#(not 50/50 actually but hoo boi ;D)

[jq37]

So, that lady FH episode was amazing and all, but...

Hoo boy, I already see the discourse around the Ratgrinders' fates forming and it is going to be painful. Be careful around the fandom space.

(I mean, resurrection is still on the table for them, but that's based on if the players feel like it and right now, we're looking at 50/50 odds at bests)

Yeah, don't worry about me. This isn't my first rodeo and also I post a lot about D20 and respond to asks I get but I don't actually personally engage with any of The Discourse (tm).

And I'm not really surprised at the reaction. I know people have been opinionated all season in two main camps (that have a lot of overlap): people dissatisfied with the narrative direction and people deeply sympathetic to the Rat Grinders to the point of being mad at the Bad Kids.

The first camp I mostly understand. I get wishing the cast would explore a certain storyline more. For example, I've been on the Aelwyn redemption arc train since literally the first episode of Fantasy High so I was a little disappointed that when that finally came to a head in Freshman Year, it was a big fight and then very little aftermath/unpacking because Aelwyn was sent to jail right after. And Sophomore Year hadn't been announced so I had no idea that she was gonna get another shot. But I wasn't upset or anything. Adaine at that point still hated her sister. She had no reason to want to reach out. And at the end of the day this is other people playing a game. Brennan presented them all the possible plot threads and they were most interested in self discovery, hanging out with each other, doing Shenanigans, and playing Tomb Raider re: Ankarna. Those are all options they were presented and it's not like they were doing crazy off-roading. It's well within the parameters of what D&D is. If you're gonna watch a show like this (or honestly any show), you have to accept that what's most interesting to you isn't always going to be the most interesting thing to the people in the driver's seat.

So yeah, I feel like this side of things I get (even though I'm fine with how things turned out).

The other camp--people being legit mad at the Bad Kids (and in some cases the actual cast) for treating the Rat Grinders like antagonists instead of victims that they were responsible for empathizing with and redeeming--I find kind of wild.

Like…you're mad at the kids who go to Child Murder School for killing kids who want to end the world and kill them specifically? Literally the first day of school the principal of the school says that adventurers are violent wanderers who engage in shenanigans and enact violence. This is the exact assignment they were given and that's what they're doing.

I think it's wild to at the same time believe that the Rat Grinders (who have killed people) are not responsible for their actions and deserve to be talked down while in the process of causing an apocalypse because they're just kids who were manipulated while at the same time calling the Bad Kids evil lunatics for trying to stop them by killing them (in a world where Revivify and Resurrection exist) even though they are ALSO kids who are doing what they've learned at Child Murder School. The Bad Kids have to be mature enough to thoroughly investigate the situation and have nuance about it but the Rat Grinders don't have any responsibility to not join a shady evil murder plan*? And do the Bad Kids really hate the Rat Grinders to the point where they're doing some overkill in this fight? Absolutely. But it's not like they're killing them because they hate them. They're killing them because they're trying to end the world--and they also happen to hate them. Are we forgetting that Kipperlilly killed Buddy--her own teammate--with a gleeful smile on her face? That was so out of pocket.

They're adventurers! Not guidance counselors! If Jawbone was like, "We need to kill these kids," yeah that would be weird but why would the Bad Kids extend an olive branch to the kids who (1) famously hate them, (2) killed at least one maybe 2 of their own party members, (3) endangered the entire student body population an hour ago, (4) are currently trying to end the world. Hell, Adaine was ready to be mean to her own sister in elf jail literally up until the point Brennan described how rough she looked from the torture and that's when she changed her mind. The Power of Love and Empathy is on the menu but it's a special item you only can get if you know the chef. Everyone else is getting a serving of These Hands. Just because you can find a vegan solution to a problem it doesn't mean you're obligated to.

This all comes down to, "Maybe teenagers shouldn't have godlike powers and the ability to play judge, jury, and executioner" but that's literally the premise of the entire show so you can't get around it without rejecting the show's entire premise. If they were like, "Hmm the systems that underpin our world are questionable and we should change the power structures" instead of, "Let's kill some bad guys!" then that's a totally different thing we're doing here!

And, idk man, this show has always had a Who Framed Roger Rabbit style morality where the normal rules of ethics stop applying when it's funny. They beat the crud out of Ragh and then lied to him that he shit his pants just for the bit. A pirate was rude/kinda racist to Riz so they scared him into killing himself. Riz ate the remains of the sentient (albiet evil) dragon he killed. That's all unhinged behavior but none of that is meant to be serious. Getting upset about Fig sending Ruben to hell to me feels like getting mad that Jerry hit Tom with a cartoonishly large mallet.

None of this is new so I have to assume that people are having a big reaction because they relate to the Rat Grinders or just really like them so it feels bad that the Bad Kids are treating them like fodder rather than beloved NPCs.

But again, this is a world where you can bring people back from the dead and the Rat Grinders have showed intent that is grievously neglectful at best and insanely murderous at worst so I can't muster a lot of sympathy for the fact that the Bad Kids are just taking them down without remorse. I don't think you have to try to empathize with the people who are trying to harm you if you don't want to especially while they are in the process of harming you.

(*And we still don't know how voluntarily they joined this plan. We don't know if they were killed and basically forced into resurrecting with rage or if they just leapt at the chance to join a plan that would let them get one over on their rivals. It literally could be either. We've had kid villains on this show strong armed into being party to evil plans by threat of harm (Aelwyn) as well was kid villains who just had their own selfish motivations and weren't tricked at all (Penelope and Biz). We actually don't have any clear answer on how culpable they are. We don't know if they all have rage crystals (except for Buddy). And we don't know how much having a Rage Crystal effects your actions. The best indicator we got is in this latest ep when Brennan said that there was a mechanic where Porter was going to call anyone with a rage crystal to fight for him but that says to me that he's only directly puppeting them when he uses that action and otherwise they have free will and are just angrier. The Bad Kids don't have a reason to believe definitively that the Rat Grinders are just unwilling puppets even if that is the case so of course they're treating them like enemies. Anyway, this is a whole lot of "I don't knows" but that's only because I've seen a lot of people talking like the Rat Grinders literally aren't in control of their actions but that's not info that we have. It could be true but we don't actually know that so it's not a good argument.)

[jurakan]

For some reason I cannot find a way to search through your posts, so I have no way of fact-checking this, but I would think that by now you've done at least one fun fact on the Emu War in Australia, correct? And even if you have, I'd love to read up on one of my favorite historical events of all time :D

So I don't have a search feature, as I mostly rely on tags (posts about the Emu War are in the Australia tag), and I haven't talked about the Emu War for a Fun Fact it seems! So! Today You Learned about the Emu War!

In the years after World War I, veterans in Australia were given large pieces of land so that they could become farmers. Australian government figured it had to do something with all of that land, after all. Then the Great Depression happened, and things were rough, were the government promising assistance that never came.

And then, in September of 1932, there was a historic drought in Australia. And emus? They migrate. That's a thing they do. And fleeing drought conditions, they found huge chunks of land with a butt-ton of wheat, and water for irrigation. Free food? Free drink? Well of course the emus thought it would be a great thing to just hang out in those places. All, y'know, 20,000 of them.

Twenty thousand emus what the fudge

Some of these veterans went to Minister of Defence (because Australians, like Brits, can't spell 'Defense') George Pearce, who agreed that they should deploy machine guns on these overgrown pigeons. This was a silly move, but some suspect that it was meant to cool tensions between government and soldiers, and make it look like the government cared about what happened to its veterans. Or maybe Pearce genuinely thought shooting up emus was a good idea, I don't know.

In any case, the Emu War began in October of 1932. Or rather, that's when it was sort of declared. The first "battle" was to be at the beginning of November, but it was delayed a day due to rain.

Ridiculousness ensued.

See, the first "battle" involved trying to lure the birds into an ambush, which didn't quite work because their flocks split up. The first round of fire wasn't effective, but eventually they did kill some emus. Two days later, on November 4, a flock of some one thousand emus was spotted, cornered, and fired upon--the soldiers managed to kill 12.

TWELVE.

OUT OF A THOUSAND.

Hoo boy.

The "campaign" continued for a while but ultimately led to not that many emus being killed. The press was having a field day with this, and military leaders noted that emus are surprisingly maneuverable, even when wounded. One officer even compared the emus to Zulu warriors.

On November 8, the Australian forces withdrew. However, the emu problem remained, so on November 12, Pearce approved more attacks. And in this round, it was actually effective; the soldiers managed to actually kill quite a few hundred emus, and the government considered this a success, though as you can imagine there are tons of people who have a problem with the government lending machine guns to kill wildlife, especially once news of this hit the UK, but... yeah. Despite what people say, the second phase of the Emu War was actually sort of successful?

But did anyone really win?

Anyway, they started putting up fences to keep the emus out, and in the 50's the Australian government approved more ammunition in case the farmers needed it.

Also, there's apparently an action comedy movie adaptation in the works written by John Cleese.

[rainbowgod666]

...ok. rant incoming

Look away if you arent like subscribed to LazerPig or something

See, my equivalent of "i would like to award you the highest honor i can bestow" is telling somebody that something looks like i made it, because trust me, my drawings look like shit because I cant draw but if you could see what I concieved in my head? Hoo boy

However.

This compliment of mine can also unironically used as a "dude what the fuck" because like- LOOK AT THAT THING

Compare it to the Leman Russ from warhammer 40k

Large fat boy with a lot of "dakka", a main gun that shoots bullets the size of a person, name after the furry viking primarch, there is one word to describe this rather large multiterrain boy, in the words of the youtuber Hoot:

Or hell, lets use the most obvious examples: the WWI MKV english tank, and the M1A1 abrams

The first one shows the necessities of a war like no other: back then WWI was called "the war to end all wars" and it was a constant run to see what "clicked", resulting in tanks like the MKV from britain, big, fat, slow as shit and not THAT thickly armored all things considered (the Barrett M82 video from Ahoy has a clip about this because come on .50 BMG just HAD to come from somewhere, right?) But D A Y U M did it get the job done. You saw one of these and all reactions were varying degrees of wtf

The second one shows a tank like the ones we know: big tracks, turret on top that is a BEEG KANONEN and full of that american sauce that youre goated with after a tour in Middle East, you hop on one of these and break the kneecaps of anything in front of you (so be careful where you aim that shit). War criminal since 2001 and hella fucking proud of it in a way only an american (tank) can be.

But THIS FUCKING THING?

Oh dear lord up in thy heavens where do i even fucking START.

Its right side is all battery, its LEFT side its all GUN. Its only reason for anti-tank mine immunity is how TALL is this fucker. The only normal thing about this heresy towards the omnissiah is the main gun and MAYBE the frontal side guns

Also anti tank mine immunity? I meant partial immunity because first mine that hits the tracks YOURE DONE SON

Dear lord, what the actual fuck man

Armored core 6: if HORUS from Lancer-RPG was real in this universe it would actually make more sense than some of these things

oh look it's the CATAPHRACT from Armored Core VI

PCA engineering: beyond my understanding

[zu-is-here]

la la love wins ♡

[pyonzzz]

Based on your theme, i assume you like genshin! Im curious what is your main team?:D

THIS IS A FUNNY QUESTION BECAUSE I HAVE 3 ACCS AKSVSKSBSKS (its a long story)

on my main acc (ar 50) its hu tao, diona, xingqiu, and raiden! it used to be xiao instead of raiden (my beloved first 5☆ i got at ar33) but then i got raiden and. hoo boy i love women. shes so good with hu tao i love making my enemies spontaneously combust

on alt 1 its albedo, yanfei, chongyun, and fischl!! as you can tell i love the overload reaction www... this acc is really just my lore studying acc, hence why is just barely starting the liyue questline, because i wanted a refresher. my friend had a spare acc with guaranteed after pulling keqing on the raiden banner, so he gave it to me and i got albedo for self indulgence and self care ♡♡

on alt 2... its stuck with an alternative team because as much as i want my ACTUAL main team... someone got inazuma characters before finishing the liyue quests.... i got this acc because i had let my friend use my main for a while since their acc was stolen and i wanted a lore refresh (this was before alt 1). it WOULD be kokomi, yoimiya, beidou, and rosaria.... but for now its rosaria, xingqiu, beidou, and xiangling. now im also really attached to xiangling, so you can see the confliction with my desired team and my emotions HAHA

have i mentioned im obsessed with genshin? im obsessed with genshin AKSBAKDBD

[renatogpadilla]

FFVI as a D&D Campaign:

OK, so I've been watching "Critical Role" (Campaign 1, Episode 31, no spoilers!) a LOT lately and it got me thinking how FFVI (arguably the BEST "Final Fantasy" game out there) is essentialy that. The biggest moments could be atributted to CRAZY rolls! I can see each of the characters being played by one of the people at the table! * Marisha as Terra Branford: Would be phenomenal. Her mentality is kinda in-line with Keyleth's. The "Kill Their Own Emotions" moment in the boat shakes the table as a whole. And when it's time to run an orphanage and protect her kids from Humbaba, the emotion in her voice destroys everyone in the Party. The "Mama?" moment becomes the most fan-arted moment for her character until the final fight. Her Trance ability is agreed to be the coolest looking skill at the table. To say nothing of the way she'd react to the whole Slave Crown bussiness!

Matt: "She killed 50 imperial soldiers in a few minutes." Marisha, and the whole table: *S H A K I N G*

* Taliesin as Locke Cole: "Treasure Hunter!" every single time somebody calls him a thief or a rogue. The "Rachel" story would be absolutely heartbreaking with Taliesin's expressions. The solo-sneak through the town while meeting Celes would be one of the highlights of the Campaign... That and his frienship with Terra would only be accentuated by Taliesin's and Marisha's irl friendship. Not to mention him puking on the ship would serve as some comedic timing straight out of "Critical Role"! Also, "That bow looks good on you" LAUNCHES the ship to heights undreamt of.

* Sam as Edgar Figaro: I mean, COME ON! IT WRITES ITSELF! Besides, it would be enjoyable to see him use his -Artificer- Machinist abilities as creatively as he does! Can you IMAGINE him rolling high enough one day and then he just creates the Noiseblaster? And with that he pulls out the microphone every time he uses it and proceeds to shout some thing Scanlan would be proud of... Not to mention his friendship with Sabin would be amazing if played by Sam! "The little shrimp has become a mighty Lobster!" You can HEAR Sam Riegel's voice come out of that! And the two headed coin? Now THAT's a Scanlan! This without mentioning the violations of the Geneva Convention that the Bioblaster would certainly entail...

* Laura as Celes Chere: I mean, OBVIOUSLY. Meeting Locke in the dungeon? The apparent betrayal? THE OPERA HOUSE?! "I'm a former General, not some... Opera floozy!" TELL ME you don't hear Laura Bailey saying that! And then she rolls a Natural 20 on performance and EVERYONE looses their shit! Her Runic ability is the target of MANY close saves. Also, the way Locke and Celes' interactions happen, she'd be perfect opposite Taliesin. The chat on the bridge in Albrook? HEARTSTOPPING. The attempted suicide? You KNOW Matt would call the sesion there!

* Travis as Sabin Figaro: This one was obvious. Monk/Barb that gets mistaken for a bear, and acts like an absolute teddy bear around Terra? Yes. Gods above, YES. "You think a tiny thing like the end of the world was going to be enough to keep me down?" You heard Grog too, right? The moments would be worth MILLIONS. The Opera house and Travis going "Why is everyone singing?" and then getting more and more into it! Him holding up the house for Celes! "MISTER THOU"... But best of all, and probably the single most famous Sabin moment EVER, The Phantom Train:

Matt: The train tracks suddenly lurch to the side. Even after this long and hard-fought battle it seems *chukles* it seems this train isn't letting you get away with your lives. That brings us to you, Travis! Travis, on his 5000 IQ shit: I grapple the train.

Entire Table: ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?!?!

Matt: No way in hell are you gonna- You know what? Roll for it. *Picks up dice for the Train* Taliesin: He's dead. He's so fucking dea-

Travis: NATURAL 20.

Entire Table: *Silent disbelief, everyone looks at Matt*.

Matt: *Also in disbelief* ...Rolled a 1.

Entire Table: *Inintelligeble gasping and hyperventilating*

Travis: I'm going to use my last Blitz as Meteor Strike and suplex the Train!

Matt: *Looking at the sheet, knowing damn well what's about to happen* Go ahead and roll for damage...

Travis: *Rolls for damage*

Matt: *Braces for impact* How do you wanna do this?

Entire Table and the Internet: *EXPLODES*

The Fanart keeps coming, even YEARS after the Campaign is done...

* Liam as Setzer Gabbiani: Since he's LITERALY "Mister Steal Your Girl", I think Liam would be PERFECT. Just imagine him getting set up as this suave and smooth rougue who wanted to kidnap a beautiful singer and then gets Laura instead! (Which isn't entirely wrong...) IMAGINE his expresions and his dissapearing under the table laughing as the others barely climb aboard The Blackjack. THE ENTIRE PARTY giving him shit for a low roll on a Wisdom Check (the double-headed coin) and him segwaying that into joining the party, only to find out that he actually knew all along... Priceless. The total and undistilled heartbreak as his ship falls apart, him trying to reach out for Terra and everyone falling on different places. And then meeting Celes a year later and doing the whole Daryll story... Liam would be the one to steal the audience every time he takes the spotlight! Though he would be a little like Percy in the sense that he doesn't get much to do until his arc happens.

"Money, Money, Money!" every time he throws coins to attack, the loaded dice (in character, not at the table?) and the card throws would make him so stylish in a D&D setting I'll be surprised if somebody hasn't done it already.

* Ashley as Relm Arrowny: She takes forever to join because of her constantly being away for filming, but once she's here? HOO BOY, does the fun keep coming! Her paintings coming alive and helping them fight? Her giving Sam shit for Edgar's love life? "Fuddy-Duddy!" becoming A Thing? All of those moments would be hilarious... But probably her most notorious moment comes when they find her a year later, serving a posessed brush, telling her to paint, paint, paint under the Magic House... "Keep painting until I'm complete..." The party snaps her out of it before she finishes the greatest painting she's ever done, her Magnum Opus, and then the painting coming alive prematurely in order to force her to finish... To give her form. And then the Lakshmi boss fight happens... Matt: And with the last of her strength gone, the banshee-like apparition dissipates into mist, and before any of you can react, Relm's magic brush begins to glow, like it had when you first came in here. The glow slowly creeps off the hairs and darts! Off towards the mistified form of it's mistress, enveloping itself into a thicc layer on top of the mist, swirling around... and around and around.

Ashley: Oh god, now what?

Matt: The colors dissipate, and Lakshmi unleashes a terrible wail! *DM monster noises* As it is now joined with this colorful cloud... And it compresses, smaller and smaller... And more solid until it's not mist anymore.

Marisha: *Gets it* ¡WAIT A MINUTE!

Travis: *Exited* ¡OH SHIT, HOLD ON!

Matt: The fog dissipates... And the calm returns to Relm's senses. Ashley you are now holding an innert, ordinary paint brush. However! Floating in the air, you see a crystal with a small glowing core, the particular essence of Life embeded in the middle, Terra you *points at Marisha* feel this and recognize it instantly, as it falls to the ground, and bounces a couple times... A brand new shard of Magicite.

Party: *FERAL LOOTING*

"Lakshmi" becomes the most PAINFUL fanart to make, and it's ALWAYS the one that's valued the most among the fandom.

The rest of the Party (Strago, Umaro, Mog, Cyan, Gau and GoGo) can be the guests that come over every once in a while (I particualrly see Wil Wheaton as Strago Magus, Mary McGlynn as GoGo and Will Friedle as Clyde "Shadow" Arrowny) with Shadow coming and going with the excuse that "His contract is up" (and let's face it, after surviving/witnessing the Phantom Train? My contract would be up too...) and coming back whenever his schedule/the plot allows. Eventually, everyone comes together for one last session and the battle with God Kefka. Setting their affairs in order, the reveal of who Shadow really is during a lone chat with Strago shakes the Critters to their core. Everything makes sense! Why Interceptor went straight to Relm when they met... Why his nightmares kept showing a village of magic users, yet they never mention Shadow in Thamasa! The group is RATTLED and wether or not he survives at the end becomes a HEATED argument between everyone at the table. Only Strago knows the truth...

The sendoff on The Falcon with everyone saying goodbye and seeing what the World will bring next is regarded as one of the most emotional scenes in "Critical Role" history... But the most completely DESTRUCTIVE force in this entire cast is Matt Mercer as Kefka Palazzo:

The personality... the narrative... The absolute slime in his voice when he poisons Doma. When he kills Leo and brings forth the Light of Judgement. Matt definitely has his moments playing Ultros. He's fun! And Emperor Ghestal was more of a political "Darth Sidious" villain. But Kefka? OH, LORD. NOBODY was ready for Kefka. "Enjoy the barbicue!" gets memed to no end, while also sending a horrible shiver down people's spine whenever somebody brings it up. Truly, the villain to end all villains. I can see it happen so vividly... If anybody wants to talk about this more, PLEASE hit me up! This just feels too good! Until off course the party moves on to their next Campaign in the setting for "Final Fantasy 5" but that's a whole OTHER can of worms!

[mamawasatesttube]

AND THAT'S A WRAP, FOLKS!!!!

so... which one was the lie?

(drumroll, please...)

"He once threw the Daily Planet globe at Superman."

congratulations to the 5.3% of you who got it right!!! kon has never thrown the globe at superman; i just made that one up bc it sounded funny. get bamboozled!!

as for the rest, explanations and citations below!!! :D

1. He tricked an intergalactic capitalist out of $10 billion in profits off a race.

superboy (1994) #58

yeah this one isnt all that out there comparatively, huh? still, its an arc i deeply enjoyed. demolition run my beloved. it's also just one i enjoy a lot bc it IS a moment of kon being a) really good at thinking on his feet, and b) understanding people he's just met. he calls himself stupid all the time, but he's actually pretty smart!!!

3. He condemned a cyborg woman to eternity floating in space, unable to die.

superboy (1994) #90

HOO BOY I LOVE IT WHEN HE GOES APE SHITT!!!!!!! this woman, amanda spence, is responsible for creating match as well as killing tana (can't blame her for that one lol) and also being a goddamn eugenicist. she's been hurting people kon loves for a long time by this point, and he Fucking Snaps.

"she said she didn't need to breathe. said she had no heart. said she couldn't die. fine by me. but she'll pay. she wants to be eternal... i give her eternity, floating in cold nothing." this is one of kon's most metal quotes ever, in my opinion.

4. He stole a baby and went on the run from the government.

superboy (1994) #88

this is arc is part of the leadup to "our worlds at war" and it is, imo, one of the best arcs in the entire run. guardian is dead, and somehow recloned into a baby, which is classified as property of cadmus and the us govt. but kon knows they're going to force him back into fighting, and he knows guardian's last wish was that he actually be allowed to die and rest, not just keep getting forced back into the battlefield. so he takes that baby and runs.

i love this arc bc it goes hard on a lot of sb94's "clone personhood and bodily autonomy" themes. the fucky thorny morality issues leading into wartime (can guardian's dying wish be used to deny earth an army against apokolips? etc) are handled fairly well and with proper weight, and it's just. ough. kon i have feelings about you.

5. He spent two months being enslaved by furries while on mind-control drugs.

superboy (1994) #50

i dont even know what to say abt this arc. it makes me insane. its SO fucked up if you think about it for more than 0.4 seconds (he was enslaved and kept on mind-altering drugs for TWO MONTHS STRAIGHT and then was so lonely he immediately forgave the people who enslaved him.) but also like... furries????????? lol????

6. He vocally supports his gay superhero friend, who has an alien boyfriend.

superboy and the ravers #13, #19

these two pages are from different issues of the ravers, but refer to the same character: hero cruz!! i love him. he's a gay black man who realizes he's gay, breaks up with his girlfriend, and gets an alien boyfriend. his ex doesn't take it well and spews a lot of homophobia for the rest of the run, but kon defends him against her. which is notable to me bc this comic was written in the late 90s.

in general i just love the ravers. theyre a good squad!!! gay rights.

7. A canon alternate universe version of him is a cowboy named Kid Kon-El.

superboy (1994) #64

hypertime arc my BELOVED. this is one of my other fav arcs in sb94!! kon goes on a multiverse-hopping adventurer to stop a conqueror named black zero from trying to subjugate as many realities as he can get his hands on. there are a bunch of alternate timeline kons in here, including our beloved robin kon who took up the mantle after his tim's untimely death. look at kid kon-el and his legendary telekinetic lasso. YEE-HAW!

8. He got into a fistfight with Kara Zor-El's mother.

supergirl (2005) #51

now in kon's defense, alura started it. ksdjhfkjds

this is part of the last stand of new krypton event!!! it's a bit of an undertaking but the story is really fun. the entire new krypton saga is dear to me (although. i have not read war of the supermen and i dont know if i ever will have the strength to. they turned the fucking sun red i gotta leave.)

for those unaware, alura zor-el survived the destruction of krypton because she and her husband were in the city of kandor, which got bottled by brainiac. when clark rescued kandor from him, they (and another ~100k kryptonians) were freed! "new krypton" is the story where that happens. its Good.

9. When homeless, he ended up living in a part of Metropolis called "Suicide Slum".

superboy (1994) #94

if youre thinking "hey. this sucks?" you're right. that's a homeless 16yo getting drawn in by a predatory landlord and its played for laughs. its also not the worst part of this issue! dan didio when i get my hands on you.

after the end of "our worlds at war", cadmus, where kon had been living since he left hawaii (after furry slavery arc, actually), disappeared. the research went underground and the facilities were abandoned. kon was homeless and living out of yj headquarters. after a fight with cassie, he decided to find his own place to live. this... is the direction didio went with it. it's not great. after 6 issues, the run got cancelled and in issue #100 (the last one), superman finds out kon's been living in the goddamn suicide slum and goes hey. no. and takes him to live on the kent farm instead.

10. He has a special hand-stamp that teleports him to an intergalactic rave.

superboy and the ravers #1

hell yeah baby!! the hand-stamps are an integral plot point during the genesis event that happens partways through this run. their instantaneous teleportation capability is a whole Thing.

this is the second part of my pitch to get more people to read ravers btw. it's just fun!! theyre silly!! also the first half of it has the prettiest kons ever. ♥

11. He never actually watched Star Wars because it was downloaded into his head at Cadmus.

adventures of superman #506

MAN people really thought this one was fake!!! i was surprised, i thought more people had seen this panel or heard of people talking about aos#506. i probably live in an insulated superboy bubble.

but yeah! cadmus canonically downloaded star wars into his brain in the tube. he also references star trek at the end of this issue, implying that was also downloaded in there, given that he's barely been alive for a few weeks at this point.

12. He discovered a magic zombie collective city under a silo in Smallville.

superboy (2011) #8

sb11 my beloved. this run is just kon having small town adventures and its soooo dear to me. he basically acquires a gang of small town closeted queers in high school. like, what closeted small town gay hasnt done that?? i know i have.

my fav detail about the first page i cited here is that while poor simon and sajan are walking down all those stairs, kon and krypto are just fucking floating down the middle of the stairwell. ldkjflkdjl

okay yippee thats it!!! thanks for reading!!! if you want to talk abt any of these (or other kon facts) my askbox is always open for kon :)

i got bit by the "two eleven truths and a lie" bug, so heres a lil quiz!!

if you follow me you PROBABLY know the answer. or at least can rule several of these out. but hey if you know, don't say it until the poll's over!!! rb and tag with what you guessed/if you Know, i wanna see if i made it too easy :3

*11th choice should say "at Cadmus", it got cut off and i didn't notice and i can't edit the poll :(

[everyonesonthespectrum]

30 days of Autism Acceptance: Day 3!

April 3: Talk about special interests. Do you have any? What are they? How long have you had them? What does it feel like to have special interests? What does having special interests mean to you? Talk about your past special interests

HOO BOY! Ok, I’ll try not to go on too long about my special interests, but I have a lot to say about them! Also, some of my special interests are in this weird grey area of “are they a SpIn or a hyperfixation?”, so I’ll cover those as well, and make it noted when that’s the case for one. Also, this will be VERY LONG, so I’ll put it under a cut.

SpIn #1 - Pokemon

Pokemon has been my main special interest since I was 9, I believe! Black was my first game that I got for my birthday, and I was super happy to get it since all of my friends at the time would talk about it! I’ve gotten (almost?) every major release since then, thought I usually only get one out of the two versions. 

The Pokemon games that I have are *inhales*: Black, Black 2, HeartGold (got a few years after it came out), X (I have the limited edition 3DS), Alpha Sapphire, Moon (first completed Pokedex!), Ultra Moon (haven’t beat and probably never will), Let’s Go, Eevee!, Sword (still trying to beat), Conquest, Art Academy, PMD: Gates to Infinity, Picross, Rumble World, Battle Trozei, Pokemon Quest, Pokemon Playhouse (for when I’m regressed), Poke Park 1 & 2,  My Pokemon Ranch, and Battle Revolution!

I also used to play the TCG competitively, and in my first competition, I placed 9th in my division! I stopped playing about a year after that though because the cards I used in my strategy when I would practice with my Dad were too old to be viable.

I have a growing stuffie and merch collection as well! I have a lot of Unova stuffies, and a print of the Unova map that I got at a ren faire when I was younger (it currently hangs above my dresser)! My two favorite stuffies at this time are Baby my Eevee Build-A-Bear (named after my Eevee in Let’s Go, Eevee!), and Lily my Wooloo! I have a couple of Pokemon sketch cards that friends of my Dad’s drew, and some prints and figure-y things I’ve gotten in Artist Alleys over the years!

I also own a couple of different Pokemon books (not the manga, though), and 2 of the movies, along with the OSTs for B/W, X/Y, and ORAS! I don’t have much as far as clothing goes though, except for my “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” scarf and a Pikachu hat I got at an old anime store at the mall that has since closed. That’s probably all I can remember right now!

SpIn #2 - Steam Powered Giraffe

SPG has been a special interest for about 4 years now? Anyway, they’re my #1 favorite band and have literally saved my life. Watching Bunny Bennett’s (who plays Rabbit) vlogs about her transition, along with listening to the song Transform that she wrote (waaay before they just made it a single) really helped me accept myself and come out. 

They also came at a time where I was struggling emotionally a lot, and I remember being stuck in the ER hooked up to an IV, and my mom played some of their albums for me to keep me calm and grounded. More recently, I saw them perform at Anime Midwest last year, and when they performed Transform (which neither me or my friends expected), we were all hugging each other and crying tears of joy (my friends are trans as well, and have also been touched by Bunny’s vlogs).

Their songs (not including the sad ones) make me really happy as well, and Make Believe makes me stim a lot in particular! I also got to sing Honeybee as part of a voice coaching summer camp I took last year, and it felt really good to do it! I really recommend listening to them, especially if you like steampunk and/or you’re looking for trans artists to support!

SpIn #3 - Little Shop of Horrors

So this is more of a fairly recent one, compared to the first two. This special interest mostly applies to the 1986 movie, but I’ve seen the stage musical as well! The music, the cast, the plot, it’s all *chef’s kiss*. But for real though, my two favorite things about the movie are the practical effects and the endings.

With the CGI fresh hell we got with CATS, you may thing, “wow, special effects were so much better back then”. Except here’s the thing, they were practical effects. Audrey II is (I believe) entirely puppetry, not CGI. The same applies for the musical as well! It really culminated at the end of the film during “Mean Green Mother from Outer Space”, when Audrey II is at it’s biggest and most elaborate. Speaking of that scene, I much prefer the director’s cut over the theatrical cut. I know that the happy ending is much better for Audrey and Seymour, but “Don’t Feed The Plants” is an absolute banger, and I get a good cry out of it too.

I heard they might be making a remake of the movie, which I’m hesitant about, again, seeing how CATS turned out. We can only hope that they listen to the fans, and make the right decisions when it comes to making it.

SpIn #4 - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Ok, so this is one of those aformentioned “is it a SpIn or a hyperfixation” moments. I’ve been hyperfixated on JJBA for the past 6 months and I’m physically unable to shut up about it XD

I’m about to start watching part 4 of the anime, I just need to set aside time to do it. I watched it a tad out of order, my ex told me to skip part 1 and watch a synopsis of it, so I started with part 2 (I’m a huge part 2 stan btw), got to part 3, was confused by everything going on with DIO, so I went back, watched part 1, and then resumed part 3.

As I mentioned, I’m a huge part 2 stan, so I currently have several part 2 character cosplays in the works. This includes (but isn’t limited to) Caesar, Suzi Q, Playboy Bunny Caesar (inspired by a piece of art that @tinypalettes drew), Tequila Joseph (but like,, actually decent drag), and Cleric Suzi Q from the JJBA D&D session me and my friends are having. I also want to do a drag/latex DIO look, along with maid DIO inspired by an old JUMP cover and a fanfic I read the other day.

I get a little nervous about doing/going to JJBA events at conventions because I’m worried about running into my ex, but knowing that I have supportive people with me helps a lot.

SpIn #5 - Homestuck/Hiveswap

So this is another one of those “SpIn or hyperfixation” moments as well. I’ve been into Homestuck since late 2016, but I’ve never been super involved in the fandom. Like, yes, I have a moirail and I’ve been in and hosted panels at conventions, but I’ve encountered some toxic people in it, so I try to distance myself.

I will say, however, that Homestucks are loyal to their fandom, and will buy merch if they like it. When I say that, yes, I mean myself, but it’s mostly about my Etsy customers. If you look at my sales history, the majority of it is quadrant necklaces, almost always the moirail ones. I get some orders for horns and pillows too, but not as often as the necklaces. When it comes to exhibiting at conventions, it depends. I normally don’t put Homestuck stuff out on the table because it’s such a niche, but when I do, people will usually buy a lot at once. For example, at Wizard World Madison in 2018, one guy bought $50-60 worth of Homestuck sprites from me. That weekend was the best I’ve ever done, and I haven’t come close since. My Etsy store started out as just me making Homestuck sprites for me and my friends too, so I’m glad that I was able to expand and give others what I like as well.

I’m also involved in a Hiveswap YouTube musical, and I’ve made a lot of good friends through it! We’re on hiatus right now, but we should be starting up again soon! I also have a lot of Homestuck cosplays! I’ve done Karkat, John, Jade, Nepeta, Trickster Nepeta, Karkat Peixes (a bloodswap), and I have a lot more that I want to do!

SpIn #6 - Danganronpa

So Danganronpa is (probably) one of those last “SpIn or hyperfixation” things. I’ve been into Danganronpa since 2018 (I think?), and DR:AE is my favorite (mostly because I’m a Kotoko and Toko kinnie oof-)!

Right now, my only Danganronpa cosplay is Toko/Syo, but I’m working on a couple of j-fashion (particularly menhera and fairy kei) inspired looks to do with my moirail (who was the one who got me into j-fashion), and just some Amazon/eBay cosplays as well! I’m also working on a Future Foundation Toko cosplay to do with my moirail so we can do Tokomaru together (though most of it is thrifting and clothes I already have)!

I own DR1, SDR2, and DR:AE on my computer, but I don’t play them much. The second trial in DR1 gives me panic attacks because of the whole breaking of trust thing (I’ve heard the audios and I just,,, break down), I haven’t touched SDR2 yet, and I’m sucky at the controls for DR:AE. However, I’ve watched the anime and I’ve seen let’s plays, so I have a feel for what’s going on, though I may not remember it all correctly since I haven’t watched them in a while.

———————————–

So that’s most (if not all) of my special interests! I probably forgot some, but it’s getting late and I need to pack for my Mom’s and go to bed. I hope you all have a good night!

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

HypMic 7 - 9 | Maou-jou 5 - 6 | Akudama Drive 6 - 8 | I7 s2 6 - 9 | Taiso Samurai 5 - 6

HypMic 7

I will never not laugh at the content advisory, haha.

I like Kazuha already. Too bad he’s probably evil…

Oh, is it the day of the DRB in the series already…? Or maybe, because it’s the qualifiers, BB and MTC’s match is on a different day to FP and MTR’s.

Oh? Does Tom know Jakurai well enough to call him “Jakurai-sensei”? (<- middle ground between “Jinguji-sensei/Sensei” and “Jakurai”) Also, Tom uses “ore”.

Ooh, Iris is a motorbike rider, eh? Interesting. I thought they (<- not sure if Iris is a “she” or “he” with a really weird name) were more of a Saburo-type and didn’t bother with things like that, based on their appearance. Update: Someone on Yahoo Answers said based on Iris’s watashi, she is a woman.

Typo fixed! Good job, anime staff! Update: I’m referring to “…darkest hour is just before the down” (sic).

…bukkorosu = “f***in’ slaughter ‘em”. It’s not wrong…it’s just the subbers really like to abuse the F word for MTC. But you knew that already if you got this far…right?

LOL, Ramuda wants to “scratch [Rex’s] back” (figuratively) to…get SNS views? Hahaha.

This Studio Alita is probably a reference to Shinjuku Alta.

Yotsutsuji!!! That was the one big spoiler I got before watching the episode today and I’m so happy I got to see him animated!

(One of) Irihatoma and Degarashi refer to Jakurai as “Jakurai-sensei” as well. Hmm, I never noticed. Update: That’s Degarashi, because Irihatoma speaks to Jakurai alone later this ep.

There’s 50% chance I’m getting this wrong, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say Kazuha is voiced by a veteran VA…one I already know about.

Doppo calls Kazuha by his first name…That upgrade means their relationship escalated quickly (or this is a quirk of HypMic in general, since I noticed most characters are on first name basis with each other). Also, it’s cute Doppo finally has someone in his corner. No other part of the franchise has one, to my memory. Update: It might actually be “Kazuha-kun”…but I’m still surprised though. Update 2: It’s both, actually.

I’ve listened to the phrase “some random guy” several times from Hifumi’s mouth and all I can figure out is the “yatsu” at the end. (Doesn’t help my ears blocked themselves up again, although it’s less than it used to be.)

Harumi Wharf.

R? On a helicopter landing pad?

…uh oh. I was right when I thought Kazuha was going to be evil. Also, Doppler shift/effect. Update: “Doppler” is clearly a pun on “Doppo”.

Hmm? “Hey, Doppo” from “yaa”…it doesn’t have a name referred in there. It’s a small but odd thing to do. (I remember a professional translator was complaining that people with intermediate Japanese were giving them flak for translating things “wrong”, but what I do here is analysis for my future and edificiation. I’m not here to knock down pro translators’ doors and demand a refund, because I’m trying to go pro to atone for my sins as a scanlator.)

The soundtrack’s slightly sinister tone, plus the fact I figured the culprit well before Doppo did, makes me slightly scared…for MTR.

I realised they skimped on the budget…this “hot off the car chase” line seems more like an MTC line, doesn’t it…?...Yeah, it’s almost word for word for MTC in DRB+. Maybe the subbers rushed and used this translation (this link I put here) rather than their actual lyrics…? I will have to get to the bottom of this. Update: Turns out the translation is slightly different, but…yes, there is reference to a car chase in the start of Shinjuku Style. (Sorry, I don’t know every lyrics of every song off the top of my head.)

…wow, this got really Doppo-centric. I’ve never seen the leader relinquish their position when it comes to “leading into battle” before. It just goes to show the staff really do pay attention to how popular Doppo is.

Note “Doppo” means “walk alone”, roughly speaking, hence the “solitary” line.

This song is very, very faithful to its original lyrics, because I was trying to look at Hifumi’s “mixing paint” line and it pretty much matches.

Hifumi’s “my men”, LOL.

Kazuha = “one leaf”, hence the “leaves” in one of Jakurai’s lines.

I cringe every time I hear screaming coming from this episode, y’know…?

…oh dear. MTC’s plot actually bled into MTR’s.

I already knew from browsing Twitter earlier today that Kizuna was going to become FP’s today, but hearing it is another matter entirely.

Kosuke Miyoshi is Kazuha. Apparently, this guy also voiced Mashirao Ojiro (the tail guy) from BnHA, but that’s his only major role…so I was right in that I knew him, but wrong in that he was, again, a relative rookie in comparison to most.

Apparently FP’s sign is a peace sign sideways to represent an F, but…it’s just a sideways peace sign to me…

…how is Dice’s bead ornament attached to him? Is it on his hair, on his ear, on the skin behind his ear…? I was trying to replicate his outfit and got stuck on how to represent it, so I ended up opting for trying (and failing) to do a small braid on the right side.

IWGP shows up this season…it’s the song with the “hoo!” noise BB perform in this episode.

LOL, “Dead men tell no tales” is a perfect saying for MTC.

Akudama 6

Is there a movie called “Brother”…? There’s apparently one that’s the plural of that, but not that itself.

If HypMic likes the F bomb, then Akudama like the S word.

I-Is it just me or is the choreography sped up at some points in this episode…? It’s a bit disorienting to come back to.

I thought the kid was a robot…but close enough.

Oh no! Why does the teacher always have to die for the student to become stronger???

Kairaku/shugi -> pleasure/doctrine (if I didn’t somehow misunderstand the shark’s kanji combo),

The part after the ED looks a little too long…keep watching.

The Japanese says “Lost Children”, but the English says “The City of Lost Children”, probably referring to this French sci-fi film.

I7 s2 6

I like how Gaku is taking special offence to Yamato’s comments about him being a playboy.

Re:vale-san. I never noticed until now.

“I’m already looking forward to it.” That’s how I would translate Tsumugi’s “I’m already excited”.

“…who could possibly complain?” – I think Mitsuki might.

The pun in the MEZZO show is that tai (group/squad) sounds the same as tai (want to ~). Rabbinsta is obviously Instagram + Rabbit (Chat?).

Oh my gosh! It’s the Yotsuba sister!

Mitsuki’s shopping trip OST is nice, man. This piano.

This episode has a really great sense of danger and foreboding for the future.

I7 s2 7

Perfection Gimmick. Never heard it in the anime before.

Even the ramen house’s name is a play on “Idolish7”.

LOL, Yamato sure turned that comment around.

The sign talking about beer says something about coupons below it. (It went by too fast and my CR app’s kinda fiddly, so I can’t really go back…)

Kimi to Ai na Night (pun on Idolish7, aka “AiNana”, again).

Mitsuki, no one hates you! You’re just imagining it all!

I7 s2 8

Momo hugely resembles Sasara, right down to the highlights on the hair…

“…you’re so handsome…” – I’m dying on the inside here, people! *laps up the BL pandering with a derpy smile on my face*

Banri and Tsumugi haven’t been focussed on lately…they’re clearly doing something regarding Banri’s ties with Re:vale, but I can’t quite figure out what that “something” is.

Why is there a basketball and a football in the back of the Takanashi office…?

Please don’t run in heels, Tsumugi…

“I love Idolish7!” - Ah, despite my quibbles, Tsumugi is good after all.

“making one’s best exertions” – Why do those words on the cup worry me a bit…?

Isn’t “I’m watching you” a creepy statement…?

Apparently Tamaki’s symbol is mp (mezzo pianissimo), hence Sougo’s words.

…my gosh! Aya’s foster father is Kujou?!

I7 s2 9

If I heard it right, Tenn’s line was “I can be your idol”, not “your prince”.

“Older Izumi” - …ah, poor Mitsuki.

“Damn you, sexy beast…” – LOL!

…aw, I think this is the first time my heart has been lightened by Tsunashi’s laugh. He’s a good boy.

The chibis…I’m still trying to get used to them…

As a song once said, “You can’t please everyone so you just gotta please yourself.” (Blah blah blah, something about garden parties…)

Takao what now???...okay, Takao Dayuu.

…You’re lucky that wasn’t Tenn doing Takao Dayuu. It would’ve been very “Gentaro does his courtesan voice” if it was.

Nagi doesn’t overpronounce things as much in this season. It’s��pleasant, actually. Give me more of that.

Nagi’s “Oh my god!” was hilarious.

Taiso 5

Ra (ら) and ro (ろ) look kinda similar in hiragana.

Even without the audio, I can guess the words were “yarubeki koto” (things you should do) -> shachihoko.

The texts are written in gyaru-moji. Gyaru-moji is basically indecipherable to anyone who doesn’t know how it works – kind of like the common teen vernacular, to be honest (LOL…?) – and so the subs actually kind of ruin the confusingness of it all, but they did slightly better when they went “UR”.

Movie shiritori! But…has it really been half a year since Leo started? I feel slightly robbed about that plotline with the Men in Black right now…(then again, HypMic is just as bad about important plotlines, if not worse, so…I’m going to be patient and not complain.)

July 5th…Rei is a Cancer…?

They’re…finally moving on this Men in Black plotline! I only complained two points ago! Thank you, staff, for listening to my complaints (…?).

Moon Land finished recently, so I wonder if I’ll lose interest in this anime from here on out…? There was a Pommel Horse Prince in that.

Moon Land taught me that gymnastics has a lot of skills named after their creators, much like the Aragaki previously. The score is out of 10 for both D (difficulty) and E (execution), meaning a 20 is the best you can do, but the judges can get really picky...

The word for “vault” literally means “leaping/jumping horse”…makes sense.

Some of these names are names I’m familiar with from Moon Land already…but I never remember what the skills look like.

…welp, Leo just proved he really is a ninja after all.

Dr Stone’s s2 had its ED announced to be “Koe?” by Hatena and “Yume?” here really makes a theme…does Hatena give all their song titles question marks on the end?

Taiso 6

Colour gangs? Like in IWGP?

It’s nice to see they’re (Jotaro and Rei) communicating properly for the first time in possibly this entire anime.

On the wall, that thing is an evacuation map…of some sort.

…I’ve always wondered: if a bird eats chicken, does that count as cannibalism?

This is like thw Makkachin incident all over again (in YoI).

“…there’s no reason for you to grin and bear it.”

…Leo and Jotaro, both are so dense! Boys *shakes head*.

BB? More like ET (LOL)!

Maou-jou 5

…I didn’t even notice the cast was all dudes bar the princess at this point.

Tatakau Onnatachi. It could mean “fighting women” or “female warriors”.

I’m still vaguely pissed that Kirito is here under my nose…darn Demon King!!!

One of the harpy’s recent worries was that she wanted to become friends with the princess…That’s kinda cute…

Didn’t Syalis already get the coffin that one time? Or did it get confiscated?

*eyes sparkle* Cloud…I’d like to sleep on a cloud…*dreamy look on face* Cloud.

This is basically Princess, ‘Tis Time for Torture in reverse.

Is it “make do” or “make due”…?

I don’t think I need to explain the joke where the harpy is happy.

Gendo pose!

I wonder if the bed or the sheets will talk to her (Syalis) someday?

Maou-jou 6

The New Gearbolt’s quote is “guruguru dokkan”, which is just a bunch of sound effects. It would translate to something like “whir-whir-thud”.

Underwear episodes are some of the worst episodes ever…they’re so juvenile…I dropped at least one series based on the underwear episode alone.

Ah! The seal on the ice monster’s shoulder! Too cute!

How can a mechanical princess mecha (…thing?) have worries?

LOL, never underestimate the hilarity of the teddy demons ganging up on the Demon King.

I like how the Japanese pointed out the demons only moved the princess.

HypMic 8

I thought the robberies were Kazuha’s doing…? Or is this a separate case?

Samatoki answering his phone with his feet up…LOL, there’s just something funny about it. It shows he’s just so badass, he can get away with it.

Riou’s hacking (?) skills come to the fore again. (Or is that listening to enemy intel?)

Ooh, Iris is sassy. I love her already.

…er, Samatoki? Blowing cigarette smoke into Jyuto’s face is just rude…

“…don’t hang up your gloves.” – Considering Jyuto has his red gloves…LOL.

What the heck is that backing track when the 2nd car moved out? That’s a cool track.

Ah! Iris is a Saburo-type…LOL, Saburo’s fake identity.

“a cop who’s in with the yakuza” - Wow, way to diss your own teammate, Samatoki.

For a guy who was only just in the water, Riou doesn’t even look wet.

“2 DIE 4” – Hmm? So did the anime staff know what Riou’s 2nd round song title was at the time…? Update: Judging by the name “Requiem” dropped in the next episode, I would say yes.

“…f*** the police…” - Wow, way to diss your own teammate, Samatoki. X2

Hmm? In Riou’s rap bit near the end, he goes “mad warrior” and that rhymes (in a very loose way of speaking) with “Mad Trigger”. The English didn’t keep that.

I remember seeing a spoiler which said that line (the one about slaves)…but seriously, Jyuto is such a “sexy revenge cop” (as someone once said – I think it might be Slug, or an anon to Slug) that literally nothing else seems to matter about him.

Why do they subtitle the laughing??? I still have no idea.

“Sgt. Iruma”? The guy just says “Iruma-san”. Is he a sergant or some other rank? Update: Yes. (As in, he is a sergant.)

I’ve never actually seen Ramuda sleep in a bed before, come to think of it. Does he not have a bed?

I would assume Gentaro is going…but he said he won’t be going, then negated that and then negated it again. Unless the 2nd time was him admitting it was a lie the first time…is he going or not???

“shinsetsu no human” – (Spoilers for later on/manga)…Yes, that’s actually what Ramuda says. It’s as if Ramuda subtly admits, right there, he isn’t human.

Nodo = throat…If this were translated more literally, it would sound pretty clunky.

“…rappa no inochi…paa!” – Yep, the subbers got the gist of the joke there.

Dice is basically a worm at this point…He’s squirming like one, anyway.

That “number of pips facing up” thing has got to be foreshadowing for something, y’know? Nothing in a story ever goes to waste. Also, it’s likely the dice are weighted or something…

…yep, there you go.

That voice Gentaro used for “I despise lies” was amusing…because it’s so different to his normal voice, and because Gentaro is a serial liar.

The 2nd song…which I already know is called “JACKPOT” from browsing Twitter earlier today…was a bunch of fun.

Udagawacho.

Hmm…emphasis on the candy. I wonder what that means? (<- already knows, I just want to keep it a secret from you, dear reader, if you don’t know it too)

ANIME SHOP is so clearly a pun on Animate, including the colours, that I can’t even…LOL.

FP’s Kizuna sounds distinctly different to the others…probably because of Ramuda. It’s mostly Ramuda carrying the tune there.

“Life is what you make it.” – Hmm, an interesting quote for sure.

HypMic 9

…welp, they don’t call it Fling Posse for nothin’.

I didn’t believe my ears, so I went and listened to it again. Sure enough, Ichiro calls Jakurai -san, not -sensei.

Ramuda’s normal voice! Things are getting serious~!

“Hifuming”? Is that a deliberate choice on the translators’ part? Or is it a mishearing?

…I’m laughing at how Samatoki called Ichiro a “hypocritical piece of s***”. I know the “s***” part is correct at minimum from the audio.

I believe Samatoki said -san, not -sama when he asked for an honorific. Hmm, interesting.

I knew this would get animated, but…I still can’t believe I’m watching it! Amazing…absolutely amazing.

If you’re wondering…yes, that long thing is her entire title and name. It’s said the name “Kadenokouji” is the longest Japanese surname in existence.

I remember reading a tweet earlier today that said somebody wanted “Altercation! Altercation! Altercation!” as a song title…and now I LOL, because the subbers made Gentaro say the exact same word.

Hmm…I only just noticed BB are the only ones with bags. They probably came last, but who took the others’ bags into Chuoku…? Update: Some of the others did have bags, I just never spotted them. For instance, Riou is carrying a large black rectangular bag, but Samatoki and Jyuto don’t have any. Jakurai has the bag from his TDD days.

The 2nd DRB brackets got announced today. BB vs DH, MTR vs BAT, FP vs MTC, rolling out across Japan (and Japan only due to COVID) in 2021.

“What happened between you and him?” - I was going “who?” in Cantonese (as I sometimes do), but turns out they’re just referring to Samatoki.

This is exactly as it played out in the drama tracks and manga…exactly what I was waiting for all this time! So good, dangit!

LOL, in the future, we will have camera drones working our concerts like they do in the DRBs…I think (?)

I wonder what Dice is thinking right now, seeing Otome on the screen…hmm…

…gah! Airhorn! Airhorn to the ears! *tilts to side due to sound*

I still kind of remember Slug’s take on the final battle…”The popo? More like the poopoo!” (or something like that). *sniggers*

The little barking bit after Jiro’s verse was…kinda cute, actually.

…ow, these are some burn-ass words. See? This is the power of the DRB!

…eh? Riou’s mic has his MC name on it. Don’t think I’ve seen that in any other part of the series.

Hoh, Riou even made references to Saburo’s character songs.

You can see “Hc” on Samatoki’s mic too…probably another case of his MC name, but partially obscured by his hand.

Aw, “Samatoki no sabaku toki” is a good lyric. Why couldn’t you try to keep that, instead of translating it literally to “judgement day for Samatoki”?

You can hear a thumping beat in the background when Samatoki prepares himself. That seems to be a similar way to how ARB treats this stuff.

“I’m THE Samatoki” – “Samatoki-sama da”.

I think it was really cool to show Samatoki handing the song over to Riou, but it also indicates there’s a disjunct in the lyrics that would cause such a thing. From this, maybe Riou is MTC’s weak link…?

Skeletons with katanas! Is that not cool?!?

…hey, that joined words thing Ichiro does…I would assume that’s what Rhyme Strike looks like in the HypMic universe?

Notice Samatoki took the word “signal” from Ichiro’s part and put it into his own one.

“Today is a good day to die.” – *eyes bulge* Oh…gosh. What a quote. Update: Someone theorised Ichijiku wrote these titles (the last 2), but someone else – like me – theorised this quote was what FP and M fans thought for this battle.

Akudama 7

…that’s one twisted kid.

Never threaten to kill a kid who can regenerate far better than you, Hoodlum.

Brawler is still in the OP…it’s kind of saddening to see him now.

I noticed a certain character appears on the Executioners’ hands if you pause at the right moment in the OP. It’s the first character in shori (management).

Bunny: set meal/Shark: roasted meat (yakiniku)

…This sounds a heck of a lot like the genbaku dome (Hiroshima Peace Park).

Bunny and Shark’s shirts together: Idiot -> Shark: Bone

Actually, this also reminds me of the Osaka Expo held in 1970. I loved writing about that event – it was just so fun to write about.

This anime is like Appare-Ranman’s sequel, except without the racing and crazy racial stereotypes (although there are still crazy stereotypes).

…whoa! This scene is going on the end of year list for sure. Just…have to remember this scene, where all the children disappeared, exists.

…”The City of Lost Children” is an apt title for this episode.

(HypMic spoilers!) I wonder if they’ll reveal that Ramuda is a clone in what’s left of the HypMic anime?

…oof, Doctor’s a filthy traitor!

Rule number 1 of fighting: never yell out “Smokescreen!” when the smokescreen is meant to cover you.

…LOL, dark censorship bar. Please wait for the Blu-Rays to see this scene uncensored.

What the heck?! The countdown went from 7 to 0 so fast!

Akudama 8

Black Rain, huh? *checks* It’s a movie about a pair of New York policemen who have to save a Japanese gangster from his death.

…don’t jinx it, Swindler!

Your brother isn’t on the moon, Sister. It’s just your dreams on there.

Notice “Neo Lake Biwa” actually has “Reiku” in its name, as opposed to, say, “mizuumi” or “ike” (the Japanese equivalent).

You can still see where Doctor stitched herself up.

What did Doctor “hold on to”?

Way to monologue through the whole morality thing… (<- not as satisfied as they would like from this scene)

I wonder if the seal is electronically tracked…

Tsubo = pot, vase…*thinks about drugs* (Not that pot.)

“…I’ll make you into a real man.” – More like a eunuch, LOL. (partially sarcastic)

I recall from Sarazanmai that “pair look” is the term for “twinsies” in Japanese.

Oh! Swindler kind of looks like the Executioner Boss now.

…I find it ironic that Swindler had long hair up until not too long ago.

Can to the eye! Ouch! That’s gotta be worse than a lightsaber…er, jitte to the eye!

This makes me wonder…was Courier a rich kid once…?

[void-whisper]

leo! this is a very late one but! i have some numbers for you: 4, 21, 28, 29, 47, 50, 59, 60, 61, 62, 76 (ò3ó REVENGE), 90, 98!

Oh!! Hello there, sunshine of mine!! Thank you for the ask!! 🥰🌻

——–

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

Oh, like, a very smart, dedicated and hyperactive kid, that talked too much and had, a very small attention span, which, to be honest, is very very valid (Poor teacher that had to deal with smol Leo, he was a devil).

21. obsession from childhood?

Okay, listen, I had Mew vs. Mewtwo on DVD, and it came with Pikachu’s Vacation, and like, I watched that, so many times the DVD would not ever run anymore, and also, I had cable at home with Cartoon Network, so, there was just a lot of Pokemon okay, don’t judge me >////////////

28. five songs to describe you?

Oh, this one is, very hard, specially bc, I’m the worst at describing myself, I think I’ll skip it, and if I can think about anything I’ll edit the post and add it. 🙈

29. best way to bond with you?

Tell me all the things, like, things you are passionate about! Or like, recommend me songs! Or talk to me about d&d!! I’m a pretty easy going person ^^

47. favorite type of cheese?

So it seems you are exacting vengeance upon my ask huh! òó

I’ll say, mozzarella, bc it’s the the one I’ve eaten most here

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

I actually don’t know how to answer this one bc like, I’m a dumbass okay, I just fall laughing every two hours bc of my own jokes that I cannot even finish telling, you know how it is, I think the worst one was when I was in high school and me and a couple of ex friends said smth really dumb, that made like, no sense, and we just, laughed our asses off in the middle of class while everyone else just stood there looking, it was, something, I don’t remember what it was, but 15 yo me decided it was the funniest thing in the universe.

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

- Oh!

- Ohno

- It be like that some times

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

Okay, I don’t know much about anime but like, there is that one about camping (I think it’s called “Yuru Camp”?) that is very fucking cute, and I would like if it was like that, just very chill (I have not watched it but I’ve seen some screen shots and it looks very cute okay).

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

Okay, listen this is your fault, it’s one of my favourite quotes ever:

“When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just unremarkable, unintentional, and clumsy.”

—Griffin McElroy, Ep. 66 The Stolen Century - Chapter Seven.

And:

“But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword. As a mortal, I was never a great fighter or athlete or poet. I only made wine. The people in my village laughed at me. They said I would never amount to anything. Look at me now. Sometimes small things can become very large indeed.”        ―Rick Riordan,The Battle of the Labyrinth.

62. seven characters you relate to?

I should like, really answer this kind of thing when it’s not like 2 am >////

- Steven Universe

- Magnus Burnsides

- Sokka (Later Seasons)

- Bolin!

- Leo Valdez! (From HoO!)

These are the ones I can think of atm, but like, if I remember any others I’ll add it later. 🙈🙈🙈

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

MASHED POTATOES BC, THEY ARE THE BEST, AND ALSO BC IT’S ONE OF THE ONLY POTATO FOODS I’VE EATEN EVER, BC APPARENTLY THERE ARE 7.000x OF POTATO FOOD IN GERMANY.

90. luckiest mistake?

… I can’t think of any cool mistakes at the moment >//////////

98. favorite historical era?

OH!! Well, I was very much into Ancient Greece, bc… Percy Jackson, and then, I kinda got into a lot of the revolution stuff in the ~1700, but like, my history knowledge is very limited to the Eurocentric stuff they teach in high school here. I would like to learn more about the stuff in the Orient and the Americas though, bc it very much feels like the rest of the world did not exist before Europe, which is, bullshit.

Sorry for the small rant, but yeah, like, the fall of monarchies is pretty great, and ancient Greece and forward to like the fall of Rome as well in general ^^

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

so prompted the other day from someone commenting on one of my personal posts lamenting on my poor time management skills and how I was a good-ish student without studying etc during early high school and then by year 10 I had fuck all idea how study..... I decided to look up adhd in girls. like obviously i am not self-diagnosing myself with it bc i know that it’s a super common and serious behaviour condition. but holy fuck, i just read something about it that hit me so fucking hard that.... fuck me. i just feel so attacked:

obviously I don’t relate to the softball practice bc I never did extracurriculars and I hated sport lmao. but the writing/writer bit. and “working overtime” to get a high grade on my english assignments..... as well as over-practicing my drama stuff at home and wanting my performances to be perfect.... i was known to basically everyone as a student who should’ve been in the top English class. but it was wrested away from me bc of my lack of understanding and appreciation for shakespeare in a year 8 in class assessment on Romeo & Juliet “being starcrossed lovers” that I basically failed bc I came out with a D instead of an A or a B. like fuck. this hit me hard.

they had another point about how the girl with adhd is usually the class helper- like I was in my english classes. bc I would edit everyone’s work, be their living thesaurus & dictionary, as well as giving everyone answers on the assigned texts, because i was the only person in my class who was bothered enough to read the texts in full and enjoy them. then I never received much thanks for it.

but my maths homework? never done. or my very occasional maths take-home assignments? done by my dad at the last minute when I remembered that excel was, in fact, an actual thing. hell I didn’t even do my CLASS WORK most of the time. i instead either half wagged my maths classes (I have several posts on this behaviour lmao) or purposely “fell asleep” in my maths classes as a joke for everyone to “wake me up (wake me up inside)” like Jeff from the wiggles. bc I thought it was funny. but now I’m 24 and never (really) learned how to read a graph or learned how to calculate the mean/median and average & range and mode or whatever the fuck, etc etc. like yeah. my maths is absolutely abysmal.

my geography homework and assignments? barely ever done. and again, at the vexation of the poor kids who were assigned to sit next to me and my year 9 geo teacher who liked me, my geo class work was never done to standard. and I would pull the same “wake up Jeff” routine in geography. even though I could’ve easily done well with that year 9 teacher and my year 10 geo teacher too bc at least we also got along.

my history homework and assignments? done, depending on the teacher, the topic and the type of history. like I was useless at modern history (bc I disliked it- especially australian history lmao minus Vietnam and maybe a bit of the Cold War era spy stuff... it was the politics lmao). but, on the other hand, I was pretty good at ancient history (until I had to try and write a historical essay- and that fucked me up big time in years 11/12 and also uni). i was also mega good at aboriginal studies (like aboriginal cultural history) when I swapped schools. but I dropped out of it, due to my fear of the major project which I knew I wouldn’t meet.... bc it was literally like 50% of the total subject mark at the end of year 12.

so then my focus aside from english & ancient history in year 12 became community and family studies/cafs/social studies and my technical theatre and events management course. which both ended up with marks near the 70s, I think, at the end of year 12. my teachers were good so I went okay.

my science homework? done sometimes, depending again on the topic and the teacher.... but also that one time one teacher wanted me to go to the regional science fair bc he thought my project was good.... but I didn’t do it bc i thought my work wasn’t that good and I didn’t want to do the extra effort of the boards and presenting it.... ESPECIALLY since I’d written that coke/coca-cola was “burp fuel” in my intro. like. burp fuel??? at the regional science fair? oh god. no. no thank you. that’s mortifying both back then AND now, looking back at it. but then again, maybe that’s the part my teacher wanted me to omit in the “clean up”/editing of my work for the science fair lmao. my biology stuff in years 11/12 though? awful. so much so that I solely passed year 12 bio with the miracle of mark scaling. and this was despite the efforts of one of my friends trying to tutor me in our shared free periods.

and obvs my PE stuff was never done.... even that one assessment that was writing/illustrating a kids book about how to be healthy. which if I’d done it, I would’ve probably gone well. but it was my utter distrust of the PE/sport faculty and loathing of sport, and also the fact that when I tried to write it; it didn’t seem authentic or genuine.... that drove me not to do that assignment.

aside from academics/grades.... the other thing that hit me was that adhd girls are typically seen as the “funny/loud/tomboy” etc girls but are also exceedingly shy. like that full on attacked me too. bc it’s exactly like my flip from catholic school to public school. going from being the loud & funny sailor mouth girl who sometimes asked crass questions in PE due to the shows she watched and to see if people would laugh and did whack shit in her drama classes..... but with mostly topsy-turvy marks. to being the quiet shy and suddenly high achieving former private school girl at public school who never did any loud shit out of the blue. like. yeah. like now when I look back at my facebook statuses about me in drama class or other dumb shit I did outside of drama class in catholic school I’m like “hmmm, can’t relate” and “what the FUCK that was ME??? I don’t know her.” bc of the nervous wreck that I actually am lmao.

there was one more point to that was like “adhd boys will typically sit “with one foot on their chair in class”. and I was like. “hmmm. why does that remind me so vividly of my year 7 geo teacher/year 9 commerce teacher frequently labelling me as a “health hazard” bc I’d sit cross legged on my chairs during class????”

I also had a flashback while reading that particular article, to how, in primary school, my teachers regularly encouraged the kids who were assigned to sit beside me on table groups or whatever in class; to put a ruler between us to mark out our separate sides of the desk; so that whoever sat next to me had their own desk space and I had mine.... all bc my side was frequently unorganised/messy. that’s because when I physically handwrote things, I’d tire quickly and so slouch in my seat a bit and put my head on my other arm to write (this is my condition hypotonia/developmental coordination disorder).... so I took up a load of desk space doing that. while the other person’s side of the desk was usually neat and ordered and they obvs didn’t have my posture etc when physically handwriting something. like I’d try to have my side neat & ordered like everyone else, but it always ended up in a state of disarray somehow. like HOO BOY IT’S ALL ADDING UP.

but also yeah. I’m not self-diagnosing bc that’s such common thing on this site. but. like. yeah I need to get to a psychologist or a psychiatrist and see. because so many things are adding up and maybe I do have some overlapping traits from adhd???? bc as ive said before, my condition hypotonia/developmental coordination disorder, has some links with adhd apparently, from what I’ve read recently on it. and it’s really starting to interfere with my life bc I can’t use a diary properly etc and don’t know how to hold myself accountable with deadlines other than doing everything to the last minute until I burn out, monumentally.

anyway.

don’t reblog this please. lmao. it’s just a musing.

[lynnafred]

Wait...how are bananas close to extinction? Is because of only having that one type now? This is absolutely fascinating to me. I love learning completely random knowledge and I am HERE for the banana facts.

YES ACTUALLY. This is a great ask; thank you!

See, because there’s no genetic diversity in bananas, it means that they’re very susceptible to disease! And Cavendish bananas, like the Gros Michel before them, are grown very extensively, in very big areas, across much of Central and South America and parts of Asia, Australia, and Africa. Banana plantations are intensive cropping systems, meaning that as plants are pulled, new plants are taking their place just as quickly and, because of that lack of genetic diversity, there’s no natural immunity to disease!

And hoo boy, do bananas have a lot of disease. Hold tight, this one gets kind of long.

The biggest banana killer is called Panama Disease, which is what the Cavendish banana was originally developed to be resistant to. Panama Disease is actually a fungus (a strain of Fusarium oxysporum) and it attacks the root system of the plant. The disease was first seen in the 1950s and would eventually cause the downfall of the Gros Michel variety, and the current strain affecting the Cavendish is called Tropical Strain 4. There’s no fungicide that’s effective in treating it, and Fusarium oxysporum can survive in the soil for decades, making a plantation that gets wiped out from Panama Disease unusable for subsequent plantings. So far, Tropical Strain 4 has only been seen in Australia, Asia, and Mozambique, but when (not if, when) it spreads to the Americas, the final countdown for the banana will have begun.

On top of that, bananas also suffer from the diseases Black Sigatoka, Banana Xanthomonas Wilt, and Banana Bunchy Top Virus.

Black Sigatoka is a fungal leaf spot disease. A bad case of it will decrease fruit production by 50% per plant, and make those fruits ripen prematurely (meaning that they’re no good for export to Europe and North America.) It can be treated with fungicides, but it’s getting resistant to them; treating Black Sigatoka now costs roughly $1000 per hectare and is not environmentally sustainable.

Banana Xanthomonas Wilt is a bacterial wilt caused by a strain of Xanthomonas campestris bacteria. It’s considered a “minor” banana disease, and was first discovered in the 1960s in Ethiopia on a wild relative of the banana. In 2001, it was found in Uganda, and it completely wiped out all cultivars there. I’ll spare you pictures, because it’s wicked nasty, but so far BXW has been contained in Central and East Africa.

The last of the big banana diseases is called Banana Bunchy Top Virus. It’s in the babuvirus genus, and it affects bananas, plantains, and ornamental bananas as well. It’s spread via aphid (but I don’t recall specifically which one--sorry! D=) and it creates dark green streaks in the leaf veins and petioles. It gets its name because the leaves at the apex (growing point) of the plant become short, stunted, and appear to be “bunched” at the top of the plant. Once the plant gets infected, it won’t produce fruit (or, if it does, will produce fruit of very poor quality.) Currently it’s been seen in Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and pockets of Africa. There’s no cure for it, and there are no sprays available to control it, but it can be managed very well by pulling and destroying diseased plants and using virus-free suckers and plant tissue cultivars. 

One major plant disease is bad enough, but having all four of these is a deadly combo. There is research being done into a new cultivar, but so far the results have yielded fruits that ship very well, but do not taste very good. (And fruit flavor has already been compromised once from Gros Michel to Cavendish.) More studies and trials are being done all the time to look for a new cultivar to replace the Cavendish.

And it’s unfortunate, really. There used to be many different varieties of banana, but only a few of them were able to be shipped long distances, which is how we got to the position we’re into today. The banana is a very historically controversial fruit, and won’t stop being one for a long time to come.

[otome-reviews]

SLBP Wedding Event from Guy’s perspective Pt 1 Thoughts

It’s election night, I’m trying to queue up a post for tomorrow on this blog, those projections are all over the fucking place, and we are all abut to find out how coherent I can be while drunk as drunk can be!!! Let’s goooo :D

This batch of ESs from the dude’s perspective has my top three favorite routes from the original non-dude’s perspective so there’s no point in revisiting that. Instead! Lets talk about what we learned about the boys themselves.

In Nobunaga’s route we learn that this guy is basically constantly horny. When he’s not dreaming about raking over the whole world, he’s lusting over MC’s body while calling her brazen both in his head and out loud. This route has two sex scenes, and they are amazing. N might be an asshole like 50% of the time, but he’s definitely a hot one who knows how to please his girl (“I watch her as my fingers tease what waits for me, her expression changing subtlye with every stroke”). You go, Nobunaga :)

I also love love lovedddd how this story focused more on Nobunaga’s warships! We learn that he actuall repurposes a ship that he wanted to use as a tour bus for him and MC into the ironclad used to defeat the Mori clan. Damn, son. I can’t get enough of pirate!Nobunaga. With all that swagger and arrogance, he actually fits the bill better than eyepatch Masamune, lol. 

Anyway, this ES made me really wish they wouldn’t fuck up Nobunaga’s character every so often. Because in  stories like this one he is 100% amazing and swoon worthy and in a different world this little asshole was my top bias.

Personal enjoyment: 10/10

We learn in Masamune’s route that this guy is low key constantly thinking about MC. Even when he’s in the middle of battle, lmao. I also noticed that he seems way less hung up about his bitch mom than MC seems to think he is in the ES from her perspective. Which is good because I fucking hate that woman. I’m in the middle of reading M’s MS route right now and hoo boy does she need to go (too bad MC is too much of an idiot to push for it).

Anyway, back to the ES. IMO the ES from Masamune’s perspective was weaker than the one from MC’s perspective, because it didn’t really give us too much new information and was less dramatic. But it’s still very good, and I really like the bits with Kojuro and Sigezane (“Once...you asked me if you would ever be able to surpass me, as a man. You have become a far greater man than I have ever been, Lord Masamune”). Bromance for the ages <3

Personal enjoyment: 8/10

One of my favorite things about Hideyoshi’s wedding story from MC’s perspective was how they tease at Hideyoshi’s wavering loyalties to Ghengis Khan Nobunaga. this ES takes it to a whole new level by introducing a new subplot: Nobunaga gives him a fancy wedding tea set...and so does MC’s mom. Which tea set will H choose in the end?! I loved . it.

In terms of actual plot I think Hideyoshi had probably the single best story out of all the wedding stories, and it’s still the case, even from his perspective. Ever scene with Nagaharu​ was extra gut wrenching since we the reader know what comes next. And we learned so many little facts about Hideyoshi’s entourage. Kanbei is ex Mori?! Damnn. Also, Mitsunari’s giant man crush on Hideyoshi is truly a spectacle to behold. I ship it

Overall, I’m not sure if I learned anything about Hideyoshi that I didn’t know before, but still, this was such an amazing perfect read. 

Personal enjoyment: 100/10

What did you all think?1 Did you love this event as much as I did?

I will never get sick of wedding events lol

[heavenofficialsbl]

H.O.B. Chapter 12 part ii

Chapter 12 part ii: A Ghost in Red Sets Fire Upon The Military and Civil Temples part ii

I’m sorry this has taken me so long to write! I’m trying to get my sleep schedule back on track and that means I put myself to bed earlier (I usually write these before bed). Oh well, maybe I’ll get better with my time management as I do more of these. ALSO: if anyone is interested, I have an HOB discord for anyone that would like to join. Please shoot me a DM for the link <3

ALSO ALSO: Thank you guys so much for 500 followers! You make me so happy UwU <3 I didn’t think there would be this many people interested in HOB since it’s still so early into the translation, and it seems that the English speaking fandom is rather small right now, so it makes me really happy to see all of you guys enjoying the content!

Let’s get started!

OH BOY, I forgot that we had just gotten Hua Cheng’s name! I don’t know if XL is familiar with him or his name at all, but we’ll see...

Alright so Hua Cheng is translated to... Well it’s directly translated to ‘flower city’ which cracks me up. I have a feeling that this is going to somehow be connected to Xie Lian also being known as the “Flower crown Prince”. It’s funny how he had such a gentle and kind memory of HC leading him through the forest, while everyone else is on edge just at the mention of him

Daww, XL is part of the Four Famous Tales <3 That’s somehow very comforting/pleasing to hear. Even though he ended up being cast out from Heaven, he at least had some positive stories told about him

It does seem a bit odd that he hadn’t heard of these Four Great Calamities, though maybe it’s just for story-telling purposes so we can hear them explained

Oh please don’t tell me that XL is the White Clothed Calamity D: HC has to be the Bloody Rain Reaching Towards a Flower (that’s even the name of the first arc that we’re in ohoho). I’m also guessing that the Green Light Wandering Nights guy is the one who hangs corpses in the forest?

Mmmmm then maybe the White-Clothed Calamity isn’t XL, if they’re those that became ghosts

Ohhh interesting... I thought that the demon realm would be separate from the mortal realm like the Heavens are. I guess that just comes from being used to the idea of Hell though. That’s very discomforting though, as a human in this world, to know that all of the worlds demons and ghosts just live among you

Oh, I was right about something! So it is Green Ghost Qi Rong

The water demon doesn’t make hardly any trouble and still is listed first, while mister GG causes mayhem all the time and isn’t even Devastation level. People really do love having things that match lol they probably did just add him to make it 4

The White Clothed Calamity isn’t XL, but he seems painfully familiar with the name. It seems that this demon is the one who wiped out his own kingdom 800 years ago. I can imagine how painful it must be for him to hear that name. I wonder if he was extinguished right after/soon after he destroyed Xian Le kingdom, or if he died later on  

Deathly Spirit Butterflies: cool as hell name 

“Wan’t to provoke the least”: note, not the one the Heavens “hate the most” or the one that Heaven “considers the strongest”, but the one that they “don’t want to provoke”. I don’t know if this is a literal translation or if it was just written this way to keep the flow of the story, but to think that the Heavens are wary of HC and consider him such a great threat that they, instead of trying to destroy him, are instead actively avoiding him/trying not to give him a reason to turn on them... I think that says a lot

For XL to be as famous and Jun Wu but forced to be a scrap collector for 800 years while the other lives in luxury... oof

If one wanted to get to know a Heavens’ Official, they’d only need to take a walk, find a temple to visit, examine the god’s statue, study how they dressed, and what kind of enchanted weaponry they carried. With that, one could understand them to a certain extent

Except for the fact that we’ve explored how these thing change depending on the artist of the statue and the popularity of the Official... Artistic liberty and such

Do they think his name is fake because of how little it fits him? As for his appearance, people can lost of different personalities. I wouldn’t put it past him to change his appearance either, as he seems to be quite powerful.

Where can I get me a man who is always accompanied by blood rain and butterflies?

Of the stories that are given, I think he’s gonna beeeee probably a mixture of all four actually

OoooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oh yeah okay I have thought’s and ideas after reading that he became an official and left on his own okay yes please lets just say #heavypining

“Even if it was true, it still had to be false” xD So thats what those in Heaven find embarrassing? Interesting

Alright, so we find out that even demons/ghosts can have worshipers. We also learn that HC is probably Loki in disguise

It was almost at the point where he had enough power to cover the skies with just a single hand.

I can see why the Heavens are cautious of him. I hadn’t realized that he also had such a large following that was comparable to the Heavenly Officials’ following

He had just come out of a volcano, but that’s not important~

Okay, time to do a bit of research on poison and why it made him so formidable

*insert jeopardy theme here*

Alright so what I’m seeing about Gu is that it’s a traditional CHinese poison made by sealing several venomous creatures in a container, like snakes, spiders, and scorpions, etc., and letting them eat each other, and thus condensing the venom inside one body. It was used for things like causing disease and death, but also could possibly be used as a love charm...? this os from wikipedia:

"For centuries, the Miao, particularly Miao women", writes Schein (2000:50-51), "have been feared for their mastery of the so-called gu poison, which is said to inflict death from a distance with excruciating slowness."

Let’s go back a bit, shall we?

“...sometimes a temperamental and disagreeable teenager, sometimes a gentle, kind and elegant beautiful man, or sometimes a gorgeous female ghost with a poisonous heart.”   

These things have really got me thinking now. I can’t stop reading about the poison GAH it’s so interesting!

I was confused with the wording of the sentence, “It was not a city where everyone raises Gu...” because why would someone RAISE poison? But now it makes sense, as the Gu, or Ku, is the survivor of that venomous buffet. When raised for a long time, it would continue to grown more venomous/poisonous

Oh. OH. Hua Cheng wasn’t studying Gu or making Gu, he IS Gu. Shit.

Okay he has to be Loki in disguise. To be a strong warrior and a competent scholar? Jeeze, he sounds like he really does have a lot of facets to his personality. To win in debates, you need to know when to yield and when to push. It makes me think of how when fishing, you need to sometimes let the fish swim away, but by doing that, you’re more likely to catch the fish in the end

Oh my god Hua Cheng offered his own ashes if he lost the bet, but he knew he would win xD When it says that he “openly invited” the 35 Officials, I wonder if he invited them by name, or if he just asked for 35 random Officials. I bet they were ones that were, at some point, cruel to XL huehuehue

And which 2 Officials thought he might actually defeat them? It says only 33 thought there wasn’t any chance, but that leaves two who thought he did have a chance. It seems like they didn’t participate, since it says that 33 lost the bet. I have a feeeeeeeeeling thats its XL’s two generals, because why wouldn’t it be? We need more circles withing circles, right?

In any case, people were very forgetful, in another fifty years, perhaps no one would remember it.

HAHAHA good luck with that

I can see why they don’t want to deal with him: he’s strong, cunning, and unpredictable. I doubt the Officials every get their temples burned (at least, it probably happens very, very rarely) so why would they think that HC would target the temples? They were left totally open and unguarded. What a smart cookie

I also like that he didn’t go after the two who decided not to fight him. I think that shows that he is, in a way, reasonable. He could have easily burned theirs as well, but they didn’t accept his challenge or his bet, so he left them alone.

Oh and it’s not just 33 temples, it’s all of the temples of all 33 Officials. Hoo boy, Hua Cheng, hoo boy

Jun Wu is right: don’t agree to something with such high stakes and then cry when it turns against you

Hua Cheng had also been very crafty, he only destroyed the temples and did not harm anyone.

A. GOOD. COOKIE.

Wait wait wait wait they can GO INTO PEOPLES DREAMS?! DUDE. They went into the dreams of such influential people and then lost so horribly RIP HEAVEN OFFICIALS WHO’S ARROGANT NOW BISH

So from everything that I’m reading about HC here, it seems that, and excuse me for bringing up Thor again, he doesn’t seek war, but is always prepared for it. He doesn’t openly attack people, but he’s certainly ready to fight if he needs to or feels threatened

Aaaaaaaaaaaand now a lot of them respect him. It must be such a weird dynamic between HC and the Officials: they’re Heavenly Officials for... heavens sake, and he is someone who, at least according to rumor at this point, had denounced his title as an Official and then became even stronger than many of the still current Officials. The more I read this, the more I understand why they can’t stand him. I think it’s not so much that they despise him like the 4 Clans despise WWX and want him dead, but more that they just want nothing to do with him, and are content with just staying away from him

Oh I totally saw that coming, that Mu Qing and Feng Xin were the two smart ones (or maybe they were just super uninterested) that didn’t bother with fighting HC

Op yep, it seems it was a bit of both haha they were busy and just didn’t want to bother. I wonder what their encounters were outside of the bet, since it says that they fought HC multiple times

Tadaaaahhhh- Our Highness the Crown Prince Xie Lian is totally smitten with those damn butterflies. I want to know what they do, or how HC uses them for the others to fear them that much. It says they cause “frantic devastation” so I want to see how they work

WEll I’m so glad that we’re finally getting some actual information on HC (I wasn’t expecting this much information this soon!). WE definitely still don’t know everything about him, so I can’t make a really good guess on what his personality is or anything about his character/morality, but he seems to be smart and reasonable to an extent.

Well, thanks for reading guys! See you hopefully in a few days when I get to chapter 13!

-Bee

[gdwessel]

Wrestle Kingdom 13 - 1/4/2019; Ibushi Concussed; G1 Climax 29 Begins in Dallas, WK14 Will Be 2 Nights

Today is The Day. Wrestle Kingdom 13. You can watch it on NJPWWorld in Japanese or English. You can pay $35 on FITE TV for the same. You can wait until later tonight and watch a 2-hour version (continued the next 2 weeks) on AXS TV. Whatever the case, you can see it.

Wrestle Kingdom 13 - January 4, 2019, Tokyo Dome (NJPWWorld, FITE TV, AXS TV on tape delay)

NEVER Openweight  6-Man Tag Team Championship #1 Contenders Gauntlet Match: Togi Makabe, Toru Yano [CHAOS] & Ryusuke Taguchi d. Yuji Nagata, Jeff Cobb [FREE] & David Finlay Jr. and Hirooki Goto, Trent Beretta & Chuck Taylor [CHAOS] and Minoru Suzuki, Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr. [SZKG] and Adam Page, Yujiro Takahashi & Marty Scurll [The Elite] Order of Eliminations - Finlay > Yujiro, Schoolboy, 4:39 - Finlay > Taylor, Schoolboy, 7:30 - KES > Finlay, Killer Bomb, 2:44 - Yano > Smith, Schoolboy, 8:09

NEVER Openweight Championship: Will Ospreay [CHAOS] d. Kota Ibushi [FREE] © (Stormbreaker, 18:13) - Ibushi fails his 1st defense - Ospreay is the 23rd champion

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship 3-Way Match: BUSHI & Shingo Takagi [Los Ingobernables] d. Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado [SZKG] © and SHO & YOH [CHAOS] (Takagi > SHO, Last of the Dragon, 6:50) - Kanemaru/Desperado fail their 5th defense - BUSHI/Takagi are the 58th champions

RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. [SZKG] d. Tomohiro Ishii [CHAOS] © (Hurrah! Another Year, Surely This One Will Be Better Than The Last; The Inexorable March Of Progress Will Lead Us All To Happiness, 11:53) - Ishii fails his ? defense - Sabre is the 21st champion

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship 3-Way Match:  EVIL & SANADA [Los Ingobernables] d. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa [Bullet Club] © and Matt & Nick Jackson [The Elite] (SANADA > Matt, Rounding Body Press, 10:15) - GOD fail their 1st defense - EVIL/SANADA are the 82nd champions

IWGP US Heavyweight Championship: Juice Robinson d. Cody Rhodes [The Elite] © (Pulp Friction, 9:02) - Cody fails his 1st defense - Juice is the 5th champion

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Taiji Ishimori [Bullet Club] d. KUSHIDA ©  (Bloody Cross, 11:17) - KUSHIDA fails his 1st defense - Ishimori is the 83rd champion

Jay White [Bullet Club] d. Kazuchika Okada [CHAOS] (Blade Runner, 14:18)

IWGP Intercontinental Championship No-DQ Match: Tetsuya Naito [Los Ingobernables] d. Chris Jericho [FREE] © (Destino, 22:35) - Jericho fails his 2nd defense - Naito is the 20th champion

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi d. Kenny Omega [The Elite] © (High Fly Flow, 39:13) - Omega fails his 4th defense - Tanahashi is the 67th champion

Hoo boy, a lot to break down here.

Every single title changed hands during this show, including the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. The last time that belt changed hands at a January 4 Tokyo Dome show was Wrestle Kingdom V on 1/4/2011, by, how about that, Hiroshi Tanahashi, beating Satoshi Kojima. Eight years since then, including last year's controversial retaining by Kazuchika Okada over Tetsuya Naito that some people are still salty about. So, essentially, the entire Bushiroad era. The (frankly piss-poor) reign of Kenny Omega as IWGP champion is at an end, and the rest of the Elite (including Kota Ibushi) are title-less as well. So let the speculation about Omega and All Elite Wrestling begin in full force. It will be interesting to see which direction he goes in either way. For his part, Tanahashi is now an 8-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion, cementing himself with the record number of reigns. (The next closest is Tatsumi Fujinami at 6.)

Los Ingobernables all hold titles now as well, barring Hiromu, of course, being out injured and all. CHAOS holds one title, as does Bullet Club, who lost one and gained one. The Seikigun hold two, after Tanahashi and Juice won their matches, however lost one with KUSHIDA.

Tetsuya Naito regains the title he hates over Jericho in a brutal brawl, taking full advantage of the No-DQ stipulation,and with it, begins his redemption story, having to come to terms with the IC belt to finally truly move beyond it. Really interested in seeing how his 2019 will go.

Jay White winning over Okada is interesting. It redeems White for having a poor re-debut at WK12 last year, and sets up a continuing feud with the two. Kazuchika Okada having his redemption arc is going to be a major part of 2019 creatively, I think, as will Naito as stated above, and eventually the two will collide. Okada does not take a hit here. It only sets him up to be stronger in the end. And hey, the Longboys are gone, so we have the Rainmaker back!

Shock of shocks, neither of the three-way tag matches ended with the reigning champions being pinned. The junior tag match was REAL short. (So were many of the matches today) Three-ways are stupid and are there to a) not make the champions do the job b) cover up for a bloated roster. Perhaps with the Elite moving away from NJPW this will be minimized in future. But let's face it, now we'll get rematches with the previous champions v. the current ones coming up real soon.

Juice regains the US belt, and writes Cody Rhodes out of NJPW. Trent Beretta challenged Juice post-show. That'll be good. Hopefully they can do right by Juice this time. They made him look like an absolute star at G1 Special in San Francisco, and then proceeded to squander and ruin that the rest of 2018. ZSJ regaining the RevPro title is about what I expected. Now he can take the belt home to England. Yes, that is the na.me of that finisher

That... was a nasty looking elbow Kota took. Ibushi has been reported as being concussed, and that stretcher job was legit. NJPW says the concussion is not severe. Will Ospreay is trying to be in characer gloating about it, because he is a dipshit. Who knows what Ibushi's future is in this AEW era. He's been a freelancer this entire time, so if he too were to leave NJPW (again) so be it. I really think he has the potential to be a drawing IWGP champion, but that's up to him. He did decline a WWE contract after all (as did Sabre). His is the bigger question mark looming than Omega's, if I'm honest.

The mixed Seikigun/CHAOS team of Makabe/Yano/Taguchi won the pre-show gauntlet match, so will most likely challenge for the NEVER Openweight Comedy 6-Man Tag Team titles tomorrow at New Year Dash!!. Yuji Nagata filled in for the injured *spits* Michael Elgin, and made the match actually watchable now, because fuck Michael Elgin. The Most Violent Players still being a thing makes me think there really is going to be a unit shakeup coming soon. We already saw it with Jay White and Gedo earlier in 2018, and the continued CHAOS/Seikigun teamups point that way too.

All in all, a really good show that was weak on paper but in practice did really well. The attendance was announced as 38,162, up from 34,995 for last year's, but not as much of a jump (Nearly +10K last year from WK11). It's also the highest attendance listed since Bushiroad started using actual numbers rather than papered, which was 36,000 in 2015 for WK9. So as critical as I've been of Kenny Omega as champion, using the Meltzer Standard for attendance, it looks like Kenny was, in fact, a decent draw as champion, even if creative and match quality was the shits. Online, it seems that there were some issues during the show on NJPWWorld, for which apologies have been doled out.

The attendance is an interesting issue. Bushiroad owner Takaaki Kidani has said for years that he wanted Wrestle Kingdom 14 to be the sell-out show at the Dome, as it falls on a Saturday...

As part of today's show, upcoming big events were announced for the coming year, and the biggest one of these was the announcement that WK14 will be, in fact, a 2-day event, on 1/4 and 1/5/2020, both Saturday and Sunday. Not sure how that is going to work out for selling out the Dome in 2020. In fact it might dilute the attendance by splitting it. It's an interesting conundrum, and we'll see if NJPW has the momentum to sell out just one, if not both, of those dates this time next year.

Other major show dates were announced, some we already knew (if you look at the Upcoming NJPW Events post from 2 days ago). There is a mega-card announced for 4/20/2019 at Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, without a name given, but no word on Sakura Genesis, so I'm wondering if there will even be one this year. Wrestling Dontaku 2019 is a two-day event in Fukuoka, much like last year's edition.

This year's Best of the Super Juniors 26 Final will be held on 6/5/2019 at Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan, which is great, finally giving the Final the prestige it deserves with such a massive venue to hold it in. A mere 4 days later, we go back to Osaka-Jo Hall for Dominion 6.9 in Osaka-Jo Hall on, oddly enough, 6/9/2019.

G1 Climax 29 will begin and end in interesting fashion. This year's tournament will actually begin in the USA, on 7/6/2019 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX, making this the only time G1 Climax matches have been held outside of Japan. As for the ending, following the success of last year's Finals at Tokyo Nippon Budokan, which was due to necessity of renovations happening at Ryogoku, they are going back this year from 8/10 - 8/12/2019 for this year's G1 Finals as well.

The last one to be announced is a solo date in London, on 8/31/2019 at The Copper Box, located in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Hackney Wick. This is the place where feuding YouTubers Joe Weller and KSI held a boxing match. I am sure there will be RevPro involvement in this show.

That's it. That's all I got. New Year Dash!! is tomorrow but they never announce the card for it ahead of time. Hope everyone enjoyed WK13, and we start a good year in New Japan Pro Wrestling.

[clowngremlin]

h*t*lia is the reason no one in high school liked me because i was hyperfixated on it in grade 8 and it just ruined everyone’s view of me because i was super annoying about it. actually i think grade 8 in general just made everyone hate me because i was so god damn annoyed? the h*t*lia hyperfixation obviously didn’t help but i was also like.....a wretched little girl? like just god awful. i was awkward to look at like my hair stuck out in every direction because i used to not comb it and then i took to wearing really ugly knit hats that looked like animals all the time, even in like the spring when it got warmer. i had braces for the first half of grade 8, but then got them removed, but i wore the retainer constantly. i was really.....shrill. like i was shrieky and was always like yelling or laughing really loudly because this was before the depression hit me and i stopped showing up to class and i was a genuinely happy person for the first time since i was younger because i actually had friends. i also had like 50 different hyperfixations all at once and they were the only thing i ever wanted to talk about because this was before my ex boyfriend and i were friends and he would make fun of me for talking about anything i was interested in. i would also sing mcr in the halls because i was a fucking emo loser..... i also had dyed purple hair and always wore arm warmers or fingerless gloves even though i wouldn’t go on to actually need them until grade 10 when i started to cut myself but by that point i didnt wear them anymore. i was also dealing with a lot of internalized homophobia at the time. i had a crush on my best friend at the time and i couldn’t tell anyone because i didn’t want anyone to think i was a lesbian or something and bully me and i thought my mom wouldn’t accept me and i was fresh out of grade 7 where i was called a d*ke on a regular basis by the other kids in my class. i had also just found out what trans was and i remember thinking “am i transgender? well, that’s something future me will have to deal with because i can’t even handle the fact that i might like girls!” and i was actually really mean to anyone who would ask me if i was gay or something, and going as far as making up crushes on guys to tell people i had because i didn’t want anyone to know that i had a crush on a girl!!!! i also like straight up didn’t go to school for a week because my childhood best friend (different from the girl i had a crush on) told me they had a crush on me and was a lesbian and i was like “hoo boy! i can’t deal with this because i also might be gay and i can’t be gay because it’s wrong and my mom will call me a freak!” and they also told me that they wanted to kill themselves because i wouldn’t date them or something and my mom phoned their mom and i developed really severe anxiety which made it to the point where i couldn’t leave my house unless it was to go to school and all i would do was sit in my room and watch criminal minds reruns and go on tumblr!!! i was also like, really mean to anyone who asked me if i was gay, not like going so far as being homophobic but getting really passive aggressive and being like “girls can have short hair!!!!! dont be so small minded, you’re stereotyping which isnt cool!!!” but in a really snippy way. it’s so funny to think about this now, because im much more comfortable with my attraction to women than i am with my attraction to men, partly due to the trauma and abuse i went through at the hands of my ex boyfriend in grade 10-11, but that’s a story for a different day. 

this was gotten way too long but i feel like i just needed to get this all out for some reason? this was like spurred on because someone i follow was posting h*t*lia and i ended up thinking about grade 8 again, which was nearly 10 years ago! it was 7-8 years ago, babey!!! i was in grade 8 in 2010-2011!!!