra keeping the balance alive, the world succumbs to the ire of the Zodiac Aura. A powerful dose of magic pulses through the lands, mutating anyone without protection. But protection can only last so long, and it's only a matter of time before the Aura consumes the lands whole.

Your family remains as one of the only branches of House Libra left alive. Due to the natural essence of your house, your family is less affected by the Zodiac Aura. No matter, as House Libra grows smaller, the world continues to eat itself alive.

It's up to you to restore the peace in the lands, for you were born under the Equinox sky.

"Never forget my words, little star. This House may have fallen, yes, but we will rise again."

House of Libra: Resurgemus is an upcoming interactive fiction inspired by the zodiac signs. You will have the freedom to explore the story and its characters with depth, so questions and various asks are greatly encouraged! This series will be 16+ (TBC), on Twine.

Features:

Play as a male, female or non-binary person. Have the freedom to choose your appearance based on what you like.(Please take note that I am a new writer, as such I do not have much experience with writing non-binary characters/pronouns. Please bear with me!)

Shape your character and personality, should you be kind, cold or a sassy boss, the choice is yours.

Build relationships- or break them if you wish. The choice is yours, but your actions will have consequences.

Have a say in the way your back story is woven. Choose your desired trauma that will affect certain plots of the story.

Choices matter. Your actions and words will influence the ending you achieve, so be wise with how you wish to shape your story.

Romance ranges between the 4 given options, shower them with your own type of affection for they will adore you nonetheless. Or you could lead them to their deaths. Woopsie.

Choose your relationship with your family. Are you a loving family? Or do you constantly need family therapy? Choose their fates as well (but don't kill all of them, that's kinda mean.)

Gain new skills and various powers that will aid you in your journey. But be warned, will they great power comes great responsibility. And a greater chance of messing things up.

Various endings will (hopefully) be available based on your choices.

This IF will be more focused on interactions and choices compared to stats. I don't think I plan on having stats. Maybe a sanity bar, but I'll see how well the coding goes.

Romance Options

Avira/Aurelius Lozenges, [RO]

Age: 26

The eldest child of House Leo, Avira/Aurelius is the epitome of the zodiac's charms. Charismatic, ambitious and loyal to a fault, there's no wonder why they're called by the admirable title of House Leo's Golden Lion. They are expected to take over the ruling throne once their father retires.

Although, with every envied perfect child comes a chamber of secrets, and they are no different. Guarded eye(s) and tense shoulders, they seem constantly restless under judgmental gazes of everyone in the kingdom.

Perhaps, you may be able to give them the freedom they long for. After all, a lion in a castle is still a caged lion.

Romance trope:

Love at first fight

Tame a wounded beast

Cocky/Arrogant -> Soft/Sweet

Castora/Castor Dioscuri, [RO]

Age: 24

The renowned child of House Gemini, they are known for their sharp mouth and playful personality. Castora/Castor remains as the number one It Girl/Guy of the kingdom as they're not only captivating in nature, but they too posses a brilliant mind like no other. Having them on your side would be quite advantageous, no?

There's something off putting about them though, as the House of Gemini have always borne children that are twins no matter how different. Yet, Castora/Castor remains as the only member of House Gemini to be born alone.

Will you dig deeper into their depths? Or will you drown in their eyes, just like everyone else? With them, you are never alone.

Romance tropes:

Slow burn

Frenemies -> lovers

Closed off heart that's waiting to be loved

Esme/Esmeray von Aquaria, [RO]

Age: 28

Some people call them cursed.

And to others, they were simply unlucky as a child for straying too far.

Esme/Esmeray is a child of House Aquarius, yet they couldn't despise it enough. Known for being one if the most influential houses due to their unyielding intelligence, a child of House Aquarius must be perfect in the eyes of others.

Yet Esme/Esmeray is the exact opposite of that. Cursed by the effects of Zodiac Aura when they were younger, they carry the mark of the Waxing Moon. This affected their life despite protection given, and they will not rest until they slay the beast that hurt them so.

They have a cold and distant personality, paired with one of the brightest minds in the kingdom only to be rivaled by the child of House Gemini. Will you be the one to thaw this icy heart? Or will you suffocate in the depths of Aquaria?

Romance trope:

Grumpy/sunshine

Cold -> absolute simp

Heated arguments and soft confessions

Nyoka Constello, [RO]

Age: same as player character

The forgotten children of the banished zodiac. Nobody remembers how this House used to flourish as they are now called the Followers of Ophiuchus. Scorned by the lands and cursed by the stars, the last surviving followers live in hiding. Now, they are nothing but tales woven in time.

Well, that's for everyone else. Nyoka just so happens to be your childhood friend, having been born under the same moon and stars aligned. They used to be docile and caring, but times have changed and so have they. Don't fret, little star, for they still have a soft spot for you.

They have an unusual appearance, with a long and sturdy sea-snake tail paired with sharp semi-curved horns. Their dark eyes seem to pull you in, rivaling the stars above.

But the mutation is spreading, and they've no clue how much time they have left. Save them, if you must. Or watch the one you once loved die.

Romance trope:

Angst. Just angst. And maybe fluff.

Childhood friends -> strangers -> lovers

"Perhaps we were soulmates in another life."

Here are some things you need to know:

I am a new writer (this is my first interactive fiction project.) so not everything will be smooth sailing.

I estimate the demo to come out mid this year, but personal matters may change some things.

This is my passion project. Please don't expect me to dedicate all my time onto this as I have a life as well.

I'm very new to coding, so learning twine will take a while. I'll have to do a few test runs before releasing the demo.

I adore feedback and asks about the game. It helps me improve as a writer while getting to build my characters more.

I want to have fun with everyone, so hateful criticism will not be tolerated. Treat me with respect and I will return the gesture.

That's all for now (I think). Have fun reading!

Demo (TBA) || Character Post (TBA) || World building (TBA)

Credits to Doshiart on picrew for the character portraits!

#twine if #twine #twine game #interactive fiction #romance #fantasy #ro #House of Libra:Resurgemus #HOLR #upcoming #interactive novel #interactive game #wip #if

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pilferingapples · 9 months

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Since you've read most of Victor Hugo's books, how would you rank them from best to worst, and why? I really want to know your thoughts. Always love to hear it <3

!!! THANK YOU THIS IS SO SWEET and also so hard but here we go!

Les Miserables yes it's my favorite but I also do think it's the best! The most ambitious of his works story-structure and character/theme density and frankly? He absolutely lands it. I have been arguing with and about this book for over a decade now and I expect I will be doing so for the rest of my life, because it's worth it. I probably don't have to argue hard for it in top spot on the Les Miserables Webbed Site, though, so moving on:

Ninety Three /Quatre-vingt treize Not my second favorite but honestly probably just as good as LM but in a different way? Much more compact and focused, and feels every bit of the influence of more recent political events in France at the time, but just as ambitious in terms of the arguments and themes it's trying to cover. The ending is something you can have eighty feelings about in an afternoon but it is always unforgettable. Deserves to be so much better known. Toilers of the Sea /Les Travailleurs de la mer My actual second favorite Hugo novel! A big Romanticist nature-focused love letter to the Channel Islands and to the sea! A mix of delightfully unreliable Nature Facts and Hugo's own observations about the place, that Nature-focus is always convincing either way with Hugo's descriptions. It's so very different from most of Hugo's later novels, but also *so* good, if you're willing to just sit back and enjoy the view . Gilliatt is a Forever Fave. Please more people read Toilers, it's a delight. And it has an Octopus Fight! The Man Who Laughs /L'homme qui rit Victor Hugo's Revenge on English History! I could feel my knowledge of actual English History Facts peeling away as I read this. Incredibly described scenes, iconic central characters, Ursus is one of the best-written characters of all time (though I have learned that some people have apparently never met a guy like this?? he is such a Type though!) . There's a wolf and the wolf is named Homo. After Les Mis, some old Hugo fans were lamenting about how far he'd strayed since the days of Notre Dame , and I think The Man Who Laughs feels a lot like a return to that old , over-the-top Goth style of Hugo's,but stronger, in keeping with the way his writing had grown over time-- until the end, when everything kind of feels like it wraps up too abruptly. Which makes sense! Hugo was finishing it up while his wife Adéle was in her final illness, and it makes sense that it would show--but I think it does show, and keeps the novel from being quite all it could be. Notre Dame de Paris I know it's either Hugo's most famous or second-most famous novel, but I really do think it's not as solid as the others! Which isn't a roast on him, it's a good thing for an author to get better over time--but it still leaves this novel feeling kinda messy. I can see Hugo trying to do his signature move of pulling together multiple separate plot/themes into a triumphant grand finale, but he hasn't quite got the knack yet. Plus there's still a lot of elements here that feel like Hugo relying on tropes a bit (and horrible tropes at that, too) instead of entirely speaking with his own voice quite yet. (also ohman. the Issues. but I'm trying to keep this post from being nine million screens long) All of the above range from "absolute masterpiece" to "not an entire masterpiece but still iconic", and then there's Hugo's Early Stuff, so: Bug Jargal - honestly it's not fair of me to even include this, it was a novel he wrote as a very young person, on a time-dare. If I'd written a Nano novel in high school it would have been SO bad. And this is bad! It's SO bad!! But you can still definitely tell it's Hugo by the way he makes sure to tell us, AFTER the story is over, that EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE BOOK DIED, EVERYONE, EVEN THE PETS. Stunning. Peak Romanticism XD (again though. THE ISSUES. whooof.)

Han d'Islande: Í have not even read this one. HUGO was down on this one later in life. I Dare Not XD (I probably will someday). But it has a polar bear and drinking seawater from skulls and inspired some very questionable behavior from the fans (attempting to drink seawater from skulls!) so I gotta acknowledge it!

Honorable Mention: the novelas

Not quite in the same group as the novels, but I think both Last Day of a Condemned Man and Claude Geaux are excellent, super-focused stories about the injustice of the prison system and the issue of capital punishment. Obviously they can't have the range of his novels, but that's not the point--they are much more direct statements on a single issue and they're really intense and effective in that!

This was fun! thank you for asking! And I'd love to hear your own thoughts on this , if you ever feel like writing them up:D

#Answereds #Novel ranking #thank you!!

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deltaengineering · 28 days

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Winter Anime 2024: Payday

Metallic Rouge

Metallic Rouge hasn't ended yet, but I am quite certain that at this point it's unsalvageable. I can give it one thing: it's going for a specific ~vibe~, and nails it. Why anyone would want to evoke the ~vibe~ of "deservedly forgotten 2000s sci-fi seasonal" is beyond me (I won't provide an example, because if I could remember it it wasn't forgettable enough), but there you go. Truly, Bones have outdone themselves with this celebration of their 25 year legacy.

It's hard to even start, but the one thing everyone is certain about is as good as any: The plotting and structure of this show is a complete mess. Some consider this "ambitious", but I don't think an ambition of "let's throw in every half baked thing we can think of and try to glue it together with proper nouns" is worth celebrating. We've got insipid and illogical worldbuilding that ultimately goes nowhere, brave political statements on the level of "slavery sure is bad but don't be rude about it", metaphor bombshells like a character who schemes behind the scenes and styles themselves the "puppetmaster" and constant plot twists that explain things long after I've given up on even trying to make sense of anything. That's where the ~vibe~ comes from: everything that has ever vaguely annoyed you in a mid anime is somehow in this one all at once.

This wouldn't be so bad if it had characters that are entertaining on their own, but here we meet the most bizarre creative decision: the one thing it has going for it is the Diet Dirty Pair banter between Rouge and Naomi, which elevates a few episodes to "decent", but of course they spend half the show seperated. And by themselves, Rouge likes chocolate and is as dumb as a brick with charisma to match, while Naomi is sassy and mysterious and that's it. The rest of the characters (and naturally, there are far too many of them) are either irritating or at best just bland.

So if this is Bones pulling out all the stops, at least you should expect the production values to be high, but even that is a mixed bag. Metallic Rouge looks quite mediocre for the most part until it's time for a dedicated Sakuga Cut™, which might be a fight or alternatively just a random one of the dozens of boring hallway conversations (that Crunchyroll of all things is treating this as a joke really says it all). And even the fights aren't all that great, because this show somehow manages to have bad sound mixing and music beds that I'd call interesting in theory but don't work well as a score. At least it has a stellar OP, but even that seemed a lot better before the show actually came out.

I might bump up the score a point if it ends exceptionally well (which it won't), but even in that case... it's still bad. Please go back to sourcing your deep plots from Weekly Shounen Jump, Bones. ~3/10

Bucchigiri...

Bucchigiri..., on the other hand, has the exact opposite problem: While Metallic Rouge is a convoluted tangle of inconsequential plot, this show is just happy to phone it in. It almost feels like a rerun of fall 2021, where Metallic Rouge is the new Fena and Bucchigiri... is the new Takt:Op. It leaves an agreeable first impression, with a bold, colorful look, unusual setting, expressive direction and kinetic animation – but everything not entirely superficial is an excuse, and a "dog ate my homework" level of excuse at that. If all you want is bromantic burly brettyboys going through the motions, get your fanfic pen ready, but don't expect the show itself to provide significantly more than character designs. It doesn't help that the main character is particularly bad, with his gimmick being "annoying disinterested horndog". These non-characters keep going in circles slapping each other's asses and being not very funny for two thirds of the show, until a very generic "sensitive best friend is tempted by evil" drama plot appears because even yaoi shippers realize that eventually something has to happen, which boils down to Matakara going around slapping everyone's asses again, but now it's supposed to be sad. And then that doesn't work at all, because for character drama you need characters. Who knew.

Of course the funny bit is that this is pretty much what I asked for. I gave SKOO shit for only being good at the wacky parts while the heartfelt drama and more fleshed out characters fell flat. Well, now the director's followup work is just the wacky bits and feels completely hollow for it, and then the exaggerated drama lacks anything to back it up. Maybe just do better, I suppose. Oh yeah, and this also hasn't ended yet but with how completely predictable it is I feel like I've already seen the final episode. ~4/10

Undead Unluck

You can take the Shounen out of the Jump but you can't take the Jump out of the Shounen. I don't usually touch the Weekly Shounen Jump brand for good reasons, but Undead Unluck definitely had one of the strongest first impressions for one in a long time, if only because it has leads that aren't Goku and Vegeta again. But it also had a flashy, devil-may-care attitude with absurd nonsense happening left and right, a bonkers setting that is actually interesting in its own right and production value to back it up. In short, it was Fire Force with arguably better characters. When it's firing on all cylinders, Undead Unluck is a very fun time.

The problem is that Undead Unluck is firing on all cylinders about as often as a Cadillac V8-6-4 with a flaky ignition distributor. Primarily it has a massive padding problem: The amount of recapping and flashbacks to things that just happened is patently ridiculous and I say that as someone who has watched two seasons of My Hero Academia. If you include things like OP and ED, I feel like calling roughly a third of this show's runtime literally repeated content is not a wild exaggeration. And that's only literally repeated content – since this is Weekly Shounen Jump, there is also a lot of restating of facts and tedious explanations. I can't even blame this just on Jump Editorial, because a lot of the time it seems to be in service of hitting the right cliffhangers – but if both source and adaptation have severe pacing issues, it all compounds to the worst pacing in any show I've seen a considerable amount of.

And then, even in the coinflip of time when it's actually doing anything, it's obviously not always at its best either. This is honestly acceptable from a show that goes wild – with these you have to take the bad with the good. I didn't care much for the lazily metafictional final arc for example, but it would be perfectly fine if it didn't (quite expectedly at this point) do its core statement twice in as many episodes in a row, only with more screaming the second time. It's good when it's good, sure, but it would have to be outstandingly brilliant to make the whole thing worth it – which it isn't, so it's not. 5/10

Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete (Gushing over Magical Girls)

My standard line regarding any extra spicy fanservice anime show has always been "you know you can find real porn on the internet easily, right". Gushing over Magical Girls (which is, aint gonna lie, a genius title translation) is a pretty good example why: Even though it is pretty damn explicit, it still isn't on the level of actual porn, and then the extended moaning and wriggling sequences just take up so much of the time that it gets tedious pretty fast. And a lot of the "other" content of the show is just blatantly an excuse to make the porn happen. There's some edgy comedy too, but I think characters like Kiwi are more annoying than anything, so that didn't do much for me either. Then the middle section of the show is an excursion where our protagonist villains go sex up a couple of more villainous villains, which feels like it's missing the point even by its own standards. Also, be aware that with hentai content come hentai production values, and this one is definitely below average. None of this is particularly unusual.

However, I kept watching this one, and the reason is pretty simple: I don't actually object to spiciness in principle, and in the beginning the show did a pretty good job of portraying Utena's awakening to a bunch of fetishes. That she then started an awkward on-and-off anonymous BDSM relationship with an actual magical girl was even better. I honestly have to say that this is a brilliant concept, even if it wasn't executed to a level where I was certain it was intentional. Also, while it's arguably the "main plot", it's a fairly small part of the show and when it didn't show up much in the middle I was sure the show had lost me. I do have to admit though that against all odds, Gushing does stick the landing, with a final episode that really pays off that plotline in the best way you could reasonably (see above) expect. It's a bit of a rough ride, but this show delivers.

So I'm two minds about Gushing over Magical Girls. If you just consider it a hentai OVA that somehow escaped to television (which is not an unreasonable standpoint), it feels surprisingly ambitious and well thought out. But as a regular TV show, it just has too many weaknesses to ignore. Still, even though I can't call it good, I still think it's a more interesting curio than the score might make it sound. 5/10

Hime-sama "Goumon" no Jikan desu ('Tis Time For "Torture", Princess)

Oh no, this has "torture" in the title, what could it mean? Yeah, I think at this point everyone knows that it's a joke (one might even say... The Joke) and let's leave it at that. It feels like every season there's some fluffy and cute comedy that I quite enjoy for no profound reason. The Alleged Torture here simply doesn't do anything wrong, manages to find just about enough angles to its one joke to not get boring, and features nice designs and enough production value to deliver a smooth ride all the way to the end. It occasionally does something beyond its one joke, and that tends to turn out cute and chill as well, like Tortura's modest OL home life. Really the only thing I don't like about this is the manzai reaction antics of the sword – explaining the joke is always questionable, but it's especially so when there is exactly one punchline that never changes. In any case, this one is hardly essential and there are many others like it, but sometimes you just want something sweet and inoffensive that still puts the effort in. And this is definitely one of those. 6/10

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (Apothecary Diaries)

I feel like I should like this show a lot more than I actually do. This is because it is made of great ingredients: Very nice looks, a setting with tons of potential, mostly interesting characters and in particular an amazing main character. Maomao is just great, she has tons of personality and a funny oddball charm that is tempered by a smart and stoic attitude. The beginning of the show, where Maomao plays the streetwise intruder into the stilted world of court intrigue and manages to cut through the bullshit like nobody else could, is pretty excellent.

However, as the show went on, it became clear that I just don't agree with the direction the plot takes. Of course it turns out that Maomao is actually deeply involved into the court drama in half a dozen ways (without ever telling the audience about it, which smells of retcon). Of course the focus shifts to other characters like Jinshi or later on Lakan, who are far less interesting. Of course there is a romance with Jinshi on the horizon. I don't want to be that guy that is mad that a show doesn't turn out to be what they had wished it to be, but it's still a letdown.

And that's not mentioning that the daily business of the show, various levels of detective work, is hardly solid gold either. It's just bad at mystery writing – most "cases" turn out to be massively contrived and then Maomao walks in and just guesses the solution out of nowhere. The large-scale mystery (who is Jinshi, really?) is not much of a mystery at all but Maomao can't figure it out because apparently she has to solve these complicated and tiny problems before she can realize the simple and obvious large one. And then there's the drama, which is effective enough in the moment but seems to be mostly built on a foundation of allegedly smart people acting much more stupid than they should.

So overall, I think this is still a good show simply because Maomao is fun to watch no matter what, but I just don't think the writing can quite hold up its part of the bargain, and that is kind of a bummer. 7/10

Yuuki Bakuhatsu Bang Bravern

Bang Bravern arrived with a simple, but quite amusing thesis statement: What if you had a tacticool, Armored Core-like mecha setting but then everything changed when a super robot show invaded. That's pretty funny. It also just so happens that Masami Oobari knows that the likes of Top Gun tend to have a certain undertone, and also made Bang Bravern explicitly homoerotic. That's even funnier. Add to this the fact that the epic super robot action genre is inherently hilariously over the top, and you have the makings of a very amusing show. Now, I could just leave it at that, because that's what Bravern is. An over the top and self-aware love letter to the super robot shows of old, with a couple of additional comedic angles.

In other words, it's like all super robot shows that have been made in the last two decades. Yeah, Bravern is undeniably quite entertaining, but I also don't think it's anywhere as unique as people seem to think it is. The "super in a world of reals" joke in particular doesn't really come into play that often, apart from when that side of the show keeps introducing dozens of characters that then proceed to not do anything apart from standing on the sidelines. The gay love affair does matter more often, but seems to run into diminishing returns because once you've done "come inside me" (which it does in like episode 3), you really have nowhere to go. And besides those two, well... it's charmingly exuberant and features all the goofy tropes, but it lacks the absurd hugeness of a TTGL or the meaningful subtext of a Gridman – and that's only shows that I have actually seen as a non-fan of the genre. I suppose fans will gladly take it anyway, because the genre is somewhat rare nowadays, but Bravern doesn't exactly blow me away. Still, you can't deny the fun. 7/10

Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End)

So here we come to the big dog. The show that's pulling Doraemon numbers on Japanese TV, has been riding a comfortable #1 spot on MAL for months, and has inspired an unfathomable amount of porn. And the real surprising thing is that it's the first show in a very long time that I think comes even close to deserving that level of hype, especially early in its run when it absolutely isn't the kind of show you'd expect to do this – apart from the production values being about as good as TV anime gets, naturally.

Frieren starts out as an uniquely focused narrative that explores as many angles as it can out of a complicated mess of legacy, memory and regret through the lens of a pretty simple and generic RPG trope. It achieves this almost entirely through one of the best casts I've seen in a long time – Frieren may not be quite as charming a protagonist as Maomao, but she has much more depth and more importantly, every character that matters in her show is almost as good, and their relationships are even better. In its first-cours adventure mode, when we're just wandering around having more or less episodic encounters and plot points that drift in and out of focus with a wistful tone but splashes of goofy comedy, Frieren is quite excellent and would have been my show of last year if I had considered it eligible.

But then it slams in a new gear with the elegance of a tractor driver who thinks clutches are for pussies. Suddenly we're doing a proper Shounen Exam Arc and we're getting a lot less of this and a lot more of this. Now to be fair, this is a long running manga and it probably could not have kept doing flashbacks to Frieren being too dense to realize that Himmel was hitting on her 80 years ago forever. But still, the mage examination arc just really isn't Frieren at its best. It's not even that the content is particularly bad (maybe apart from the really quite rough beginning), and I do understand the long-term benefits of introducing a bigger cast of characters for future use, especially when they turn out to be quite good eventually... but it all just takes way too long. There's still great moments here, but that's usually a small segment of the established good stuff or, failing that, Frieren dropping a sick ass spell. Yeah, I won't even blame this on the action, because said action is incredibly well done and still quite brief, but you really didn't need a full season of theorycrafting and skill discussions to get those explosions. In short. Frieren temporarily turns into Full Metal Alchemist with better leads, and while this would be high praise for almost any shounen manga, it isn't for the one that has demonstrated it can do far better.

There is one real upside to this distraction arc though: Unlike, say, the plot problems of Apothecary Diaries that are here to stay, none of this irreversible, which Frieren immediately makes clear by snapping back to its best behaviour the second they leave the designated raid zones. The ending is as good as any part of the show, with the skillful writing and great tone we have come to wish for. Frieren may not be as consistently excellent as it first appeared, but it is still pretty damn good – and not on a purely superficial level either, because it obviously can have outstanding writing when it wants to and the fundamentals are rock solid too. 8/10

Yubisaki to Renren (A Sign of Affection)

And the top spot of the season goes to... a show that may not be the most ambitious, but does absolutely nothing wrong. Yubisaki to Renren is a fluffy romance where a very cute girl meets a very nice boy, and then no drama happens because not everyone in the world is a fucking idiot. I think my delight with this says more about the absolute state of romance anime than it does about the show itself, but I also have to say that while the plot of this show might be simplistic, it takes great care to set everything up in such a way to get away with said simplistic plot.

Obviously the core of the setup is that Yuki is deaf. But, quite smartly, the author doesn't make the story about Yuki's problems with not being able to hear, but rather about how her world is just... limited. And Itsuomi is a dude with an uncommonly wide worldview and experience. Opposites attract, and there you go. The show basically gets all the grounding it needs from that simple setup for free, then throws in a bit of complicated history among the larger cast. Then just make Yuki incredbly cute and Itsuomi an uncommonly levelheaded adult who will take measures to prevent any pointless drama before it gets out of hand, and you have a show that's just 100% a good time all the way through. So the leads (i.e., the thing that matters way above all else in a romance) are great, and the rest of the cast is more than fine too, even those who would instigate such drama – it can't get annoying, because they never succeed.

Really if I had to say something negative about this show it would be that it's still superficial compared to a show at its skill level that does go hard. I mean, it's about two nice people falling in love and nothing goes wrong, which isn't exactly a lot. There is maybe also the idea that Itsuomi may be a bit too perfect, but I'm just more than happy to see a male lead in a shoujo romance that is neither an abusive jerk nor a bland cardboard cutout. In a perfect world, something like Yubisaki to Renren should feel a bit bland and generic, but in the real one, there just isn't much like it. 9/10

#anime #review #winter2024 #metallic rouge #bucchigiri?!#gushing over magical girls #undead unluck #hime sama goumon no jikan desu #kusuriya no hitorigoto #yuuki bakuhatsu bang bravern #sousou no frieren #yubisaki to renren

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putyourreddresson · 1 year

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'unwinding of the fall (BLACK SWAN AU BABY)' 'the ripple of tenderness (a corrupted tide)'

— i would like to know intimately about both of these things please and please 🌺💛🌹

oh i love you and i am SO sorry for what i am about to unleash on you

unwinding of the fall

(lovingly shortened to just black swan by a friend of mine) is my magnum opus that i have been slaving over for more than 7 months now. it's my first too-ambitious writing project that now spans upwards of 60K words, 14 chapters, a lot of mental breakdowns and is unfortunately nowhere close to being finished.

the premise is pretty simple – the 2022 formula 1 season reimagined through the lens of the obsessed artist; the fatality of devotion and the intricacies of how ambition can deteriorate into fanaticism. i borrow a few plot points, themes and dialogue from the movie black swan but it all takes place in the f1 cinematic universe.

in terms of plot, i am keeping all the results the same until summer break (it's like ferrari did all that clownery specifically for my sadistic streak) and then afterwards i am taking some hefty artistic liberties in order to self-serve my agenda and accompany charles' even bigger spiral into insanity (he's my final girl and my fav literary lab rat). all of this is accompanied by a lot of surrealistic elements, manipulation, hallucinations, disordered behaviour and a bunch of other things i will probably have to tw.

in terms of characters, i envision charles as the white swan and max as the black swan. however, i don't want them to have the same kind of jagged rivalry as nina and lily in the beginning – it doesn't make sense with their personalities now and i think it's going to be even more devastating if max is genuinely trying to get close to charles and charles is a bit hesitant but he starts to lean towards the freely given affections until Something (if you've watched the movie, i think you know what im referring to) happens and he gets a rude awakening, gets stuck in his head and start to twist things. this is where their rivalry starts to lean towards something more tense, an amalgamation of internal strife and becoming a victim to the turbulent flow of events and expectations that start to control you.

(of course, it doesn't help that he hallucinates a more volatile and cunning version of max, which pushes him in the wrong direction. that's neither here nor there.)

this is already too long i am SO SORRY, i will try to keep this brief

silverstone

"Perfection is not just about precision, it’s not always about predetermination,” starts Max, his eyes boring into him with the intensity of nuclear fission. His thumb brushes gently over Charles’ jaw, back and forth for a moment until it settles underneath the bone. The calming movement coaxes Charles to exhale some leftover dregs, softly so as to not obscure Max’s face. The calm before the storm.

Max takes Charles in, kneeling before him and teetering on the edge of something. Max’s gaze maps him out, trying to find the stray thread and pull. “You cannot save yourself from this if you stifle your driver instincts in the process,” he continues. “You’re not here because you can do calculations in your head. You’re here because you can feel the car better than most, because you can find that golden balance between sending it and staying in control, between holding on and letting go.”

His thumb digs further, hand almost painfully grasping his chin and bringing Charles’ face even closer. “You’re so afraid of not having a contingency plan that you con yourself into believing you can account for all of it. And when something goes astray, like it always does—” Max’s voice catches on the exit, barely louder than a whisper at this point, aimed directly at his lips “—you shatter to pieces because you still cannot bear the fact that some things are bound to be out of your control."

france

He looks up, lets his head fall back listlessly and pull on the pain in his neck, and closes his eyes. He doesn’t seek guidance or explanation or a sign because he knows this is all on him. He doesn’t deserve any consolation and it’s not like he will get any. The gods above have forsaken him, the ivory of their statues crumbled into remnants he can brush off of his shoulders like lint. There are only the gods on earth who he is accountable to, who will weigh his guilt on the unbalanced scale of justice and demand their pound of flesh. He feels the hairline fractures on his skull proliferate. He feels the anger, thick and heavy, seeping from his ears and staining the car at his feet. He feels pure unadulterated rage, something disfigured and depraved squeezing the nerves from his limbs like wet rags.

He opens his eyes and sees only the sun and the blue sky. He wants to swallow them up like Chronos.

zandvoort

“Let go, Charles,” barely a breath but it resonates like a church bell, a clandestine command. His lips the belladonna petals, his tongue the dagger at his jugular.

Charles listens to his – their – skin whisper and he lets himself go.

Charles drags Max back to him and plunges into this, into Max’s mouth and his iron-clad embrace with an iron-willed determination, metal scraping against metal a siren call that clogs his ears and brain with cotton. He doesn’t grow pliant – he meets Max blow for blow, bruise for bruise. He doesn’t extinguish the fight but leans into it, sinks into the embrace of violence and rejoices.

He feels Max’s teeth in his neck, in his heart and Charles hopes the bite hurts, hopes that Max’s teeth reach bone and everything shatters

the ripple of tenderness (a corrupted tide)

i cannot for the life of me write normal people romance and this silly little story exists solely bc of a friend of mine who incites all kinds of gooey feelings in me. in the beginning i thought it's going to be a nice break from the seriousness of my longer wip but now it's sitting there at 15K and still unfinished.

it's a very standard magical realism trope aka charles falls under a love spell that makes him fall in love with the first person he sees, which surprise surprise, is max, who has been in love with him for ages! wow, who would've thought.

however, i wanted to subvert this take a little bit by making charles not completely lose his mind. i want him to be freely affectionate but with enough rational thoughts online that he feels very disconcerted about not being in control, about potentially making max uncomfortable, about showing so much vulnerability against his own volition. and max, who is such a sweetheart, tries to reassure charles at the cost of his sanity and slowly fraying heart since all of charles' affections are obviously fabricated. i think the slight angst with the inescapable tenderness of their interactions will make for a good combination! but what do i know

snippy snip

Just when he starts to focus a bit too much on all of this, he feels Charles envelop the hand resting on his cheek with his own and push further into it in a complete act of heatstroke-induced insanity. He turns his face back around where Max’s palm doesn’t obfuscate it and finally, painstakingly, opens his eyes.

Max stops breathing for a second.

In Max’s opinion, he hasn’t spent nearly enough time looking into Charles’ eyes. Eye contact has always been a painstaking affair, trying to find an optimal balance between looking into Charles’ eyes and away during their talks in such a way that it would not allude to anything more. Charles’ eyes can look vastly different under different lights – striking green in direct sunlight, molten hazel on rainy days, overtaken by specs of yellow under fireworks. But there is always a simmering warmth there, which can either reach the fiery heights of ambition or the honeyed flames of attentiveness.

Max looks into Charles’ eyes now and feels like Charles is looking through Max’s eyes and into him as a whole. It feels innocently invasive, like a caress that catches on a hangnail. His eyes sparkle with something unnatural and the blush across his cheeks unfurls and fans out until it reaches his neck. The rosy colour of it looks almost sickly. Max unclasps the tunnel visions from his eyesight and realises that Charles’ features as a whole are glossed over with a sheen of misplaced sentiment, spelling something resembling foreboding.

“Max,” Charles whispers, spilling the breaths incasing his name almost into Max’s mouth. His voice is soft like gossamer, his gaze a gentle brushstroke on the contours of Max’s face and Max knows something is undeniably wrong.

Fuck.

so yeah! (lame ass concluding sentence again) thank you so much for asking ! and i will send you your bereavement damages check for dealing with all of this in the mail in 3-5 business days!

#rambling

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struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor · 8 months

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About Dazed, but not the same anon!

I’m so frustrated with those interviews… It always lacks depth, barely scratches the surface. I want to know more, I want more substance. I wish the interviewer would ask better questions or try to push a bit more, it’s just lazy work every time.

Again on this topic about Jungkook wanting to be bigger and cool : while I understand what he means by being bigger, you explained it well, I would also love to know what it’s like for him to be "cool". Does he have a role model in mind? is it about a specific image he wants to achieve? Why is it so important for him? Right now it just sounds a bit shallow and superficial and not a very clear goal that could be reached for. Being bigger as an artist can be objectively quantified, with BB charts sales numbers, radio spins, awards and so on (though we could discuss that…). Being cool, on the other hand, is something that you end up being, almost accidentally? For me it sounds as weird as saying I would like to be seen as a humble person, for eg. You don’t get to define yourself as so, it’s one of those qualities that it’s up to others to determine if you are or not, how can it be something you reach for, especially if you verbalize it so loudly? I don’t think it’s something you can work towards. It’s too subjective, not like you have to tick certain boxes and then that’s it, here you are, a cool guy lol. It’s a consequence of your personality, your actions, not a goal. Or am I being too obtuse? I know I tend to be lol English isn’t my first language so I’m struggling to put my thoughts into words.

I’m just a bit skeptical because the goals he’s setting for himself seem too vague and an easy way to getting lost. It almost sounds like a dead end to me. I’ve always find him cool, and paradoxically now the more he’s saying he wants to be like this bla-bla-bla, the less I’m perceiving him that way. It’s like when a person you admire or your love interest for eg says something and suddenly they start to lose their aura/magic. It’s like a turn off. Sorry, I’m being a bit too harsh. But I guess if his role model is someone like Bieber then it’s only logical I’m losing the plot, that guy is the epitome of a caricature to me, the exact opposite of cool, precisely because it’s so obvious he has tried so hard to be so it looks fake, like a facade. Please Jungkook, you already are cool, what are you talking about 😐

Hey different anon! Yeah, these interviews are always pretty boring. Unless Jungkook or the members develop their thoughts they won't be asked follow up questions. I think the interviewers choose not to push them sometimes, even without the language barrier. RM and Suga often give good interviews where they get asked interesting questions, but perhaps interviewers expect less of the other members? In the sense that they don't know whether to push them or not, so they choose not to?

But the worst part is that this article read like a fic. It was cringe.

Hmm, I get what you mean, but I think Jungkook's "cool" isn't exactly the English "cool". If you know a little of Korean you probably know the word he's using, which he's used to express what he wanted his legacy as BTS to be. He once said he wanted people to look back at BTS and say "they were cool" (or something like that). "Cool" is kind of an all-encompassing word that means good and enjoyable, in a simple, digestible way, and not necessarily smooth, charming, cold, and other ideas related to "coolness". It's like Jungkook just wants people to remember BTS fondly, like it's enough to be an artist that people enjoy in a very simple, comfortable way, even if it's just one song or performance. Rather than iconic, once in a lifetime group, I guess he just wants BTS to be a group people look back on and say "BTS? Oh, I remember them, they were cool". I don't know, it's simple and innocent, and actually not that ambitious?

On the other hand, Jungkook has always talked about wanting to become a cooler performer and show cooler performances. In fact, that's something all idols says. But it still raises the question of what a cooler performer and performance means to him. We know he's usually a bit dissatisfied after he performs and that he feels like he's lacking in many ways. We also know he wants to look sharp, mature, sexy, powerful, and that's surely part of becoming "cooler" - it's like he wants to become his ideal self and be less Jungkook. I remember Jungkook saying he loves the Seven choreo because it's cool, while I personally find it weak and basic. But it's laid back and "sexy", and he thinks that kind of performance is cool.

Jungkook is very hyperactive and kpop is very excessive. It sounds like maybe Jungkook wants to tone it down, make his performances look more approachable and "effortless" (other concepts related to being "cool"). Maybe this all comes down to his maknae image and not wanting it to limit him, or to be perceived that way forever? So Jungkook becoming cooler is becoming someone who can surprise people and put on laid back performances that look effortless? I'm, once again, reminded of Bieber. I think Jungkook very much admires him and thinks he's a cool performer. He mentioned enjoying him at the Grammys although Bieber didn't dance or do anything special. Jungkook is someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, and maybe he wants to be colder, cooler, and not the goofy cutie we see him as. I can relate to that tbh, because I feel stupid sometimes because I'm too smiley and openly emotional.

Maybe it's not shallow, maybe it's coming from a place of insecurity? We know that, despite recent improvements, Jungkook isn't actually a very confident person, but he's trying to become someone he can be proud of - his ideal self - and, to him, that is simply someone "cool". A cool artist, a cool performer, a cool person. Maybe Jungkook doesn't really know how to express the image he has in his head any better than this? But, yeah, I also disagree with what I think his idea of cool is. And just like the ambition to become "bigger", it's not really an attainable goal. You can always climb higher, in theory. Will there ever be a point at which Jungkook feels like he's "cool enough"? It's doubtful.

So, yeah, I get your skepticism about Jungkook wanting to become "cooler" and how that makes him less cool, but it's not really about being pretentious. I think Jungkook really feels like he's lacking and wants to become a cooler artist, in every sense of the word, but I do feel like he's getting stuck on the idea of coolness being sexiness, manliness, nonchalance.

I don't even know if I agreed or disagreed with you haha. What did I even conclude? Not sure, but thanks for the ask!

#ask #bts #jungkook #text #thanks for the ask!

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drpanda99 · 1 year

Text

5-4-3-2-1 Fic retrospective + 2023 Things

I was tagged by @dragongirlg-fics - please go and check out her writing and translations! =D

Post the following: -top 5 works you’re most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular) -your top 4 current WIPs that you’re excited to release in the new year -your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year -your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year -and your number 1 favorite line you’ve written this year!

Answers under the cut.

Top 5 works you’re most proud of that you released in 2022:

Collateral Circulation; and other protective factors: This was my WIPbang fic that I spent almost the entirety of 2022 working on. This is my longest piece of writing ever and something I'm extremely proud I wrote! One of my friends was worried because of how ambitious my plans for this fic was at first, but I managed to do exactly what I set out to do! I imagined it kind of as one of those medical shows where you follow different characters and cut back and forth between their lives. I imagined the hospital as a living, working thing filled with all these characters with their individual lives and problems; we get to follow wangxian closely, but everyone else has their own backgrounds etc going on. Maybe one day I'll write a commentary on what everyone's backgrounds and stories are!

[Podfic] I Don't Want to Debut! by Countingcr0ws: This was my first big podfic and I spent many, many hours working on it. I upgraded my setup once in the middle and had to re-record the first two chapters to match the audio! This was also my first time incorporating music throughout a podfic. I also transcribed Chuang 2021's theme song into Ableton so I could have the midi track! That was something I was very worried about, but it turned out well in the end.

Five Shades of Home: This was my piece for the Chinese Diaspora event. I had actually forgotten what I had written, but I recently went back to reread it and I was surprised by how well I was able to intertwine the themes of family, grief, and different kinds of love into the fic! I wrote it around this time last year, so i had forgotten so much about it. But yay for cooking with your family and difficult conversations about grief!

root your love a little deeper: I wrote this as a pinch-hit with like 3 days?? for a remix event. It was my first time writing sci-fi and I had to come up with a bunch of worldbuilding as I went, but I ended up really happy about the overall fic and how I kept the themes of the original while putting my own spin on things. It was one I've read back a few times and still enjoy a lot!

your heart of shadows, your eyes like stars: This was the first fic I ever posted as a WIP (because I have a terrible fear of not finishing a fic I started) and it helped me get over a lot of anxiety around expectations/my working speed/etc. I was super surprised at how many people like it! It started out as a horny short scene, but then i had to fill in the backstory to get to where I wanted to go. It developed a much bigger plot than I anticipated, but I'm proud I pulled it off in the end! I'm also glad I got to explore some of the interesting parts of omegaji and the juiciness of LWJ's character against societal expectations of gender roles, love, and duty. I haven't read back over it yet, but it was a really fun experience (and I didn't have to edit the entire fic all at once, which was nice).

Your top 4 current WIPs that you’re excited to release in the new year:

Secret bottomji big bang fic: Ooooh I'm so excited about this! I'm about 20k into it with an expected word count of around 60k. This could likely balloon because the plot got more complex, but that's ok! It's still a secret, but let's just say it incorporates some of my fave AU elements and I'm going way too hard on the structure of the fic lol.

Modern cultivation/poetry AU: This was my Nano project in November for a lack of other things to work on, but I'm hoping to release it this year! This started out as a modern with cultivation AU that would be released simultaneously with a "book" of poetry that LWJ either writes or studies from. I love the idea of making the reference material for within a fic and it isn't something I've seen that often! I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but it's me working on a fic + a poetry collection as LWJ at the same time. The cultivation part has taken over it, so I'm not quite sure how I'm gonna write myself out of this hole but oh well, I'm the author!

Wangxian incense burner CNC fic: set in a dream of the Cloud Recesses era where LWJ does WWX exactly as hard as he deserves lol. Inspired by maotuan's uncensored panels and WWX's talk about "why didn't you take me back then, you should have held me down and forced me, etc."

A non wangxian secret exchange fic: My first time (in this fandom) writing a non-wangxian main pairing! Details are still a secret, but I look forward to stretching my fingers into exploring other characters and dynamics.

Your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year:

Biggest is writing at all! I had not written prose for fun in over a decade when I rejoined fandom in late 2020, and I had barely started writing again. Fandom, writing, and podfic helped pull me out of a few months of really bad depression early in the year and it's given me comfort that I can make it through even the hardest of times. I've managed to keep writing despite other things in life going wrong and I'm super proud I've kept this up because writing was one of the first things I ever loved!

My dialogue writing has gotten way better! I struggled with it so much in late 2020 and everything felt awkward and stilted. I still struggle with it at times, but I've been able to make it sound more natural than when I started!

Using an outline: I thought I was a pantser, but I never managed to finish any longer prose works I started in the past. I started actually outlining my ideas and writing in plot details, which seemed to be the secret for solving my never-finishes-any-writing self.

Your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year:

Figure out how to make transitions less awkward/use fewer time skips. If I'm using timeskips, make them feel suitable for the tempo of the work.

Manage time a little better - plan out which events/fics I'm gonna release rather than jumping on anything that looks good! And also finishing drafts in time so I don't make my betas work so hard (deep gratitude for everyone who has beta'd my stuff lol).

Your number 1 favorite line you’ve written this year!

Ok a little cheating, but I'm putting in the entire paragraph with my fave line (aka two lines lol) highlighted. This is from chapter 14 of Collateral Circulation and is from Yu Ziyuan's letter to Wei Ying. I love Yu Ziyuan as a character; I find her so emotionally complex and compelling. She may not be someone I like, but I think she serves to highlight how multifaceted one person can be.

Yanli loves you dearly. Jiang Cheng does too. Both of my children, whom I fought for tooth and nail, love you as if you were the centre of our family. Unlike Jiang Cheng, Yanli is soft and loving, more than I could ever be. She’s been the perfect mother despite her youth. I see so little of myself in her that I wonder if she’s really mine, and then I see her stubborn love and I know that she is exactly like her mother. If I could excise the love from my heart, I would. She nurtures it instead.

And that's a wrap. Thanks for reading if you've read it this far! =D

#mdzs #fandom #writer retrospective #how much can I talk about my own work in one go

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rayslittlekitten · 3 years

Text

I Almost Told You That I Loved You Ch. 9

Chapter 8 | IATYTILY Masterlist | Chapter 10

A/N: Wow, what is going on? Another chapter already? Jax is surprisingly playing nice with me.

Rating: E (18+ ONLY)

Word Count: 2.4k

Pairing: Jax Teller x F!reader

Plot: This takes place shortly after Tara leaves Charming. You start working at Teller-Morrow and an unlikely and messy relationship forms between you and Jax.

Contains: a little drama, tiny mention of abuse, sex (p in v), a little spanking, a little hair pulling, oral sex (M receiving), a little degradation/humiliation

Saturday. Date. It's here. He did say date, right? Jax said he's going to pick you up at 7:00 and you smooth out your sundress while looking over at the clock. He's expecting any minute. You then realize maybe a dress is a bad choice if you're riding on his Harley. Shit. You scramble to your closet and start pulling out a more motorcycle-riding friendly outfit. He also did say "none of that fancy shit". Sundress is pretty casual, you think, but not motorcycle casual.

You hear a motorcycle pull up in front of your house. You can't find a specific pair of jeans and then remember it's in the hamper. The doorbell rings and you panic. You run out of your room and yell to your aunt that you got it. You take a deep breath and then open the door to find Jax in his usual get up: white tee, kutte, jeans and white sneakers. Definitely none of that fancy shit. Guess you didn't know what you were expecting. You then notice Jax checking you out too.

"Hi there," Jax greets you.

"Hey. Uh, I'm sorry can you give me like five minutes? I put this on and then realized the motorcycle and--"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down. I'm in no rush," Jax cuts you off. "You look cute."

"Thank you," you smile, feeling heat rise to your cheeks. "I completely forgot about the bike and like right before you got here I realized I should change into something else so please give me like five minutes."

"You're fine." Jax chuckles. "I actually don't have my bike tonight. It shitted on me at the last minute so I borrowed my mom's car."

"Oh, okay. So uh, I guess let me grab my purse and jacket and I'll be right back." you say before closing the door and dashing back into your house to grab your things. You open the door again and find Jax still standing there.

"Ready to go?" Jax asks.

"Yes!" You shut the door and follow Jax to the car. He opens the passenger side to let you in before walking over to the driver's side. As soon as Jax gets in the driver's seat, he starts the car and takes off.

"Sooo where are we going?" you ask.

"You like burgers and milkshakes?" Jax asks.

"Sure," you answer.

"Ever been to Ray's Diner?"

"Who hasn't?" you chuckle. Ray's Diner is one of the oldest establishments in Charming and everyone who grew up in Charming has been there at least once. It's also a popular hang out spot for the teens.

***************************

"So, what are you in school for again?" Jax asks while dipping a fry in ketchup and then popping it into his mouth.

"General studies," you shrug. "Thinking about getting my associates and then going to a four year college."

"Wow. Ambitious!"

"What about you?" you ask, then take a sip of your milkshake.

"Nah, school's not for me. Besides, the club is my life. That's what I'm gonna do. I mean, I'm actually doing it. Maybe one day I'll be President of the club but that's probably a long way from now."

You notice something caught Jax's attention behind you. You turn around and see a few people who just walked in through the door. You turn back to Jax and see his jaw twitch. You don't know who or what is making him scowl.

"You alright there, Jax?" you ask, breaking his concentration.

"Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?" Jax asks while picking on his burger.

"You were telling me that you want to be President of SAMCRO."

"Right." He nods and then he looks at you. "President. Like my dad, and then like my step-dad. There's no one more qualified." Jax smiles, but then quickly fades. "Uh, you done there?" Jax asks, nodding towards your mostly eaten burger and handful of fries.

"Yeah, I think I'm good." You drop the fry you've been holding for the last few minutes.

"Come on, let's go." Jax pulls out some bills and tosses them on the table. You follow him out of the diner and walk back to the car. You watch Jax walk over to the driver's side and unlock the car before hopping in. You're capable of opening your own door, but clearly something or someone he saw really hit a nerve and changed his mood.

You get in the car and buckle your seatbelt.

"What's the matter?" you ask.

"What do you mean?" Jax looks over to you.

"At the diner. Something happened back there and you were clearly distracted."

"Just... saw my ex's best friend," Jax answers. "But they don't matter anymore." Jax pulls out of the parking spot and drives away. "I don't wanna talk about them. They're boring. I'm more interested in you." Jax puts his hand on your thigh and smirks.

"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to you and Tara?" you ask. You can feel the energy shift instantly as soon as you said her name. He's no longer the playful Prince Charming.

"She left Charming. That's it," Jax replies calmly and shrugs as he pulls up to a red light.

"That's it? You seem pretty upset for something that simple."

"What about you?" Jax tries to shift the attention to you. "Was it as simple as your ex wanting to fuck other people?"

"That's not what I said."

"It's the same bullshit," Jax says as the light turns green. He slams on the gas pedal and you get thrown back against the back of the seat. "Sorry about that." Jax quietly apologizes. He pulls a cigarette out and places it into his mouth. He offers you one but you decline. He expertly lights the cigarette up while driving.

"He was a narcissistic, abusive piece of shit and nothing was ever good enough for him," you say after a few moments. You had never said that out loud before and you felt both dread and relief to do so. It suddenly seems extra quiet now even with the car radio on low.

"I'm sorry," Jax says and continues to drive.

"It's okay," you shrug. "I'm not with him anymore." You turn and look out the window, blinking back a few tears threatening to fall. "Anyways, so where is this date headed next?" You look over at him. "This is a date date, right? Or is this just us... hanging out?"

"I don't know," Jax shrugs. "I guess it's a date." He throws you a smile.

"I thought Jax Teller doesn't do dates," you tease.

"I also say a lot of dumb shit," Jax smirks. "I just don't really care for labels." He shrugs. "You wanna head back to my place and see where the night takes us?" He licks his lips.

"Sure," you tell him. That sounds like the perfect distraction.

***

You're sitting on Jax's bed patiently waiting for him as he's taking care of his business in the bathroom. You get up and look around his bedroom. You didn't quite get a chance to do that last time. His room is pretty simple, typical of a guy his age. Bed, night stand and a dresser. Walls are a beige color with not much decoration if you don't count the pile of clothes shoved into the corner of his room. You walk over his dresser and notice a picture frame faced down. You pick it up and turn it over and see a picture of Jax and a brunette all cozy. That must be Tara.

You get startled when you hear the bedroom door close causing you to nearly drop the picture frame. You turn around and see Jax taking his kutte off and tossing it aside while looking you up and down. He notices what you're holding and then he walks over to you like a lion stalking his prey. He grabs the frame from you and places it back face down on the dresser like how you found it. He cups your face and leans in to roughly kiss you. You feel him push his tongue into your mouth and you welcome it. Jax's hands travel down to your ass and he grabs it underneath your dress, cupping it and pressing your body against his. You feel him hike your dress up and then feel a sharp sting on your ass from his hand. You yelp into his mouth.

You feel your Jax's hand in your hair and then your head getting pulled back.

"Are you my little cock whore?" Jax asks, looking down at you, his face only a mere centimeters away from yours. You recognize the darkness in his eyes from last time.

"Yes," you answer.

"Then show me," Jax commands. He lets your hair go and he starts unbuckling his belt and undoing his jeans.

The lion's hungry so you give him something that will hopefully satisfy his hunger. You slowly drop to your knees and watch as he pulls his jeans and boxers down to his knees. His thick cock springs out and you reach up to grab it. You watch him watch you as you slip it inside your mouth over your tongue. You slide in enough so that it wouldn't trigger your gag reflex at first but you suddenly remember what he said.

Lousy at giving blow jobs. That keeps echoing in your head and you feel inadequate even though he wasn't talking about you. Heck, you haven't even properly given him a blow job yet so he really can't judge anyways. Still, it makes you self-conscious about your own skills.

You've seen just enough porn, you think, to try to emulate the women when they deep throat and do all sorts of things that are supposed to be sexy to guys. Again, you don't know why you’re trying to impress this biker boy you barely know. Well, you know enough about him, but not who he really is. Jax is a mystery and is a bit of a closed book.

You push your head down and take in as much as you possibly could. You feel him hit the back of your throat and you gag. You pull him out and try again. This time you take your time, licking and kissing every surface of his cock. You spit on it and jerk it for a bit then you lift his dick and run the tip of your tongue over his balls. It's something you've seen in porn before. Jax groans.

You put your mouth back on his cock and try to deep throat him again. This time you have better control of your gag reflex and can hold it down longer. One of Jax's hands makes its way to the back of your head and you feel him push down a bit.

"Fuck, your mouth feels so good." Jax moans.

You finally gag and you pull back to gasp for air. You continue to stroke him, spreading your spit up and down his dick.

"Show me your tongue," Jax tells you.

You open your mouth and stick your tongue out, then look back up at him. There's something about the way he tells you what to do makes you want to do all the things he tells you to do. You're getting a rush out of this. Jax grabs his cock in his hand and slaps it against your tongue before sliding it back into your mouth. You bob your head up and down on it, sucking and slurping as you move. His hand is on your head again except he's holding your head in place as he starts moving his hips forward against your face.

"Fuck," Jax whispers as he closes his eyes and throws his head back.

You let him face fuck you until you gag on his cock again. He pulls out and gently smacks you in the face.

"Such a good fucking cock whore. Get on the bed."

You get up from your knees and walk over to the bed, but before you can climb in, you feel Jax bend you over the bed, holding you down with his hand on your upper back. You feel the skirt of your dress go up over to your waist again. You flinch when you feel Jax's fingers graze against your thong covered pussy. He pulls his hand away and you hear movement behind you. He then pulls your thong to the side and you feel pressure of the tip of his cock pushing against you.

"Jax, wait, did you put a condom on?" You start to turn around but he pushes you back down.

"Don't worry. I'm responsible. I got one on," he assures you and then shoves into you. You yelp and grab a handful of his sheets to brace yourself. Jax is pounding into you like there's no tomorrow. "Fuck, you're so tight."

You feel so full each time he thrusts into you. You feel Jax grab your arms and pull them behind you. He pins them behind your back, holding it down with one of his large hands and grabs a handful of your hair with the other, yanking your skull back.

This definitely feels like he's taking tips from porn as well, but he actually probably feels more confident in what he's doing then you did with the blow job. Never in your life did you ever think you'd experience anything like this because it didn't appeal to you, but it's actually thrilling and honestly, you want to satisfy Jax and don't want to disappoint him like that other woman did. Jax's hand leaves your wrists and your ass is met with a smack again.

"Who owns this pussy?" Jax asks.

"Y-you," you tell him. "You do."

He smacks your ass again and then you feel his fingers against your clit as continues to relentlessly punch his hips into you.

"You're going to cum for me when I say so. Are you going to be my good little cock whore and do that for me?" Jax grunts.

"Yes, Jax," you moan and close your eyes to focus on his hand stimulating the bundles of nerves.

"Shit! Cum for me now, whore." Jax moans and grunts as he feels you cumming on his dick.

"Oh, shit!" you cry out and thrust back to meet his hips. He continues to fuck you until he is all spent.

#charlie hunnam #charlie hunnam fanfiction #jax teller #jax teller x reader #jax teller x you #jax teller fanfiction #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy fanfiction

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curiosity-killed · 3 years

Note

For the " wish you'd write a fic" thing - JC takes in the Wens post Pheonix mountain, JGS realises that honey works better than vinnegar and tries to bribe wwx and MY has an ulterior motive to befriend WWX but it turns genuine and ends w WWX teaching JYL and JGY demonic cultivation so they can make a " weak/ no golden core" squad

LWJ is still caught in pine land, but the Jiang Sibs won't let him near wwx bcs they don't want to hurt him. JGY sees it and finds it entertaining

send me a summary for a fic you wish i’d write and i’ll write a tidbit

After the massacre of Lotus Pier, Wen Chao’s singular bloody victory, there were no elders left in the Yunmeng Jiang clan. It was obvious throughout the war, even as all sects moved with expediency over courtesy. Jiang Wanyin was alone at the head of his scorched sect with a head disciple grown unruly and overpowerful and a sister who had a charming smile but no true power except for her future marriage. And yet—

An old woman walks along the goldenwood boardwalk with a junior disciple supporting her right side.

Drawing his gaze back, Jin Guangyao finds Jiang Yanli smiling softly at him. She is a sweet woman, mild and considerate, and he hasn’t yet decided if she really missed all her mother’s legendary venom and steel or if it’s only disguised under the soft wrappings of silk and lotus petals.

“Please forgive my discourtesy,” he says. “There seems to be an abundance of new faces in Yunmeng Jiang.”

He couches it in polite bemusement, as if he doubts his own recollection. He doesn’t, of course. Su Minshan visited to pay his respects some months ago and reported strange crowds gathering under the nine-petaled lotus, servants sinking unwieldy bundles into the lake late at night. Jin Guangyao’s own memory is impeccable. If he has heard a song once, he will not miss a single note; if he has seen a face, he will not confuse it for another.

Wen Qing stood knee-deep in the edge of the lake when they arrived, her hair pulled up from her neck like a married woman.

“Refugees from the war,” Jiang Yanli explains with soft, sad eyes, “fleeing Wen Ruohan’s violence. So many have been in search of new homes, and after the war...”

She pauses, lips pressing together as her gaze dips to the side. It likely isn’t an act: Jin Guangyao has seen Jiang Yanli overcome with emotion more than once, tears pearling like drops of dew to break down her pale cheeks. Now, she draws in a steadying breath and assumes a pleasant look.

“We have room, you understand,” she says.

Perhaps this is all her pet project, a distraction from her failed betrothal. Jin Guangyao knows better than to brush women aside as too frivolous or petty for schemes and plots, but—contrary to all his hard-learned lessons, he can’t help thinking that Jiang Yanli is, simply, kind. She has so little power or say in her life, but she has always treated him pleasantly and always seems ready to open her heart to some unfortunate soul. It is, despite his efforts, difficult to truly believe that she might be engineering some strategy behind the guise of tearful smiles.

“Of course,” Jin Guangyao soothes. “Yunmeng Jiang’s hospitality is so generous, they must rejoice at the opportunity to join. It’s only that my father worries, you see. You must know how dearly he held your parents’ friendship, and seeing so many outsiders drawing close, he cannot help but worry that they are entering by exploiting a weak spot.”

Jin Guangshan’s worry might be more noble if it weren’t over the fear of losing his own place of influence with the unstable sect’s young leader, but then Jin Guangyao knows better than to expect nobility from gentry.

Drawing a breath, Jin Guangyao lowers his gaze to the tea sitting before him. When he looks back to Jiang Yanli, it’s with open worry in his gaze. The servants who sit behind her as chaperones share a look he can’t decipher in the moment, but he brushes it aside.

“After Wei Wuxian’s actions after the war,” he says as gently as a doctor placing needles, “Father fears that Jiang Wanyin may be the target of ambitious schemes.”

Jiang Yanli’s eyes widen just-so, and Jin Guangyao permits himself the smallest fraction of success. He isn’t really here to uproot the whole tree—only to nurture the seeds already planted by the war, by Wei Wuxian’s untamed recklessness during and after, by the very nature of being young and having centuries of legacy thrust into their safekeeping. It isn’t so hard to draw someone in, after all, if you make yours the only safe shelter from the storms of the world.

Sitting back slightly, Jiang Yanli dips her head briefly, and Jin Guangyao waits to see how he should arrange his next steps. Too heavy-handed and the fine struts of this work will shatter under the weight of the architect, but too light and it will slip away on the next tide. Jiang Yanli looks up, and it isn’t tears in her eyes but amusement, a secret joke in the faint curl of her lips.

“I thank you for your concern, Lianfang-zun,” she says, “but I assure you, Yunmeng Jiang is never stronger than when we are together.”

#fic summary ask game #mdzs #cql #jin guangyao #jiang yanli #my writing #this was hard LMAO #hit like separate 'never write' buttons in one go XD #so sorry i really just went 'oh wens in lotus pier? NICE' and then ran away adsjlhka

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revchainsaw · 3 years

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Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind (1984)

Prayers and Salutations Cult Members! I am your mysterious minister Reverend Chainsaw and this is another nights revival service at the Cult Film Tent Revival. I bring you a special word tonight. Tonight's word is about a person who roamed the earth, in a time where people were backward and warlike. A leader emerged into a kingdom full of eschatological expectation. This leader came preaching peace, and was killed for the sins of the world, but was resurrected. In that resurrection a new hope was brought to the planet, and true healing through the power of love in the face of violence is made possible. I am talking of course about Princess Nausicaa from the Valley of the Wind.

The Message

Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind is the film that put studio Ghibli and Hayoa Miyazaki on the map. No animated feature this grandiose and epic had been achieved by 1984, as much as Disney may beg to differ. The tale may be simple, and it may feel super 80s to us today, but Nausicaa is a masterpiece, and the fact that Howl's Moving Castle is brought up alongside Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away more often than Nausicaa is a farce and a tragedy.

The film takes place on a fantastic planet that seems to have suffered the ravages of an apocalyptic war. A war that involved gigantic warriors with powers so devastating they about made the entire planet inhospitable if not uninhabitable; save for a few areas. The fall out of this ancient war has left the earth in a state of repair, where the natural processes of a planet healing has creating giant toxic jungles.

Beyond these jungles lie two imperialistic factions, they seem almost to be city-states but it's not terribly clear. The Kingdom of Tolmekia, a militaristic proto-fascist society of almost Spartan sensibilities. Tolmekia is governed by the ambitious and cynical Princess Kushana, But I like to call her Furiosa. Just like Furiosa, Kushana is physically missing parts of herself, a visual metaphor for her metaphysical lacking and the parts of her humanity she has cut away. Kushana's world view is one of fear, a fear that can only be quelled by waging a genocidal campaign against her enemies.

Speaking of enemies, the Athens to Tolmekias Sparta would be the Pejite Kingdom. The Pejites might like to view themselves as simply responding to Tolmekian aggression, but the narrative of the film, and the story told quite visibly on the body of Kushana, is quite different. The Pejites are just as bloodthirsty if not more palettable in their approach, but like the Tolmekians, they believe only their own lives have any value. And thus, in this theatre of war, a Giant Warrior from the ages before is unearthed by the Pejite Kingdom, Stolen by the Tolmekians, before the forces of nature themselves, seem to conspire to drop the Giant Warriors "egg" right into the Valley of the Wind.

The Valley of the Wind is populated like the world of Avatar the Last Airbender, that is mostly of children and the elderly. The people of the Valley have been able to remain untouched by the ravages of war and the toxic jungles of the damaged world primarily due to geographic luck that's explained in minor exposition in the film. They are ruled by a King, and they are all deeply enamored by their beloved Princess Nausicaa.

Nausicaa is a gentle soul. She is kind to animals, she is empathetic, unreasonably patient, and bears pain and grief inflicted on her out of cruelty with a saintly understanding. She really is a thinly veiled Christ figure, scratch that. There is no veil. But she's also my favorite Christ figure. She does not preach a message, as much as she tries to save everyone from their own short sighted goals. She is not perfect, she does lash out and do some fantasy sword fight murder, but she regrets her actions so deeply that it seems to have played a part in motivating her to become even more compassionate and patient with the evils of the world.

Nausicaa discovers yet another plot by the Pejites, who are afraid of the possibility of the Tolmekians awakening the Giant Warrior, to use animal cruelty to enrage a group of almost invincible giant insects known as the Ohm. By luring the Ohm into the Valley of the Wind where the Tolmekians have become an occupying force, they hope to completely wipe out everything that threatens them. The Tolmekians DO awaken the Giant Warrior and pure pandemonium ensues. Nausicaa manages to save the Baby Ohm and calm the rage of the bloodthirsty Ohm swarm, and to defeat the warlike tendencies of both the Pejites and the Tolmekians. All the while fulfilling a prophecy fortold about a messianic savior figure called the Man in Blue.

Now that you have heard the Gospel of Nausicaa, please stand to receive The Benediction.

Best Character: Half a Person

Now that I've spent the better part of this review gushing about our Lord and savior Nausicaa. I have to admit, she's at times a bit too perfect, a bit too saccharin. Even her flaw, or her one weakness and her failing to be perfect, just adds to the perfection. I can't even say she never makes mistakes cuz she made one, and that's infuriating. It's even more infuriating that I still think she's a great character. Normally this kind of thing really kills a hero. Most Chosen Ones are the most boring and least likeable characters in their narratives. I don't know how Nausicaa avoids this trap, but she does. I'll have to do some meditating on that.

However, just like in your typical Chosen One fantasy narrative, the hero is a lot less fun than the villain. I'm going to say the best character in Nausicaa is Kushana. I want to be like Nausicaa, but I don't understand her. She's almost alien, even though we learn all about her. Kushana is mysterious, secretive, and enigmatic, yet I understand her. She barely has an arc, she doesn't really change. She's cold and cynical to the bone, but I don't need to see much of her situation to completely understand why she is the way she is. I usually hate totalitarian bad guys, but Kushana I like. Sue Me.

Also fun fact, did you that Nausicaa means 'Sinker of Ships'. That's kinda fun.

Best Scene: Spoiled for Choice

I'm going to be lazy and say take your pick. There is really not a bad seen in this movie. If the action isn't going, then there's intriguing dialogue. If there's no dialogue then you may be about to get hit with a forceful burst of whimsy. There's horror, there's swordfights and aerial dogfights. The only thing in Nausicaa I don't like to see, is the bloody tortured Ohm Baby. It's like a god damned Sarah Mclachlan commercial.

Best Creature: Foxy Shazam!

The Ohm are so simplistic yet so detailed. The number of eyes is alien, but the way they are used is expertly expressive. Who'd think you could get me to love what basically amounts to a silverfish with the intensity that I love a kitten. How did Miyazaki pull an Okja with a creature that should be haunting our dreams? I don't know.

And what about the Giant Warrior! If you are an Evangelion fan then you probably already know that Hideaki Anno designed and animated the melting goopy biomechanical beast. Surely a sight that would make both H.R. Giger and Clive Barker giddy with excitement. Just the image of the silhouettes marching amidst the desolation of the old world is burned into my brain.

So which of these is the best creature from Ghibli's first outing? It's fucking Teto. It was always gonna be Teto you idiot. Just look at Teto, he's adorable. He's too cute to exist. I'm so alone. I need a pet.

Best Character Design: Tolmekian Regalia

I originally included this category to talk some about Kushana, however, at that time I also thought I was going to say Nausicaa was the best character. I thought hard about deleting it, but I think it's a different category and you can't accuse me of playing favorites because my favorite character is clearly Teto. Just to keep it simple. It's the two costume shift from full military regalia in white and gold, to the one metal arm, warrior princess get up. It's a great costume and a great look. Get on this shit cosplay nerds. It's great for Cons in Canada, you have to think about layers, and you can't keep going as Mr. Plow. It's lazy.

Best Excuse to Talk About Patrick Stewart's Character: Lord Yupa

I just realized that I was about to write this whole review without talking about Lord Yupa. Lord Yupa is a sword saint and all around badass I think a lot of entertainment, especially in the west is lacking bad ass old men. Lord Yupa particularly shines in the early half of the film as a warrior and as a wise council to Nausicaa. If she's Jesus then Yupa is John the Baptist. He is also voiced by the elegant and eloquent Patrick Stewart. He also comes with 2 chocobos!

Worst Character: For Whom Asbel Tolls

This might also be the worst actor category as well. Actual Cannibal (haha meme) and actual monster (haha real life) Shia Labeouf doesn't so much act in the role as he read the lines and it was recorded. The good news it doesn't effect the film too much because Asbel is completely forgettable. He is a catalyst to some of the action, but besides that I don't really care for him.

Worst Aspect: To Be Fair ...

It would be unfair to completely ignore anything negative about Nausicaa. I have already mentioned in many places that there are some pretty corny, or pretty predictable tropes to this movie. But what I can't capture in words is exactly why it feels fresh when it's done in this movie. I suppose that's what makes it good. It's just so good that it's weak points are lifted up by it's strengths. Some people may bored of Nausicaa's unyielding goodness, or that she very rarely chooses to take action as much as she chases and pleads with her surroundings, but I mean, she does pay for that eventually. It's a fantasy story and it hits a lot of timeless themes that have been hit in stories for as long as human beings have been telling stories. Some people may feel that it doesn't do enough to stand out.

Summary

I have defined the S tier for myself as "near perfect and personal favorite" films. I like to think that Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind is near perfect. Some may say that it looks like it might just be a personal favorite. In the case of Nausicaa, I'm having a very hard time telling the difference. I think it would be overly simple to claim that Nausicaa is just an ancient archetypal heroes journey with an 80s anime coat of paint. I think it's doing quite a few new and interesting things with that formula, those things are just playing out all around that narrative as opposed to being at it's center. For a first full length outing by the studio, you can really see Miyazaki's heart and the values he holds close to. I'll repeat myself so that we are completely clear on the matter. I think Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind is a near perfect movie.

Overall Grade: S

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chaosstar290 · 4 years

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Reasons try out Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore.

Nintendo's been pretty casual with porting Wii U games over to the Switch, and for good reasons. Normally, I'm not all into porting games that I've already played, but my personal favorite games on the system that lack good marketing and advertising are now getting the attention and love they deserve.

Take Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for example, one of my favorite 2D platfomers. The game originally sold 1.72 million copies worldwide on the Wii U. Not very good numbers, huh? However, the Switch port managed to beat those sales numbers with 2.25 million units sold worldwide by the end of March 2019.

So while this could be seen as a way for Big N to earn more $$$, this is also a way for those who never owned a Wii U and missed out on some of the system's best titles to give these games a shot. Now we just need a port of Xenoblade Chronicles X and The Wonderful 101...and Star Fox Zero, I guess.

But that's a topic for another time. This post is specifically for my favorite JRPG on the Wii U only to be tied with Xenoblade Chronicles X....Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.

This'll be a long one, so here's hoping you'll stick with it until the end.

Development

Before I get into the reasons, lemme educate you guys a bit. Back in January 2013, both Atlus and Intelligent Systems made a teaser trailer for a potential Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem crossover for the Wii U.

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The trailer was mostly just a slideshow with various character artwork. Despite this, there was a decent amount of hype surrounding it. But development around the game was pretty silent. That is, until we fast forward to the Nintendo Direct in April 1, 2015. We got a trailer of the ambitious SMT x FE crossover that fans were waiting for...but this was the final product.

youtube

Needless to say...neither SMT nor FE fans were happy about this. The fandoms were incredibly salty and foaming at the mouths, basically calling it a Person 4 Lite with a hint of FE. Heck, they're probably still posts on this site from 5 years ago that'll show that.

Fast forward to the games initial release, and you'll see quite a few positive reviews and thoughts about TMS. Unfortunately, the sale numbers were not all that great for the game. Obvious reasons being that it was a Wii U game, and many fans of both SMT x FE were not happy with how it turned out.

And to be honest, I wasn't feeling the game myself at first. It seemed too lighthearted and upbeat, and the J-Pop, anime-ish aesthetics were very off-putting. However, the more I saw about the game, the more I was drawn into it. Somehow all that disappointment I had about TMS originally just washed away. And considering it was a new IP, I decided to give it a chance. And hoo boy...I was generally pleased.

With that outta the way, let's get into why I'm excited for the Switch port of game, and hoping people will give it a fairer chance.

The Setting

The plot of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is mostly simple. You start out as high schooler Itsuki Aoi, the main character of the game encountering his childhood friend Tsubasa Oribe at an audition event to become a idol. It isn't until moments later in the game that the area gets overruned by shadowy creatures known as Mirages that suck out the creative energy known as Perso-- ah I mean Performa from the other idols and audience.

Poor girl doesn't know what's gonna happen next.

Despite our main characters seeming unharmed by the effect, the Mirages drag Tsubasa into their world known as the Idolsphere. And of course, courageous Itsuki takes action to follow and rescue her.

After trying to make a daring rescue, Itsuki gets bombarded by a Mirage, but somehow manages to awaken it. Taking the form of Fire Emblem Awakening's protagonist Chrom. Itsuki does the same with the Mirage that captured Tsubasa that takes the form of Cedea from Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. The two awakaned Mirages, however, suffer from a bit of amnesia and can't quite remember who and what they are.

From there on, Itsuki and Tsubasa form a partnership with Chrom and Cedea, encountering various characters trying to reach their way to stardom while trying to draw back the opposing forces from taking over Tokyo and the world. Typical RPG stuff, am I right?

It's a fairly standard and slightly cliche plot with some common anime tropes, but for this game...it works. It's a plot that's incredibly silly, upbeat, and over-the-top, but again...it works for this game. And I love it. It may not be original, deep, or complex, but the story does its best to not take itself too seriously, and it doesn't fail to keep a smile in my face.

Aside from the vanilla cookie-cutter MC Itsuki, the various casts that you meet are incredibly charming, and go through their own personal growth as celebrities. Though you mileage may vary on this.

The Gameplay

The combat is the real star of Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Basically, it's your standard turn-based combat system...but with a few twists. If you've ever played a SMT or Persona game, then don't be surprised that elemental weaknesses make an appearance here. Along with that, the Triangle Weapon system from Fire Emblem also makes an appearance in the game.

But if you're not familiar with either franchise then give you a basic example how this works. Say that you've encountered an armored Mirage wielding an axe. The weaknesses on that enemy are both lightning and swords, and Itsuki just so happens to have both the necessary element and weapon equipped.

In case you're wondering...how the Triangle Weapon mechanic works in FE is that Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Lances, and Lances beat Swords.

The interesting thing about this is that once you exploit an enemy's weakness, other characters will jump in and combo extra attacks. These are called Sessions, and their not only powerful...but also flashy as all hell and it's glorious. Not only that, but there's also Duo Arts where two certain characters will sometimes perform a song that unleashes a powerful attack...which also strings up more Sessions. As broken as this sounds, it actually is pretty strategic for taking down harder enemies, and they can also form Sessions...so be careful.

There's more to the gameplay like roaming Tokyo, exploring dungeons, and upgrading your characters and Mirages by Tiki from Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon as well.

There's mixed opinions on the dungeon aspects of Tokyo Mirage Sessions, but...I personally enjoyed them. Aside from the first one. Once you get past the first dungeon, they get better as the game progresses. From exploring a darker version of Shibuya where you have to avoid giant cameras from sending you back to the entrance of the of the room you currently entered, to venturing through a maze-like TV studio.

There's also side-missions that you can do with your main cast that'll help them grow and develop even further. You'll be rewarded with either a special cutscene or a special attack. Or maybe both.

The Visuals

Go go...Persona Rangers?

If it wasn't obvious from the amount of images I'm posting, Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a very colorful game. Fitting with it's lighthearted theme, the amount of colors the game throws at you makes visuals aesthetically pleasing. Heck, you could make these your personal wallpaper on your phone or something.

Sure, Tokyo Mirage Sessions isn't nearly as strong as Persona 5 graphically or even artistically, but like most Nintendo games...what their games lack in terms of detailed ultra-hyper graphics, they make up for it with giving their games gorgeous artstyles.

Also, this game has some reeeeeally good artwork.

The Music

J-Pop plays a pretty big role in Tokyo Mirage Sessions, so expect a lot of vocal tracks. If you're not into this kind of genre of music, then you might wanna stray away from this game. If you are (or if it doesn't bother you), then you're in for a treat. As someone who really isn't into J-Pop myself, the songs in this game are incredible and catchy followed by some beautiful cutscenes. Reincarnation from Kiria Kurono and Feel from Tsubasa Oribe are some of my personal favorites.

The music from outside the vocal tracks are pretty good too. The normal battle theme and the Illusion Shibuya dungeon theme are just to name a couple.

What's New?

Like I said before, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore is a port of the Wii U version, but with added content. Any DLC that was added in the original game will part of the base game in the Switch version. But let's talk about the new stuff.

EX Story and Songs

The EX Story is basically a dungeon that you explore in short bursts. Here you'll find new costumes such as a Joker outfit from Persona 5 for Itsuki, or an Annette outfit from Fire Emblem Three Houses for Mamori Minamoto. Or you can have a much easier time grinding for EXP. Also, much like the side-stories, this dungeon will also explore the main casts' issues and help them grow.

New songs will also be added in this port. A duo song called "She is..." sung by Tsubasa and Kiria is one of them.

Sessions

By making Sessions even more powerful and ridiculous, unplayable characters like Tiki, Maiko Shimazaki, and Barry Goodman will also join in Sessions.

In addition, a Quick Session option will be added. Which is a major upgrade in my book. One of the big issues the Wii U version had was while the Sessions were fun to watch, they took forever to get through with the more characters that joined your party. There are also smaller improvements like the Switch version having faster loading times.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this long as hell post will spark some interest into those who'll give the game a shot. I know there's small nitpicks like the lack of English voice acting and censorship, but the latter is a topic I'd rather not delve deep into.

Regardless, these small cons are greatly outweighed by the large pros this charming game has. If you're an Atlus fan, a lover of JRPGs, or wanting to play something that'll ease the wait for Persona 5 Royal, I highly recommend you give Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE encore a shot.

If you're also waiting for Persona 5 to actually come to the Switch like me, this game is next best thing we've got for the time being.

This is one of the most stylish menu screens ever.

#tokyo mirage sessions fe #tokyo mirage sessions fe encore #atlus #intelligent systems #nintendo switch #wii u #persona #persona 5 #fire emblem #shin megami tensei

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