#(you will never convince me that twitter is a good place for discussion because it just isn't. it wasn't made for that

[sisterdivinium]

It's interesting to stroll around Fanlore reading discussions that took place in 2007 talking about the fractured nature of fandom on LJ and people interacting without having enough context (as in commenting on a post they did not read by a user they do not know) when you're living in 2023 and people distribute likes without reading anything or commenting; when there's supposedly "drama" of unknown origins happening in more than one website at the same time because there's no real "home base" for fandom activity anymore; and we're all carrying on with our lives reblogging things without even looking at previous notes and reactions to that same post even if out of simple curiosity...

[qqueenofhades]

People are apparently saying "well I'm not gonna vote/vote for trump if tik tok is banned!"

I'm pretty sure they were already going to do that, this is just their excuse of the week

But more importantly, if a stupid app matters more to you than the actual lives trump and the republicans will deliberately destroy, well that says more about them don't it?

But wait... I thought they weren't going to vote because of Gaza/because Biden hasn't personally forgiven THEIR student loan/because something something corporate centrism/because something something garble garble??! Does this mean their excuses just change by the week according to whatever's in the headlines and have no actual logical coherence or adherence to a guiding principle? Surely you jest, good internet sir and/or madam. Shocking.

Anyway, also... they realize that this effort is being spearheaded by Republicans and is pretty transparently an attempt to get another huge social media platform (after the Bird App Formerly Known as Twitter) into the ownership of an ex-Trump Cabinet official and an investor group with Russian ties? And that voting for Trump would directly play into those people's hands? And that... wait, never mind. I still expect logic or reason to have any place in this discussion, and it doesn't. Just tell me Why They Aren't Voting For Biden!!! next week and maybe I can get ahead of the curve for once.

This, however, is likewise why I oppose this rushed and Republican-driven move to "ban TikTok!!" in a highly consequential election year and think somebody needs to talk some sense into Biden and/or the Senate that this is a stupid idea and should be shelved (or at the least, heavily revised or modified). Yes, TikTok being owned by a group with Chinese government ties isn't great, but there's no morally pure ultra-megacorp that's going to rush in to fill the void. Forcing the Chinese owners to divest will just create an opening for Trump's ex-Treasury Secretary and his Russian businessmen buddies to step in instead, and I don't know about you, but I don't think that's a net positive in terms of keeping Americans' personal data out of the hands of hostile foreign entities. We already have Musk shilling for the alt-right and the Russian government every chance he gets, using Twitter to prop up their narratives and their operations, and selling TikTok to a Trump/Russian-linked consortium in fucking 2024 would be an incredibly massive own goal and give MAGA and company virtually hegemonic control over American social media content. That is why I think this is a stupid idea and should be opposed, but also, I agree that people who are using this as their Excuse of the Week to not vote were deeply, deeply unlikely to vote in the first place.

This is also a perfect example of why "well now I won't vote >:[!!!!" as a threat/temper tantrum backfires every single time. If there are young people who are concerned about TikTok possibly being banned, and their response is to immediately throw temper tantrums about not voting, all that does is reinforce to elected officials that young people never vote, there is no need to make legislation that champions their interests, and they don't need to fear any electoral backlash because these people have already spent years announcing their intention to Not Vote at every opportunity and clearly aren't about to start now. They remove themselves further from the civic process at every turn, and they reinforce the narrative that young people as a group are not worth having their concerns or ideas prioritized, because even when politicians do other things that young people like and/or support, young people are poised to turn against them and urge No Vote!!! :( at the drop of a fucking hat. So, yeah. "Don't vote!" is always a stupid and self-defeating message, but I can't see how it's possibly supposed to convince politicians that a group of people already predisposed not to vote is going to make any difference from what they already do. So yeah. Like. Not that this surprises me, but it's literally the same threat they've echoed at every single turn, doesn't represent anything new, and will probably be changed 10 times before the election anyway.

[angy-grrr]

hello!! about your post the other day on how people think bkdk is just another sns, do you happen to have the source for ‘horikoshi dislikes the ending of naruto’? its such an integral part of my bkdk worldview and why im so convinced theyre gonna be canon, but i cant for the life of me figure out where horikoshi mentioned that 😅

This is the link of a transcription of the twitter thread! This was from the middle of 2015, even before Katsuki got kidnapped and wasn't super clear whether he would stay in the hero or villain, so I think we need to keep it in mind when reading about this too.

To give more perspective, a reminder of what happened in that time: Bakugou vs Deku 1 happened in January, and this interview probably happened when the sports festival was starting (as we see it goes until August/September)... A year later we get Katsuki's origin chapter, two years later the second Kacchan vs Deku fight after the kidnapping and rescuing, and six years later we get the apology.

(Interview under the cut, the parts where this is discussed)

The interviewer asks what Horikoshi thought of Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry, and Horikoshi says it was frustrating. Horikoshi says he really liked the "Valley of the End" and thought that would be the end of the series. - Kishimoto notes a lot of readers though Naruto and Sasuke would make up after the Valley of the End and go back to the village together. But he made them fight. - Horikoshi continues that all the misunderstandings during the second part were frustrating to watch and when it all came together in the final fight he almost felt like a parent watching these characters he had grown up with, and he was rooting for them both. - Kishimoto says he's happy to hear that, he wanted people to be able to understand both Naruto and Sasuke's feelings. Horikoshi notes it was really emotional, built up over 15 years. - Kishimoto notes he likes Bakugo as a rival and found it funny how he's an ally almost like a villain, telling the main character "die". He thinks Horikoshi did a good job since you don't know if Bakugo will stay an ally or become an enemy. - Horikoshi notes Bakugo is horrible, but thought it would be more interesting that way. He says he wants him to be like Vegeta from Dragon Ball but doesn't know how it'll play out from here. Kishimoto says he thinks it'll be interesting whichever direction Bakugo goes.

I think this last comment is kind of a reference to what he planned for prototype Katsuki Gougou -he was a really nice guy who would insult ppl accidentally and be loud during fights, but he found it annoying. He probably thought and took inspiration from V*geta in order to craft a rude personality for the beginning, and as we know it wasn't clear whether he would even ever support Izuku in the first place or stay as an obstacle to surpass.

I dont believe we are reading into things when thinking Katsuki has become way more than another V*geta, and that his relationship with Izuku doesn't resemble the one he has with G*ku, as far as I know -cmon he is literally crying over feeling like he lost his chance to be by deku's side forever, while not caring about his own arm or possibility of not being a hero, I dont know about DBZ but I dont think something similar happened lol.

When we say he doesnt like it, its because he clearly states very bold declarations in front of the author -who is basically a sensei, a superior role than his and who he should always respect the most. So being critical about it makes it even more clear how much he truly disliked it -he was tired of the misunderstandings and hoped they would just go back together to the village. So, to say the least, he never really truly enjoyed the idea of a rivalry where the characters are so important to each other, but end up fighting for more unnecessary misunderstandings.

We can see how he took notes from the whole everyone coming together for the fight, and he likes that emotional aspect -also making tribute to DBZ with everyone cheering for the hero just like many ppl did irl. We'll have to see what happens, but I believe we'll see more of Katsuki and the reasons why he was able to survive this long and see vestige All Might

[andordean]

To be honest, I've always felt like an outsider in your entire company. Everyone is discussing their favorite ships, like Voorhis/Ciri, Cerys/Ciri, Cahir/Ciri and so on, and against their background, my Roche/Ciri are like an empty place (which are noticed only by haters from twitter and reddit)... not to mention that many people my ship is disgusting. I can't force people to like Roche/Ciri, but my screenshots don't work either, nothing works... because people can't write fanfictions about something they're not interested in. The other ships have a level that Roche/Ciri will never be able to reach.

It's just a pity that the result of my creativity and efforts were haters and disgust of the whole fandom. I would like people not to forget the good things I did.

I understand that - but notice how from those ships, only Cahir/Ciri is my ship. And there's more hate in the fandom for it than for your ship, because people hate it in the books already.

The other ships you mention I don't consider mine - but I find them interesting so I support my friends who create content for them. Through that I was lucky to build a community that in turn supports me. I have been working on building that community since 2016.

The list of people I have blocked for hating Cahir/Ciri is very, very, very long. But I've never interacted with them. I won't convince them to see the ship as anything but abusive (I got anon ask calling it abusive only a few days ago) and their hate for it will only poison my creativity. So we ignore one another, mostly. Unfortunately what you did is you went after the haters, harassed bystanders, and alienated the fandom against you.

I'm sorry that your screenshots (they are of great quality) didn't inspire anyone to pick up the ship and create fics for them. My own creativity is nonexistent, even for my ships, so I'm sorry I personally cannot help you.

The only way forward for you is to either take a true break until the situation stops hurting you, or keep creating. But now, unfortunately, you would need to earn people's trust again. You sadly burnt a lot of bridges in the fandom. I truly hope you'll get to a happier place soon.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2022: #25 - #21

25. ARMENIA

Rosa Linn - “Snap”

20th place

Overall placement: 50/79

[Above The Black Mamba, below James Newman]

Ugh, Fine. 

Time to finish this ranking turbo style! So yeah, I’m not impressed with The Biggest Eurovision Hit, which I suppose is a controversial opinion? Then again, if Rosa was so good, then why did she only make it 20th place, hmmm? 🤔🤔

When Rosa’s song leaked it sounded exactly like the type of song you’d expect  DMGP to commit murder for: a frivolous, cheery pop welterweight (which somehow has the same cadence as I’m Alive by Elhaida Dani) thats easy to listen to and doesn’t get in the way of stanning better things. 

At Eurovision, this was Rosa’s exact journey. She was a cute presence that was vaguely liked, and her staging supported this. (despite the staging mishaps, still pretty neat!) Don’t know what all the references in the lyrics are about, but we can pretend it added some depth and meaning, Into 20th place she went, which was a fair result for what her lovable random self brought to the table. 

Then, she went viral on TikTok, which honestly is more of an  “eww” than a “good on her” i m o. Okay, look, it defo does not surprise me that out of the entire 2022 catalogue this song became the viral one. TikTok viralness is a horrible metric for musical quality though. “Snap” works as a TikTok song specifcally because it doesn’t syphon attention away from whatever brainfart nonsense TikTokkers force on their feeds for a living. If you want a backing track to your “Make mac ‘n’ cheese by dumping the ingredients on a marble countertop” silliness or your indie song-singing 101 Tutorial, might as well pick something like a Snap as the accompanying backing track.

Also, I always felt the record label behind Rosa Linn was a bit too eager to get A Big Kicker on their conto. Remember when Rosa -likely on urging from her mentor Tamar Karpelian- attempted to start a respectful discussion on Twitter (oh dear) about how wonderful NFTs were (oh dear) because they helped establish a base income for fledgling artists,like herself (oh dearrrr) without having to rely on her songs getting streams? (oh dearrrrrrrrr)Twitter gave their usual gaslighting-disguised-as-concern response which in turn forced Rosa issue a semi-confused, half-arsed apology for attempting to profit from her work. Okay that was kinda funny, but by Monika Liu’s  grown-out bob, Zoomer drama is the nuttiest drama, I swear.

Anyway, the aforementioned NFT shizzle, the association with Tamar’s Slytherin Evil, the TikTok viralness and the radio people’s sudden insistence that “Snap” was A Hidden Underrated Gem despite it being an inconspicuous 20th placer at Eurivision THAT NOBODY CARED ABOUT, and also the fact that Snap has five different versions (HER?!) all kinda hints at a certain ambition that just... taints it a bit for me. It just feels like Snap’s popularity didn’t develop itself naturally and but came about due to largely commercial and monetary reasons, after which the sheeple convinced themselves retroactively that it was secretly great and very underrated, since you know, influencers would never twist the truth to us for their own profit. 

Overall the song’s fine in a vaccuum. Underneath its base sheer lie values that my crusty millennial monroe ass doesn’t share. FARE THEE WELL, MISS LINN, YOU GO BYE NOW!!!

 -----------------------

24. CROATIA

Mia Dimsic - “Guilty pleasure”

26th place

 Decade placement: 47/79

[above The Roop, below Tusse]

Oh look, another vaguely pleasant, mildly likabable, and ultimately not very exciting middle-of-the-road pop melody. The cynic in you might think I’m ranking Mia ahead of Rosa because Mia didn’t go viral, and like always the cynic in you is correct! Hooray! 😁 Yeah sorry, in the ongoing battle of overrated vs underrated, it’s the correctly rated that always win :-) 

Still, like Rosa, Mia had the potential to be green on my ranking if she had cultivated a status as a fun random. TSwift IS a guilty pleasure of mine (except for her Midnights Era self which is unironically great) and while “Willow” is a part of the least exciting wing in Taylor’s musical library (ie: the part that isn’t crazed out through copium and/or severe neurosis), this bootlegged version was just cute enough to charm me.

Now of course, if your song is all about maintaining a certain level of delicate joie-de-vivre, it’s really important to not overdo the act and let the singer’s personal charisma carry it. Cue to the staging which looked like this:

What.

The.

Everlovin’.

Fuck?

There’s good staging and there is whatever the flyin’ fuck that was. Goodbye cutesie lounge vibe, goodbye charming performer, you’re completely overtaken by this overly choreographed, overtly dramatic and abrasive act that your song didn’t need. ONE dancer, NO acrobatics, how difficult is that to grasp, HRT? I’d be tempted to say the act was a cursed decision, but then realize Croatia’s frantic dance gremlins were probably the tipping point that allowed ~Systur~ into the finals, and any Eurovision final graced by those three earth angels has to count as a blessing. So thank you Mia for blessing us. ^_^ 

------------------------------------

23. GERMANY

Malik Harris - “Rockstars”

25th place

Decade ranking: 45/79

[Above Tusse, below Undisclosed]

It is very common knowledge that nobody likes Rockstars, and fine, I don’t! As insipid as “Rockstars” was though, I don’t think it was completely without redeeming qualities.Malik had a baseline charm and really went for it, I guess. 

The German Selection, which had adopted the very... um... optimistic name “Germany, 12 points” for the occasion, (optimistic even if we believe the conspiracy theory the “12 points” alluded to the total numerical amount ARD were aiming for in Turin <3) was one of the worst in a horrible NF season. I was fucking relieved it produced a winner I could (sadly no more than) vaguely enjoy. Not everyone has the panache of getting distracted by their own soap bubble bonanza. 

Also, the SPOKEN WORD RAP BREAK was exactly what my brain and soul -both high on copium after the Alina Pash withdrawal- needed at the time. It didn’t blow me away or anything, but it at least gave me something tangible to cling onto besides “well this is nice, i guess”. 

For the rest though, ::tumbleweeds::. I think people might have been a bit too bandwagon-y in their Malik Mockery cus like, yeah he’s clearly getting last, don’t make it worse? But then again... he brought very little to the table. Besides the spoken word it’s like... cursive singing (petition to rename this to “Cursed Singing”) and instruments displayed on moth-eaten rugs to get points, you know? It’s like Germany were deliberately telegraphing us to NOT vote for them, again. But that’s less on Malik and more on ARD’s incompetence, which is a discussion for another time. 

-----------------------------------------------

22. NORTH MACEDONIA

Andrea - “Circles”

27th place

Decade ranking: 44/79

[Above Malik, below Hurricane]

WE FINALLY MADE IT TO GREEN!!! Sadly we’re still in the No Man’s Land of VagueOpinionstan. 😣 

There is *something* about Andrea and “Circles” that resonates well with me? Is it the perfectly mimed frustration with a poorly communicating love interest? Is it the palpable resignation on her face as she helplessly bleats “u don’t wanna test my limits -_-”.

Maybe! What I do know is that I stan the critical amount of pure Sadsack Energy Andrea exhudes from every pore. 😍😍 I think she’s a contender for the most morose, Eeyore-ish person to ever set a foot on a Eurovision stage? Reminder that this person won a selection  <33333 Andrea posseses a sort of theoretical anti-charisma that should render her unvoteable, and yet in practice just has me cling to every word crossing her lips. ALL SHE WANTS IS A HEALTHY CONVERSATION SO SHE CAN GET IT RIGHT AND FIX THE SITUATION, YOU GHOULS!!!

(and yes, the other Bubble favourite of floordrop sorcery making an appearance <3)

But then on top of that, Andrea also became A Highly Controversial Pick for NoMac!!!! Strangely not because she was an out-and-proud lesbian (although, an out-and-proud lesbian representing a toxic homophobe country from the Balkans <3333333) but because..... she dropped a wee plastic flag during the turquoise carpet. 

The toxic nationalists took it as HER DELIBERATELY TRAMPLING OUR MACEDONIAN PRIDE AFTER YEARS OF GREEK BULLYING. MRT even issued an official statement that they were CONSIDERING A WITHDRAWAL (with zero intention to actually quit of course) to appease the smooth-brained cunts until the quiet and expected NQ arrived. <3333333333

(knowing her misery was finally over, Andrea cracked a smile for the first time in her life <3)

This only enhanced Andrea’s Charlie Brown”-esque journey even more!! Just when Andrea looked like the token hapless last placer nobody loved, the results came in, and showed she *almost* made the final.  😍😍😍😍😍😍. If there’s one thing that horrible second semifinal should have done right and didn’t, is causing a NoMac qualification by means of fixed jury voting algorithms. Simply imagine the meltdowns over Andrea slaying Andromache AND Nadir. 😍 If only the EBU had the balls to NQ Azer on the spot, huh? Oh well, there’s always 2023 for that. 😈

----------------------------------

21. UKRAINE

Kalush Orchestra - “Stefania”

1st place

Decade ranking: 41/79

[Above Fyr og Flamme, below Eden Alene]

ugh i forgot he yelled Mariupol and Azofstal at the end of that and wasn’t DQ’d on the spot! Instantly regretting I didn’t rank Ukraine even LOWER. 😫😫😫 (no, don’t think about how much better Stefania would be without him, don’t do it Bobo, consider your mental health -- inner monologue while writing the rest of this post.)

So yeah, after all this inconspicuous also-ran filler (i’m definitely including Snap in that group), I’m eliminating the winner, the biggest televote winner Eurovision have ever had. “Have you no respect, Boris?”, you might ask and well... would I be me, if I had any, lol? I came into the 2022 season with hot takes and mental fortitude and thanks to Shitvidi I’m all out of fortitude, so~

Cynicism and self-awareness aside, let’s get the big elephant out of the room: The war had virtually no impact on my ranking here. I despise politics at Eurovision, (mostly because politics always affect it, but Eurovision NEVER affects the politics back), so there are two options here: Either downvote Ukraine for bringing politics into the contest, or make an exception and turn a blind eye. I chose option two. Nobody can begrudge Ukraine for attempting to pretend that the worst armed conflict to have hit them since WW2 hadn’t broken them, so I won’t. No points added or deducted.  . 

I do have good reasons to not rank Stefania higher though. I think you already know where this is headed - Sorry (for YOU) if you’re a fan of his, but Oleh suuuuuucks. It started at Vidbir when he led a small mob against that poor envelope lady and it was all sorts of messed up? Entitlement and bullying tinged with toxic nationalism, there ain’t no better first impression to make, am i right?

And very unfortunately my distaste towards Oleh also extends to his on-stage presence which I find really fucking obnoxious. The concept of a “Charismatic Black Hole” was one I didn’t fully understand until I first saw Oleh Psiuk set a foot on stage. Does anyone TRULY like  his presence here? All his verses do is distract from the chorus and instrumental, which is awful because those bits fucking slap! Airlift him and his ugly-ass hat the fuck outta here. 

Okay, so the winning song is actually... pretty good. It is NOT great though. Stefania is a weaker, safer and more cis-het version of “Shum”, which is suboptimal. Counterpoint is that “Shum” was Peak Ukraine (Which is also Peak Eurovision), and remains one of the best entries ever, so a lesser replication of that is still enjoyable overall. It made Ihor Didenchuk (who is also in Go_A) a Eurovision laureate! It kinda sucks the fandom didn’t come through at a time when Ukraine had, you know, an actually charismatic lead, but I suppose the power of love Damiano-induced boners does conquer all.

On the flip side, Ihor’s and Tymofii’s contributions are so good that they almost fully balance Oleh’s deteriorative and hammy rapping. Tymofii carries Stefania with his spot-on chanting and preposterous flute playback shenanigans. 

Ihor meanwhile just has a good time on the stage, disguised as one of the two Cousin It-like entities <3 Add in some tasteful staging and hell, even the fact that this song is in essence an ode to someone’s (You Know Who’s) actual mom, (and not  the forced, cringe, jingoistic metaphor it later became) and you have an entry that definitely makes sense as a jury fourth placer and top fiver overall.

Now obviously, I would have preferred for Ukraine to not win because they were not the best option (not by a mile!), and ofc also because I hate their lead, but I’m not fully broken up that they beat my faves. Sometimes there are powers at work beyond our control and that’s fine. Not everything in life must be catered to our tastes. Ukraine are the best Eurovision country, and it doesn’t matter how or when they catch up to (and pass) Ireland and Sweden, as long as it happens during my lifespan. 🤷‍♀️

Still think Pinkbucket’s a thuggish little punk though. Prayer circle that the next time Ukraine win, it’s with someone actually worth stanning. 🙂

CONGRATULATIONS TOP 20!!!

ALBANIA - AUSTRIA - CZECH REP - ESTONIA - FRANCE -

GEORGIA - ICELAND - IRELAND - LITHUANIA - MALTA -

MOLDOVA - THE NETHERLANDS - PORTUGAL - ROMANIA - SAN MARINO -

SERBIA - SLOVENIA - SPAIN  - SWEDEN - UK

THE RANKING 

21. UKRAINE - Kalush Orchestra - “Stefania”

22. NORTH MACEDONIA - Andrea - “Circles”

23. GERMANY - Malik Harris - “Rockstars”

24. CROATIA - Mia Dimšić - “Guilty pleasure”

25. ARMENIA - Rosa Linn - “Snap”

26. CYPRUS - Andromache - “Ela”

27. LATVIA - Citi Zeni - “Eat your salad”

28. DENMARK - ReDDI - “The show”

29. BULGARIA - Intelligent Music Project - “Intention”

30. GREECE - Amanda Tenjford - “Die together”

31. POLAND - Ochman - “River”

32. MONTENEGRO - Vladana - “Breathe”

33. FINLAND - The Rasmus - "Jezebel"

34. BELGIUM - Jérémie Makiese - “Miss you”

35. NORWAY - Subwoolfer - “Give that wolf a banana”

36. AUSTRALIA - Sheldon Riley - “Not the same”

37. SWITZERLAND - Marius Bear - “Boys do cry”

38. AZERBAIJAN - Nadir Rustamli - “Fade to black”

39. ITALY - Mahmood & Blanco - “Brividi”

40. ISRAEL - Michael Ben David - “I.M”

[punk-pins]

had a really bizarre experience today. cw political conspiracy theories and the racism/antisemitism/islamophobia that entails + homophobia/transphobia. long post, kind of rambling, it’s almost 3am, might delete later.

long story short I was in a situation where I was in a gathering of 4 adult (40s-60s), white, moderately wealthy trump republicans. one of which was my father, a woman who is an acquaintance of my father, and the other two were a couple. my father is a trump republican from the economically conservative side– he’s not on twitter, he like watching the stock market ticker on fox news, he likes the idea of trump as a political outsider. (our relationship is strained for it, and we avoid discussing it.) the woman was a trump republican from the side of so-called culture war– she expresses her views online, she thinks the american youth are devolved from her generation, her husband is a retired police officer so she has a lot of opinions about racism in america.

so obviously this group got to talking politics. this was not a conversation I wanted to participate in, but they were adamant they wanted my participation in it, and I wasn’t in a place where I could leave or refuse without causing larger issues. I was calm, I was safe enough to disclose my views come from being a lesbian, and in general I tried to respond as neutrally as possible.

the woman in particular told me directly, multiple times, how I only hold my opinions because I’ve been indoctrinated. she said “indoctrinated” so many times, it was just absolutely bizarre to say that to someone’s face. she repeatedly interjected that she wanted me to feel safe to share my opinions with her, that she didn’t want me to feel ganged up on, while insisting I wasn’t at fault for anything I said because I was indoctrinated.

in this conversation, I was asked if I believed in the “lgbtqia,” because “there are gay people who don’t believe in it, you don’t have to join,” as if it’s an organization. someone offhandedly mentioned “the transsexual issue.” they discussed a conspiracy theory that obama could have destroyed all racism in america in 2008, but instead allowed an islamic brotherhood to come into the white house take over all foreign policy. that obama still controls the current biden administration as a puppet master. they held a firm belief that the younger generation dislikes capitalism from pure laziness and entitlement.

when I said a lot of younger people don’t see themselves settling into economically conservative views with age because they don’t see the opportunities to gain wealth afforded to previous generations, the couple proudly told me about how they earned everything they had by working through college and getting good jobs. in the same breath, they also told me their daughter (my age) had never worked a day because of her indoctrination, and will be graduating college with what’s basically a mortgage in debt. I said exactly, you were able to pay your way through college and enter the workforce, but that’s impossible for your daughter to do because of increased cost + stagnating wages, plus her degree is now a requirement for entry level corporate work, not a bonus, so she will have a harder time accumulating wealth. they laughed it off because they’re convinced the situation is a moral failing on their daughter’s part, and doesn’t reflect on american economics or their parenting at all.

when it came to gay indoctrination in schools, I said well a hundred years ago left handed students were beaten for not using their right hand, and so all students were right handed. a decrease in anti-gay violence allows more students to express and experiment with how they want to be. it’s not that there’s an explosion of gay people since you were in school, they just weren’t safe to come out before. that bit sort of got through a little, but they were insistent that are “new identities” being pushed onto kids, and how could anyone ever want to be anything but straight? I would’ve lost my shit if we really got into it on these ones, but thankfully the topics shifted.

it was just one bizarre “why would you ever say this to another person in real life?” moment after the next. like are you willfully stupid or do you actually think your generation solved all problems in the world when you decided to settle down, and now everything else is extraneous nonsense made to make you look bad? do you really think your sheltered opinions matter on intercommunity issues? do you not understand how insane and rude and entitled you sound? I never expected or desired to change any of these people’s minds on anything, I was just trying to get through the interaction walking the tightrope of asserting myself so I wouldn’t hate myself after and not devolving into argument that would be counterproductive to the bigger situation going on.

the interesting thing is though, my dad didn’t say a word throughout the entire discussion. I know he agreed with them on a lot of points, but he never spoke against them, or to defend me from pointed comments made towards me. and after, when he was apologizing that it got political, he said he didn’t say anything because he was hoping they would stop. he didn’t try to change the topic, he didn’t speak up for me, he just let it happen, and apologized that it “wasn’t a safe space” for me after. and I think that’s really telling about trump republicans in general. his disapproval was entirely silent because he was not willing to speak against the others on any particular point, even the insane shit, even when it was hurting someone he loved directly in front of him, because that would destroy his credibility in the eyes of the other trump republicans. it really is a fascist fucking movement.

[sisterkosho]

Anon who asked about how you’d implement Illuso in ASBR here. Thank you very much for your detailed response and sharing your thoughts! I love your ideas for him, especially the thought of Illuso scattering mirrors through shards on the ground to transform the terrain into something more advantageous. Having the mirror world lock off an opponent’s stand/special button (ooh and assist because he’d pick them off one by one) for the duration of their time in the mirror is also very natural in representing Illuso’s ability, and is unique to the character. Truthfully Illuso has never been my favorite member of La Squadra, though I love his fight, but you’ve really opened my eyes to how cool he could really be in ASBR. Sadly I don’t have a Twitter to view your more detailed moveset with direct references, but know that I wholeheartedly support you! Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to me, for sharing your passion, and I’m rooting for you to get more Illuso in ASBR and beyond with future JJBA works. 🪞✨

Thank you so much! 🥹💜 I’m so glad that you like my ideas! This is obviously something that I’m extremely passionate about given how much Illuso means to me, and I’ve been doing my best to get people onboard with the idea of getting him into ASBR. So it’s really nice to hear that I’ve been doing a good job at convincing even those who don’t like him all that much.

I feel as though a lot of people tend to overlook the more minor characters when it comes to discussing potential DLC, and it’s a shame because there’s so much potential for unique and interesting gameplay. I’ve seen far too many people say that they can’t understand why anyone would even want Illuso in the first place, or that it’s impossible for him to be added due to his lack of screentime and popularity, which kinda makes me sad tbh. But I’d like to think that there’s at least a little bit of hope if I can get enough people talking about him and increase the demand for him to be added. I mean hey, if the Abbacchio fans can do it…

But yeah, I’m just really glad that I’ve been doing a good job of getting people’s attention, and that there are a good amount who agree with me about this topic. Especially since there are some people (specifically in the ASBR discord) who seem to think I’m crazy for pushing this hard for Illuso. It really sucks that he never gets a chance to shine just because he isn’t popular enough, so even if it isn’t very likely, I’m going to hold out hope that he’ll get his moment before the devs decide to stop making DLC.

As for any future posts regarding my little campaign, I’ll be sure and put them here as well for those who don’t have Twitter! Possibly Reddit as well, but I’ve got a feeling the people over there might be getting sick of my shenanigans at this point—

[skepticalarrie]

But do you think it is like iMPOSSIBLE to end it or..?

IMO, at this point, it feels more likely for HL to come out than babygate to end. These are two scenarios where we have very similar issues: to erase the past. But one could cancel the other, if that was the case. Let me try to explain, join me in my rambling:

I don't think it's impossible for babygate to end, anything is possible and it could end tomorrow as far as I'm concerned. It's just the way I see things, it becomes more unlikely every day because 1) Louis is in too deep. And 2) There's no way they can end this without bringing attention to the fact people had conspiracy theories about this since day one. It would inevitably bring attention to EVERYTHING we have been talking about, including Larry, and this can so easily get out of our bubble on twitter, it's a very dangerous game to be played. I mean if they potentially faked an entire pregnancy what else there is to find out? Like what happened with boobiegate, that was a good taste of how things could unfold.

As for Larry, it's hard to speculate about that because I think this is very personal, I really have no idea if coming out is what want, in the first place. Recently, I think this is less their goal than it was before, they seem comfortable keeping it more to themselves, which is fair. So please keep in mind this is very complex so this is a completely hypothetical scenario, to put things into perspective: When we consider a coming out, exposing the past and convincing people this is a recent thing was always a topic of discussion. TBH I never thought this was a big issue, given people forget things easily. I always imagined they wouldn't overexplain anything and let the old rumours die out, which sounds reasonable and I think it would be doable 10-15 years from now. But honestly, I never thought Harry would get this big either, which makes things much harder. So in a scenario where they plan to come out sooner - which I'm personally still very resistant but whatever - babygate wouldn't be in the way, it would help. You see, babygate served many purposes through the years, but the main reason was always to solidify Louis' heterosexuality and assure that Larry rumours were under control. So if they eventually decide to come out, it's more likely for people to believe this was recent - and wouldn't put a lot of powerful people in very hot waters - if Louis had a son, he had sex with a woman in order for that to happen etc etc. Long story short I think Larry is less questionable than babygate. Ending babygate is potentially exposing Larry, but not the other way around. Larry is just the tip of the iceberg.

[joyce-stick]

Adachi and Shimamura's Second Season

An essay by Audrey of the joystick system

Revealing and analyzing the plot of Adachi and Shimamura's never-yet-released second season of anime.

TL;DR

Adachi and Shimamura, the yuri light novel series by Hitoma Iruma, is extremely good. The currently serialized manga adaptation by Yuzuhara Moke is also good. The anime is good too, but not finished.

The novels go some rather surprising places, and this essay is about those surprises and how Adachi and Shimamura, quite unexpectedly, proves itself a very unique series quite unlike many others in the yuri genre.

Mainly because it's secretly also science fiction.

Video version:

Text version under the cut. Feel free to watch or read or read along while listening to the video version!

[cohost version]

Future video essay/transcript: Audrey's Best Girls Winter 2023

If you're on desktop, you may find this more comfy to read directly on our Tumblr site.

If you enjoy this essay, please consider following us here or on any other platforms, and/or donating to support future works via our Patreon or Ko-fi.

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Prologue: Triviality & Psychology

Despite not having read a single word that Hitoma Iruma has written, I think I’ve been convinced, with relative certainty, that he’s probably a pretty good writer.

The English versions of his work that we have read, which are written by other people, based on his novels written in Japanese, that we haven’t read, give the impression that his novels are pretty good.

Of course, the specific work we’re here to discuss today is Adachi and Shimamura, but of what little else we’ve read of his work, mainly the first chapter of the Bloom Into You spinoff novels, there’s a consistent focus on introspection and careful characterization and articulation through all sorts of details, both trivial and otherwise.

This may sound arrogant, but I knew early on that I was talented.

When I say “talented,” I mean that I can get results when I work really hard and that I can maintain those results, too. I think I understood the value of those two things much sooner than the other kids.

Thus, I didn’t mind that my after-school schedule was full of lessons. There were ikebana classes, calligraphy school, piano, cram school, and once I was a third year in elementary school, swimming lessons, too. I was considering taking on English speaking classes next. I pretty much took anything available to me. As a kid, I felt lucky that I was even allowed those choices.

Even a child could see that that my house was a respectable one. We had a lacquered gate, a side door for the help on the left side, and many tall trees in our garden. The surrounding walls were tall enough to prevent anyone from peering inside. Our house was bigger than the entirety of the light-green apartment complex across from us. In addition to my parents and I, my grandparents on my father’s side and their two cats lived there. It was quite a lot of space for so few people.

Growing up in that house, I knew I had no choice but to be talented. No one actually said as much, but I knew instinctively that it was true. As long as I kept moving with purpose and produced good results, my parents never seemed upset. What parents wouldn’t be happy to have an exceptional kid?

[Bloom Into You: Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Vol. 1 by Hitoma Iruma

Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda

Published in English by Seven Seas in 2020]

The first pages of the Sayaka novels open with Sayaka describing her school curriculum and extracurricular activities, her awareness that she’s a gifted student, and that she’s incredibly committed to being one, so much so that she rarely quits something. She is devoted.

And this characterization informs the rest of the work quite readily, as Sayaka finds herself first annoyed by another girl at her swim practice, who to her, appears not devoted.

Devoted perhaps, not to swimming, but to Sayaka herself. And then her first lesbianic encounter with that same girl results in panic, in her running away, in her quitting.

Quitting for the first time she can remember.

And her quiet surprise when her parents just accept that.

All this is told to us, in prose, in monologue, it’s delicate and psychological and intriguing and it leaves us wanting to know more.

And yet somehow, we read all this, were fascinated, and then our attention span burned down around it and we forgot about it for a year or two.

So, yeah, that happened. And we also forgot about… until one day very recently I, Audrey, decided to wrangle this mess of a brain and have us settle down to read it… Adachi and Shimamura.

Part 1: The Adashima-daptations

1.1 Anime vs Manga vs Light Novel

Most of y’all know Adachi and Shimamura for being an anime. And, that’s fair, I guess, it is an anime after all. But it’s also an adaptation, as most anime are. And specifically an adaptation of a novel, or a series of novels, the first four of them at least.

Those four novels are only the first act of the story. There’s now ten, with at least two more planned, and we’ve read eight of them, and I have opinions. So you’re going to hear them, because someone has to. Unless you don’t want to, and then you can leave, I guess. We are fine with people leaving. Anyway.

Concerning the anime, we have some feelings about it. Our overall opinion is that it’s good. It’s a pretty good anime, it’s a competent adaptation, and we don’t really have a lot of complaints as to its quality in either of those respects.

It’s not a particularly lavish production, nowhere near as technically impressive as Bloom Into You (which is one notable example of “probably about as close as you can get to a KyoAni level work without being from KyoAni”) but it’s pleasantly storyboarded, elegantly scored, and overall perfectly watchable.

It’s good enough to recommend as an entry point into the story (although the Moke manga is the far better adaptation), but woefully insufficient as a substitute for it. Partially for the obvious snag that it ends before the relationship gets going, and there’ll likely never be a second season.

But there’s also some speedbumps that have, somewhat unavoidably, arisen from adapting the story to a visual medium.

1.2 Shimadensity

When the anime aired, the thing I most remember is people being confused as all heck why Shimamura was so… dense.

That is to say, blind. A blind blonde, an unnatural blonde at that, being blind to the obvious homosexual before herself, being extremely homosexual towards her in her presence and drinking mineral water, which, as anyone who’s seen the film Heathers knows, is a universal signifier of homosexuality.

And, well, you see, there is an answer to that. Shimamura is not blind whatsoever.

She knows something is up with Adachi, and it’s not as if she’s not pretty nearly drawn the conclusion that Adachi is attracted to her, but she’s just sort of averted her eyes from it.

She’s decided, albeit somewhat subconsciously, that thinking about Adachi being gay is troublesome. Answering the question of “why Adachi wants to hold my hand, wants to be so close to me,” and all that, isn’t a path she’d like to take, and so she just ignores it.

Shimamura’s gotten through life this way, by not thinking too hard about it. Just going with the flow, letting everyone around her take her wherever, putting up a path of least resistance through life. She finds forming genuine, lasting connections with people difficult, and doesn’t really feel very strongly about most of her peers.

But she also feels that she needs people, anyway, so she masks through it, politely smiles, and lets her relationships just happen, come and go like the waves. This does bother Shimamura, if for no other reason than that she finds it tedious and tiresome, but she just kind of rolls with it anyway.

Meanwhile, Adachi is explicitly an introvert to the extreme, and not in the Bocchi kind of way, where she wants to make friends but can’t; no, Adachi straight-up doesn’t want friends. She finds friendships burdensome, to the point of being soul-crushing.

An anecdote in the novels has Adachi describing how, in elementary school, she made an honest attempt towards being more socially active, but found that each new friend she made felt like another chain on her soul.

But these forced friendships weighed down on me, suppressing my emotions, erasing all my imperfections. Whenever one of them spoke to me, I had to craft a fitting response and keep the conversation going. No part of this was genuine; I just parroted whatever I heard other people saying.

Every time I repeated this process, I grew restless. And every time I gained a new friend, I boxed myself in further, closing off my exits.

But then one day I threw it all in the trash and walked off without them…and that was the day I noticed just how freeing it felt. All I needed was a single breath of fresh air to finally realize that I was meant to live my life alone.

[Adachi and Shimamura volume 4 (Chapter 3: The Moon and Courage) by Hitoma Iruma

Translated by Molly Lee

Published by Seven Seas in 2021]

Eventually coming to accept that, at least in her view, she was not built for close relationships with other humans.

To put it simply, it’s not a skill issue. She just doesn’t care for the grind.

1.3 They Who Don't Remember Your Name

In middle school, she comes off towards her peers as an ice queen, and there’s this really really interesting chapter- the first chapter, in fact, in the fourth novel, where Adachi is described from the perspective of someone else. An unnamed fellow student, with whom she is delegated to work the school library counter, who tries and fails to form a connection with her.

And this student’s description of Adachi is fascinating. Adachi is described as someone who, in step with her desire to eschew friends, is seen by the student body as seemingly unattainable. And this student is startled, then elated, to have the opportunity to even sit near this person.

But Adachi, unconscious and undesiring of her semi-celebrity status within the school, deflects all attempts to break her shell, and so there this unnamed student stays, stays looking, stays admiring.

And then one day this girl, this unnamed student who we never again hear of, who has no significant characterization to speak of, no importance to this story other than to be a lens through which we see Adachi- happens to run into Adachi once again at the beginning of their high school’s second semester, and takes the opportunity to say

“Thank you.”

For something that Sakura Adachi didn’t know. Didn’t see. Couldn’t feel. Didn’t realize. Something so incorporeal to her, yet so powerful to this one peer of hers, as having been allowed to be in proximity to her, to have a memory of her that none else can claim to have.

And Adachi doesn’t get it, and can’t possibly have it explained, and it’s just… that’s it, really. That’s just that chapter.

It was gut-wrenching to read, because it tapped deeply into a specific desire that’s been stuck within us for a long time, that we’ve previously found it… really hard to articulate without sounding weird, or creepy, or wrong.

The desire to know how we were seen, the impact we’ve made on people we crossed paths with whose names we don’t know, whose faces we’ve forgot, or whose lives just briefly overlapped with ours at one time or another

to know if they’re okay, to know if they even remember us, or, the person who we used to be, whoever that was, to be able to affirm that those connections, however tenuous, were important.

And just like… yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if what I’m saying even makes any sense, but those many little encounters, those small moments that made us who we were

have left us conscious of dozens if not hundreds of possible branches in this life, that could have butterfly effected us somewhere completely different from where we currently are, and we can’t know, and we can’t say

but it’s just it, that basic feeling of I wonder how you’re doing, I wonder how life could have been if we’d followed after you, I wonder if you think about me too.

And that desire to achieve closure, something articulated, actualized, in this unnamed girl saying thank you, and at the same time, saying goodbye. To another Sakura on the wind.

1.4 Adachi Recollection

These events are not adapted in the anime. They are not adapted in either of the manga adaptations.

But there is such significance to this anecdote, such immense weight that is given to this random no-name and her view of Adachi, a story about Adachi to which Adachi herself was nearly entirely oblivious.

But then later in one of the most pivotal moments of Adachi’s character arc when a shady fortune teller convinces her to do something about her friendship with Shimamura before they drift ever further away, and she remembers that girl,

Every now and then, I thought back to this one time in junior high when I worked as a library assistant. There was this girl—I couldn’t remember her name or even what she looked like, but she asked me if I had any friends. At the time, I told her I didn’t, and that I was fine with it…but looking back, I couldn’t help but wonder why she asked me that. Was she going to offer to be my friend?

Even then, my answer would have remained the same. I would have told her I didn’t need any friends. But part of me regretted how that interaction played out. Part of me felt that we should have talked it out first, like actual human beings, instead of me one-sidedly slamming her with rejection.

With that in mind, I didn’t want to add to my list of regrets. I couldn’t keep sticking my head in the sand. No, I was going to take action. And if I ended up regretting that, then so be it.

[Adachi and Shimamura volume 4 (Chapter 3: The Moon and Courage) by Hitoma Iruma

Translated by Molly Lee

Published by Seven Seas in 2021]

And this is such a hugely emotional payoff. Adachi did remember. That girl did affect her life. Even despite Adachi’s efforts to refuse connections, still, such a trivial interaction still made her who she is, still contributed to altering the course of her life, and that’s just… y’know, like, gosh.

This is so fucking cathartic to think about, y’know? Even if that person you remember, you wish you could have known, isn’t thinking about you, barely remembers you… you still were there. You still did something for them. Even if it was just being there, even if your feelings didn’t reach them right then, even if even if even if.

The fact that you crossed paths with them, alone, is significant.

It’s that affirmation of that fact that I see in this small, insignificant seeming novel-only plot beat, from which I feel so much meaning is exuded, and, why it's a shame it was excluded.. It may have seemed trivial, seemed unimportant, and seemingly that’s why every adaptation adapted this out,

but that triviality is precisely what is so important about it.

I cannot exaggerate enough when I say that I feel something essential is lost by this piece of story being discluded from every other version.

And that’s really the curse of adapting Adashima, in general. There are so many other details of the characters and story, too numerous to list, that the prose takes time to explore and develop and clarify, that would be tedious to elaborate on in an anime or a manga, and are thus cut.

And rightly so, for the sake of telling the story economically in those mediums, but what is lost as a result is the essential psychological depth of this narrative. And yes, it is a psychological narrative. A cerebral one, even.

Yes, it’s true. Adachi and Shimamura is a calmer, gayer, Kaguya-sama.

And that’s why

Shimamura is so

fucking

dense.

And why Adachi and Shimamura, is so, fucking, dense.

Part 2: A (mostly) calmer, gayer Kaguya-sama

2.1 Cold War of Gay Panic

Once you’ve read deep enough into Adashima, there is absolutely no way around it, this is a deeply psychological conflict. The characters’ mental states and attitudes, the things they won’t say, say so much more in this story than anything else. Which is why I think, although the adaptations are pretty good:

The Moke manga adaptation is actually really good, it does a much better job visually illustrating the psychological aspect of the story than the anime does, and, I think, if you’re really allergic to prose but really want to read Adashima, you should read the Moke version.

It’s not a perfect 1 to 1 recreation of the story, no adaptation ever is, but it’s pretty damn up there. Nonetheless, the adaptations are still limited in how far they can go in elevating their versions, and Adachi and Shimamura, the anime, is good.

Just good.

It’s a competent slice-of-life anime and an incomplete romantic drama. And it’s nice to have a visual companion to the story. But as a standalone piece of media, it’s not all that much more. It doesn’t get the time to develop things further, or to get to the things that make Adachi and Shimamura, as a story, something truly unique.

So, I mentioned earlier that Adachi decided she can’t do relationships, of any kind, and you might be thinking, well that sounds like a terrible protagonist for a romance story, and oh gosh you have no idea. Adachi is a total disaster of a human being. And just to drive that point home quite clearly, I want to read this particular quote from volume 5:

Besides Shimamura, the current me had nothing. I was empty.

Were you to peel back my skin, you'd find not flesh and bones, but her. Shimamura.

And yet. And yet. I felt like I might start tearing out my hair soon. Simply allowing my mind to wander caused my eyes to grow wet with tears.

The fantasies I'd indulged in were not based on anything. I knew that. Even so. Even so.

Was it really that wrong, wanting to be rewarded? Wanting your efforts to pay off?

[From Adachi and Shimamura, volume 5, "Shimamura's Sword"

Written by Hitoma Iruma

Translated and published unofficially by sneikkimies]

To be quite exact: This particular bit of text is from the fan translation of Adachi and Shimamura volume 5. I do not know what the original Japanese says. I do not know what emotional connotation the original Japanese carries. The official translation from Seven Seas, meanwhile, rather says:

Outside of Shimamura, I had nothing. Cut me open and I would bleed Shimamura. So how could she do this to me? Every time I let my guard down, tears welled in my eyes. I knew my feelings were one-sided, and yet…was it so wrong to want her to return them?

[Adachi and Shimamura volume 5 (Chapter 4: Shimamura's Blade) by Hitoma Iruma

Translated by Molly Lee

Published by Seven Seas in 2021]

The official translation is quick, concise, sharp. It cuts thick, as it says, like the slashing of a knife across skin. In this version, Adachi hardly lingers on this emotion, her mind races, her thoughts tear through her.

But in the fan translation, the feeling is mulled over, gradually peeled away, as it says, revealed slowly, with intense deliberation.

The chapter from which this comes, Shimamura’s Sword- or, Shimamura’s Blade in the Seven Seas translation, is perhaps the most psychological chapter contained within the entire series. It is a chapter that, knowing Adachi, you know is coming from the very first few pages, when this illustration of one of the upcoming chapters is shown.

It is Shimamura and Tarumi, her childhood friend who has tried to rekindle their connection after years apart, and Adachi, working a food stand, watching as Shimamura goes out with a girl- a girl who she doesn’t know, a girl who isn’t her.

We knew this was coming from this very moment, and yet, it still smacked, it hurt, when we got to this chapter. Adachi pondering, stewing in this jealousy, after days of depression, as her mental state reaches a boiling point, before erupting straight into the receiver of her cell phone, in the form of her screaming crying voice, transmitted straight to Shimamura’s ears.

Our pulse had steadily begun to quicken as we read this on our own cell phone, our heart in step with Adachi, as she began to speak these words, and we stopped reading, almost too afraid to turn the page.

We did eventually go back to it, of course.

It was not too long after that I realized why this chapter had tripped us up like it did. We saw ourselves in this. No, it’s quite accurate to rather say that we were worse than this.

We too, when we were Adachi’s age, had a crush who saw us as a friend, to whom we had limited access. We too, grew depressed and jealous and angry at being away from them, as a result of us having few other friends and no one else particularly on our mind or in our social life. We too, were bitter about our negative home life.

But we didn’t stop quite at where Adachi stopped, at airing our grievances, at assaulting our crush with our undue anger- no, we made a specific threat.

I won’t be repeating that here, but needless to say, we never followed up on it. It’s been nearly a decade since then, and we haven’t ever not regretted it whenever that memory resurfaces.

While the things we said up to that point, the emotions we aired, were probably not as bad as the things Adachi says here… the threat kind of compensated for that. I’d say, in the end, we were just about as bad as Adachi at her age.

We were not ready for a romantic relationship with anyone, at that age. We probably still aren’t, and personally, I don’t want one. I have doubts that it’ll ever go well. My headmates feel different, but, they’re not talking right now, so…

Anyway. Shimamura is annoyed, doesn’t even follow what the fuck Adachi is on about, hangs up, and Adachi thinks she’s thrown away their friendship.

But then she works up the courage to call Shimamura again, or, perhaps more accurately, lacks the emotional maturity to let it go, and they reconcile.Although weirdly, Shimamura doesn’t seem bothered.

And then, although Shimamura tries to get Adachi to make more friends, it doesn’t really work, one of the most FUCK YOU I’M AUTISTIC AND I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS scenes ever, happens

And then the next volume, Adachi tearfully confesses to Shimamura for a second time after a first time blundering it and passing out while gripping her close in the bath while they’re both wearing swimsuits, gosh that’s also the most fucking hilariously cringe scene, just imagine how embarrassing it must be to pass out from telling your crush how you feel about them, and

THEN Shimamura accepts Adachi’s feelings, and then they are officially girlfriends.

2.2 "Problematic" Yuri

And the whole time I was reading this. The whole damn time, I could not stop thinking. I can fucking see it. The thinkpieces, the ones going, “How Adachi and Shimamura exploits queer teenage girls, by depicting queer teenage girls realistically.”

The twitter threads going, “is Shimamura right, for not taking Adachi’s shit right then, or was she being an asshole, instead of, y’know, it being revealed that her patience has limits but also she later feels like maybe she was a bit too cold and made a mistake…” or like, “is Adachi a womanizer, or a yandere, or a dangerous abusive codependent manipulator”.

Were the arcs of volumes 4 through 8 to be adapted to a second season of anime, there’d be plenty of fuel for opportunistic media criticism weirdos such as ourselves to say… “is Adachi and Shimamura problematic?”

And, no, it’s not. It’s dramatic. This is a psychological romantic drama about a deeply emotional neurodivergent teenage girl who has human flaws. Like, yes, Adachi is jealous and controlling and even a bit mean, and she knows this.

And we’ve seen these articles and twitter threads about Adashima, about Yagakimi and about other queer media in general, floating around, that are just like, is this lesbian relationship between two mentally ill teenagers dangerously codependent or abusive?

We sometimes even floated around to that idea ourselves, reading all the yuri stuff we read- we read a lot of yuri stuff, and, a lot of the time the answer is just, yeah, maybe.

Is that wrong? Is it wrong to depict these things as part of a normal story with stakes and drama? Don’t these people need to have issues in order for the story to have somewhere it can move up from?

There seems to be a subset of the queer leftish internet and hell, pop cultural media criticism internet in general, that just doesn’t want things to happen in narratives

And like, Joyce sort of had this phase herself, in reaction to her breakup last year, where, she wanted to believe that the fact that she was a fan of Love Live was the problem. The fact that Love Live occasionally features shots of teenage girls’ legs, that would’ve been the issue, not that she had a difficult personality or overinflated expectations of her partners.

She just stopped reading yuri for a while, because she just thought, maybe the fact that I was reading yuri stories that just pretend these issues don’t exist, maybe that’s the problem.

Maybe the fact that these stories have male gaze, because they’re targeted at men, is the problem. Maybe I’m actually a man, is the problem. And y’know, this is all just bullshit. This is all just self-directed homophobia as an excuse for happening to be a bit of a fucked up person who is queer.

And that’s really all that is. People don’t criticize straight romance stories for characters having realistic relationship issues. People don’t even criticize straight romance stories for being exploitative or fucked up or weird or anything.

Well, some people do, but y’know. No chance would the average online anime fan be having such takes on like, I don’t know, oregairu. But even the most like, reasoned takes on Yagakimi from very smart people online, have to acknowledge, oh yeah some of these characters check off all the boxes for the “predatory lesbian” trope.

That sentence says everything, doesn’t it? There is a predatory lesbian trope. Is there a “predatory heterosexual” trope? Is there heterosexual shipping bait? We sure could pretend there is one, as a bit, but like, no. The answer’s no.

And like, yes, the depictions of queers as uniquely specifically unhinged and dangerous by straight people is a thing that is a thing because of queerphobia, itself, and maybe it makes us look good or better somehow to paint ourselves as not having awful personalities or issues with relationships so that bigots have less rhetorical ammo against us.

But somehow the more I think about all this the more I think that, maybe, the predatory gay tropes in straight media aren’t just straightforwardly to make queer people look bad, but to make us afraid of ourselves. And to make us afraid of art that depicts us as human beings and not just soft uwu girls.

Maybe the reason was to make us afraid of Adachi.

Anyway. I’m just going to say it. There is no problematic media. Fictional, and especially animated or drawn media, cannot be declared immoral simply on the basis of what it chooses to depict. And it’s high time we stopped deluding ourselves into thinking it can be.

And I know this is all very much an extremely online discourse, and most normal people offline don’t tend to think of media quite that way, but it still pisses us off, y’know? It pisses us off that this stupid problematism bullshit around fictional media had us brain poisoned for like half a fucking decade. So we’re really rather ticked off by that.

…That’s not the point of this essay. Maybe it’ll be the point of another one.

2.3 Drama Lesbian Queens

So, yeah, to sum it up, a lot of yuri things that the average concentration of yuri fans like tend to be free of too much conflict, and quick to gay. And Adachi and Shimamura fulfills the former requirement, most of the time, at least, and especially in all the material adapted by the first season.

Past volume 4, however, things start getting more intense, because, well, Adachi, first of all. Adachi is a whole person. Tarumi is also a whole person, although we don’t get to see too much of her, it seems pretty clear she’s going through her own general turmoil away from the center of the story, and yeah.

Yashiro also. What the hell is with her? Well, it turns out, she actually is an alien, or at the very least her being an alien is a much more plausible explanation than anything else. We’ll get to her in a bit, maybe.

The relationship happens, with Adachi and Shimamura, being girlfriends, and that’s just adorable the way that works out. Shimamura isn’t a hundred percent certain she loves Adachi, but she doesn’t dislike Adachi, she’s certainly not indifferent to Adachi, and she’s open to trying Adachi out, so, she accepts.

Adachi is at first her usual jealous self, taking this as license to be even more aggressive about not wanting Shimamura to speak to or even look at any other girls in the world. Adachi’s literally never had any other relationships, not even with her own mother, so, that just makes sense, she thinks of being together as special itself.

Which prompts Shimamura to try to think of ways to raise Adachi’s bar for things being special, by such things as… making Adachi lunch. Kissing Adachi’s forehead. And that’s where that stays for a little while! The third base of lesbian, homemade lunches and forehead kissing.

And that’s all really cool and satisfying, cause there’s not a lot of yuri stories, hell, not a lot of romance stories, period, that actually depict the work of the relationship. Most yuri just rush to have the girls kissing, and that’s that. It’s a lot of casual fluff, with not a lot of particular focus on how the relationships develop, or anything.

In devoting her time to doting on Adachi, Shimamura neglects Tarumi, and the distance between them widens again. She one night thinks in a dream, ominously, that Adachi, in her quest to have Shimamura all to herself, has ruined Shimamura’s relationships. But Shimamura’s not sure that bothers her.

And Adachi continues to have her personality issues, but, she and Shimamura are both happy for now, and so not too much active drama ensues- just anxiety, just tension, just slow development.

And this continues through volume 7 and 8, but Iruma makes a very interesting creative choice to capture the totality of the narrative. Starting in volume 5, certain alternate contexts for the beginning of Adachi and Shimamura’s relationship are depicted.

In the first chapter of that volume, Adachi and Shimamura first meet as small children in preschool, during which Yashiro introduces the basic concept of an alternate timeline to us readers.

Then in volume 7, we get vignettes where Adachi doesn’t decide to close the distance between herself and Shimamura, and instead continues hiding on the second floor of the gym. Where Adachi and Shimamura never meet in high school, and instead find each other as adults. Where Adachi and Shimamura encounter each other at the end of the world. Where Shimamura is an alien- or perhaps, I should more accurately say, a foreigner from space, whose language Adachi spends years learning just so that they can talk.

And all of this is written from the perspective of Adachi and Shimamura feeling as if this is random chance, a simple coincidence, luck of the draw, the one twist of fate that changed their lives forever.

But then in volume 8, Iruma skips ahead a decade.

2.4 Ending the Second Season

Adachi and Shimamura are now living together, both 27 years old. Is Adachi still clingy and jealous? Less so, apparently, but, it’s not explored fully. How are Hino and Nagafuji- I’m just realizing I’ve barely if at all mentioned them in this entire essay. How’s Tarumi, is she okay? I don’t know.

But regardless, adult Shimamura goes and says hello to Yashiro, the small child-shaped alien who’s taken up an unofficial position as the Shimamura family pet, and Yashiro says something very interesting.

Shimamura and Adachi meeting is not chance whatsoever. It is in fact, destiny. According to Yashiro, anyway.

In every timeline and reality, she says, they are fated to encounter each other- not because they’re special, not because the universe is eyeing them closely or anything, but simply because they are. Because, apparently, reality likes being consistent, or perhaps finds it too exhausting to get particularly creative. Adachi and Shimamura just meet each other because, the code for reality gets copy pasted. Or something.

Yashiro has no answer for this, particularly, other than that it just is, and she doesn’t seem bothered by it. Shimamura doesn’t think too much of it either, and then she and Adachi go off on their overseas vacation and reminisce as a framing device for the rest of the novel, which is about the school trip they went on in their second year.

And, about how Adachi is horny, but, doesn’t know what the hell to do with that. And about their classmates who are grouped up with them for the trip noticing that they’re a same-gender couple, and surprisingly, supporting them! At least, one of them does.

Well, it was surprising to us, and surprising to Shimamura, who expresses in her internal monologue that she was afraid of facing a much less nice reaction after Adachi, in her lack of care for how she’s seen by others, basically outed them.

But it’s also not that surprising, because in the Reiwa era of the yuri genre, it’s pretty normal for there to be more straightforward acceptance of homosexuality and less “just a phase” framing, that there is.

This is a thing that our friend @studentofetherium went into in a tumblr post, well, volunteered to go into it rather, after they mentioned this fact to us and I told them that I was writing this. Also, they take credit for coining the term “reiwa era yuri” so if there’s another term I guess someone might tell us, but otherwise we’re just gonna continue using this one.

So, the school trip happens, things happen on the school trip, and the whole time Shimamura is wondering, do I really love Adachi? Is this relationship going to go okay? Will we have a future together? And when her classmate asks her these things she just… doesn’t really know.

And then, in a twist of an ending to the eighth volume that feels custom fucking made for the hypothetical second season of the anime to end here, Shimamura has an epiphany. As she’s stumbling through the fog that’s emerged around their school trip bus, she realizes that she’s looking through the fog… for Adachi.

Because Shimamura really does love Adachi, really does care about Adachi, want to live with Adachi, and they find each other and meet each other’s eyes and it’s just this entire love magic cinema moment

and then that night they sleep together.

By which I mean, they just sleep. The idea that one or both of them want to have sex is floated, but neither of them are emotionally ready for that. So they just lay down, and they chat about how their future is going to go, how they want to one day go even farther than there- and the last chapter cuts ahead to them, in the future, again, going home from their overseas trip, from whence they've gone farther.

And it’s just like.

Huh. Neat.

Part 3: The Trouble With Life

3.1 The Improbability of Endings

Most yuri, most romance, stories just kind of end at, they dated, they kissed, they’re together now. The end.

Even Bloom Into You, a romance story that we like so much that Yuu Koito literally infected our brain, just gets its two leads together, has them fuck, and has an epilogue going, “yeah, so they got married, they’re fine now.” And it’s not out of a lack of care, or consideration, or laziness, or anything, that so many romance stories end this way, it’s more that human relationships are kind of metal as fuck.

So metal, in fact, that they take years and years and are fickle as hell and, no matter how much work you put into them, will constantly collapse under the slightest pressure, like a run of your favorite roguelike, or some kind of massive long-term jenga tower of social pressures and favors and feelings that you just cannot stabilize.

And this is something Shimamura and Adachi are both very conscious of, that Tarumi is conscious of when she encounters Shimamura again after all those years, that everyone in this story is painfully aware of- human relationships are not built to last. Especially not in a world like this, in an economic system like capitalism that’s seemingly hell bent on tearing us all away from each other at every turn.

Dealing with all that is hard to do within the framework of a traditional narrative. So, a lot of romance stories do end with the couple getting together, because, that’s economical. It’s easy. It’s satisfying. You don’t need to think about it too hard, don’t need to think about how most relationships just kind of fizzle out and fade and everything.

And Adashima does ponder the fragility of relationships so much more than most other romance fiction we’ve read, and it takes its time to try and make the relationship between its leads special, to make it believable that this will last. The fact that Iruma puts so much time and thought and effort into this relationship and its development and strengthening makes it come across, in context, as just a little bit off when the story just

Skips the rest of them.

The reveal that Adachi and Shimamura are literally bound by fate is not handled as cheaply as you might think, or, really, cheaply at all. It doesn’t ruin the story, Shimamura doesn’t really have any regard for it, she’s just kinda like, yeah, well, our relationship happened and it’s fine regardless, I don’t need to understand all the fate stuff.

And its y’know, it’s good. It’s good that it’s working out. But I still have so many questions. Adachi’s personality. Shimamura’s devotion. Is she devoted, I don’t know. She doesn’t seem devoted, so how’s that working out? How’s it going to work out if and when Adachi asks for something that Shimamura can’t or won’t give, and then that’s the point at which the relationship is truly strained?

Tarumi. Do they stay friends? Will Adachi ever meet Tarumi? Will Tarumi be upset that someone else likes Shimamura? How’s Shimamura going to take all that? And everything, and everything else. How are their parents going to take it? It seems that it’s fine in the future, but was there drama, was there difficulty? Or did they just not care that much? I don’t know.

On the one hand, it’s nice to see the future stuff more, it’s nice to see a more thorough exploration of an adult couple’s life in a yuri story than we’ve previously really gotten. We all want that sequel to Bloom Into You. Cause it’d be nice to capture that experience in an art piece.

But the way it’s paced, well, it feels disappointing because I don’t really like the way that it kind of arbitrarily makes the story end, before it, keeps going, but also I can’t really criticize it for that because, well, I can’t think of a particularly better solution. I know we all want answers to these questions, we all want to see more of this, and Iruma would probably like to write more of it, but they have other things they want to write and unfortunately aren’t immortal.

In the eighth of Iruma’s afterwards, which consistently fail to convince us that they are not writing their autobiography here, it is explained that volume 8’s flash forward to the future is the ending. Or at least, an ending. You could say, a contingency, so that if Iruma stops writing the novels prematurely, then there will have been an ending.

There’s currently eleven total volumes, and there’s going to be two more, or so says Iruma, with the eleventh one having come out while we were working on this essay. So, yeah, that’s the reason why this feels so weird, so much like a forced ending to the series at the expense of the larger plot’s pacing. Because this one person can’t spend their entire life writing the life of a fictional cast of characters.

And that’s just the tragedy of our finite lives, isn’t it, that we can’t spend all our lives chilling out, eating food, and making art. Hopefully one day someone’ll have that figured out. But in the meantime.

Reading this, and considering both the conclusive way with which volume 8 ended, as well as the fact that there was a change in illustrators starting with volume 9, and the thought that this would be the ending of the hypothetical second season of the anime… Which is our own original thought, I should clarify. We decided it’d make the most sense to treat it as a clean break in the story, and read volume 9… later.

After reading… the Anime Special Novel. Which is also quite interesting, for some different reasons!

3.2 The Time Lord Cat

Just in case you’ve never heard of this before, I probably need to explain what the hell it is. So, when Adachi and Shimamura, the anime, got a blu-ray release, the publishers wanted to include some incentives for buying the thing even if you’d already seen the anime on TV or wherever.

As such, they asked Iruma to write them something to include as a bonus. And so, four new light novel chapter-sized pieces of writing from Iruma were distributed in the first runs of each of the four blu-ray volumes. And these stories, which, otherwise have seen no official release, got translated into English by the same people doing the fan translations of the main novels.

So it might be more accurate, technically, to describe these as four different discrete novels, but that’s a huge linguistic nuisance. It’s four chapters, that’s only about a chapter or two smaller than the average light novel, so I’m just gonna describe it as a four-chapter novel, because it basically is one. Anyway. The Anime Special Novel is about Yashiro, and how she is an immortal cat.

Did I already explain who Yashiro is? I don’t know. Anyway, Yashiro is best explained as an alien and corollary to Shinobu Oshino, anime’s other mildly famous non-human immortal child, who one day waltzes into town and sweet talks all the humans into giving her food. And we say, “Wait, an alien, really?”

While the anime provides no real answer, the novels eventually get around to clarifying, “Yes, an alien. Really.”

Yashiro is most definitely not a human, and not a documented Earth species, so she’s probably an alien. Her pockets are bigger on the inside. She can read minds. She barely ages after ten, seventy, and then thousands of years. She can apparently time and space travel all by her lonesome, and she loves humans and apparently favors spending time with them far more than her own species, who she is ignoring. She can fold to comfortably fit into spaces smaller than herself.

Therefore, Yashiro is indisputably a Time Lord. Or, Time Lady, Time Maiden. Whatever.

Taken in context, the most questionable claim Yashiro makes is that she is 680 years old. It is later shown that she is terrible at keeping track of the time, so much so that later, she views the difference in time between three thousand years or thirty thousand, as something trivial, that it doesn’t matter if she flubs up a bit. She’s just like that.

Yashiro is an extremely interesting character, who, very curiously, perceives herself as the least interesting thing in the entire world. She claims to have come to Earth for a rendezvous with her fellow aliens, but she never treats this task with any degree of urgency.

While she’s never specific about the details of this plan, my guess is that she, like Adachi and Shimamura, only decided she wanted a piece of their slice of life because she was playing hooky. At least that’s how I’d prefer to think of it. The idea has thematic resonance, so as far as I’m concerned, that’s canon. But the other thing is that, unlike Adachi, Shimamura, and basically every other human in this story, Yashiro has only one emotion.

She is happy all the time.

Yashiro is never bothered by anything, whatsoever. She always has what she wants, and she’s never bothered by not getting what she wants- if she doesn’t make her goal, she moves the goalpost. Yashiro does not seem to have any worldly concerns whatsoever; she eats all the time, not out of an apparent need to sate hunger, but rather for the simple pleasure of doing so.

She doesn’t face much opposition, either, she’s such a cute child that everyone just wants to pet and feed and pamper her, and Shimamura’s family takes no issue with her just chilling at their house for ten years. The only thing Yashiro is ever described as not liking is baths, and even then she’s never really angry about being made to take one. In her internal monologue, Shimamura consistently describes Yashiro as being like a cat.

And she really is, isn’t she? She eats and sleeps all day, she doesn’t like water, and she is happily accepted as a freeloader for years in the homes of human strangers. And that’s just normal, even though Yashiro… is… well, humanoid, at the very least.

But the bizarre factor of Yashiro’s character is increased exponentially when Iruma takes her out of Adachi and Shimamura, and plops her right into Girls’ Last Tour.

3.3 Yashiro's Last Tour

Girls’ Last Tour, if you aren’t aware, is an anime (AND MANGA) about Girls on their Last Tour. It’s a survival kirara where moe blobs have a picnic in a dying world full of remnants of a fallen civilization. It’s all moody and pensive and about small girls who do not seem particularly bothered by the inevitably of their death. One of them is into vore.

Relevant here is that one of these two moe blobs is named Chito. And, coincidentally, the protagonist of the Adachi and Shimamura Anime Special Novel, who is also touring a dying world full of remnants of a fallen civilization, is also named Chito.

Did Iruma do this on purpose? Probably not, but there’s an excuse to recommend Girls’ Last Tour without needing to make a video about it. Go watch it. Uh, probably go read it too. We haven’t read it, but it’s probably really good. Both forms. It’s great.

Anyway, Chito Number Two is also hanging around Yashiro on another planet, not Earth, which we’ve never seen before, that at some point was colonized by Chito’s ancestors, but then it turned out that the planet sucked at sustaining crops and so everyone fell ill and/or starved, and unfortunately died.

Which sucks.

So, Chito is just wandering this basically dead civilization, aware she could be the last human alive for all she knows, but not really caring much. Yashiro is here, accompanying Chito and chatting her up, because she finds it fun I guess. She doesn’t really seem to care very much about the whole humanity dead thing, but she’s very eager to tell Chito this one story she has about these two very nice girls who gave her a lot of snacks to eat some thousands of years prior.

Yashiro tells four separate stories to Chito, which are each set at different points in Adachi and Shimamura’s adult lives together. All the typical things, really. Going shopping, going on onsen dates, kissing- well, no, they don’t directly kiss, but Shimamura does reminisce about their first bloody kiss. And also, Shimamura dying.

Yes, Yashiro confirms, in canon, that Adachi and Shimamura died. But she’s not particularly bothered by it. She’s just as cheery as ever. It’s not like she’s happy about them being dead, but she’s not especially sad, either- no more troubled than she’d be if Shimamura refused to give her candy.

And common sense, common familiarity with tropes about immortal people, says this should be existentially terrifying, shouldn’t it. A living creature that is only ever happy, that never dies or grows old or grieves. This is the basic setup for some lovecraftian horror story or another, or several, isn’t it?

And it is, on a basic level, kind of unsettling to see Yashiro just… not being bothered by living thousands of years, by the people around her dying, and just remaining a child forever, but… It’s not really, is it? Look at her! She’s too cute to be scared of. She’s a human shaped cat! Isn’t it adorable?

Humans typically live longer than cats, I know. But if a cat lived longer than humans, do you think it would give a fuck?

One of the most interesting parts of Adachi and Shimamura is the middle part of volume 6, where, as I think I already said, it’s revealed that up till now, the love of little Hougetsu Shimamura’s life has been not a girl, not even a human, but the other Shimamura family pet.

The dog that lives at her grandparents’ house, Gon. Gon was Hougetsu’s best friend, Hougetsu’s only true friend, the only living creature she ever loved, and for a time, the only reason Hougetsu wanted to come back.

And it’s only just now that Shimamura is really realizing just how strange this is, though, she’s come to accept that she’s really rather strange, that she doesn’t particularly care. And now, she’s coming back for the yearly Obon visit to her grandparents’ house, to see Gon for what is probably the last time.

This dog, who was once young and spry, once quite literally bounced up and down at the sight of little Hougetsu, has now grown old and frail, barely able to walk. This dog, who Shimamura loves more than her own mother, is dying, and Shimamura finds this prospect… What’s the word? Disquieting, perhaps. Disquieting.

Shimamura is disquiet with thoughts of age, thoughts of love, thoughts of death. As she still finds herself puzzled over what Adachi’s feelings are, what Adachi wants out of her, knowing what Adachi wants but not really able to admit it to herself, wondering about her own life, about if she’ll have companions in her future, about if it’ll suck, and it’s just…

I don’t know. Shimamura thinks about a lot, and I don’t have words for a lot of it. The main thing I remember is her speaking to the odd old man who’s her grandparents’ next door neighbor, and it being firstly really funny because he just is walking around with a teacup that his granddaughter made and bragging about how great of a potter she is. Just because he can. Just because he’s a weird old guy, and people will let weird old people get away with these things, and he can.

And he gives Shimamura a fishing rod, as such, so he says, because he can.

Yeah, so just to repeat what I said, Shimamura runs into this weird old dude on a family trip, he says, “hey, my daughter’s real damn good at pottery and that’s why I’m toting her special teacup around, how about you go fishing with this fishing rod,” refuses to elaborate further, leaves. And that’s just great.

Well, he does elaborate a little further before he leaves, says she should enjoy her childhood while she can, and then gives her some fishing advice, I guess. And that’s all very nice of him.

And then Gon shows up, walking all slow like he does, and Shimamura asks the old man,

“Is it tough growing old?”

His answer wasn’t going to affect anything. Things were going to continue the same way as they always had. And yet, despite all of that, I just couldn’t help but ask.

Mumbling to himself, the man shook his head slightly. His turban shook as well.

“I see. So, your questions too have a hint of philosophy to them, huh? I guess that only makes sense, given your name and all.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean…”I hadn’t meant to grumble that out loud. No, it was simply my instinctual reaction to the situation; if I had to call anything here philosophical, it would be his needlessly obtuse answer.

“It’s not tough for me, no. Why? Well, I got this teacup from my granddaughter, that’s why. Haha. Does that answer your question?”

You could see the man’s eyes sparkle as he said that.

“Hmm, I guess.”

It really didn’t. Apparently, I’d picked the wrong person to ask.

[From Adachi and Shimamura, volume 6, "Home Town Dog"

Written by Hitoma Iruma

Translated and published unofficially by sneikkimies]

And that’s just sort of… mellow, and funny, and surprisingly sage. Well, maybe not that surprising. I don’t know. It’s just an entire moment. It’s also a little surprising, just a teensy little bit, because...

This is a kirara, isn’t it? This kind of story doesn’t usually go there. Like, according to Iruma, the editor’s prompt that resulted in Adashima was “write something like Yuru Yuri,” and Yuru Yuri is a stupid and silly nonsense comedy about immortal lesbians violently assaulting each other both physically and sexually, which is really funny, because they’re literally a bunch of gay Looney Tunes.

Or maybe that’s just the anime, I don’t know, I guess the manga might be different, but even still, the manga’s never aged these characters a single day as far as I can see. Really the only kirara I know of (other than Girls' Last Tour) that addresses the fact of the cute girls eventually dying is School-Live, but like, that’s an edgy one isn’t it? It’s literally set in a zombie apocalypse. It’s not exactly subtle.

You don’t really want to think about, say, the keions getting older and dying, do you? I mean, maybe you do, and if you do you’re probably a little weird, and that’s fine. So like, this is just kind of… I don’t want to say weird, because in the context of the story, it isn’t.

But I’m quite sure that people who’ve only seen the first season of the anime aren’t really expecting this, y’know? It’s certainly a place to have gone, and be going.

It’s so comical, so caustic, so casually morbid, to see the cast of Adachi and Shimamura reflect on their life, their future, their love and their relationships and their families and drifting apart from their friends and peers as the rivers of life all take them all the different places they’re going to, towards their eventual deaths, and all these very difficult human things to be thinking about, and Yashiro just… is happily prancing around eating donuts.

But it’s also not… that weird, really. Although Yashiro is so transfixingly childlike as she is, she’s also so pure and straightforward and earnest as any sentient creature can plausibly get. Although she doesn’t share in the complicated feelings of the humans around her, she’s never unsympathetic to their emotions, and to their needs. She’s always happy and childish, but she never forces that on people- she just accepts people as they are, and she does her best to do right by people.

Which is unsettling, not because it’s undesirable, exactly, but rather because it’s impossible. But if it were possible, and, hey, maybe it is possible for Yashiro, a non-human, to be emotionally stable and pleasant and good, but it’s not possible for us humans all the time to be that way, just the same as it’s not possible to live immortal and ageless as Yashiro does…

…

I guess the conclusion that I just came to is that Yashiro IS the part that’s like Yuru Yuri! Yashiro is the immortal gay looney toon! But given new meaning by being placed in a world of actual people dealing with gross human problems like jealousy and unfulfilled desires for affection and burgeoning sexuality and age and work and family and death!

And Yashiro is, Yashiro is just great! Um. She’s a great child, and a great cat. Like, probably the best cat! Okay, and now I have to explain why she’s the best cat.

Final Part: The Lesbians of All Time

So, the last story. In the second chapter of the Anime Special Novel, Chito and Yashiro run into another girl- a girl named Shima, described as having black hair and feeling like Chito already knows her, and then you turn the page and THERE’S THE ADACHI CHIBI THERE IT IS THERE’S ADACHI

and they keep exploring the desolate deserted planet and then in the fourth and final chapter, Shimamura dies.

The story that Yashiro has to tell. Is about Shimamura. And told to us from the point of view of Hougetsu Shimamura, age 85 ish, who describes her relationship dynamic with Yashiro as having gone from little sister to daughter to grandchild on account of Yashiro still not having aged a single day after all these years.

And up till this point, knowing that Shimamura was already dead in the future, I’d been thinking, oh gosh, oh fuck, it’s gonna absolutely SUCK if Shimamura dies first and then Adachi is all alone and miserably depressed for the rest of her life- and thankfully that doesn’t happen.

No, it’s Shimamura who is all alone, and literally everyone else who is dead. Adachi, Hino, Nagafuji, Tarumi, Shimamura’s little sister, everyone she knew is dead now. And Shimamura, now, too, is also dying, of old age.

Shimamura thinks she might be seeing Adachi’s ghost, because she’s evidently gone and introjected Adachi after Adachi’s death, but she’s also not quite sure about that whatsoever, and she’s just tired and lonely and reflecting on all her life up to this point and how fondly she remembers her high school years with Adachi and her only other thought is

Damn. All my friends are dead, and being old is boring.

To relieve her boredom, Shimamura takes her sister’s games console, which, no longer works with modern TVs, because it’s the future, so she goes out to an electronics store and gets an adapter. Also, because it’s the future, there’s been alien visitations and humanity is looking into space traveling more. But Shimamura’s been born too soon to care.

So she goes back to her home, boots up a JRPG on her sister’s old games console and makes a party of characters which she names after Adachi, Hino, Nagafuji, Tarumi, and her sister, and then finds out that video games are good. So Shimamura decides that her life’s goal, for the rest of her life, is going to be to finish Dragon Quest.

Does she finish it? Who knows. No idea. The story ends.

But before Shimamura dies, she asks Yashiro, her immortal alien child house cat, if she will ever see Adachi again.

Yashiro says yes. She will. For it is destiny.

And Shimamura’s dying request of Yashiro, is for Yashiro to make absolutely sure that every Shimamura across the universe finds their Adachi.

Yashiro promises earnestly.

And thus, here, in the present of the future of the end of humanity in a dying civilization Yashiro looks at the two last known living humans on this planet, says, “My job here is done!” And then shortly thereafter fucks off, assured in the knowledge that she’s fulfilled her promise to Shimamura:

Play matchmaker for her most recent reincarnation and her destined wifey.

So, yeah, that’s what happens. It might be just about a wrap on humanity, or at least this particular humanity, but The Lesbians of All Time are still gay.

There’s several Things About this particular chapter.

One, it’s, unintentionally, a particularly stark distillation of the classical American millennial slash zoomer fantasy of having the economic security to retire at an appropriate age and spend your last years in dignity, after a good life of living well with a good partner who you were happy with (or, multiple or no partners, if that’s your preference), and then dying peacefully of old age playing video games.

Yeah, uh, oof.

Two, it’s a particularly stark distillation of the perhaps not as common but particularly appealing fantasy of being assured that you and your partner will reincarnate and get together again, by your cat, who promises to make extra sure that that comes to pass all throughout every time and place and timeline. Because your cat likes you, and is a Time Lord!

Yashiro is good!

And three, um, yeah, it’d be really nice to know that you’re going to reincarnate with your soul mate. Like, that’s just convenient. For some people. I’m sure.

Okay, so, anyway, do I have anything to say about this story? Yeah, I probably do, probably a lot. But I don’t know if I can coherently say very much of it without repeating a lot of what I already said. It’s melancholy as all hell and it’s also just not something I expected at all from this series when we started reading it. Iruma even reflects on that fact directly in their afterward, saying,

“Anyway, yeah. That's the sort of story this became.

Death approaches!”

Heh. I guess it does. I guess it does.

There’s a lot else I feel I have to comment on. If I had infinite time, I’d also add on analyses and comparisons of the two Adachi and Shimamura manga adaptations. I’d read volumes 9 and 10 before finishing this video, and talk about my feelings on however Tarumi’s arc gets resolved- if it gets resolved. I barely even began to discuss or analyze Hino and Nagafuji’s relationship and their additional flavoring of the story as a side couple. And did my tangent on Adachi’s jealousy really go anywhere, did I have an answer? Well, no, but the volumes that I read up to didn’t really have an answer, either. Do I want to try to pretentiously psychoanalyze Iruma and his writing more based on the incomplete information I have from these English translations?

There’s another series, also, Iruma’s apparent debut series, where a girl and a boy who fall in love have childhood trauma about being kidnapped a long time ago and are being retraumatized by a serial killing incident in a small town and that has some HELLA TAGS on the site’s it’s listed at- does this psychological horror crime fiction have some connection to Adachi sometimes thinking a teensy bit like a serial killer? Is the electric child in Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl, another thing I haven’t watched nor read, a proto-Yashiro? Is Yashiro really a corollary to Shinobu? Did the Saeki Sayaka novels contain secret Adashima foreshadowing? Did Iruma say something super interesting in an interview somewhere that someone translated on Twitter maybe? Can I get answers to any of these questions without knowing how to speak Japanese?

Are we just going to have to learn Japanese and read all the rest of the things Iruma has written ourselves?!

And this has now just about broken ten thousand words, and I cannot answer any of those questions just yet. So, much like Iruma and Adashima volume 8, I’m going to arbitrarily force an ending to my unfinished work despite these loose ends and hope it’s good enough in case we never get around to writing a sequel.

In lieu of a better wrap-up, I guess I can just say, and as such,

ANIME GIRLS CAN DIE TOO.

The end.

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A reminder to consider following or supporting us if you enjoyed this essay:

Patreon • Ko-fi • YouTube • Twitter • Cohost • Tumblr • Mastodon

[faisdm]

The one downside to Tumblr, compared to say, Twitter, is that Tumblr just doesn’t care about your original works. It is painfully difficult to get people on Tumblr to give even a single shit about an original comic, story or game. It’s not a new thing, of course, it’s been like that for over a decade... but it’s always disappointing, and if you’re new here and thinking “maybe someday if I get really good and get published, or get really popular in a fandom, they’ll care!” No... sorry, they won’t, and you need to know that, or you’ll keep trying to please them and slowly get worn down by it as nothing you do seems to get you anywhere, even if you’re giving them everything they loudly proclaim they want.

It’s bizarre; people on Tumblr would rather invent an entire non-existent movie by rich cishet people and pretend it has gay subtext- subtext! Not even text!- than read original queer works by queer creators and discuss and celebrate them! Like, FFS, Tumblr, LOVE YOURSELVES. The best you can imagine for yourselves is hypothetically being queerbaited!?

And don’t get me wrong, I love the shared creativity of all the posters and things and the in-joke of the made up gangster movie, but coming back to Tumblr after a while on Twitter, hoping for a “better place” I’m inevitably reminded of why I always end up drifting off it. I want people to read my work; I put a lot of effort into it, and spending time on a platform that aggressively doesn’t give a shit while proclaiming “boy, I wish there were more things like [describes exactly my work]... but there aren’t, so we’ll just have to pretend the characters from this straight series by straight people might have maybe not been straight!” is just....EUGH. It’s tiresome! People on twitter will take a chance on it! People on Tiktok will give it a go, and even Facebook! It has thousands of subscribers, it’s on a Tapas program, it ran a pretty successful Kickstarter, and I’ve been published multiple times, so it’s clearly not a bad comic... and it has everything Tumblr claims to like in it! Sword lesbians, political metaphors, meme jokes, autistic and nonbinary representation, positive bisexual rep... AND it’s made by a long-time Tumblr person from the fucking Homestuck fandom! (over ten years as admin and VA on one of the biggest Homestuck projects that exists, an artist on not just fan albums, but two of the official albums!) What more can I give you to convince you this comic is for you, Tumblr!? I made it for you!

The problem with Tumblr is that everyone talks like they’re super open-minded and totally interested in supporting marginalised people... but they’re really not? They’re actually interested in curating an image, and if “supporting marginalised people” is part of that image, somebody will reblog content about the concept of supporting marginalised people. But you’re marginalised in publishing and hoping Tumblr will actually support your work focused on themes and groups underrepresented in media? Tumblr won’t help you, because people on Tumblr people only care about a thing if you can make it fit within the narrow band of “on brand” things that they’re already into. So you actually have to have a massive fandom already before Tumblr will feel like your fandom’s content has an audience and so is safe to share as part of the brand you’ve curated.

...and sadly, that’s why for original creators, Tumblr can never replace Twitter, even though Twitter is the worst; because we need to find people who will actually try new things, and Tumblr people don’t. They’ll just sit there, reblogging the same stuff about “what if these two canonically straight white men in suits cuddled a little bit?” And then make the tired excuse that “Well, I HAVE to do this because nobody provides the real queer content I would totally consume if it was real!” and waving that very real queer content in their faces will just result in them pretending not to see it.

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (August 11/2020) - Maybe this is why you shouldn’t do musicals

Tommy performs a solo of Hamilton while held at gunpoint and wins over Dream with the power of music before war breaks out over a horse corpse after a rendition of “Blitz” by Technoblade leads to murder.

Meanwhile, Fundy hatches an evil plot and steals the throne of the Dream SMP kingdom with Jack Manifold’s help before getting into trouble over a kidnapped bee. Tubbo becomes a lawyer, be careful.

L’Lawyerberg is founded...L’awyerberg?

The server also gained a new member: Quackity! 

A large portion of the day’s events take place in Shakespearean English. 

Enjoy.

---

VOD LINKS:

Ponk

Fundy (August 11 is the correct date)

Tubbo

Tommy

Tommy (Quackity segment)

Skeppy

Thunder1408

Eret

---

- Fundy starts off in his underground base. 

Fundy: Me is at thyn’t base

Tubbo: L’manburg?

Fundy: Otherly speaking, that which is owned by myself

- Fundy meets Tubbo on the Prime Path. He puts back on his L’manburg outfit, and Tubbo declares him no longer a rebellious teen

- They go over to Tommy’s home, which has been turned into Hell, and Tubbo builds Dream. Fundy shrinks Dream significantly. They then proceed to the L’manburgian docks before heading back.

Tubbo: “Where is Jack Manifold?”

Fundy: “Where isn’t Jack Manifold?”

Tubbo: “That’s the question on everyone’s mind.”

Fundy: “Who is Jack Manifold?”

Tubbo: “No, everyone knows who Jack Manifold is, just where is what we really want to know.”

Fundy: “...Why is Jack Manifold?”

- Fundy carves Herobrine into Skeppy’s leaf roof before making it a creeper

- Fundy tells Tubbo about his evil plan. He’s been researching law, and has come up with a plan to use a law from the Netherlands to gain legal ownership of any property they want. They decide to steal the throne.

Enter Dream.

Fundy: How go’st thy?

- At the castle throne room, Tommy joins the call to briefly shout at Tubbo that Shroud is coming back on Twitch before leaving.

- Fundy turns around and finds himself face to face with Dream, who is standing there menacingly.

- Fundy kills Tubbo and Dream kills Fundy

Enter TommyInnit.

- After returning to the castle, Tubbo and Fundy have the idea to put on a Shakespearean play. Dream is there with his pet dog. Tubbo assigns Dream the role of Macbeth, since he kills a lot of people. 

Enter Skeppy.

- Dream kills Charles. He’s getting into character. Fundy congratulates him on his successful audition.

- Tommy joins the call to ask why his base has been turned into the Nether. Fundy and Tubbo tell him that they’re doing a show.They quickly build a theater stage near the Community House.

- Skeppy joins the call and they fill him in on the plan too.

Enter Thunder1408.

- Jack Manifold has transformed into Dream. He turns back into himself and arrives at the Community House.

- They begin the performance of Macbeth. Tommy ends up lip-reading for Tubbo and Fundy by speaking behind them while they nod their heads.

- Dream and Skeppy ride away in a boat together, leaving them with no audience. Tommy frantically performs for Fundy before swapping to his own part, then back to Fundy again.

(The only person in the audience now is Tubbo)

Tommy: (at rapid speed) “As whence the sun 'gins his reflection, shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break, so from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come, discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark: No sooner justice had with valour arm'd, compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels, But the Norweyan lord surveying vantage, with furbish'd arms and new supplies of men began a fresh assault.”

- Dream, Jack and Skeppy return to watch. Dream pays Tommy a diamond. Tommy continues performing Macbeth solo.

- Dream is enjoying the performance so much he starts having a heart attack

- Tommy points out they would get much more money if they did Hamilton instead.

- Tommy performs a full solo of “Alexander Hamilton” from the hit show Hamilton. Dream shoots Tubbo to death off the stage. Tommy continues the performance, unfazed.

Thunder1408 from up yonder, hath fell to their death.

Skeppy from up yonder, hath fell to their death.

(Tommy keeps rapping)

- Tommy and Tubbo sing while getting attacked by zombies. As they finish the song, Dream throws them several diamonds.

- Tommy tells Tubbo and Fundy that they’ve just started the showbiz business! Skeppy comes over and asks if he can invest. They decide to name it “Pathway.”

Tubbo: “We’re being told to do Heathers. What’s ‘Heathers?’”

- Dream comes over to meet them at Tommy’s Nether house. He offers to fix Tommy’s base for five diamonds. Tommy pays him and he gets to work.

Tommy: “Dream seems to be my friend now. Have I convinced him with the power of song?”

Tubbo: “Well I mean, not until you try to get your discs back.”

- Jack comes over and Tubbo murders him for being against the showbiz business.

- They discuss the future of the showbiz business as an asset to L’manburg. They start thinking of other musicals to do. Tommy only knows Little Shop of Horrors.

- Tommy tells them that they should do a flash mob to promote their new business. He suggests singing “Blitz - Parody of “Blank Space” (has swearing) by Technoblade to appeal to the Technoblade fan club -- namely, Dream and Skeppy.

- They chase after Skeppy and Jack and start a flashmob by aggressively singing Blitz at them. Tubbo then murders Skeppy.

- Fundy leaves. Tommy and Tubbo speak with Skeppy, who is furious.

Skeppy: “I have something you guys can never have.”

Tubbo: “Good spirit?”

- Tommy and Tubbo head to Skeppy’s house.

Skeppy: “Where are you? I’m gonna burn it.”

- They ask what it is that Skeppy has that’s so valuable.

Skeppy: “It’s labelled ‘Spirit...’”

- Skeppy is holding a piece of leather. Tubbo realizes, but Tommy is confused as Dream freaks out in chat.

- Skeppy was going to invest the leather into their business, but not anymore. Skeppy says goodbye. Tommy and Tubbo decide to join Dream’s side to keep him favorable to the showbusiness.

Tommy: “There’s another war, and me and you aren’t...”

Tubbo: “Aren’t what? On the L’manburg side?”

Tommy: “No, we’re on the Showbiz side now, Tubbo. That’s our new side.”

- They meet with Dream, who is still working on Tommy’s base.

Dream: That is the remains of my horse :(

Dream: Its like your disc to me

- An explosion goes off at Tommy’s house as Skeppy sets off a creeper and dies. Tommy tells Skeppy to give them Spirit

Skeppy: “Listen, I’m not looking for another war, okay? I just -- I came after the war, I came when it was all peaceful! I’m not here to start the war!”

Tommy: “Skeppy, okay okay -- here’s a better way of phrasing it: get it out, or we’re going to destroy everything you ever once loved.”

- They threaten to get rid of the number 14, then chase after Skeppy. Tommy shoots and kills him.

Dream: Skeppy. 

Skeppy: Yes my lorde

Dream: Can I have my dead horse’s leather please

- Dream is still placing dirt. 

- They bicker with Skeppy some more at Skeppy’s house. Tommy and Tubbo decide to hold him hostage. Skeppy asks why they even want the leather. Tommy replies, to gain Dream’s trust. 

- Dream tells Skeppy that he would kill both of them for the leather. Tommy and Tubbo start running to L’manburg. Skeppy invites Dream to speak with him and says that he doesn’t like them. Dream asks for the leather.

Skeppy: “You remember everything that we talked about a couple days ago, where I’m like ‘that was uncalled for, why did you go to war with them? Like, that was stupid, they didn’t even do anything wrong?’ I take everything I said back, you were COMPLETELY in the right, they were idiots, you should’ve blown up MORE of their house! I take everything back, they’re fucking-- Come to my house, I’ll give you the leather...can we go to war again? Is that on your mind?”

- They negotiate over the transfer of the leather, suspicious of the other scamming them. Skeppy knows they might just log off, and he wants them dead now.

- Dream tells Skeppy that he does have something important to them:

The discs.

- Skeppy suggests they trade the leather for the two discs.

Dream: “Skeppy, it’s too valuable!”

Skeppy: “More valuable than your horse? Huh, wow, shows how much you care--”

Dream: “Equally valuable! Equally valuable!”

Skeppy: “So if it’s equal, it’s an equal trade then. I’ll trade you right now.”

- Dream says he’ll trade Skeppy one of the discs, but Skeppy insists on two.

Dream: “Well, it only matters really to Tommy, but Tubbo is like Tommy’s...son? So.”

- Skeppy says he’d settle for one with added riches. Dream says they should return to his house, but on the Prime Path Tommy and Tubbo come running to attack. Skeppy dies and respawns at Dream’s house again. Dream kills Tommy and the battle continues just outside Dream’s house between Dream, Tommy, Tubbo and Jack Manifold.

- They join a call together. Dream tells Tommy that he hasn’t given anything away yet, but he’ll trade one of the discs for it.

Tommy: “Why?”

Dream: “Because I NEED my horse’s leather back! It’s from my horse’s dead body!”

- Part of the deal is that the disc can’t be damaged. He’ll give away Cat.

Dream: “Tommy, I HAVE to do it! One disc!"

- He doesn’t care who he gets the leather from. Tommy has one day to get the leather back from Skeppy, but Tommy says that he’ll be visiting Tubbo the next day and can’t spend the day at war.

- Dream leaves and Tommy goes to negotiate with Skeppy. He pulls out the ultimate weapon -- Skeppy’s tweets.

- #skeppyisoverparty and #tommyisoverparty both start trending on Twitter.

- Tommy and Tubbo admire Dream’s handiwork on repairing Tommy’s house, then continue negotiating with Skeppy.

- Tommy and Tubbo realize that it would be a lot easier to take the disc back from Skeppy than Dream and tell Skeppy to give Dream the leather. 

- Skeppy tells Dream he’ll give him the leather for two discs. Tommy tells Dream he has his approval. They go back and forth over one vs. two discs.

- Tommy invites Skeppy back to VC.

Tommy: “Skeppy, meet Big Q!”

“Skeppy?! SKEPPY?! Remember when you invited me on a video and I said no?!”

- Quackity tries his best to intimidate Skeppy. It doesn’t work. Skeppy leaves to continue working on his house.

- Skeppy rejoins the call to hear Tommy and Tubbo say that Quackity’s been in juvie for 41 years. They talk about the leather again.

Skeppy: I am here anytime you want to talk, Dream. There is a reason you went to war with these idiots. Remember that. Thank you.

Dream: “Skeppy...I want the leather! Do you have sympathy? It’s my dead horse, okay? My horse died, and then Sapnap took the leather from the ground.”

- Tommy and Tubbo watch through the window to watch Dream and Skeppy negotiate. Dream explains to Skeppy that there have been multiple wars on the server over the discs, and he wants control over them. There’s no point in burning them, because you would lose all trading power. 

- Dream would never trade Skeppy both, but he’s willing to give one. Skeppy asks for Netherite, but Dream doesn’t have any to trade. He used up his resources for the war.

- Skeppy agrees to the trade for one disc. Skeppy gives Dream Spirit, and Dream gives Skeppy Cat to put in his Ender Chest. The deal has been done.

- Fundy and Jack Manifold build a little house on the roof of Eret’s castle just above the throne room to claim the throne.

- Tommy asks when Dream will whitelist Quackity. Dream says right now and does so.

Tommy: “Okay so Quackity’s not joining L’manburg, but he can be our dirty little crime boy...Our man on the inside!”

- Quackity joins the call. He’s out of juvie after 43 years. Tommy tells him that Quackity can’t join L’manburg, but they can do the cartel instead. Dream says Quackity could also join his side. Quackity weighs his options.

Enter Quackity.

- They meet Quackity at Spawn. They get to the Community House and Dream throws Quackity several diamonds. Quackity thanks Dream for helping him.

Dream: “You’re very welcome. We try and get everyone to feel welcome and at home here at Dream Team SMP.”

- Tommy tells Quackity not to bond with the green bastard and starts walking down the Prime Path. Ponk comes over as well. Dream takes off all his armor.

- Quackity doesn’t want to take sides right now. Tommy fills him in on the war.

- Tommy shows Quackity his basement and puts Quackity in prison. He tries to put Dream in prison too, but Dream’s too quick and evades.

Enter The_Eret.

- Tommy notices a mark on Quackity’s face. Dream says it’s a battle scar from prison. Quackity is upset that Tommy keeps asking about his conditions.

- They show Quackity through the sewers.

- Ponk murders Jack. 

- Fundy meets Eret at the second tower to show him the scuffed redstone doors.

- Then, Fundy shows Eret what they’ve done at the castle, fencing off the throne as Fundy and Jack’s new territory. Fundy explains law in the Netherlands to Eret while they sit at a coffee table

- Eret asks if, were he to build a house above Fundy’s little cottage, he would then own that territory. 

Eret: “I think the turns have been tabled, Fundy.”

Fundy: “I think the turns have been coffee...tabled, if you wouldn’t mind.”

- They go back down to the throne and Eret says he doesn’t think this is how it works, as he still has the crown on his head.

- While Fundy struggles with his king skin, Eret builds a platform above the house at build limit, therefore reclaiming it as his territory. While he’s occupied, Fundy takes the entire throne and moves it slightly to the left.

Enter Punz.

- Punz tells Fundy that he’s fucked up. Tubbo joins the call to inform Fundy that there’s a cartel now. Punz tells Fundy that he’s killed Beenis, the original bee.

- Tubbo informs Fundy that Eret is summoning Herobrine while Fundy hides Pog the dog behind a wall. Eret finds him quickly.

- Punz joins the call to tell Fundy that he has evidence of Fundy murdering Beenis. Tubbo says he can be Fundy’s lawyer.

- Fundy puts on his king outfit. Punz and Tubbo come to the castle. Tubbo leads them all to court. He is a lawyer. They argue about who should go in the jail hole and the death hole.

- Punz tells Tubbo that he clipped evidence from his security cameras. He explains that Fundy broke the hive and it must have died.

Tubbo: “Be careful, I’m a lawyer.”

- Punz shows the evidence of Fundy breaking the hive. They debate whether the bee would have died.

Tubbo: “Oh my god, be careful I’m a lawyer.”

- Fundy says that he didn’t kidnap it, he didn’t kill it and he does not have it. Tubbo declares the first strike and asks Punz why the bee was outside. Punz says the bee usually comes back.

Tubbo: “Be careful, I’m a lawyer! Did I mention it?”

- Fundy says the enchants on his pickaxe included silk touch. Tubbo shoots Eret with an arrow.

Tubbo: “I am a lawyer! Be careful!”

...

Tubbo: (shooting Eret again) “Yeah you can. You can rename a corpse. Be careful, I’m a lawyer!”

Tubbo: “Punz, how sad are you that he’s dead on a scale of 1 to 10?”

Punz: “Just typing his name reminds me of all the memories we had.”

Tubbo: “How many memories is that? I need a number, so I can know how many, how many, how many...yeah. I’m a lawyer, be careful.”

- Tubbo makes a rough estimate of 200 and flicks another lever.

Tubbo: “I’m a lawyer, be careful!...be careful, I’m a lawyer!”

- Tubbo asks if Fundy has any valuables on him. Eret offers to hold onto anything, so Tubbo shoots him again.

Tubbo: “Be careful, I’m a lawyer, Eret! Be careful, be careful, I’m a lawyer. Yeah, I know you didn’t, and that’s why you should be careful, ‘cause I’m a lawyer.”

Tubbo: “Be careful! Be careful, I’m a lover! -- I mean lawyer. Wrong one.”

- Fundy asks to make a claim.

Tubbo: “You’ve got one lever left. Be careful, I’m a lawyer.”

- Jack Manifold arrives in a king outfit. Tubbo promptly shoots him.

Tubbo: “Jack Manifold! Be careful, I’m a lawyer!”

...

Tubbo: “Hey, hey, you don’t talk to him! Be careful I’m a lawyer but I’m out of ar -- Punz, do you have any arrows? ...Thank you I’m a lawyer, thank you I’m a lawyer.”

“Guys! Be careful, I’m a lawyer!”

“Hey! Be careful, I’m a lawyer, I’m a lawyer. How much camera in -- the -- is there?...Okay, well you can’t leave that cell, so we’re gonna have to if this doesn’t work -- be careful I’m a lawyer, Jack Manifold. Be careful. Be careful I’m a lawyer! Be careful, Eret, I’m a lawyer. (he shoots Eret again) No no no, that was just a lawyer shot.”

“Everyone be quiet, I’m a lawyer! Okay...so order in the lawyer! Order in the lawyer, everyone.”

- Punz suddenly murders Fundy. Tubbo tells them all to be careful, he’s a lawyer, as Fundy looks into his Ender Chest and sees the beehive there. Tubbo asks if Fundy wants to sue Punz, he’s a lawyer.

Jack: “Tubbo, Tubbo...so what do you do for a living?”

Tubbo: “I’m...I’m...I paint...sofas.”

- Tubbo declares them all L’Lawyerberg. They’re doing independence again. They all head back to the castle, having created Dream SMP’s newest law firm.

The End.

[hyungieyoongi]

Spotlight: “Run Away to You” Part 3

You knew it was just a matter of time before someone figured it out.

Your carefully constructed reality was about to shatter.

Pairing: Min Yoongi x Former Actress!Reader

Word Count: 2.0K

Genre: Angst + Fluff (there’s a hug and everything there is fluff on the horizon!!)

Series Masterlist: Run Away to You

Premise: You ran away from your acting career one year ago, disappearing from the spotlight without a trace. No one from your past life knew where to find you. On the anniversary of your disappearance, your carefully constructed reality is shattered.

Part 2 // Part 4

---

You blinked your eyes a few times to adjust to the brightness of the morning as the sunlight streamed into your room through the crack in your curtains. Your eyelids felt heavy with exhaustion. Glancing at the clock on your nightstand, you let out an audible groan at the time. It was 9:30 a.m., meaning you had slept for four short hours, your brain and restless thoughts refusing to let you sleep until the early hours of the morning.  

After you were finally able to stop the onslaught of tears last night, you sat with Marianne on your carpet and told her everything that happened: colliding with Yoongi at the corner store, the fight in your apartment, and how he comforted you during your panic attack. When she asked about the phone call from your old number, you simply played her the last voicemail Yoongi left you, letting his words sink in on their own.

“Shit,” Marianne breathed out.

“Tell me about it,” you agreed.

Your head was pounding, making you feel like you were suffering a hangover this morning from the lack of sleep combined with the many tears you cried. You went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, hoping the scalding hot water would burn away the memories of everything that had transpired.

You decided to avoid looking at either one of your phones, old or new, when you got out and dressed. Instead, you decided to try and convince your neighbor to let you take her dog on a walk. You desperately needed some company and fresh air to clear your head.

Donning the black hat on the hook by the door this time, you locked the door behind you. At the end of the hallway, you spotted your neighbor holding her little black pug in her arms, peering slightly over the railing at the end that looked out onto the sidewalk and street below.

“Hi there, good morning! What’s going on?” you asked, hoping your attempt at cheerfulness was convincing.

“You have to see this. There are cameras all over the place! The landlord had to come to shoo them from the stairwell and elevator this morning. Apparently, someone famous was sighted here yesterday, and now they’re looking for someone they say lives here? It’s quite the scene down there,” Susan let her pug down as she told you the news. He came bounding over to you, expecting to be showered with cuddles and kisses. Instead, you stood frozen in place, taking in everything Susan had just said.

“Cameras? There are cameras down there? In front of the building?” you asked.

“Yes, dear, isn’t that strange? I wonder if we have a celebrity in our midst!”

You let out a cough, giving Susan a fake excuse that you forgot a jacket so you could leave, ignoring her pug yapping at you for attention.

You were back in your apartment before Susan could question your odd behavior, grabbing your phone that you blatantly ignored when you woke up this morning.

You opened Twitter, going straight to the trending page.

The picture at the top of the list was blurry, but you could clearly make out two figures. It was a picture of you and Yoongi, walking to your apartment from the store. It looked like it had been taken on a phone camera, probably from the park across the street. Someone had to have recognized Yoongi, and now, there were cameras outside your apartment complex.

The picture causing a frenzy didn’t show your face, your hair covering your profile. You scrolled rapidly through some of the comments, people speculating about who the “mystery girl” was that Yoongi was with yesterday.

You knew it was just a matter of time before someone figured it out.

Your carefully constructed reality was about to shatter.

---

Yoongi’s phone was vibrating nonstop on the bed next to him. He tried to ignore it, shoving his face further under the thick comforter, hoping whoever was trying to reach him would just give up eventually.

When it started to vibrate incessantly once again, he finally glanced at the screen, fully prepared to yell at whoever woke him up.

An old picture of you filled his screen, one that Yoongi took when you first started seeing each other. You had fallen asleep on his shoulder after a long day of filming. You looked so at peace, one of his sweaters that you stole from his closet wrapped around your frame. He had snapped a photo, setting it as your contact photo, smiling at it every time you called.

He had never changed it.

Yoongi immediately sat up when he realized you were calling. He assumed he would never hear from you again, that the chapter between you two was officially closed. This time for good.

He answered on the third ring, but didn’t say anything, waiting to see if the call was an accident.

“…Yoongi?” his heart lurched at the sound of his name.

“Yes?” he asked tentatively, his voice rough with sleep.

“I need help. There’s a picture…of us. Together. I tried to call Marianne, but she didn’t answer. Yoongi, I…I don’t know what to do. I need help,” Yoongi waited, holding his breath, “I need you.”

He threw the covers off himself, already heading toward the door of his bedroom. You sounded so scared.

“I’ll come get you. Tell me where you are.”

---

Yoongi had given you careful instructions over the phone, his voice calm and calculated. You were supposed to wait in your apartment until exactly 10:30 a.m. and head down the back staircase to the alley behind your building. A car would be waiting for you there.

He told you to wear a mask and act casual, like you were just getting into a rideshare car. Be invisible and inconspicuous.

A black SUV was idling in your alleyway. You opened the backseat door on the driver’s side, shutting it quickly behind you.

“Miss Y/L/N?” the driver asked, turning around to face you. He had a kind smile, eyes slightly crinkling in the corners from his upturned lips. You nodded once.

“Good morning, I’ll be driving you to Mr. Min’s location. He requested that we send this particular vehicle because the windows are tinted for maximum security. Please make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you,” you said, relieved.

Despite the driver’s assurance, you turned your head away from the window as the car passed the hoard of photographers outside of your building. They seemed to be getting restless with the lack of people coming in and out of your complex. You were grateful to be heading as far away from there as possible.

The car eventually reached a gate, the security guard waving the car forward once it checked the license plates. You pulled into an underground garage. You weren’t familiar with the building; you figured that Yoongi and the boys had moved within the last year as their label continued to grow.

The driver cleared his throat to get your attention.

“Mr. Min would like you to take the elevator, the one just there, ma’am,” he said pointing to the nearest set of silver doors, “to floor 16. He will meet you there.”

“Thank you, you honestly saved me today,” you told him with a grateful smile. He gave you another crinkle-eyed grin.

“It’s nothing, really. Give my regards to Mr. Min.”

“I will.”

The elevator lurched upward toward floor 16, and you realized you had no idea what to say to Yoongi. The doors opened, and you were startled when the man in question was pacing in front of the elevator doors, looking frazzled as he evidently waited for your arrival.

His head snapped toward the open doors when he heard the “bing” of the elevator.

“You made it,” he said simply when you walked toward him.

“Thanks to you,” you replied. “Yoongi, I can’t thank you enough. I know this is the last thing you probably expected today, but I appreciate it more than I can tell you.”

If you weren’t mistaken, there was a pink tinge on his cheeks at your words.

“We have a strategy meeting to get to. The label has some, uh, concerns about the photo.”

Your heart sank at his words, but you realized it was time to stop letting your emotions about the situation run the show. You were potentially going to be forced back into the spotlight you had tried so hard to stay away from. It was time to be professional about this.

“Right. Of course, lead the way,” your tone had become formal, sickly sweet and stiff. It felt unbelievably awkward after spilling your heart out to him yesterday. But you knew your place–you were just part of his label’s damage control problems for the day.

He turned on his heel, leading you down the long hallway, shoes clicking against the tile floor. You followed a foot behind him, wanting to give him, and you, space.

In the meeting, you gritted your teeth, your hands balled into fists underneath the table as you listened to a group of label management and the public relations team discuss what messaging, if any, to put out. Would it be better to let it die down on its own? Release a statement saying Yoongi was visiting an “acquaintance”? There were dozens of options they went through. Yoongi’s eyes kept straying to look at you, but your eyes stayed on the clock above the PR analyst’s head across from you.

When they started discussing whether to release your identity, however, you decided enough was enough. You stood, Yoongi watching your every move.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but I would feel more comfortable if my publicist was contacted before any decisions are made regarding the release of my private information,” you had worked in this industry, too, and hell, you weren’t going to let these people dictate your life. “As you can imagine, this has the potential to have far-reaching consequences on my own livelihood. It would be best to take no further action until she is in this room with you. Otherwise, I will be forced to contact my attorney.”

The room was silent.  

“Until then, I’ll take my leave. Thank you,” you left with a flourish, the adrenaline leaving you as soon as you made it into the hallway. You didn’t know where you were going, you just couldn’t stay still, your feet carrying you away from the room and the murmurs going on inside of it.

“Y/N, wait,” Yoongi called after you. You sped up, hoping there was a bathroom or something nearby that you could go hide in until Marianne showed up. “Stop walking,” Yoongi’s voice was stern.

You paused mid-step, turning to face him with a blank expression.

“Yes, was there an update from your strategy meeting since I left?” Yoongi rolled his eyes at your comment.

“Y/N, stop, I know what you’re doing. You’re shutting yourself off. I don’t blame you for standing up for yourself back there. But please don’t act like I wanted any part of that meeting,” Yoongi said, defending himself. Your confidence deflated slightly.

“Fine,” you flinched at how harsh you sounded. “I’m sorry. God, all I’ve said to you in the past 24 hours is ‘I’m sorry.’ And I am. I just…this is all…it’s a lot. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon, let alone under these circumstances.”

“My studio is a few floors below us. Come on, let’s get out of here while they figure it out,” Yoongi instructed. He walked past you, but you reached out, hand encircling his wrist to stop him. Your skin burned where it touched his.

“I wasn’t ready for any of this again. It’s all too much, too soon. If people find out who I am, my whole life will change, Yoongi. I-I don’t know if I can handle that.” Yoongi didn’t say anything, so you pulled your fingers away from his arm, expecting him to continue on his way to his studio.

Instead, he wrapped you tightly in his arms, pulling you close against him. He smelled like mint and coffee, and you closed your eyes at the familiarity of it, warmth blooming in your chest.

“It’ll be okay,” Yoongi mumbled, cheek pressed against the top of your head.

Enclosed in the comfort of his embrace, you decided to believe him.

Part 2 // Part 4

---

Taglist: @loveyoongles @agustd-2020 @delacyrose224 @crispychanniee @sunshinejunghoseokie @jinsearthh @alpacaparkaseok @sheebaba @diamonddia-mond​

Want to be added to the tag list? Let me know!

Check out my other work! ❤️

[onrainynights]

why you can't compare buddie to destiel (from someone who ships both)

this is kind of addressing the recent negativity in the buddie tag, but it's also a collection of my thoughts and reasoning for being buddie-positive despite my experiences with destiel and spn in general. the text of 911 is not really discussed at all, and this is relatively spoiler-free, so if you're thinking of watching 911 I encourage you to read it. if you haven't seen both shows it probably won't make perfect sense, but I wrote this with spn fans who haven't seen 911 in mind, since that's most of my followers (and also seems to be where much of the negativity was coming from) pretty long post under the cut to save your dash

I just want to prepare y'all for the fact that buddie could be the slow burn will they/won't they mlm romance we've been waiting for practically forever.

at this point it's not fair to call it queerbait because where their relationship is now fits the characters and their development. this is not like destiel, where there were many moments over the years that could've ended with them getting together and it would've made sense with the story. buddie right now is in this sweet, wholesome pre-relationship kind of place, which on its own is a compelling dynamic and so fun and good to see. a resolution of it right now would feel out of character—they both still have some development to do before that would feel natural. and so, I don't think we can really call it queerbaiting unless the characters get to that point and there is still no resolution.

also I'd like to point out the overall positivity from the cast when it comes to buddie. both Eddie's and Buck's actors have said (I'm paraphrasing cast statements in this post unless they are in quotations) positive things about the pairing, and Buck's actor has said that he likes the interpretation of Buck as queer, and he would be happy if the writers took his character in that direction. also Eddie's actor with "that's what they all say" when buddie was referred to as a "bromance". Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays Buck's sister (another main character), is very supportive of buddie, saying she's "rooting for it", that it would be "amazing", she doesn't "see how it couldn't happen one day". this was in response to hearing that a fan insists Buck and Eddie will be a couple. She flat-out said "I think so, too." She jokes about buddie with Buck's and Eddie's actors all the time. Also, my favorite bit from the video of her saying all this, "Let's manifest it together!"

It's safe to say this is a VERY different environment to spn. I don't think I've ever seen a cast this positive about a show's main non-canon queer ship before. NEVER. I think it's safe to say that if/when buddie is canonized, the cast will be just as excited as the fans—at least JLH will be! Add into the fact that the show's PR seems to be leaning into bi buck and buddie right now, it's a VERY different vibe than spn had, definitely. There's no gaslighting of the fans here, at least not that I've seen. also, although 911 has a large casual viewership, I think it's safe to say the GA would not be upset by buddie—there are only 3 serious, long-term romantic relationships involving main characters in this show, and one of them is a lesbian marriage with two children. And yes, the characters are shown being lesbians, it's not just a stated fact; the audience is privy to their relationship (and their interactions with their adorable kids). I think it's safe to say that buddie would go over well with the fans, even the casual viewers (of which there are many). buddie doesn't seem to be a huge divider in fandom like destiel is, either. reactions generally seem to be either "I ship it" or "I don't care either way."

Also I'd like to point out that while yes, it's possible that buddie is only bait (which would be disappointing), there's a reason queerbaiting works. people WANT to be queerbaited, because it's nearly indistinguishable from a slow burn will they/won't they queer romance. queerbaiting allows fans to make theories, create fan content (including fic), and keeps them engaged with the dynamic and the show. fans who are vulnerable to queerbaiting want a slow burn will they/won't they queer romance, which is currently an almost completely untapped market. spn could've tapped it, but despite the huge fandom they did not. there are SO MANY people outside of spn fandom who want a slow burn mlm romance, one that keeps the audience guessing, one that's will they/won't they, one that is not guaranteed, and that is why queerbaiting works so well. the audience doesn't just want the payoff, they also want the build-up. the longer the build-up, the higher the payoff, and the suspense of the build-up is gone if you know from the start that the payoff is definitely coming. that's part of why malec from shadowhunters didn't fully tap this market—there was no question of if, only the question of when (which wasn't really a question either, given there was an episode in season 1 literally titled "malec" when they got together.) the characters were always queer, the show being an adaptation of a book series where they were in a relationship and eventually had children together.

this was why November 5th was such a big deal—fans were so far past the will they/won't they aspect of destiel, firmly believing that destiel would always end as a "won't they" and not a "will they" that when cas confessed his romantic love for dean, destiel trended on Twitter over the US election. you all know that story, but maybe not everyone reading this knows that after Nov. 5 there was a case of hundreds if not thousands of spn fans experiencing love sickness because of the confession scene. the payoff of making destiel fully canon (and reciprocated, in English) would've been huge. fans would've been throwing their money at the c/w.

which leads me to the possibility (this is not at all me saying that I think this happened or even is likely, just that it's one possibility that /could/ have happened) that buddie started as bait, that the writers never intended for them to be a couple, but saw fan reactions to buddie during season 2 and started to lean into it in season 3 (and 4 so far, but it just started so I don't want to make any generalized statements about it) possibly still as bait or maybe not deciding yet if they'll go anywhere with it. and then maybe they saw destiel trending on November 5th, realized just how BIG the market for a slow burn will they/won't they mlm romance is, and said "hey, we already have the foundations for one of those. why not go for it and draw in all those viewers who clearly want one so badly?"

if buddie goes canon, because the cast and PR have been so positive about it, unlike spn, and because of the text of the show itself, the show's creatives could VERY EASILY claim that they were never baiting, that it was all an intentional slow burn will they/won't they romance from the beginning, and most people would believe them; there isn't really any evidence to the contrary, although I am sure there would be at least a few fans convinced it started as queerbaiting, and there might not be any evidence to refute that, either.

the point is that 911 is currently sitting on a gold mine. if they play their cards right, and execute buddie well, they will monopolize this market that old straight white men serving as network executives have failed so far to really tap into. they queerbait without the payoff, which gives the show a reputation among those in the market who haven't seen it, guaranteeing they will never watch it. shows in this vein: sherlock (huge reputation for queerbaiting and a finale fans didn't like) and spn (huge reputation for queerbaiting and a finale fans didn't like). spn got so, so close with cas's confession but then continued to gaslight its fans, and PR did not lean into destiel AT ALL. if 911 did buddie? the PR team would be all over it. it would be a moneymaker, big time, and Fox knows it. if buddie, or even just bi buck, went canon, tumblr would be all over it. viewership for the show, which is already impressive, would skyrocket. 911 would monopolize this market, because fans wary of queerbaiting would watch it with the knowledge that the payoff is there, and there really wouldn't be a competitor until other shows saw the success of buddie and followed suit with their own pairings, and given the fact that the market specifically wants /slow burn/ queer romances, that might take a couple years. that puts 911 in a really good position, where suddenly the fandom of the show, not just the GA, is very large and likely very dedicated to the show. the success of canon buddie might just change the landscape of TV in the coming years, showing execs that while queerbaiting does work, actually going through with it is really where the money is. 911 would not just monopolize the market for a while; it would pioneer it.

if buddie never goes canon, I would probably be a bit disappointed at the wasted potential, but unless the characters get to that point where canon buddie seems like the most logical outcome and they /don't/ go for it, I won't be truly upset because I don't think it's fair to claim its queerbaiting until then. I can't tell you how likely it is that buddie will be canon at some point, but it seems FAR more likely than destiel /ever/ did, and we ended up getting cas's confession in the end. I have hope, despite being hurt so badly by spn. 911 is a genuinely great show with some fantastic writing, and they don't leave chekov's gun unfired, unlike spn.

really, it comes down to this: if Jennifer Love Hewitt is allowed to clown for buddie, then so am I, and I'll enjoy this show—which is amazing even without canon buddie—while I apply my clown makeup.

[iwishicanbeagoodpianist]

Crazy Poets Club part 1

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (It's mostly Bucky dealing with his problems and therapy, but there's a bit of romance). There's also a bit of Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers (you know Buck dealing with Steve's absence).

Summary: In one of her therapy sessions, Dr. Rayner recommends Bucky to find a new hobby, at the cultural center (which is open in the evenings, offering an incredible variety of hobbies and activities) Bucky meets some very interesting people and understands that maybe life has moments to live for and to be happy.

Warnings: None for now, but in the future, topics such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, among others, will be discussed.

A/N: I'm not a fanfic writer at all, this story is an original story of mine, I feel that the main character fits very well with Bucky's personality, that's why I decided to adapt it as a fanfic. This could go very well or very badly, we'll have to see. I also apologize in advance because my original story is not written in english, so this is an adaptation and a translation. I will always appreciate corrections and suggestions, just be kind :)

please do not repost my work

Bucky doesn't know which one is worse, the weight of the flyer in his hand, full of vibrant colors, taunting him or the weight of his therapist's gaze waiting for a reaction from him to her latest suggestion. It's time for you to get a hobby James. The words still echoing in the air of the room as, the man in need of a new hobby in question, tries to steady his breathing and his thoughts. Two minutes away from saying one of his typical comments like "beating people unconscious with my metal arm isn't considered a hobby?" but holds back as he looks up and sees Dr. Raynor's eyebrow rise defiantly in anticipation of such a comment. Bucky shuts up just for the pleasure of not giving her the satisfaction of knowing him so well. No one knows me as well as they think they do, no one fully understands what is happening to me.

- "You want me to join a knitting club????" -

- "It's a cultural center James, there's more to it than just knitting, you can find something that allows you to reconnect with reality, your old self, didn't you have any hobbies when you were young, in the 40s?" -

- "killing Nazis?" -

And here we go again, a wry smile from Bucky, an eye roll from the doctor and a whisper that sounds something like "God give me patience because if you give me a bat....." you did it again Buck thinks the one who caused said comment as he mentally pats himself on the back.

- "I understand that your humor is the way you deal with things you don't want to deal with, but this is just a suggestion from me, no one can force you into anything James, things have to come from you" -

But James is already riding the train of cynicism and black humor, which has enough fuel, 100 years of pure spite, to not be easily stopped....

- "...the next step is for me to be put in a nursing home and play Bingo every Wednesday and Saturday with Gertrude and Hans, while we talk about the weather and how our knees hurt because it's going to rain." -

With a sigh of resignation, or relaxation as she saw the time on the clock on the wall and knew that the session had come to an end, Dr. Raynor replied:

- "James, just think about it, our session is over for today". -

Getting up, as he sloppily folds the flyer and tries to bury it in the bottom of his jacket pocket, Bucky decides that today he's going to eat a large pizza with extra pepperoni and cheese crust, from the new pizzeria around the corner from his apartment, because, as the Doc says "no one can make me do anything and things have to come from me, like the fucking dinner I'm going to eat today no matter what", and as he opens the door with a smirking smile he turns to look at Dr. Raynor's face one last time (for this week).

- "well Doc, thanks again for your time, see you next week." -

Sighing, thinking what she did wrong in her old life to get stuck in therapy with what could easily be a 16 year old pubescent boy in the body of a guy who in spirit is over 100 years old but looks like a 30 year old guy living his second mid-life crisis. I guess this is my punishment for being a terrible big sister in my youth. Dr. Raynor replied:

- "see you next week James, please think about the culture center, it's a good place, even I go there sometimes during the week."-

-"wow Doc, I didn't know you liked to knit, and to think that I am the one who is over 100 years old here."-

- "I'm really not going to knit, I'm going to...you know what? Never mind, this is not about me, it's time for you to stop doing this, the world owes you nothing James, none of us are your targets for you to spew your venom filled comments to deal with your problems" over 20 years of career and professionalism thrown away thanks to a grandpa who SHOULD be in a nursing home playing bingo, well done Christina. But his thoughts are cut off by the sound of the door slamming shut. -

- "after I'm done with this patient I'm going to retire and move to Cancun, for good."-

Bucky's only thought as he walks down the office hallway is "well apparently my hobby is draining my therapist's patience, which if I may say so, I'm really good at". He also thinks the new green paint they decided to put on the walls, just last week, is the grossest thing anyone has ever seen, "now it looks like the wall is full of snot and vomit."

"Green conveys peace and tranquility, don't you think James?" says Dr. Raynor in last week's session when he made a comment about the abrupt change in the color of the walls. "Well yes, people will find peace, when they die at the sight of that hideous color."

Let's just say the session did not improve after that comment. "nobody can make a joke anymore because everything is taken badly, what is this twitter????? It's twitter? tuitor? What is that thing called? Well never mind" thought James as he walked out the door while the characteristic jingle of the bell hanging on the door sounded. "my God I hate this thing, everyone HAS to know you are entering or leaving any place" with an annoyed sigh Bucky puts his sunglasses back on even though it's already 5 p.m. and the sun is about to set.

Sunglasses are the best thing ever, no one can see how I roll my eyes every time someone says something stupid, or how I judge them for their crappy life choices. Therapy would be easier if I could do it with my glasses on. "James please, this place is safe for you, you don't need to have your glasses on, could you take them off for our sessions?", somehow, I convinced the doc to keep them on, until I fell asleep with them on in the middle of the session and she noticed after 10 minutes. She looked at me with so much hatred and contempt, after that I decided not to have the glasses on anymore in the sessions, let alone the lady lose her coolness and kill me while I fall asleep again. The Doc really needs a raise in her salary just for having to put up with me.

As he walks through the super-congested streets of New York, stuffing his hands into his jacket, his hand collides with the flyer his therapist very kindly gave him with the idea that Bucky is closer to living in a geriatric home than to solving his personal problems and maybe getting a girlfriend. "I really hate this century" he thinks as he tries to concentrate on the pizza he will have for dinner, well not so much, at least in this century there is cheese crust.

[straighttohellbuddy]

📓 !!

Okay im so excited please know I think about How The Light Gets In's world every day still, and so anyways here is a side story I want to write but there's a lot of set up regarding the reader and eef becoming friends again. For context, they were incredibly close around 2014-2017, but people were getting creepy and invasive and demanding about their friendship (think 2012 toxic side of the Phandom, if that makes sense), and a lot of the reader's relationships were strained at that time because while they had been successful before, they were absolutely blowing up after their first album released and they became far more mainstream. They felt like they were bothering the people they had become closest to, both because they're worried that they're a bother, and because gossip rags and paps would harrass their friends looking for a scoop, and so they ended up just completely cutting off contact without warning one day right before they went on their first tour. the start of HTLGI is about 3 years since they'd been in proper contact with any of the creators they were close to at that time.

DON'T LOOK AT ME on their 2017 ep Hyperfocus was a more general song in response to everything that had been happening in their life around that time, with a focus on how they stop associating with anyone for a while, without outright addressing it, but on their latest album n o s t a l g i a, read at 5am ft. Troye was specifically written at the start of quarantine, when the reader was getting back into YouTube, about their feelings regarding how their friendship with ethan ended, as they spent a lot of this time looking back of their YouTube career, and he was the person they were closest to for a very long time, before they iced everyone out.

OKAY SO THERES MORE OF THE BACKGROUND OF THE WHOLE FIC AND THE READER BUT

Werewolf Ethan & Mark. I'm sorry I don't make the rules. They have golden retriever energy you cannot change my mind. But also because this is the HTLGI you know that supernatural characteristics are able to be activated rather than just triggered by the full moon. What I'm trying to say is since this is set in the year of Unus Annus, they film a video together that's like, you know that show where a person has to try and outwit a professional tracker? Except its the reader being tracked by two werewolves at night in a national park. Reader is wearing some sort of night vision camera on themselves so whenever it cuts to them the audience can't actually see how they're using their powers, if that makes sense.

Also the reader agreed to this knowing it would probably be when they ended up telling Mark and Ethan about them being a demon.

Video is titled Hunting Down An Old Friend

A few Moments that the boys edit out:

The reader using their stupidly sharp prehensile tail to swing from tree branches, though they leave in shots where the reader's tail can't be seen.

Knowing that with the werewolves having advanced hearing, the reader would give themselves away by talking to the camera, they take a few minutes having flown up to a high tree branch, to pull out a notebook and do a little sketch of how Mark and Ethan appear in their Demon True Sight, and holding it up to their camera.

Werewolves being one of the animals who can kind of sense demons without being able to identify them, essentially like dogs can sense natural disasters and are often good judges of character, this can be heightened on command for werewolves. There's about 15 minutes of footage cut out of the boys discussing or mentioning how this place has awful vibes and that they should have done this during the day. It gets worse as they get closer to the reader, who didn't realise that the boys hadn't thought to ever use that particular power around them before.

("I say this with so much love and appreciation for you, dude," Ethan yells, looking up at you from the base of the tree they'd finally found you in, "but I- this is making me anxious I feel like something terrible's gonna happen, and we should probably get out of here and film the rest of the video back at Mark's." And behind him, Mark's nodding, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, eyes scanning the trees for whatever was most likely the cause of this terrible impending doom.

Oh. It's you. And they don't know its you.

Now or never, you suppose.

"Can you cut the cameras for a second? You're going to be fine I promise," you called back, and though they obligingly did, they both seemed antsy. You cleared your throat awkwardly, "that... that terrible feeling, that's not the park or anything in it- well I mean, it is, but it's just- it's me."

and later

"Dude your wings smell like rotten eggs."

"To YOU Ethan! And no they don't!"

"If it makes you feel better they smell like burning and rotten eggs."

"It does not."

(for reference, when enhancing their sense of smell werewolves can kind of distinguish various supernatural creatures, or parts of supernatural creatures. Some creatures have an inherent scent, but some, like angels and demons, only have distinct scents when they've activated certain attributesor abilities; demon wings smell like fire and brimstone, which unfortunately means burning and rotten eggs. I like to think angels wings are like the love potion in Harry Potter that smells like the things you love the most. Mark and Ethan usually don't enhance it around each other because they smell like wet dog to the other)

This gets about 2k notes on tumblr. The reader likes it:

Ethan finally finding Y/N at the end of Hunting Down An Old Friend (2020) Colourised.

Other things to note regarding all this:

It takes a while to rebuild their friendship to the point where they're comfortable enough to be on camera together (eef and reader specifically).

However, the Unus Annus video is the first thing they properly do together, and the reader, in an effort to connect more and make up for the past, will join in multiplayer gaming streams if asked.

Impromptu duet in proximity Among Us of Young Volcanoes by Fall Out Boy, which has their respective chats and fandoms losing their minds, except it stops abruptly after the first chorus as they both remember the opening lines of the second verse (make it easy, say I never mattered -- those lyrics hit a little too close to home)

But also the reader convinces him to join him for a proper cover in like, February of 2021, and it's something deeply sappy (I'm thinking Bon Iver by mxmtoon because I think its sweet and fits them well)

Also Ethan being reminded that the reader is kind of a much bigger deal than when they'd been friends before.

designed to hurt (touch me) from their ep Working On It is nominated for a Grammy for Track of the Year, and n o s t a l g i a wins Best Pop Album (because it's my fic and I said so)

FIRST OF ALL designed to hurt (touch me) is a beautifully produced song about Corpse (which people do not know) and the title itself is literally making fun of something he said IMAGINE his reaction to it being Grammy Nominated 😂😂😂 God he'd be proud but lowkey fuming, meanwhile the moment the nominations are announced the reader tweets:

me: here is an album where I processed my entire world view including heartfelt explorations of the trauma of existing and oversharing in the public eye from a young age without the traditional barrier between audience and entertainer

the grammys: that's cute BUT you know the song you wrote to bully your boyfriend and also be horny on main for him before you guys were even dating? THAT deserves its own recognition.

meanwhile Ethan's like..... this is the same person who I filmed a video with playing cards against humanity, and you laughed so hard you almost threw up. I am very proud but deeply confused.

The Hot Meme of Late April 2021 is "2 time Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N" with a gif, still, or quote from the reader where they're just being an absolute chaos gremlin.

Of course we have "If I bleached my asshole for charity I'd do it tastefully."

2 Time Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N speaking to their actual boyfriend in the year of our lord 2020: You are being executed for Clown Crimes.

ethan posts a short video to twitter simply of his screen where he's renaming a folder from "Never Before Seen Images of Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N" simply changing it to 2 time Artist. The reader responds specifically to his tweet with a video of themselves asking Google how to hard reset someone else's computer.

So many screenshots from old videos surface that week.

I miss this world. Sorry this is rambly!!

[1ddotdhq]

🙇🏼‍♀️Fri 6 Nov ‘20 🛹

Yesterday was the most absurd night I’ve seen on tumblr in the last five years. Just wanted to throw that out there. Between gay Supernatural news, Nevada going to bed again, and Putin possibly stepping down, we also got discourse™️ about Zayn and Gigi. Two women on twitter stepped forward and have claimed to have been sleeping with Zayn when he was with Gigi. The first woman says that when they were together in 2016 Zayn told her that Gigi was PR, and not an actual relationship, and that she called it off when she found Gigi's medication at Zayn's place. The second woman said that she saw Z from 2016 until February 2020 (and that yes, Gigi was pregnant at that time). She says she got him the custom Dusk ‘til Dawn skateboard that he later gave away in a fan event, and posted at the time about angrily entering the contest to try to get her unappreciated gift back. In another angry tweet (these women were spilling for a reason, they're mad as hell), she said the biggest lesson she’s learned this year is, “never let a boy with a girlfriend convince you into dyeing your hair because you’ll end up with damaged hair and he’ll still have a girlfriend”. Here’s hoping that she goes into 2021 without damaged hair and with someone that wouldn’t give away the gifts she gave them - everyone deserves that! The pair are mostly fighting with each other so more details for us popcorn munching bystanders are thin on the ground; for example neither gives a clue as to whether Gigi supposedly knew about them. Fan reaction is split between not believing the women, insulting the women, insulting Zayn, and insulting each other. I want to say it’s not my place to judge any of them, but I think that at this point I’m just screaming into a void, so I’ll say this: if you’re going to be cruel (especially if you're sexist/racist) about any of them in my notes, you’re going to be blocked.

Niall went live today with a special announcement: Ashe will be joining him LIVE on tomorrow’s show! That’s right: they flew her out to London two and a half weeks ago, had her quarantine, and will now have her perform exactly ONE SONG with Niall: Moral of the Story. Don’t get me wrong, I’m SUPER excited to see her, but uh...I have questions. Has she only flown in and quarantined for one song? Or will Niall do what Liam has been and use her as an opener, allowing her to play her set? I guess we’ll see tomorrow! The Independent reported that 90,000 tickets have already been sold for the concert, which is $1.8 million dollars towards paying Niall’s crew and the WeNeedCrew fund, which is amazing and will go a long way! We also got some instagram stories of him rehearsing, and he sounds great! I am getting more and more excited for this show as time goes on. Some set mock-up pictures of DWD were released, as well as some on site pictures of Jack and Alice’s house: it’s the Kaufmann house, which was made famous by Slim Aaron for his “poolside gossip” picture. It was put back on the market last month for $25 million, though I’m sure the price will only go up after this film premieres. 

Liam, who spoke in the interview that just came out yesterday about the futility of responding to the press and how it just stirs up more press about the same thing, responded to an article about him. The Sun drew on that same interview to report that Cheryl had told him to temporarily “take a break” from his son and insinuated that it was because of partying and addiction struggles, in a call back to their recent article about Liam's drinking (like literally calling back; they linked themselves as their source). Liam took to Instagram to say that the Sun had completely taken his remarks out of context, the context being that he said them in May, and that the thing that had separated him from his son was, “the worldwide pandemic, not because I had anything wrong with me”. He says he was “discussing not being able to see my child which is difficult for any parent. I wish sometimes these people would do the research and give the context instead of painting people a certain way for click bait”. I have no opinion (no thots empty head) other than that Liam was 100% right about one thing: there are now six more articles on this topic which would not have been written had he not said anything. 

And last night's memeing dredged up a lot of trips down tumblr memory lane, a regular retrospective of the last five years, and brought the uncomfortable emergence of a lot of locals posting about babygate ("haha next we'll find out that guy from 1D really wasn't the dad!" ha...ha...uhhh.) A good reminder of how many people are uninvested but still very much aware of the babygate rumors and of how major any kind of announcement or revelation would be, the absolute impossibility of just "ending it while no one is looking!" And in totally unrelated (and unwanted) news, Briana and Nick unshuttered their instagrams. "I'm back!" posts Briana. Ugh, read the room people: you are an unasked for cactus. That being said, please let's all take a deep breath and drink some water and get some sleep. It’s what I’ll be doing all weekend!