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eldritch-nightmare · 2 years ago

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celebrating the holidays.

a/n: hi here's my short replacement for the eyeless jack fic. that one is still gonna get posted!! just may take a while bc it's getting longer than i intended it to be lol. anyways i tried to keep the holiday relatively vague but since i personally celebrate christmas, i may slip up a bit. couldn't decide who to write for so i just spun a wheel six times and went with the ones selected.

includes: the bloody painter, nurse ann, jane the killer (arkensaw), eyeless jack, kate the chaser, and homicidal liu.

warnings: not proofread, very brief mention of helen's childhood, literally just fluff, also inconsistent length but that's to be expected atp, reader consumes meat in jack's section so sorry if u don't, nsfw elements in jack's part my hand slipped guys, blood, lotta kissing.

THE BLOODY PAINTER

He never cared much for the holidays, even when he was a child. Honestly, it was the one time of year that he dreaded the most.

He's an artist, so you know what that means. Every year, without fail, he would always get some art-related gifts. Not that he was complaining about that or anything, it was really, and still is, the only thing he had much interest in.

He just... found it to be draining. Apparently, at least according to his parents, he was supposed to find the holidays to be a fun, exciting time of year. And he was supposed to be oh so thankful for getting yet another sketchbook or paints from his relatives or whatever.

That was just too much work, honestly. So he grew to dread the holidays, even long after he became the killer he is today.

He's... not quite sure how he feels about the wrapped gift you're holding out in front of him. A part of him wants to reject it, and he almost does, but the barely contained excitement in your expression made him hesitate.

Your excitement only seemed to grow when he took the wrapped gift from you. While he didn't necessarily want or need a gift, he couldn't help but indulge you, especially since you seemed genuinely excited over whatever gift you had gotten him.

Honestly, he wasn't sure what he was expecting when he unwrapped the gift. Something art-related, no doubt. And it was art-related, just not in the way he was expecting.

It was something similar to a scrapbook, but it was really... neat. And more so a collection of art rather than an actual scrapbook. The thing that caught his attention the most was that it was just any old collection of art.

It was his art. You... you took or had his art professionally photographed and you put it in this book. It wasn't every single piece of art he's ever made, but it included a lot from different points of his life. It even included pieces from before he had met you.

He does not cry, no. But you do catch the tiniest smile forming as he flipped through the pages. It's... the nicest gift he's ever gotten before.

Helen's not sure how he'll repay you for getting something like this, so for now you'll just have to accept the tighter-than-usual hug and soft kiss.

NURSE ANN

Ann isn't too sure if she's ever celebrated any holidays before. She has no memories of her life before her... death? Is she dead? Well, she certainly doesn't feel alive.

She's rather indifferent towards the holidays, and honestly she probably won't even realize it's that time of year unless you or someone else point it out to her.

If you want to celebrate with her then she certainly won't stop you, just don't expect her to be the life of the party or anything like that.

You will have to guide her through how to celebrate because she simply will not know. But once she gets a hang of how things work it'll be something she retains for the future.

Ann stares blankly at the... tastefully atrocious sweater you were sporting. There were so many colors and the design clashed in a borderline unbearable way but you somehow made it look good.

Her gaze then drops down to the matching sweater you were holding out for her, an expectant look in your gaze. She thinks she understands, though she still glances up at you in confusion.

You explain that while it's not necessary to do in order to celebrate the holidays, you thought it would be fun to wear matching outfits with her. It's something couples do sometimes, apparently.

After your quick explanation, she silently takes the sweater from your hands and puts it on over what she was already wearing.

It certainly looks odd on her, no doubt, but the fabric is actually pretty soft, and the bright smile that lights up on your face makes it hard for her to care about whether or not the sweater looks good on her.

JANE THE KILLER

Jane hasn't celebrated the holidays since all the shit that's happened to her. She's been so focused on hunting Jeff down that it never even crosses her mind. Hell, she hasn't even celebrated her own birthday in years.

But then you come along and you insist on doing something for the holidays. Not because you necessarily enjoyed the holidays, but mostly because you just wanted her to take a break for once.

It'll take a lot of convincing. You'll have to get her to promise you months in advance, if we're being honest.

And if she didn't have such a soft spot for you, she probably wouldn't even humor the idea you had to celebrate. But alas, she loves you, and she finds it hard to say no to you more than she would like to admit.

She huffs in mild annoyance, sticking close to you as you guide her down the streets. She wouldn't normally be in such a crowded place but everyone was so caught up in their own plans for the holidays that no one spared her a single glance.

You wanted to go ice skating. It's not typically a traditional way to celebrate the holidays, at least not for her, but it seemed as if it would be fun. And it would give her an excuse to be close to you, so.

When you guys finally reach the ice skating rink, you're bouncing in excitement and eagerly pulling Jane along to go and put some blades on. She lets you, because your hand is oh so warm in hers and the way the lights shine in your eyes makes her feel... peaceful.

Now, there's no denying that she has never gone ice skating before. Hell, she's never been roller skating. So the moment you two were out on the ice, she was clinging to you to keep herself from falling.

It was embarrassing, and she almost wanted to storm off out of frustration but you never laughed at her. You would help her catch her balance whenever she slipped. You only laughed when you slipped.

You were even fine with sticking to one side of the rink, always keeping Jane behind you whenever another person would skate too close.

And when the two of you decided you had enough, she couldn't help but pull you close right as you go to step out of the rink, planting a deep kiss on your lips and leaving you dazed as she goes to take her blades off.

EYELESS JACK

Similarly to Ann, Jack can't remember if he's ever celebrated the holidays before. However, unlike Ann, he does have a vague idea on how people celebrate the holidays. He's not isolated like her.

He's definitely indifferent towards the holidays. He doesn't care much for them, but he's probably willing to celebrate if you really want him to.

Gift giving is not his specialty, dear lord. You will have to sit him down and tell him bluntly what you want so he can find some odd most certainly illegal way of obtaining it.

Jack is, however, an amazing cook and there is nothing that could change my mind on this, so he will definitely be willing to help you make any holiday meal you may want to try out.

Jack is silent as he watches you cook some meat for the meal the two of you had been spending the past few hours or so making. You had family coming over, and you needed dinner to be done before they arrived, so you had enlisted the help of your demonic, cannibalistic boyfriend.

His nose scrunched up in slight disgust at both the sight and smell of the cooking meat, and he grumbled silently under his breath about what a waste it was to cook it.

His mild disgust only seemed to grow more evident when you cut a piece of the meat off and pop it in your mouth to taste test it. He just couldn't understand how you could eat such a thing. Then again, he can't really judge considering he only consumes raw meat. Typically coming from a human.

You hum in delight at the taste, and perhaps it's an instinctual thing humans do, or maybe it's something else, but you cut off another piece and hold it out for him to eat. He just stares, and it takes a moment for you to realize what you had done, letting out a small, embarrassed laugh.

Before you could eat the piece of meat yourself, he was grabbing your wrist and bringing it back to his mouth, eating the cooked meat and biting your finger in the process. You hissed at the feeling of his sharp teeth pricking your skin, but you don't pull your hand away from him.

The meat was disgusting, no offense. You're an amazing cook so it isn't your fault, he just literally cannot consume cooked meat (or really anything that isn't raw/human) and he's going to feel absolutely awful tomorrow but that's for future Jack to worry about.

Present Jack thinks he deserves a reward for putting up with both the smell and taste of cooked meat, and he licks at your bleeding finger like your blood is the best thing he's ever tasted. To him, it was. It certainly helped to erase the taste of cooked meat.

Once he was satisfied, he was pulling you closer to him and kissing you deeply. He bit at your bottom lip until it was bleeding as well, and he couldn't help but groan as your blood invaded his mouth once more, relishing in both the taste and the little gasp that came from you.

He wanted more. Needed, if we're being honest. He found himself craving for you as his hands fell to the hem of your sweatpants, gently tugging at them. A clear sign of his intentions.

You grabbed his wrists before he could continue, breaking the kiss off and smiling slightly when he chased after you. The two of you were breathing heavily, the air in the kitchen feeling a lot thicker now.

Later, you promised. You still had a meal to finish cooking, and your family would be coming by in just a few hours. You sealed the promise with a quick, chaste kiss before taking the meat off the stove and setting it aside to focus on the next part of the meal.

And he helped you. He was patient, and he knew you could keep your promise.

KATE THE CHASER

Considering her sensitivity to light, it's not exactly easy for her to celebrate the holidays since bright lights seem to be a staple in them.

She's not really much of a holiday person anyway, so it's not something that bums her out.

She's probably the only one on this list that's least likely to indulge in celebrating, and will more than likely turn you down if you bring up the offer.

But she does feel a certain fondness in her heart when she sees you getting excited over something in relation to the holidays. While she doesn't enjoy that time of year, she's glad that you do.

Kate keeps her eyes covered as you carefully guide her through the forest. You had a surprise for her, apparently. Something to celebrate the holidays without actually celebrating.

She wasn't immediately thrilled, but you had promised that there would be absolutely no bright lights involved and that she didn't even have to consider it something for the holidays. That was enough to make her willing to indulge you just this once.

Even with her eyes closed, she could practically feel the excitement radiating off of you as you brought her closer to wherever it was you wanted to take her.

You told her to open her eyes shortly after, and she found the two of you standing in front of one of the many abandoned cabins within the forest. She didn't even hesitate to enter the cabin when you motioned for her to. Kate trusted you.

The sight she saw when she stepped inside was... it was breathtaking, honestly.

The walls and the ceiling were covered in glow-in-the-dark snowflakes and stars, illuminating the cabin in a faint green hue. It wasn't a grand gesture or anything of the sort. It was... it was nice.

The glow of the stars and snowflakes was bright enough to illuminate the cabin but dull and dark enough that she didn't have to shy away from it.

That wasn't the only thing you had planned either. She's not sure how much time and effort you put into doing all of this, but you had set up a little space in the cabin. There was even a small projector set up, as well as some food that you knew she enjoyed.

It's definitely the most romantic thing she's ever experienced. And if this is how you want to celebrate the holidays with her, then she definitely won't mind doing this sort of thing again next year.

HOMICIDAL LIU

Similarly to Jane, Liu hasn't really celebrated the holidays since everything that happened. He knows when that time of year comes around, and it makes him feel nostalgic, but he always found it hard to celebrate alone.

He's the one on this list who'll be most excited to celebrate the holidays with you if you ask him to.

It doesn't matter what you wanna do. If you wanna decorate your home, if you wanna give gifts, if you wanna make a meal, if you wanna just stay in and watch some movies and order takeout then he's down.

Sully doesn't care for the holidays and he finds the whole time of year to be annoying, to be honest, so you'll only be celebrating with Liu.

And you decided that you wanted to decorate your home a bit for the holidays. It was a simple way to celebrate the holidays, and you didn't even have to leave your home to get any decorations since you had some stuffed away in a box in your closet.

When you had told Liu that that was your plan, he was eager to join you. It's been so long since he's been able to do anything for the holidays, and he was just... really excited to finally have someone to spend them with.

You made sure to put on some music to play in the background while the two of you got to decorating, and you'd tell him where to put certain things if he didn't know what to do with them.

You two chat with each other as well during all this, sharing random memories and stories from your childhoods. Some were happy, some were sad. Sometimes, Liu would trail off mid-story and you'd have to change the subject to something lighter.

At some point, when a particularly romantic song played, you set down the decoration you were holding and pulled Liu away from the one he was setting out so you could take a break and dance with him.

It got the brightest smile out of him. The brightest one you've ever seen.

The bitter sadness and nostalgia that comes with the holidays lingered. It would always linger, honestly, but it was easier to deal with when he's with you.

And he was excited to make new memories with you. Ones that'll make him smile when the holidays roll around again.

#sigh keep forgetting how i tag stuff here hold on #the bloody painter x reader #nurse ann x reader #jane the killer x reader #eyeless jack x reader #kate the chaser x reader #homicidal liu x reader #the bloody painter x you #nurse ann x you #jane the killer x you #eyeless jack x you #kate the chaser x you #homicidal liu x you #creepypasta x reader #creepypasta x you

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kabuki-draws · 2 years ago

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I watched Ridley Scott's NAPOLEON yesterday and it was a complete Waterloo.

Yes, I am a big history nerd with a giant heart for movie adaptation of historical topics. But when I watched NAPOLEON I sat there... and tried not to laugh. It was not only so historical inaccurate, that I wanted to cry, at the same time it was filled with cringe dialogues, red flags and terrible color grading. This whole movie made me so sad yet so angry, that I HAVE to write this review:

(Disclaimer: This review is based on my own opinion. If you enjoyed the movie, it's completely fine. Btw. in that case or if you agree with me, feel free to tell me your opinion. I would love to know!)

First of all: Don't get me wrong, the medium film has its own rules and you can't put as much historical accuracy into a big scale movie as you would into a documentary - sometimes the story needs to be altered to be a good movie. And that is fine. Even if Gladiator is a complete fictional story set in the Roman Empire, I can still enjoy this movie for what it is: A good-written story with great characters, a beautiful score and iconic scenes. With Kingdom of Heaven it's kind of the same - and while the movie cut was very inconsistent, I still kind of liked it. But then the Directors Cut made it a a masterpiece for me.

Funny enough, both of these movies are made by the same person: Ridley Scott. So naturally I thought: Well, Napoleon won't be a historical accurate film, but I surely will enjoy it anyways. Well, ...no. It is not only historical incorrect, it's also a bad movie overall.

To start it short: NAPOLEON clearly lost itself in all the various topics it wanted to tell within a runtime of two and a half hours. It made the whole storytelling very weird and inconsistent, causing the problem, that the audience even loses itself in the questions of when and where. Where is that scene located? When did that happen? And then comes the question: Why is this even happening?

Ridley Scott wants to depict Napoleon as a lover, a military genius, a big political figure, a revolutionary and more. But in the end he tells all of this in the most shallow way possible, which waters down Napoleons personality traits and achievements to a series of small scenes. You never get a glimpse of the "true" Napoleon, who was described as a highly intelligent and charismatic man. In fact, you never really feel ANYTHING about him except that he was a cringe red flag in front of his wife. He just stands there, stares and has very limited dialogue scenes to get a picture of that man. What are his overall motivations? Only Josephine? If so, why is this motivation only vaguely explored?

The whole love story between him and Josephine feels so unnatural and got to the brink of being disgusting. This is particularly sad because I deeply respect Vanessa Kirby and Joaquin Phoenix, they're both stunning actors. I don't know if they just couldn't fit the role or if it was rather a problem of the script (the last one is my guess). Yet whenever I saw Josephine and Napoleon on screen, I felt like acted very stiff and forced. Napoleon seemed more obsessed with her than actual love and that can be a character trait, but there wasn't a chance to explore that deeper. Before the movie entered the cinema, the lovestory between these two was marketed as intense, obsessive, deeper than you could imagine. What the audience got was a few scenes without real conversation, much staring and a bunch of cringeworthy s-scenes. And seriously, these "sexy" scene were the worst. I was so disgusted by them because they were SO DAMN WEIRD. There are no scenes that undermine ANY deep love between Josephine and Napoleon. It felt therefore so off, when they still longed for each other after their divorce.

And let's not start to ramble about the fact that they depicted Josephine ONLY in a somehow sexual way. Yeah, there is that scene where she says to Napoleon, that he is nothing without her. BUT SHOW, DON´T TELL! You never see her doing something instead of sitting there, talking with others or when the plot needs her to have sexy time with someone (not only Napoleon). As a woman myself this makes me so freaking furious, you have no idea. I don't need a marvel-coded super-strong woman with unlimited talents - I just need a female character that is written GOOD and plausible! Make me CARE for her plot and for the plot of Napoleon! Both of them don't even feel like normal human beings because they're like blank pieces of paper with their names written on it!

And don´t make me start to talk about the historical inaccuracies. At first I didn't want to draw that card. Actually, I don't need a historical movie to present 100% facts. If the movie is still enjoyable, it's okey. But even if many people say that the war scenes were awesome, I can only partly agree. Yeah, we have that cool ice-lake Austerlitz battle, but it took me a couple of minutes and a better look on the uniforms to know that Napoleon is now at war with Austria! You get nearly ZERO context to Napoleons battles. Yeah, nice, the scenes look cool - but there is nothing more to it? Is that all you need to show for the audience to care? For me at least, I just didn't care at all and I was very happy when I got out of the cinema. Overall this movie is full of messy non-sense choices that don't contribute to the story. Many moments just confused me and it left me with the question why Scott couldn't simply hire some historians to put together a consistent story. Everyone who read about Napoleons life knows that there are so much cinema worthy moments in his career that would've been so much better than what we now got.

I could ramble about that movie for hours if I´m honest, but I hope this little TED talk was enough to make my statement clear.

In the end, it just makes me sad. I wanted to like this movie, I wanted it to be good. For months I hyped myself up to this, read books about Napoleon, watched the trailer all over and over and talked with friends about how great this movie will be. Now I am just disappointed and frustrated. Oppenheimer was such a great biopic of a historical person that became a great success at the box office - even without great battle scenes. I hoped that Napoleon would push a cinema revolution, that shows people want big scaled films about historical personalities and history topics. But now I just want to forget this Napoleon movie to be honest.

#napoleon #napoleon bonaparte #napoleon movie #ridley scott #joaquin phoenix #vanessa kirby

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brucebocchi · 1 year ago

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Winter 2024 anime, Pt. 2: Mixed reactions, the bench, and the gems

hey y'all, this is also up on my ko-fi! it's free to read both here and there, but i'm struggling financially rn so i could appreciate if you'd throw a few bucks my way if you liked it! part 1 can be found here.

And we're back for part 2! Here's all the new stuff I finished this season, and one more I'll get back to later. As with before, these are sorted alphabetically within each category and are not ranked as of yet.

Also as before, the OP for each series is linked in the title. Check them all out if the header images aren't giving you the right feel for each show, but also check them out because most of them were actually pretty damn good this season.

[Solo Leveling OP voice] LET'S GET IT!

Mixed Bags:

Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!

Your standard, quasi-harem “easily flustered Regular Guy wins over hot girls just by being really nice” shonen romcom. I really don’t have much to say about this one other than if you’ve seen My Dress-Up Darling, you’ve basically seen this already. The only thing that really sets it apart is the setting.

Tsubasa (voiced by Nobunaga Shimazaki, in a FAR cry from his turn as Mahito in Jujutsu Kaisen) is a straight-laced Tokyoite whose family situation lands him in a small city in the frozen boonies of Hokkaido. While looking for the bus to his new house, he runs into a gyaru in the snowy wild, the underdressed, hilariously-proportioned Minami, and they hit it off. It turns out they go to the same school, there are other cute girls there who take a shine to him as well, it’s nothing new.

I ultimately don’t have much to say about Hokkaido Gals, but I do have a soft spot for series like this, and after reading ahead in the manga I felt obligated to see it through. This is all junk food, but it’s all stuff you’ve seen done better in other series. I also have a soft spot for gyaru in anime and manga, and while I do like Minami just fine, she isn’t Marin Kitagawa or Rumiko Manbagi. I don’t really have it in me to recommend this show to many, though, at least not until another season rolls around, if that ever happens. The manga genuinely does get a lot better as it goes on, but the really worthwhile stuff may not happen until a third season, and I just don’t see that happening.

The manga has issues that the anime isn’t willing or able to solve, chief of which being the visuals. The art style of the manga is wildly inconsistent, and getting a mediocre animation team on this didn’t help matters at all. While the colors often pop nicely against the pretty, snowy backdrops, nobody looks all that great overall. The characters are recognizable, but they just plain don’t look great a lot of the time, nor do they look consistent from one cut to the next; I said that Minami’s proportions are hilarious, but just as hilarious is how wildly they vacillate from one scene to the next for the sake of trying to titillate the viewer.

My biggest takeaway from both the manga and anime was everything I learned about Hokkaido in the process, and if the series is taking subsidies from the island’s tourism bureau, then it’s a job well done. I want some goddamn jingisukan now. The OP is a great time, though. I’m shocked it took over a decade for us to get a proper “Uptown Funk” knockoff in an anime.

Metallic Rouge

I’ll be upfront in saying that this was my biggest disappointment of the season by far. This show had so much going for it, and what we got was… ugh.

There was an unbelievable amount of promise from the outset: This was Studio Bones’ commemorative 25th anniversary production, and coming from the studio that gave us all-timer adaptations like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Mob Psycho 100, not to mention later works from Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichiro Watanabe (including the Cowboy Bebop movie), you can’t fault anyone for having high expectations. It looked to be a fitting production as well: Watanabe’s influence shines through immediately in the gorgeous, lived-in cyberpunk off-world locales and racially diverse cast. Action takes the form of dope robo-tokusatsu transformation fisticuffs, and it’s entirely in 2D animation to boot. The first couple of episodes were killer, too; everything looked and sounded amazing, and there were just enough plot threads teased out that I just had to see how they’d unravel.

It brings me no joy, then, to say that Metallic Rouge collapses into a jumbled mess. I don’t even want to bother talking about what happens in the show because I don’t fucking care anymore. There are few media experiences more sobering than to have it dawn on you over a span of several weeks that “oh… this isn’t actually all that good, is it?” Episode after episode piles on with sloppy lore, weak worldbuilding, warring factions whose names you immediately forget, pointless double-crosses, and the most predictable twist you’ve ever seen. For a while I was willing to accept the fact that I didn’t know what was going on half the time and expected things to become clearer, but now I’m not entirely sure the writers knew either. The stakes apparently kept rising and everything just kept getting more claustrophobic. I’m glad it’s over, if only because if I had to hear “Clair de Lune” one more fucking time, I was going to go ballistic.

There are several attempts at emotional beats, as the story is rife with tragedy and sacrifice, and every single one lands with a wet thud. Nobody gets enough time, motivation, or characterization for any of these things to feel like they actually matter, and that’s especially a shame because the finale might have been able to stick the landing if the previous episodes were less dense and better paced. Emphasis on “almost,” though, because just before the season ends, we get the absolute most pointless fakeout I’ve seen since The Rise of Skywalker, which is the lowest point of comparison you can make for any work of sci-fi.

This is especially frustrating because on paper, there is so much to like here. Rouge and Naomi are likable-enough deuteragonists with a fun dynamic, and they’d make easy yuri bait in a better show. The characters are all pretty and uniquely designed across the board, and the overall aesthetic, almost a pastiche of late-90’s anime futurism, is undeniable. The toku suit designs are neat and several of the action scenes are gorgeous. The score and soundtrack are outstanding (except for the aforementioned Debussy indulgence). I have few complaints about how the show looks and sounds; the style is great! All of my issues lie with the substance.

Metallic Rouge may have had all the ingredients, but it just needed more time to cook; whether that would have been by doubling the episode count or by more carefully planning the pacing and trimming some of the fat from the lore, I’m still not sure. Probably both. It probably needed better writers, too. Maybe it just isn’t as smart as it acts and there was no way to satisfyingly resolve the clumsy civil rights allegories that bring it uncomfortably close to the likes of Detroit: Become Human. So all of the above, I guess. I tend to adore stories that involve artificially-intelligent beings developing their own wills and emotions and learning to cut their own strings (the likes of Blade Runner, Nier Automata, even a couple of character arcs in the Persona series), but this ain’t it. I’m not even mad anymore. I’m just disappointed.

If there are two positives that will stick with me, though, they would be the absolute banger of an OP and, of course, Naomi Orthmann herself (pictured above, left). Outstanding character design. I’m mildly obsessed. She deserved a better show.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

This one isn’t even worth talking about, so here’s a brief synopsis, then I’ll add some commentary, and then we’ll all move on with our lives.

Rentt, a beloved but mediocre adventurer in a fantasy town, gets lost in the mysterious labyrinth that all adventurers explore for personal gain, gets waxed by a dragon, and awakens as a shitty-looking CGI skeleton. He notices, though, that he’s able to level up better as a skeleton than he did as a human, and with the more monsters he defeats, the more he evolves into something closer to human. The rest isn’t really worth discussing.

If I’m being honest, I should’ve dropped this show much sooner. It looks kinda lousy most of the time, the plot (inasmuch as there even is one) is boring, character designs are forgettable (except for Rentt’s closest ally, Lorraine, holy hell) and it seems wholly uninterested in actually building its own setting. If it returns for a second season, I won’t be there, nor will I feel like I’m missing anything. Each episode felt like a chore to watch. I probably only saw it through because 1) I liked looking at Lorraine, I know what I’m about, and 2) I didn’t want to lump it in with the shows I did drop. The Unwanted Undead Adventurer isn’t as patently upsetting or frustrating as those three, but it just plain isn’t a very good show.

The Witch and the Beast

This show could have been so much more. I was drawn in by the gorgeous character designs and intriguing blend of Victorian gothic aesthetics and architecture with modern infrastructure, and very quickly disappointed by just about everything else. The first episode is an exceptional proof of concept, and almost everything that follows is an upsetting showcase of what could have been.

The story centers around Ashaf, a languid, chain-smoking agent of the governing church with a big-ass coffin strapped to his back, and his partner Guideau, a snarling hyena in a young woman’s body, as they investigate abuses of magic across the continent in search of nefarious witches. Guideau in particular has a bone to pick with witches, as the body they presently inhabit is the result of a witch’s curse, and they remain in furious pursuit of the one who cursed them. The curse can be temporarily undone by a kiss with a witch, allowing Guideau’s true body, a hulking brute confined to the coffin, to escape and wreak havoc. Meaning that on a few occasions we get a girl-on-girl kiss followed by a big dude wrecking shit. There’s also other investigations of serial killings, necromancy, and a cursed sword, and here’s hoping you like those, because the coffin breaks are few and far between.

This wasn’t great! By the third episode I had the sneaking suspicion that the animation talent on hand just wasn’t enough to support the aesthetic. While the character designs are exceptional, almost everyone looks awful in any shot that isn’t completely focused on them. This is especially true of Guideau, who looks so inconsistently off-model from one shot to the next that I’m still not entirely sure what they’re supposed to look like, and that’s kind of unforgivable when we’re talking about a main character. Everything looks too dim and too shiny at the same time, and action scenes look like shit more often than they look interesting. I can see so many flickers of something excellent (or at least really good-looking) in Witch and the Beast, and everything else that keeps those flickers from actually igniting makes it so much more frustrating to watch. Maybe just read the manga instead; the panels I've seen from it were uniformly gorgeous.

Actually, yeah, you should probably just read the manga, because for a season of anime, the pacing is atrocious too. It’s clearly trying to angle for a monster-of-the-week format, but each of these mini-arcs is a little too dense for a single episode, so multiple episodes are dedicated to these one-off curiosities, most of which do nothing to advance the plot or show off what the show does best. And if one of them isn’t particularly interesting, you’re saddled with it for the next two weeks like you've been stuck munching on a mealy apple. And I know you can only adapt so much in a 12-episode season, but the decision to end the season on a flashback arc and a lore dump was baffling. That’s not world-building, that’s lazy, and it made the show’s existing pacing issues feel that much more inane.

I feel like I was sold a false bill of goods. I can only imagine how the mangaka feels about this. Dull and uninspiring all around. What a waste.

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

Isekai, unassuming high school boy gains a unique power, impending war with the Demon Lord, yadda yadda yadda. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic isn’t anything new or special by any means, nor is it particularly well-animated or -paced, but at its best it’s silly and charming enough that it made a nice, brainless palate cleanser on Fridays.

Usato, your standard quiet high schooler, ends up walking home on a rainy evening with the popular, attractive student council president and VP, when an isekai portal happens. It turns out that it was just the seito-kai that was invited along for the ride (and President Suzune, as it turns out, is fucking psyched to get to be in an isekai), and Usato got caught along with them. When tested for magical aptitude, Suzune and VP Kazuki hit the jackpot with electric and light affinities, respectively, but things go awry when Usato’s reading turns up with healing magic. Terror strikes the palace as the intimidating dommy-mommy Captain Rose barges in to spirit Usato away from his new friends and into her squadron of goons to train him as a combat medic.

As character comedy goes, this one is actually pretty solid at times. Shogo Sakata is plenty of fun as the put-upon, lippy Usato (a much louder role than Chainsaw Man’s Aki Hayakawa), and Atsuko Tanaka (Major Kusanagi herself!) is a blast as the terrifying Rose, an uncompromising slave driver of a drill sergeant with a secret soft side. The dynamic between them is great, too; Usato is over Rose’s shit from the beginning and isn’t afraid to talk back to her, but before you know it, this transforms into friendly banter as Rose clearly takes a shine to Usato and knows he can handle any punishment she doles out. Suzune’s also a bunch of fun now that she’s broken away from having to be the competent, popular girl at school and gets to fully lean into being a complete dork.

Wrong Way also works decently as an isekai, because it makes an effort to stay rooted in high fantasy rather than fall back on JRPG mechanics, meaning there are no stat screens! It also avoids the trappings of wish-fulfillment isekai series by having Usato start out as a regular-ass guy; he’s not a Kirito type, just someone Rose sees as a rough gem in need of cutting. There are no cheat skills or OP weapons or anything, just a kid training every day to get stronger so he can protect the people close to him, and that’s the kind of anime protagonist you should want to be.

For better and for worse, I get serious mid-00s vibes from this one; watch the OP if you don’t believe me. Some of the colors pop uncannily in that early-digipaint-era way, and the animation is pretty middling; the most fluid animation we see is whenever Suzune is acting like a creep. Much like those mid-00s anime, though, Wrong Way may have benefited from being weekly (or twice as long) rather than seasonal. There’s a ton of planting with very little payoff, and it doesn’t feel like the actual scope of the story has even been addressed yet. We don’t even learn why the series has the name it does until someone literally says it aloud in the 11th episode. I may have to reevaluate this season after a possible second, if we ever get one, because this doesn’t stand too well on its own.

Of the anime in this “mixed bags” segment, I’d say I enjoyed Wrong Way the most, but it still had enough problems for me to keep it here. It’s not a particularly bad anime, but it’s not especially good either. I guess we can slot it into what Hazel refers to as “good mid.”

On Hold:

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! (three episodes watched)

Man, what a title. That was the main draw for this BL series, which on paper is basically a gay version of the Mel Gibson vehicle What Women Want.

Adachi (a surname that will always make me laugh thanks to Persona 4), a gloomy salaryman, has hit the big 3-0 without getting any, and now he can somehow read anyone’s thoughts just by making physical contact with them. Just as he laments that this is his life now, he accidentally bumps into his handsome, popular coworker, Kurosawa, whom he learns has been harboring a massive crush on Adachi this whole time. Well dang, what now? Kurosawa’s a really nice, thoughtful dude, but Adachi’s never even thought about being with a man before! And isn’t there something wrong with already knowing this secret? How can he even go into the office and look Kurosawa in those big, handsome eyes… every single day…

What I’ve seen so far has been pretty solid, if not particularly well animated. The visuals are really my only gripe here; I just put it off for way too long and didn’t have it in me to finish it on time to actually get this thing written and published. Yaoi isn’t my forte, which feels like a shortcoming on my end as a fledgling bisexual, and I’ve already remarked on the solid LGBT representation this past season, so I do plan on hopping back on this one.

I gotta say, the co-leading voice actors put in serious work this season. Adachi is voiced by Chiaki Kobayashi, who continued his role as Stark in Frieren, returned to Mashle as Mash Burnedead, and contributed to Metallic Rouge’s cluttered cast as Noid. Kurosawa’s seiyuu, Ryota Suzuki (of whom I’ll always be a fan for his masterful turn as Yu Ishigami in Kaguya-sama), also held down leading roles in Bang Brave Bang Bravern and The Unwanted Undead Adventurer. They’ve been great in the few episodes of Cherry Magic! that I’ve seen so far, and they’ll be a huge part of what brings me back.

The Gems:

Bang Brave Bang Bravern

I feel like the mark of a perfectly audacious piece of media is in the moments where I find myself incredulously shouting “WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING” at the screen, and Bravern made me do that at least once per episode. I have so many things to say about what makes this show great but all of it can be summed up as “it fucks so goddamn hard.”

A joint military exercise in Hawaii between Japanese and American mech pilots goes south as a sudden invasion by metalloid aliens portends certain doom for humanity. Just in the nick of time, though, a bombastic, autonomous mech named Bravern arrives from space and insists that ace pilot Isami Ao take his reins. Isami reluctantly agrees, and to his consternation, Bravern goes full tokusatsu on everyone’s asses, complete with fully-diegetic theme music, and keeps the threat at bay. With Bravern continuing to pester him to act as a pilot, Isami is forced to take up the mantle of a reluctant hero as everyone rallies around Bravern to save Earth. Tagging along is blond-haired, blue-eyed American pilot Lewis Smith, who gets to live out all of his Top Gun fantasies, right down to the latent homosexuality.

That last point isn’t a projection or anything: This show is legitimately gay as hell, and it rules. Bravern’s feelings towards Isami feel far more romantic than what you’d expect from a literal robot, and his description of how it felt to have Isami pilot him for the first time, as relayed to a grim-faced military council, is riddled with hilarious innuendo. Isami struggles not only with shouldering the burden of needing to be a hero to all of humanity, but also being beset on both sides by a loud, insistent mecha and a dewy-eyed gaijin, both of whom very well seem to want to get in his pants. Intricate rituals punctuate Isami and Lewis’ angsty relationship as these broad-shouldered, muscular men grow ever closer. It’s also worth reiterating that Isami is voiced by Ryota Suzuki, who also voiced Kurosawa in Cherry Magic!, and that may not have even been his gayest role this season. I’m not super well-versed in mecha as a genre, but I do know that there’s a lot of Warrior’s Bond-type stuff in these series, and Bravern lays it on thick. And hard.

This show looks killer, by the way. CGI implementation in 2D anime is still a touchy subject, but Bravern features some of the best I’ve ever seen. Simple cel-shading goes a long way to the point where, outside of some uncanny motion, Bravern himself feels perfectly blended into the hand-drawn animation. Mecha designs range from realistic military-style tech to otherworldly sentient robots, and battle sequences run the same gamut as the stakes rise. As goofy as all of the above may sound, it’s committed to being a grandiose, big-time mecha showcase.

This is as good as camp gets in anime; Bravern does for the mecha genre what Akiba Maid War did for yakuza film pastiche (I have also heard positive comparisons to Samurai Flamenco, which I’ll have to get on ASAP). It’s an excellent mecha show in its own right, and wildly hilarious to boot. Bravern himself is very genre-savvy and seemingly a bit of an otaku himself; he loves acting like a mecha hero, to everyone else’s chagrin. Several of the villains (also mechanical beings, voiced by an all-star seiyuu roster that includes Kenjiro Tsuda, the aforementioned Atsuko Tanaka, and Rie Kugimiya) are total dorks themselves. A CIA interrogator tries to waterboard a mecha at one point. Bravern is a deeply silly show, but its heart is planted as firmly on its sleeve as its tongue is in its cheek: For as wacky as it can get, the story still unfolds with a straight face and excellent emotional beats.

This show also has the most unskippable ED of any anime since Chainsaw Man dropped a new one every week. I will not say what happens. You cannot predict what it is. Just watch it. One of the top YouTube comments on that video says “When I saw this ending after episode 2, I thought I was going crazy.” That’s a ringing endorsement.

Chained Soldier

On the heels of 100 Girlfriends completely rewiring my brain, I was raring for some more good old-fashioned anime trash. I was told that there would be plenty this season, but you can consult the “dropped” section to see how well that worked out for me. Chained Soldier came with some significant hype, and soon enough into the first episode I realized that I’d actually skimmed through this manga before (don’t ask why), so I was on board immediately. Now here’s some nice trashy fun.

The world is in peril thanks to creatures called Shuuki that can advance on our world via portals from another dimension. Women primarily lead the charge against these monsters, as this dimension produces a special fruit that can lend them (and not men) otherworldly powers to help them in the fight. Yuuki, a perfectly normal young man, ends up in grave danger as he stumbles into a portal, where he is saved by the beautiful Kyouka, a commander who is able to subjugate Shuuki at will and use them to fight others. In a bind, she asks Yuuki if she can subjugate him, which he agrees to by licking her finger and transforming into a monster himself, at her beck and call. Because of his utility in battle, Yuuki is enlisted into her squad of baddies (and also an 11-year-old), living in their home as a caretaker and answering directly to Kyouka as her “slave.”

I know. Hear me out.

I put “slave” in scare quotes because Chained Soldier fortunately isn’t going full Shield Hero on us; this arrangement has a give-and-take baked in. See, every time Yuuki completes his service, Kyouka (or whomever else takes advantage of this anomaly) is compelled to carry out whatever suitable “reward” springs from his unconscious, and this is where the ecchi kicks in. Sometimes it’s a kiss, and sometimes it’s something a little more; the reward corresponds to the length and intensity of Yuuki’s contributions to battle, so the heat can turn up in the form of, say, clothed face-sitting, a good scrubbing in the bath, or some nice, casual CBT. All of this is to say that “slave” is a bit of a buzzword here: It’s more of a dom/sub situationship with a lot of extra steps.

Yes, just about everything that isn’t an action setup is full-on harem trash, and Chained Soldier lays it on thick, right down to full-on nudity. Nothing about this show resembles high art, but I can’t help but admire such a high level of commitment to its aesthetic, including the sleaze. It fully commits to the bit and doesn’t even bother lampshading its own trashiness. Chained Soldier knows what it’s about, and I respect that. It also has the good sense not to sexualize the youngest girl, which is a point in its favor that I can’t award a couple other shows previously discussed.

And while this show is plenty fun, the action sequences often excellent, and the character designs usually delightful, there’s not actually a whole lot going on here. As I said with Mashle, I know that battle manga like this can take a minute to really get cooking, and as I said with Witch and the Beast, 12 episodes may not always be a sufficient runtime to adapt enough to break ground, but the debut season feels more like a proof of concept than anything else. That being said, Chained Soldier’s manga has a very effusive audience, and its praises don’t seem to entirely be about the boobs and butts, so I’ll wait patiently for the second season. I think it’s earned that much.

Delicious in Dungeon

This is the one I’m having the hardest time writing about because it so confidently and so completely speaks for itself that anything I could add would feel like scattering sawdust at the beach. Dungeon Meshi (I refuse to call it by its official English title) is a widely beloved manga among those who’ve read it, and for Studio Trigger to do an honest-to-goodness manga adaptation for the first time might as well be front page news among anime fans.

The story follows Laios, the deeply weird human hero, as he delves back into a bizarre and mysterious dungeon to rescue his sister Falin from the belly of a dragon, along with his misfit party: The neurotic half-elven mage Marcille, the temperamental halfling rogue Chilchuck, and the dwarven warrior-slash-chef Senshi. The party is frequently low on supplies, so to survive the trip they’ll need to subsist on the most abundant resource in the dungeon: Monsters. Senshi’s aptitude in the kitchen helps ensure that everything is edible and sufficiently tasty, regardless of how nasty the monster it came from may have been. With monster obstructions out of the way and their bellies filled, our party delves deeper into the dungeon as the mysteries deepen in kind.

I love the character dynamics in this so goddamn much. Marcille and Chilchuck are frequently put off by the dubious monster food presented to them, but their consternation is worsened by the fact that Laios’ fascination with the monsters it came from annoys the shit out of them. I referred to him as “deeply weird,” but that doesn’t begin to describe his absolute galaxy brain, and I mean it as a term of endearment. Laios is deeply knowledgeable and curious about the fauna in the dungeon, and not just how they taste: He is vocally curious about how certain monster attacks may feel, sings along with siren songs, and even keeps a hardcover bestiary inside his breastplate. He’s one of those people you turn to if you have a question on a hyperspecific subject, but you have to be careful how you ask it or else you’re trapped for the next two hours. And I love him for it.

Even putting the comedy aside, there is a fascinating human element at play in Dungeon Meshi, and I can tell that that surface has barely even been scratched yet. Marcille is just as dogged in her pursuit of saving Falin as Laios is, maybe even moreso (remember what I keep saying about LGBT representation this season?). Chilchuck continues to convince himself that he’s only in the job for his own personal gain, but you can see that mask slipping. And I still wanna know what Senshi’s deal is. Even with the five major players I listed, there’s an increasingly deep roster surrounding them—showcasing a broad spectrum of races and ethnicities, both real and fantastical—each with their own histories and motivations, and I cannot wait to see how they play out and interact with one another. There seem to be much deeper themes at play here as well as we learn more about perceptions and grudges between differing races, oppositional magics, clashing ideologies, and the monetary incentives that drive both the dungeon’s exploration and its very existence. I’m here for it.

I’ve been holding off on reading the manga until the season is up in June (though I could crack any day), but I know a loving adaptation when I see one. Not that Trigger ever slacks off in the animation department, but they absolutely brought their A-game here. Everyone looks bouncy and cartoony in the way only Trigger can pull off while still looking as close as possible to Ryoko Kui’s source material (as far as I can tell). As with Frieren, the action sequences aren’t frequent, nor are they entirely what the show is about, but they look incredible every single time. And the food, of course, looks incredible, no matter how weird. This is practically a cooking anime and a fantasy dungeon anime at the same time, and both aspects are visually on point at all times.

I’m obviously speaking from my own bubble as one of the six people who still use Tumblr in 2024, but I rarely see new anime make a splash like this on social media every single week, and the ones that I do are usually the monster shonen hits like Chainsaw Man or Jujutsu Kaisen. Dungeon Meshi deserves the exposure and success it’s attained, and I’m excited to see it continue. I’d easily slot this right up there with Bravern as one of the best new anime of the season.

A Sign of Affection

I’ve seen a hell of a lot of shonen slice-of-life romances in the past year and change, so a nice fluffy shoujo like this was an excellent palate cleanser. There were a hell of a lot of Big Action Setpieces and panicky teens and grim dungeon crawlers this season, and at the end of the week I wanted to unwind with a bunch of pretty twenty-somethings falling in love with each other.

The show centers on Yuki, a young woman living with congenital hearing loss, making do at a public college after growing up at a school for the deaf. Though she’s able to get by with LINE messages and lip reading, she’s unprepared when a foreigner asks for help, but she’s saved by a handsome and mysterious young man named Itsuomi. He’s able to help out, and takes an interest in her when he realizes his fellow undergrad is deaf, and Yuki takes an interest in kind because he’s really goddamn hot. It turns out that he’s a polyglot and an avid world-traveler, but sign language is not in his purview. This mutual interest sparks the concern of her childhood friend, Oushi, one of the few people in her life who already use sign language, who wants to be sure that nothing untoward is happening. And it isn’t, because this is just a really lovely, low-stakes romance story.

This is pure, unfiltered shoujo at its best. Yuki’s internal monologue is peppered with flowery prose, and everything and everyone looks soft and beautiful. Fashionable, doe-eyed women and pillowy-lipped ikemen abound (seriously, holy shit, the lips on these boys) as the scope widens and the main love interests’ friends explore their own possible love stories. Itsuomi is very much of the “mysterious boy” archetype you’ll find in romance stories in this demographic, but he’s not hiding any sort of dark past like you’d typically expect; he’s just an interesting guy who keeps his personal life close to the vest. He’s a self-appointed world citizen who loves learning about how people of all cultures live their lives, and in Yuki he sees someone within his home turf who happens to live in her own world entirely. And it’s easy to see his forward behavior with Yuki as infantilizing at first (Oushi sure does, and I’ll get back to him in a second), but as they grow closer Itsuomi quickly becomes much more considerate of her boundaries and learns to accommodate her as he studies sign language and gestures that help ensure her comfort. This is a story about Yuki’s horizons broadening just as much as it is about Itsuomi wanting to be let into Yuki’s narrow world, and that sort of synergy makes for some exceptional romance.

A Sign of Affection deserves some credit for refusing to shy away from Yuki’s disability and making a point of depicting her world as one that does little to accommodate her. Very few people in her daily life ever bothered to learn sign language, she relies on a friend to take notes during lectures, and work is hard to come by. It’s an honest depiction that makes an effort not to be exploitative, which is a breath of fresh air. Not only that, but there’s some interesting meta-commentary in there: The only major conflict in the story stems from Oushi’s jealousy, and his reservations about Itsuomi possibly “taking advantage of” Yuki almost feel like he believes that he’s the only one who knows what��s best for her just because he’s done the bare minimum to accommodate her. He thinks he’s coming from a good place, but he winds up accidentally infantilizing her in exactly the way he thinks Itsuomi might. That’s a particularly interesting bit of irony!

I’ve seen enough shonen-oriented romcoms where an unassuming Regular Guy gets flustered as a way-too-casual girl pushes his buttons (hell, I’ve already reviewed two of those this season), so it’s nice to see the formula flipped for a shoujo as Yuki and her best friend Rin blush and squee over Itsuomi and his coworker Kyouya, respectively. A Sign of Affection isn’t afraid to get a little silly with it, either; plenty of these moments are punctuated by characters’ faces going low-detail or full chibi, and they are cute as shit every single time.

This one was just cozy as hell. If you’re into this sort of thing, swaddle yourself in it and bask.

Solo Leveling

I let this one collect dust after the third episode and didn’t pick it back up until the season was almost up, and honestly, I was kinda dreading it: The trailers didn’t look too promising, the show was slow to start, and it looked like yet another derivative JRPG-style dungeon crawler that managed to get popular. Turns out, nah, this show actually kinda fucks and the web novel series and webtoon it’s based on are popular for a reason. The story is nothing special, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a perfectly serviceable turn-your-brain-off action spectacle with a bit more lying beneath the surface.

In a modern-day South Korea where portals to mysterious dungeons open up and threaten the populace, those who can brave the dungeons, known as hunters, are an invaluable human resource. Once someone is assigned a grade as a hunter, they have that grade for life, barring some rare occurrences. Sung Jinwoo is at the lowest rung on that ladder as an E-rank, incapable of improvement, assigned the epithet “the weakest hunter of all mankind.” He mostly shows up to portal raids as a warm body to fill a quota, and one such job goes haywire as most of the raid party, Jinwoo included, is brutally slaughtered in an arcane secondary dungeon within a portal. He somehow wakes up in a hospital, unharmed, and able to access a digital menu before his eyes that exhorts him to do the One Punch Man workout every day, lest he incur punishment. He gets hilariously chadly in the span of a few days in the hospital, including an inexplicable haircut, and finds access to dungeons only he can enter and levels up within this new system.

This one gets off to a slow start and may have benefited from a longer premiere like Oshi no Ko or Frieren, but once the table is fully set, Solo Leveling really starts to cook. Jinwoo’s titular leveling process is a blast from one fight to the next, and as he moves to work in the dungeons that other hunters can access, it turns out he’s been training with the weights on. He’s suddenly fighting way above his pay grade, and after staving off attacks from hunters taking advantage of portals for nefarious ends, he is recruited by an ambitious corporate scion to make some real coin and establish an independent association of hunters.

While it can feel like there’s a whole bunch of table-setting between portal sequences, it’s some smart worldbuilding on Solo Leveling’s end to establish how portal hunting became a central pillar of this society, and doubly so how political and capitalist interests can leave a wide berth for corruption and bad actors. If there’s money to be made in hunting, of course people will find ways to make even more at the expense of others, both at the corporate and individual levels. There’s a lot of talk in there about “survival of the fittest” and “natural selection” and that… makes me nervous.

Those are terms that can be used to justify immoral actions in the name of money, sure, but Jinwoo also uses them to justify his own process. To what end is he constantly improving himself? Sure, he's doing what he can to provide for his younger sister and their ailing mother, but I see less and less humanity in him as this goes on. There are constant hints at something far more sinister at play than just a dude getting stronger for himself, not the least of which being “the system,” the UI that implores him to keep taking on these “quests.” Something, or someone, seems to be guiding him. Whenever another hunter turns on Jinwoo, of course his self-defense instincts kick in, but system pop-ups instruct him to defeat X number of hostiles like it’s a normal video game scenario. There’s something eerily depersonalized about these encounters, despite them being full-on mortal combat, that gives me serious Ender’s Game vibes. Consider me intrigued.

I’d heard that the Solo Leveling manhwa’s main draw was its visuals, and though I had my doubts early on, I'm sold now. This is a pretty solid presentation! Hiroyuki Sawano turned in yet another banger soundtrack to punctuate all the action setpieces, helping to stitch together a fairly complete tapestry. Said setpieces are exhilarating and almost impressively bloody, and while the animation is nothing impressive in the day-to-day, it goes absolutely batshit when the gloves come off. Movement is inhumanly fluid and the visuals can go into the same loose, psychedelic territories we’ve seen in the likes of Mob Psycho and the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen. If this is the new meta for shonen action, I’m not complaining.

By all rights, this is a pretty decent show, but if I’m being honest, this one just hasn’t stuck with me much. And that’s fine! Sometimes I just wanna see some nutty action stuff and move on with my day. Solo Leveling hits that spot perfectly, and I'll be right back there when it returns for its next season.

‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess

I was surprised to learn that the gag manga this is based on, with such a seemingly simple premise, has been running for well over 200 chapters and counting. As the anime progressed, I was far more pleasantly surprised to learn that it actually works.

In a standard anime fantasy world where the forces of good are fighting the demonic Hellhorde, an unnamed warrior princess and her talking enchanted sword are taken prisoner and subjected to torture as they’re squeezed for intel. Said “torture,” as the title’s scare quotes would suggest, is mildly unconventional, as the demon baddie inquisitor, aptly named Torture Tortura, attempts to ply the princess by presenting her with tantalizingly delicious-looking food that she can only partake in if she coughs up some info. Naturally, the princess caves every single time, but her intel is often inane and useless, so the “torture” continues. It’s not all food, though: The princess is soon held out of arm’s reach of adorable baby animals by a gyaru beastgirl, pampered into submission by a spa-loving giantess, and is faced with a tsundere vampire faildaughter, who… tries.

And you’d think that would be it; the joke wears thin and you move onto something else. Before you realize it, though, something’s changed: The princess and her captors are quickly becoming friends. The premise almost feels perfunctory: These inquisitors are actual people just doing their jobs, and whatever happens after the princess’ myriad confessions is fair game. There’s no malice or animosity, even during the “torture” sessions themselves: Everyone will have a blast and grow closer as friends, and then the princess will voluntarily go back to her bedless cell. It’s like Sam and Ralph after they clock out, except they’re almost always off the clock. Everyone is genuinely looking out for each other in all directions, and the only thing that keeps the torture going is the need for a status quo to return to, even as it grows more elastic. If anything, Time for "Torture" is a good example of committing to the bit without having to necessarily rely on it.

The real irony in all of this is that it becomes increasingly apparent that the princess is having her needs met in captivity far better than she ever did back home. In her proud proclamations about how she’ll never cave to the temptations before her (shortly before she does just that), the princess often talks about her upbringing and her time as the head of an imperial legion, but these stories often betray her lack of friendship or any of the little things that make life worth living. Her life as royalty was one of isolation and deprivation, to the point where she finds more freedom and fulfillment as a prisoner. She truly lives in a society.

Hellholm, on the other hand, has a surprisingly healthy approach to things like work-life balance, food, and leisure, and its most valuable prisoner is no exception. The Hell-Lord himself is a surprising exemplar of this; for as much as he looks and talks like your standard terrifying JRPG demon king, he’s a surprisingly good dude! He looks after his family, employees, and even the captive princess as if they are all one and the same; he exhibits strong principles and an aversion to conflict, sees to his employees' needs and wants alike, and is a supportive, loving father to his unbelievably precious little daughter (who also serves as a “torturer,” to the princess’ delight). He’s also a big time anime dork, and even bonds with a knight attempting to rescue the princess over their shared otakudom before sending him off peacefully. As “villains” go, he’s top tier.

Time for "Torture" is nothing groundbreaking by any stretch, but it’s a cute, silly time and it plays with anime fantasy tropes in the same way a six-month-old German shepherd “plays” with a cheap stuffed toy. How long the premise holds up is entirely up to you, but I had a lot of fun with it. I have no idea how this ended up being one of the better shows this season, but I guess it just scratched the right itch for me.

#anime reviews

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missionkitty · 1 year ago

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Feeling Safe - My Adventures With Superman

i am a big sap!!! i love romance and i love fluff and i lois and clark!!! i just needed to write something soft and fluffy (and a little handsy) and low stakes because we don't always get moments like that in the series proper (more episodes for season 3 please????)

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Lois let out a low sigh as she watched the darkening city through the window of her apartment, stars poking their way into the night and lights from buildings and cars flickering on.

Clark had flown off right as he arrived at her place, hearing a cry for help in the distance. He looked guilty as Lois opened the door, but she could only smile and wave him off. He didn’t seem too worried, just apologetic that their evening together had already hit a snag. She would find out who needed his help once he got back.

Clark being Superman was almost as normal as anything in Metropolis. Helping him maintain his lives as the gentle reporter and the powerful hero was kind of like getting groceries now.

Before Lois could find herself too lost in her thoughts, she opened her window to allow Superman’s easy, swift entry to her apartment. She wasn’t too sure when he would be done, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be too much longer before her boyfriend would be back.

And with a whoosh, there was a rush of wind and the sound of her window closing again.

“Sorry about that,” Clark said gently. “It was a purse theft…”

She turned around to see him, hand still on the window. He also still had the apologetic look on his face.

Lois smiled and gave him a small chuckle, walking toward him. “Just another moment in the life of Superman.”

“Oh,” he looked down at himself, dressed in his now-iconic blue and red. “Let me change.”

Something quickly welled up in Lois’ chest as she saw Clark move to whiz past and she let out a quick noise to stop him, putting up a hand to get his attention.

He looked back at her, tilting his head curiously.

Lois felt her cheeks heat up, her mind now putting words to the sudden feeling she had.

The suit made it clear just how powerfully-built Clark was, and being alone with him dressed this way…Lois felt her ears start to burn now. She saw him like this all the time, it wasn’t anything new, and with his hair pushed back the way it was, it suited him perfectly somehow.

She could see Clark’s cheeks start to flush now too, and she let out a loud sigh, vigorously shaking her head. This was a silly train of thought to follow right now–they were going to settle down and watch a movie together, Lois doing her best to point out inconsistencies or potential plot holes and they would have a nice, quiet evening together, snuggled up next to him. Now was not the time to ogle him, body built by hard, honest farm work…

“Lois?” Clark’s voice shook her out of her once-again-racing thoughts.

She looked up at him, his smile as kind and sweet as always.

“Sorry, I just…guess I realized that I…” She paused as the heat in her face was becoming uncomfortable. She stepped even closer to him, gently running her hand across the emblem on his chest. “I don’t really see you dressed in your suit unless you’re flying me somewhere or catching me in midair.”

“Oh, uh, well, I can put off getting changed for a little while,” he replied with a low, nervous laugh, his voice shaky.

The feeling of the suit under Lois’ fingers was mesmerizing. There was no danger and nothing to run from or investigate, so her hands carefully traced back out from the emblem and onto the rest of his chest. It was smooth, somehow simultaneously hard and soft, unlike any material she had felt before, but Clark’s warmth underneath made it feel familiar.

Lois was caught off guard by the feeling of Clark pulling her closer into him, gently resting his hands on the small of her back.

“How does it feel?” His voice was quiet, blush still coloring his cheeks. Lois could see the sincerity of his question in the way his eyes darted along the ground.

“Like nothing I’ve ever felt before, honestly.” Lois let her hands wander from Clark’s chest to down his sides, solid like the rest of him.

Suit and person, Lois admitted to herself.

Would the suit feel the same without Clark underneath? Or did he make the suit special, feeling the way it did? She smiled, feeling him tuck some of her hair behind her ear.

His bright blue eyes were focused on her, his gaze soft and somehow intense.

Maybe this wasn’t the time to get philosophical about a superhero’s identity, much less someone she already knew the answer about.

He made it special. He made everything special.

And she had him all to herself right now.

Lois smiled, taking Clark’s hand in hers. It was large, soft, and warm–much like the rest of him.

She pulled him along to the couch, his steps quiet and careful. As if he had read her mind, Clark laid himself down on the couch, now gently pulling Lois down on top of him.

Lois rested herself comfortably on his torso, pressing her cheek to his chest. The material had its strange, alien-yet-familiar sensation on her skin. But it was warm, and she slid her arms to wrap around his chest as best as she could.

She felt safe. That was the best word to describe the feeling.

She knew it wasn’t an adjective you’d necessarily use to describe fabric, but that’s all it could be to her. Anytime she had felt it against her hands, she felt safe.

Pressed against his wide, strong chest, his warm hands holding her close…

Lois chuckled, snuggling herself further into his chest–soft and gentle in this moment. She could feel Clark running his fingers through her short hair, tenderly tracing a line down her neck and resting on her back.

“Did you…still want to watch the movie?” Clark asked, his voice resonating from his chest into Lois’ cheek.

She smiled, shaking her head.

“Not yet. I like what we have going on right now, Smallville.” Lois moved her head to look up at Clark’s face. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “Still enjoying the way you feel.”

It was a bold way to answer, but something about the way she rested on him gave her courage. He gave her a bit of a surprised, bashful look, but his eyes softened on her again. She closed her eyes and let out a content sigh, rubbing her cheek on his chest.

Clark let out a low laugh, his hands gently rubbing her back.

“I’m glad.”

#my adventures with superman #maws clark kent #superman #maws clois #maws lois lane #missionkitty writes #maws fanfic

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apriciticreveries · 6 months ago

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. . .

before the tallies even fully loaded,

asahi had already known she lost .

——————————————————————————————————

she couldn’t help but laugh to herself when it was confirmed . she had lost by a landslide, exactly as she expected .

. . .

what she didn’t expect -

was when she continued to laugh to herself— she recognized a . . bitter . tone to it . cold and brittle . why - though ?

shouldn’t she be happy ?

———

. . yumi . had always been her whole world . her universe and her space of cosmos .

——

( those quieter weeks, where rose and gold colored eyes only wandered between a window to a fake, fake world — and a small, cooing, bundle wrapped in thick blankets . she decided to name her, cosmo, then .

she sincerely hoped that day, that no one would stay . )

——

ever since the day — that she had finally gathered the courage back then just to sit next to her, meet her gaze steadily instead of away or clumsily flitting around the room, promising not to be a bother or a burden — ( all she needed was her to stay by her side . ) — she knew she loved her .

———

—she should be happy . so, why ?

why was she so bitter ? why was she sad, frustrated, and scared in this moment ?

she could only feel tears streaming down her face now— small, salty, and mascara mixed droplets streaming down her powdered face, onto the ground at her feet .

her hands were shaking . she gripped at the fabric at her sides of a tight and uncomfortable dress that she could barely move in . taking in a shaky breath . in and out, in . . and out .

——

( crying . she had finally learned the truth . a warm figure hugged her close . “ in and out . “ they said . but she could feel their unsteady and inconsistent breaths, like hers, too . )

——

. . she didn’t want to die .

that was the truth that she knew from the start .

——————————————————————————————————

part 2 is also out heheh

#alien stage #alnst #alien stage ocs #alnst ocs #alnst oc: yumi #alnst oc: nyx #alnst oc: asahi #also also #the vaguely described child is asahi’s daughter ! she’s named cosmo and asahi had her at 16 #although she started as being yumi’s and asa’s in the modern au i decided to insert her in this way for this universe #i don’t know if yumi knows since i didn’t talk to rock about it but maybe she saw asa showing signs before she was moved to the nursery ?#i’ll let rock decide #alnst oc: cosmo

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double-u-qed · 5 months ago

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hello! just wanted to send some fanart from love is blind, i hope that the quality doesn't get bad after i send it, i will cry

I just thought that they were both too cute to not be draw,why are they both pink? don't worry about it.( i never colored digitally before that's why the rendering is very inconsistent lmao)

OHHH MY GOSH.

i love it so so much, thank you!!! this is the first time i've ever gotten fanart, im going to cryyyyy (in a good way). the expressions are so loving and tender, this means so much to me!! i think the rendering looks fantastic! especially for your first time, oh my gosh?? i definitely have more to say but im also checking Tumblr at work in the most irresponsible fashion because i got too excited when i saw the notification

and don't even worry about the pink; my ao3 looks like this HAHAHA

#favorite #favorite favorite favorite #for me #no clue if that's a good tag but it'll help me find this again #art for me #that might be better #stargazersstuff #transformers

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mewtwo · 27 days ago

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tag game thank you @vreemd!

are you named after anyone? not as far as I know. my brother is but I got an Original name because I am Special

When was the last time you cried? no idea. I don't cry much

Do you have kids? I have a skink & a tarantula!

Do you use sarcasm a lot? maybe??? I think so. I think it's got so ingrained in me that I don't even notice that I do it

What sports do you play? it's not really a game but I do 10ks and such. I like the medals #magpie

What’s the first thing you notice about people? I don't know... faces???

What’s your eye color? you pick. here's an eye. I have a mental condition that makes it impossible for me to say what colour it is because talking about my appearance in any way makes me feel vain and stupid

Scary movies or happy endings? I'm a wimp so when I watch scary movies I get SCARED. like "can't go upstairs in the dark alone" scared. but I also kind of hate hamfisted hopecore happy endings

I guess if the story works then the story works

Any special talents? I can touch my nose with my tongue which is apparently weird

also I can tie my labia in a knot but we don't need to discuss that.

Do you have pets? skink and tarantula again

How tall are you? 5'2

Favorite subjects in school? biology & history & re/ethics

I think if I could do highschool over again I'd probably enjoy maths and geography a lot more than I did back then

Dream job? extremely high paying email job in office where I can pretend I'm on white collar or something

realistically I wanna do something to do with animals and actually use my degree. I do not want to still be in healthcare in 20 years

and I want to publish stuff but I'm too inconsistent with writing to make a job out of it

anyway I'll tag @vsgigan @corneliushickey @thebourneultimatum @skippydiesposting and @megatron and/or anyone else who wants to do it...

#txt

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stone-stars · 1 year ago

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if you ever wanted to talk about the usage of growing pains, i would be all ears. obviously no pressure or expectation tho

oh boy DO i want to talk about the use of growing pains! (also called drained.) (actually, more often called drained, but i like growing pains as a name better, and if murph's going to credit names inconsistently i'm going to take liberties. sue me, brian.)

so, growing pains is used in two places: the shadowfell arc in bahumia, and sirenloch in eldermourne. no c3 uses yet* (small disclaimer about that under the cut, along with timestamps of the uses)

there's a reason i like "growing pains" as a name. growing pains is this song that comes up for... the pain of change. growth and love can be good, but it also hurts.

growing pains is for trying to find a way to save vampire!hardwon, it's for rosa's urn being broken (and deadeye saying he'll help rebuild the church), it's for deadeye fading away, lydia being missing when scrying on her (and moonshine lying to hardwon about it), and moonshine breaking down after she learns about her father from erdan (and hardwon/bev/paw paw finding her).

it's for henry realizing that he was looking at his past with rose colored glasses, and for zirk cutting stella off with a final goodbye and a rope trick.

growing pains is a song that says love can't change things. y'know, deadeye's help can't bring rosa back. and he was going to die the moment he was freed. moonshine lying to hardwon doesn't make lydia okay. there's nothing moonshine can do to change jolene being turned away by erdan. henry loved izzy, and she loved the idea of him. zirk can care for stella, and know she's bad for him.

but... it also says that the love matters. like. choosing to care, choosing to love, choosing to offer kindness, it matters. hardwon's friends don't give up on him when he's turned. deadeye remembers how to be kind, and then dies feeling more love than he's felt in decades. hardwon knows moonshine cares; moonshine doesn't have to cry alone. izzy and henry didn't work out, but there's hank jr. stella takes to the road, not the scales.

it can't change everything. but it's worth something.

perhaps my favorite use of growing pains (and the one that i think describes the song best) is the one that starts as deadeye fades: "yeah, i know i'm down a hand, and an eye, and a life, but i got a soul, and a family, and i finally know which is worth more."

(as a side note, it's interesting to me that the eldermourne take on growing pains is... more bleak than the bahumia one. like, izzy and henry. stella and zirk. as much love as henry and zirk give, it's a two way street. izzy wasn't forced into divorcing henry, she chose different priorities. and if stella doesn't choose to change, zirk can't force her. but the thing about it with those two is... it still matters to zirk and henry. that they loved. that they tried. so yeah, it's still worth something.)

(a secondary side note is that growing pains has a best friend (song it's often used with) called gutless. which, despite the name, is actually much more optimistic than growing pains. i'm not going to get into all the uses here, but it is used a lot in the shadowfell especially for deadeye and vampire!hardwon when they are letting themselves love and be loved-- like deadeye coming around, or hardwon having a heart to heart with the boobs where moonshine offers to reincarnate him. it's also used for zirk in early eldermourne, as he remembers the kind of person he was around stella and the flashback to that little girl when he knew it needed to change.)

(*c3 disclaimer is that, while there's no credited uses of growing pains/drained in c3, it's possible that there is an uncredited one that i haven't gotten to yet, since i'm not done going through and taking music notes on c3)

growing pains uses:

61 - 1:16:21 - Talking about ways to save Vampire Hardwon

63 - 1:00:56 - Rosa's urn is broken / Deadeye agrees to help rebuild the church

64 - 2:31:08 - Deadeye starts to die / fade

68 - 17:51 - Scrying on Lydia, but not seeing her

68 - 1:22:56 - Moonshine cries after learning about her dad and gets a hug from Erdan and Bubbles

68 - 1:24:07 - Paw Paw, Hardwon, and Bev find Moonshine crying

28 - 44:23 - Henry remembers his relationship with Izzie (the rose-colored glasses he's been using)

28 - 46:54 - Henry remembers his jean jacket (the rose-colored glasses he's been using) -- (this is a joke use. i'm including it for completion's sake but i want to be so clear this is a joke.)

29 - 43:32 - Zirk says goodbye to Stella

#naddpod #naddmusic tag #good song. i love this song.#hanbles #ask #i DO appreciate you giving me the out of not talking abt it if i didn't want to. the thing is tho.#i am literally always 2 seconds away from writing an essay on a naddpod song #if anyone says to me hey what's up with this song i will simply talk for like 10 paragraphs #this is the joy of how good the music in this podcast is

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beevean · 1 year ago

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If NFCV were a well written show, I would praise the design of N!Hector's Styrian uniform, and what it conveys.

N!Hector's original uniform is a simplified version of Hector's, but due to them being very different characters, the details don't fit him.

Every detail of this uniform conveys something precise. The armor on his chest and boots make him look combat-prepared, as well as the arm guard and the single glove on the hand he uses to wield weapons. He wears dark colors and a general bat motif to tie him to Dracula. Then, there is the sash, a bright spot of red that breaks his dark palette: not only that is Isaac's color, tying the two together, but it can be seen as symbolizing Hector's brash, emotional personality. He's not a "true" Blue Oni like his appearance would suggest, after all. A nice visual cue.

The sash was kept on N!Hector, and for some reason, it was made a very important part of his design. While N!Isaac also has it, suggesting at first that it's part of their not-uniform, N!Hector is nevertheless seen with it in the past:

No matter what, he has to wear that bright spot of red.

Why so? N!Hector has very little of Hector's personality. He certainly isn't nowhere near as belligerent as our Hector in CoD. But more than the blues, more than the bat motif, he has to be associated with the sash.

The Devil Forgemaster uniform ill fits N!Hector as a character: he's not a fighter, he's not combat ready, N!Isaac wears a completely different and even darker uniform which makes N!Hector look only messy. However, I'm willing to salvage the sash for this reason:

While being naive, Hector is stoic in the face of hardships that befall him. Lenore found it nice that even "beaten down a dozen different ways," Hector doesn't give up on himself.

It was... terribly, awfully, incompetently conveyed, but there is a kernel of truth in Lenore's manipulation here. N!Hector has the spine and moral compass of a wet sheet of paper, but he doesn't cry or wallow in misery, and there have been very rare times where he fought back. In S2, while N!Dracula and N!Isaac were so close to dropping the R-slur on him, N!Hector was working with Carmilla behind their backs to pursue his goal: sure, he was being manipulated by her, but he was the one who decided N!Dracula wasn't good for him and he would rather save himself. And, of course, his background is that he set his own parents on fire as revenge for their abuse, and he accepted to put humanity into pens as more or less punishment for how he was treated.

Again. Too inconsistent to be seen as an intended character trait. But very generously, one can see N!Hector as being smarter and more willing to fight back than people assume of him. And it can be seen in the choice of him wearing a red sash ever since he was a child.

All of this preamble to finally reach his Styrian uniform in S4:

That is a very nice, elegant uniform, that keeps the original silhouette (look at the pointy shoulders) but removes all the clutter that doesn't fit N!Hector. He has two gloves! He looks protected, but also looks like a smith, not a knight!

But notice the palette.

He's black, with dashes of blue and silver. Silver? Well, Styria's livery is black with white trim. It fits, but silver doesn't quite stand out like gold did.

He also lacks any sort of red on him now.

Red is a bold color that represents strength and vigor, and for how nice his uniform looks, N!Hector is still supposed to be a slave - or worse, a pet. He's meant to look meek, demure, blending in. Professional, but lacking any sort of personality: the role N!Hector was tricked and beaten into. A subtle humiliation in his comfy living conditions.

Which, of course, works to the advantage of someone who is once again plotting behind his jailer's backs :) N!Hector still holds onto that splash of red inside him.

On top of this, one can guess that the red sash is, in-universe, an object N!Hector owned since childhood, and that he never let go of: and not letting things he loves go is allegedly a flaw of his. S4 has him, in theory, going through character development, and ditching his old childhood ways and views - hence, he loses a piece of his past.

... But I'm putting way too much thought into this. We all know how rushed and slapdashed S4 was, and how N!Hector at the end of the day has zero personality and his plan wasn't even for himself, and how the writing refuses to remember how N!Hector was abused into slavery. The idea was that N!Hector is stronger than he seems and he eventually matured into a less selfish manchild, but the reality of the writing is that he's a weak-willed victim who did everything in his power to crawl back to the people who hurt him, stagnating for three seasons.

Let's be honest: we all know the real reason he wears blue and black without red now.

In S3, Lenore wore a full black dress with blue trim and white fur, which was meant to make him look like a "winter princess" or a "princess in mourning", but really didn't fit her at all, much like her character is basically three concepts stitched together. For S4, she changes into a quite cute blue dress with black veils that better goes with the idea of her being a melancholic princess.

You don't need a master in cinematography to get the Symbolism™. Lenore is N!Hector's only characterization, after all.

(funnily enough I could also point out N!Isaac dressing in bright blue in S4. But it's a completely different symbolism, for him: get it, he has found peace.)

#netflixvania thoughts #ship more toxic than chernobyl #why. why do i rant about stupid shit no one other than me cares about #oh well just let me vent the brainworms in peace i guess

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theendofuno · 2 months ago

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hey guys i think im having a manic episode or smth worse #idk #idc so i wanna just point out a few things i noticed about unos awakening design. besides the fact that he's looking a lot like heitaros. which i kept repeating in loop since it was posted.

ill add close ups for my yapping

first off all: the ominous eyes markings moved places AND changed colors again. is this like those characters who express their emotions thru their eyes colors but in his case its his marking placement or smth LMAO

theyre also inconsistent in size but yeah lets ignore that im sure these artists are underpaid

so i shall bring this back

also besides the eye shinies his look seems so. dead. he doesnt look in pain or desesperate, he just looks. tired. about to give up. ouchie. and his eyebags are SO much bigger now

the neck markings looks like theyre about to close on his neck, as if strangling him, keeping him sealed or something

also his sword, which i assume its muramasa and not blood wolf, is completely cracked and also completely demonic or whatever the hell is that LMAO

this is such a sad detail if you think abuot it for. 2 seconds. thats his last memory of reina and its being destroyed, being corrupted by something he likely has no control over

oh hey it looks like they actually canonized his top surgery scars thats great. and it also has became an eye

genuinely why is his awakening design so OMINOUS if theyre not giving lore to it. i need more dawg.

either seals or protection papers? the contaniment has breached long time ago brother hes on a whole ass new universe LMAO

jokes aside. i wonder where i saw this before. hmm.

oh yeah I drew that. thays cool.

i really like this concept if you seem this in a pov on him putting this on himself. like, imagine him passing around another village and overhearing the villagers talking about protecting yourself from bad spirits and he just. tried to do it the best he could hoping this would get rid of the voices on his head or his blood thirst urge

coughs.

oh my god who said that.

tho. it looks a LOT like dio's claw arm thing something whatever but dio's arm is VERY colorful while uno's went from blue to. pure black? with a very tiny bit of blue showing.

also i wonder where i saw that black hand aswell...

oh yeah I ALSO drew that. look at the white bangs dawg im crying theyre watching me.

anyway thats all i think. i also think its funny how uno became a canonically chronically sandals-with-socks wearer lol boy is comfy asf thanks god he ditched those ugly ass shoes #youdidnthearthatfromme

#daily-uno #grand chase

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thescarlettbitch · 17 days ago

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The Way Of The Ishtarite by Siri Nin

Book review, by an Inanna devotee of six (ish) years.

First, I am going into this with rather low expectations, as the author stated that she has been devoted to Inanna for six years at the time of writing, which is around the same amount of time I have been, and this having been published in 2024... she does go on to say that she has a heart condition and likely won't make it another six years and she wanted to spend her time doing something for Inanna, so respect. I also am not a fan of her thanking reddit. To me it just... is not reliable, but I also think it would be the same to thank tumblr, so I digress, and read on I shall.

Now, this is going to be very long, so I'll put the rest under a readmore

Who is the author?

Siri Nin is, at the time of writing this book, a 38-year-old intersex, transgender, cupiosexual, reciprosexual woman who had been recently diagnosed with a heart condition and she is not projected to live very long. She doesn't spend much time on who she is, rather giving a brief overview of their experiences that lead them to Inanna. She has been devoted to her for six years at the time of writing, and beyond just devotion, she has spent her time scrounging for any scrap of information about Inanna, going as far as to translate some passages herself to have a deeper understanding.

Overview of the book

At 159 pages split into 15 distinct chapters and roughly 30 "parts" it is a rather quick read. That said it has taken me 4 days so far, as I'm reading before my sleeping medication takes effect.

The cover of the book is simple, two reed-ring posts with the eight-pointed star between them in rainbow colors with pink, blue, white, yellow, and purple added, representing not only Inanna but also the scope of queer identities (the rainbow is queer sexuality, the trans flag colors for queer gender, and the intersex symbol/flag colors as well).

I love the way they use inclusive language and have disclaimers, encouraging readers who use pronouns other than she/her to mark the book and input their correct pronouns, that they are using she/her for the past cult of followers in the same way that they used it for themselves. They go on to explain how it is deeply important to her and Inanna to use your correct pronouns in reference to yourself.

Portions of the text seem repetitive, but that's not uncommon in nonfiction. I see it more as her trying to be thorough. The general tone and voice of the book is... inconsistent. Using language like "piss drunk" and "bestie" in the same breath of expressing extensive respect towards the Annunaki. That said, Siri Nin does state that they did try their best to use language that would be easy for the average layperson to understand, so I get it, even if it feels... inappropriate.

I will note that her relationship with Inanna seems far more formal than mine, which is not a bad thing. Hers seems far more "traditional" in the sense of using the proper cuneiform symbol of "God/dess" 𒀭 (Dingir) before every mention of her name (and every other mentioned deity), which is often. I understand it, it's meant as a sign of respect, used in the same way as the Mesopotamians did. The way she writes about Inanna or any member of the pantheon is full of respect and formal language, aside from brief uses of slang. I am not fond of the inconsistent tone, but I do understand it. Her very devoted and respectful language for the Annunaki is admirable, and her use of the Dingir is not unlike the use of honorifics in my own practice.

She is definitely far more on the historical accuracy and authenticity side than I am, my personal practice is far more modern and "revivalist" I believe is what it is called.

You can very much tell how much research went into this book, and how much respect and love she has for Inanna.

My Notes as I read

At page 45 I am crying. Well, page 43 is when I started crying. The way that Siri Nin describes Inanna's relationship with queer identities is... perfect. It's beautiful.

In the passage about Inanna's symbols, she actually... verifies a couple of my UPGs; Lapis Lazuli and dates to be exact. Meaning that I suppose they are verified, so they are not UPGs. She does list a few symbols I did not know, like the reed-ring post, and she explains why each symbol is associated with her.

The way she explained god-spousal helped me understand it a bit more than I have before. How it works, what the purpose is, being sure to include a variety of examples.

The way she explains the relationship between Lady Ereshkigal and Inanna is beautiful, and even though they state they do not know a lot about Lady Ereshkigal, she does seem to know quite a bit, from the beliefs of the ancient Sumerians regarding death to how Lady Ereshkigal herself was worshipped.

She does a very good job at explaining the tenets of Inanna's worship, that they are not "rules" or expectations that she or the other Annunaki will use to judge us, but more of a way to better yourself and your connection, which are aspects of her worship I did not know about. I will do my own research on them, and perhaps I will make a post about them.

At page 71 I am crying again, for the same reason as I was the last time. The sheer acceptance and inclusivity in this book is validating in ways I was not expecting. She goes on to explain the difference between gender identity, gender roles, and gender expression, and how it is imperative to be true to yourself while worshipping Inanna, how being dishonest to yourself would be an affront to her.

She does state and explain the different "Paths of the Ishtarite"; the paths that her priestesses took back during her reign. She says that these are paths to choose from and she often uses terms that seem to allude to modern priestesses, which, if you've been following me you'd know I am not fond of practitioners who call themselves priests and priestesses. (See my red flags post here for why). Whether or not she meant it in the way I am understanding it, I don't know.

Chapter 13 is about prayer, and quite frankly, her idea of prayer is... far more structured than my own. I feel this distinction comes from how different the two of us were raised. In her brief portion where she discusses herself and their path, they mention how she was raised in a mixed Jewish-Catholic household and was, in her own words, "indoctrinated into a neo-pagan cult of the Norse variety"; and I myself was raised southern Baptist, but in name only, attending church regularly on Sundays only up until I was nine, and then practically never setting foot in a church again unless it was for a funeral or to watch my niece's baptism. Two vastly different backgrounds and two vastly different relationships with religion in its entirety.

Their idea of what a prayer should be is different than mine, she says that a prayer should begin with high praise and that you should always be "reverant" when in prayer, it shouldn't be at specific times as a ritual but rather whenever you feel called to most. And while I do agree, to a degree, I also think prayer is up to the person praying. I have posts somewhere giving people advice but I'll make a full prayer post soon.

Back to the book - she states that there are four "flavors" of prayer and then went on to list and explain six. I don't agree with that mindset, nor am I thrilled about the continuity, but if your relationship with the gods is as formal as those "flavors" suggest, go for it.

Chapter 14 discusses "magic(k)" or, as I would say, witchcraft, in regards to rituals for Inanna. I do like how they discuss the dangers of it, but in my opinion, it seems rather... fear-mongering? Not necessarily unwarranted, having had a few horrid experiences myself, but still it feels like a lot of, to quote, "The many years that I had spent exploring and engaging recklessly with Pagan Magic(k) utterly ruined my mental health, and it weakened and jeopardized my sanity. Worst of all it nearly destroyed my faith. It also nearly took my life." Again, not necessarily unwarranted, but still... much.

I do like her adding an additional warning to those who deal with psychosis and other such mental health issues, though.

"Altars must be unique to a single deity and should not be shared for multiple deities." Not a statement I necessarily agree with, I think it is up to the discretion of the practitioner and the boundaries of the deities.

As for the actual "rituals" listed, they are very extravagant. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it can be a lot for a beginner, and again, her concept of what your relationship should look like with Inanna is very formal. While I do agree with some aspects, like washing your hands before engaging with your altar, most of it is simply not for me. I'll do them when I have the energy and post about them, linking them here when I do.

The Ritual of Zisurrû is very intriguing to me, though, and that might be the first that I do.

I do not agree with her saying that this is what your practice should look like.

I do, again, like her explanations for a variety of people and ways of communication with the divine. How some people experience psychosis or have aphantasia and how the way your brain works inherently shapes your practice. How hearing the voice of a deity doesn't mean it's a hallucination.

Final thoughts

Overall, it's not a bad collection of information. It is very traditionally focused, so if you're looking for more information on historically authentic worship of Inanna, you should check it out. Should it be your only resource? No, hell no, actually. The author actually discourages the book being your only source of information, and lists others during the first few pages.

Again, I stress that there are aspects I don't necessarily agree with, like insinuating that your practice should be historically accurate. In the words of one of my mutuals, The Gods are as modern as they are ancient. To only focus on one without the other is unbalanced. Your practice should be whatever blend of modern and ancient as you and your deity are happy with.

Again, these are simply my thoughts. If you think after reading this post that you will benefit from reading the book, go ahead. I can't stop you, I am a stranger on the internet.

Blessed be <3

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