#4 to 3 ratio isn't too bad

[ellsieee]

The four times Gongsun Li hid behind Shen Song

and the three times he didn't.

[detailtilted]

Comic-Con 2008 - Enhanced Edition of Supernatural Panel

Direct link. Warning: Some of the special content I added has big spoilers for season 4 beyond the original videos.

This video features Jared, Jensen, Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble, and Ben Edlund. If you've already seen the original videos and you're wondering why you'd want to watch this, see the details about the enhancements below. For other enhanced videos, check my YouTube channel or my Tumblr index post.

Video Improvements - Upscaled, fixed bad aspect ratios, improved colors

I received a great deal of help from @sensitivehandsomeactionman on the color correcting. They gave me tips on how to achieve better colors and they even took a screen shot from my video and corrected the colors on it with their own software to provide me with an example of what was possible. Having that example to reference was invaluable for me, because I'm not good with colors.

Without that help, Jared and Jensen would have looked like they were in training to become the world's tallest Oompa Loompas. Any remaining color wonkiness (Wonka-iness?) is due to my own failure to apply what I was taught and my failure to see the colors properly. But look at that difference! I was pretty excited about this.

Combined Videos to Cover Entire Event

As with my other enhanced videos, I combined multiple videos to create as seamless a video of the event as possible, from beginning to end. For my earlier videos, that meant combining maybe 5 videos. For this one, I used a total of 19 videos from 3 different sources. A lot of those were used for the talking head bubbles, explained further below.

None of the videos are my own. My video description on YouTube has links to the original videos I used.

Good, Color-Coded Subtitles

As with my other enhanced videos, I attempted to provide accurate and as-complete-as-possible subtitles. They're color-coded to make it easier to tell who's speaking. This is especially helpful when people are speaking at the same time, or when the speaker is off camera.

Since there were so very many people talking in this video, I doubled up on a couple colors if I thought I could do so without it being too confusing. Here's the complete color key:

Red = Jared Blue = Jensen Brown = Eric Kripke Pink = Sera Gamble Purple = Ben Edlund Green = General audience Yellow = The person asking the questions. In the first half this is the moderator, Alynda Wheat. In the second half, this is the fan at the mic. White = Mostly the publicist (Holly Ollis), but a couple times it's used for people off camera who I believe were Comic-Con staff. Two shades of orange = surprise guests

Additional Clarifying Content

As with my other enhanced videos, I've added some images to help add clarity to the references used by the speakers. I added images of characters and scenes referenced from the show, images to explain various pop culture references, as well as some explanatory text to help add details or clarity when I thought it might be useful.

I mostly kept this extra content to the sides so that, if it doesn't interest you, you can hopefully ignore it and focus on the main part of the video. Unlike my previous videos, sometimes this is on the left side and sometimes it's on the right side. The margins shift depending on where the talking head bubbles are.

Talking Head Bubbles - Jared and Jensen front and center, but other speakers visible too

This "enhancement" isn't anywhere close to perfect, but it sure as heck isn't from a lack of effort. This represented at least half if not two-thirds of the time I spent working on this video.

I always find the Comic-Con videos frustrating to watch. When the camera moves to other people who are talking, I want to see Jared and Jensen instead. I like to see their reactions and sometimes they do funny things that get missed. But when the camera is steadfastly focused on Jared and Jensen, I also get frustrated because I can’t see the people who are talking. Nope, you can’t win with me! I want to see everything.

I attempted to mitigate this frustration by adding talking head bubbles. The main source videos I used were the ones with the most constant and stable focus on Jared and Jensen. However, if one of the other source videos had a decent focus on another guest, I inserted a small window into that other video as seen below. Eric shows up on the left, because that's where he was seated relative to Jared. Sera and Ben show up on the right, because they were on the other side of Jensen.

Like I said, it's not anywhere close to perfect. Trying to make the bubbles look stable was an enormous challenge for me. Behind the scenes the person in the bubble was bobbing and weaving all over the original video frame, so I had to constantly adjust the position of the secondary video to keep the subject centered in the bubble. They also aren't always bubbles. The people taking the videos often had the writers on the edge of the frame because they wanted to capture Jared or Jensen too, so the bubbles start to collapse when they get too close to the edge because there isn't enough video surrounding them to form a circle.

I haven't decided if the end result was worth how much effort I put into these darn "bubbles", so I'd welcome any feedback -- good or bad.

[gin-juice-tonic]

i think itd be interesting if leaving a bit of zombie in a person would effect their life span. would they live longer or shorter lives? will they ever truely die, or would they turn back to being a zombie instead?

also think itd be a really cool thing to explore just overall. would laboratories pick it up? find a way to test for it? find a faster/safer way to neutralize it? maybe even make vaccines for effected towns so people are less likely to be effected. or would you even be able to do that since its not actually a virus?

Im gonna answer this under a readmore because it got long.

I talk about my zombie lore stuff a liiiiitle more in this post:

https://gin-juice-tonic.tumblr.com/post/704995046015041536/gin-juice-tonic-part-of-something-the-little

But for specific answers to your questions:

1) If you have more not-zombie in you than zombie in you, all major zombie operations in you are supposed to cease, so I'd be inclined to say nothing special about your life span would happen. (The bit about vegetarians having a hard time after being cured was more of a joke.) If something WERE to still happen though I would say it'd increase your life span a little, because of zombies ability to stay together despite their whole... everything. But hopefully that wouldnt happen.

I guess I sort of implied that humans with zombie in them can drink formalin and be okay... until they cant anymore. That's the only perk you get.

2) If you die and you have zombie in you at the time, your body becomes a zombie. But your life force isn't in there anymore, so you can't really say it's still that person anymore. That's the zombie's body now. Cures will no longer do anything at this stage

3) In journal 3 Ford says he analyzed Soos and could tell he survived being a zombie "Due to evidence of autolysis". I did bad in biology in high school but I'm still pretty sure that doesn't make any sense at all lol. Maybe we're to assume that like, a minimal amount of his cells are still self-digesting in a unique way but not enough to affect him as a whole. Which lends credence to the idea that there is no perfect cure, i guess.

4) In my mind the only test for it is "Is the person looking or acting like a zombie", and its about as an exact science as the blood test from the movie the Thing (1981) lol. But as noted up in point 3, Ford I suppose tested Soos somehow. Perhaps one could take a sample of blood and use the titration method I described earlier on the sample until the all cells in it are no longer killing themselves. But then you'd have to make some assumptions involving the ratio of zombie to human based off that tiny blood sample if you wanted to try continued curing at a larger scale. Ford doesn't mention trying to cure Soos further or anything, so I'll just go ahead and claim it's too dangerous to attempt, even for Ford.

5) The thing that kills the zombie force also kills normal humans, so I'm inclined to say a vaccine wouldn't be possible. Who knows though

[glitterguts13]

You know how you did a review for every genshin guys on how loud they'd be giving birth? Can you do one for hsr guys too?

Coming right up! Doing this by Path type! Also, a friendly reminder, all characters are assumed to be 18+ here.

The Hunt Boothill 8/10 Yaps through the whole thing, swearing up a storm. He's a nervous talker, and he's chattering through the whole thing, even if there's no one around to listen, he's ranting at nothing. Pain isn't new to him, but having something ripping through your (metal????) insides is a bitch no matter who you are. Not a lot of screaming, just yelling and swearing.

Dr. Ratio 3/10 Slow, deep, even breaths. He knows it's pointless to waste time on screaming, it isn't going to help. Gets only slightly louder when it comes time to push, and that's just because he's panting in short, shallow bursts. The typical, ah, ah, ah, ah panting.

Yanqing 7/10 Getting stabbed is so much easier than this. He's shouting, begging for someone to help him because this is too much. It feels like he's being ripped in half, and everyone is going to know.

Dan Heng 5/10 Starts off very quiet. A few quiet groans here and there, but mostly keeps to himself. Switches up pretty fast near the end, when he starts to crown, it's all downhill from there, and it's yelling and swearing up a storm. Catches everyone off guard to hear him acting so out of character.

Preservation

Aventurine 9/10 Very loud, lots of whimpering and moaning at the start. Thinks he can handle it, but swiftly turns into a screaming, sobbing, gagging mess. He's been in so much pain, so many times, and it all just seems to come rushing back- A lot of trauma around the agony he feels, which just causes him to scream more.

Gepard 6/10 Lots of low, drawn-out moaning. It's deep and guttural, keeping him anchored to the moment. Not much screaming, but a few shouts and groans as he's actively pushing.

Welt 5/10 Very stereotypical Hollywood movie Lamaze breathing sounds. Very controlled sounds? At no point does he fully lose his cool, but does start shouting a bit near the end.

Luka 7/10 Another goddamn yapper. He's rambling away through the whole thing, only stopping to breathe or moan, and ends up screaming his way through the actual birth with very little downtime to actually breathe.

Sampo 6/10 Laughs through a lot of it because he isn't really sure what else to do. It hurts, it hurts bad and all he can do is laugh about how ridiculous the whole situation is. Aha really must enough watching him suffer.

Erudition

Argenti 6/10 Keeps decently calm. A lot of quiet moans, some deep panting, and slowly grows louder as it comes to it's peak. Babbles a lot of nothing, because it keeps his mind off the pain, but slips back into panting and moaning as the head starts to peak out.

Jing Yuan 4/10 The picture of control. He handles the pain well, stopping to moan time to time, rocking his hips back and forth. Starts to shout a bit near the end, but never gets to the point of screaming.

Destruction

Blade 1/10 I'm not sure he even feels it?? Probably just cuts it out of himself because he can't die anyway-

Arlan 8/10 The whole space station is well aware Arlan is giving birth. He's gagging and choking on his own spit and tears, screaming for some sort of pain relief because Aeons why does it hurt this bad??

Misha 9/10 Turns out that giving birth in the dreamscape is in fact just as painful as giving birth IRL. Throws up a lot, has tons of hip pain, and screams bloody murder through the entire process. His body feels like it's being torn in two.

Abundance

Loucha ??/10 I'll update this when the game actually TELLS ME SOMETHING ABOUT HIM

Gallagher 5/10 Moaning and groaning like an old man. A few screams near the end, but it's mostly heavy breathing and panting.

[deadbeandrop]

camp lazlo and "The Machine"

i forgot i had written about this on the screenshot blogs' FAQ, so i think i'll make it a post with my updated conclusions as well... so, have you ever wondered what's up with the colors in the HD version of the show?

y'know...

...this?

the first time i had watched the show, it was in pretty bad quality, and i had chalked any color differences up to that. even when i did have access to a few HD episodes, i never really noticed it outside of slinkman being a bit... lighter, mostly due to the fact that everything else was so submerged in Gunk in the first place. as you can see, the "issue" affects almost exclusively the yellows, most notably seen in the sky, or in characters like slinkman or clam, or even in lumpus’s glasses, and characters' eyes in general losing their off-white tint due to this. a quick look at any streaming service that has the show will tell you that almost all "official" distributions have this issue, and often (in)consistently so, at that. it may very well be the only version these services have access to (considering how they often the resources they have access to aren't always the best, which leads to things like episodes out of order or incorrect subtitles). to say the least, it bothers me a lot, especially for someone like me who's very particular about this sort of thing...! (it's sort of the reason i put the screenshot blogs on hold for a while, aside from the fact that it's a bit of a time sink — the issue just stressed me out too much!)

so, what's going on, then? my friends and i had ended up speculating about it for a while, and we had a lot of theories — was it the result of an upscaling process done for streaming services? was it something technical, like issues with the video encoding? did someone in charge of the process simply fuck up? all of the above?! and... most of all, why???

now, i know very little about all the technical stuff, but i've come to believe the most likely explanation is also the most simple one, with a little bit of obscure knowledge on the side... in that, i think it makes the most sense if the colors are fucked up due to The Machine at cartoon network. see, this isn't just an issue with camp lazlo, and there are other CN shows that have been a victim of this too, such as billy and mandy.

and here's what mr. atoms has to say on the topic:

the shows had also both aired their "later" seasons around the same time, circa ~2007-2008, and it explains away a lot of those inconsistencies, too — "It’s also the reason that Mandy’s hair changes from pure yellow to light yellow and back again all the time." in most other shows, the effect this would have is likely a lot more negligible. as one of the main characters, mandy is pointed out a lot as it'd be something you'd notice the most. camp lazlo, on the other hand... is a show where the whole sky is colored a bright yellow.

...definitely one of the worst shows that could've been hit with it.

even so, "The Machine" application is not actually the only state these episodes are stuck in... or rather, i don't think so, at least...?

so as far as i know... (which certainly isn't everything,)

- in order to to accommodate for the transition period from box TVs to flat screen TVs, i believe that camp lazlo, was, in fact, a show that was produced in a widescreen format, so it could be aired in full on new TVs and crop to fit the 4:3 aspect ratio of older ones.

- i am not sure if this inherently means it was also produced in Full HD (1080p).

- as can be confirmed by old recordings (one of the only additional benefits of sites like WCO keeping the old versions around is stuff like this, as annoying as it is trying to find anything else...), both color corrected and un-corrected versions of at least part of the show have aired at some point.

- as far as i'm aware, there is NO version of this show in Full HD with un-corrected colors.

- however, what i do know is that there is a widescreen, non-HD (480p or 720p, i can't remember off the top of my head) version of the show with the un-corrected colors. if you have a bit of a keen eye, you might have noticed it used on foreign variations of the official cartoon network youtube channel for clips. (it had fooled me at first into thinking it was a secret, all correct colors, and Full HD version of the show, but unfortunately this isn't the case.) see, my friends and i went on a little hunt for it for a while, with that detail as our basis, and it is out there... just not on the standard american versions of those services. instead, we had to look at a whole variation of HBO's streaming service itself, HBO GO, of which's entire existence is still currently on the line due to the HBO rebrand. (we have rescued it from there, in case of it becoming lost media of sorts, but due to technical limitations were only able to get it by recording, and thus also still has the HBO logo.) the mere existance of this version is very interesting to me and raises a lot of questions that may also contradict some of my earlier statements.

- and finally, i haven't looked at every set of files there is (as from all the different streaming services) so i actually am not 100% certain if there's actually variation between THOSE as well, and if there is... the situation is even more confusing to me.

i don't know if there will ever be justice for this, or if any victims of The Machine have ever recovered from its Wrath. it's a topic i've gone over dozens of times trying to sort it out, because, i'll be honest... it sort of haunts me.

but there's your little information dump and speculation for the day

[pedropascalunofficial]

STORY TIME - THE FANDOM STAIN

My response to THIS post from stainsofpascal/thesweetestdecline earlier today

@thesweetestdecline

I am going to number these since you’re going to get tired.

1.      FAKE IG ACCOUNT

You said I made a fake account in your name on IG? No. That fake stainsofpascal account isn't me. I'm in Ireland. We don't have Threads in Europe. And a VPN can't get around that. Please check your receipts before wasting all of our time with this bullshit narrative you're trying to deflect with.

2.   LONG POSTS

You complained that my posts are long. That's because your bullshit is prolific. I don’t mess around. I like to give detailed accounts of what’s happening with receipts to back it up so ppl can clearly see what's going on in the fandom they're now ashamed to be part of. It's also to prevent ppl like you from deflecting by saying your accusers are "crazy" or "obsessed" with you. The receipts don't lie even though you’d like ppl to believe they do.

3.   “BOT ATTACK” ON IG

You accused me of attacking you on IG? No. I haven’t done shit on IG. I haven’t attacked your stainsofpascal or thesweetestdecline accounts. You realise I’m just the loudest of many, many ppl who wonder why you're in the fandom?! Getting you suspended would only feed your need to be seen as an underdog. I’d rather watch all this play out as ppl wake up to your clout chasing. It's not me or my friends who will be your downfall. You'll manage that just fine by continuing your bullshit.

4.  FOLLOWER COUNT ANOMALIES

You’re gas. Always playing the victim to deflect from your own misdeeds. Are you ever going to explain any of the unusual increases in follows or would you like us all to ignore the fact you can get 400 in a matter of hours and drop 500 the next day? Should we believe your version of accounts because you're...... an upstanding member of this community? Stop trying to compare your jumps in followers on your stainsofpascal IG account with other ppls. Your account numbers go up and down faster than a whores knickers on Paddy’s Day in Times Square. No one else has this but you and your dodgy minions who hid their dodgy numbers in a recent attempt to hide their ratios.

5.      COME CLEAN

What have I done in this fandom? I'll admit it (again). I bought Pedro’s white pages and socials info via a website. That was stupid. I regret doing it. What was really stupid was that I shared some of it thinking it was for a laugh and your mate, (let's call her Ms Peacock) used it to trade with ppl across the fandom to gain clout and to gain more information about Pedro. I've tried to make amends but it's far too late as it snowballed into much bigger information getting traded. So to attempt to make amends, I decided to get closer to the psychos and report back. Shitty, I know, but at least the right ppl know about the stalking bullshit and Pedro can protect himself better.

6.  MS PEACOCK AND STALKER REDDIT

After sharing his old info with you and Ms Peacock, I realised neither of you were looking into Pedro's old info just out of curiosity. You were tracking him and his friends around like they’re characters in a story. It’s my bad for not noticing the crazy when it was staring me in the face.  I shared info which was traded from person to person in exchange for info that has been used to help Ms Peacock not just stalk Pedro online but get physically closer to him. First, driving past his old house and now, three years later, she’s living "#twoblocksaway" from his gym according to a recent post. Zero shame.

I shouldn't be surprised since she used to frequent his actual neighbourhood even though it was a three hour round trip from her town. Before all that, she told us she used his personal email for a project where a group of us had raised money to adopt an elephant for his birthday. I never did get the info on the elephant since she dipped on the group chat after getting what she wanted. Ms Peacock traded info some of us had given her with others in turn for more info and clout. Just like a fandom Gollum. We didn’t realise that stuff we shared was being traded so it could be added to in order to feed her need to feel near him and grow her influence here. You’ve been part of supporting that behaviour too. When Ms Peacock asked you to find out where Pedro was one day, you went straight to the airline staff and lied about possibly being on the flight in an attempt to get the flight details. You ran right back and gave her what you had. I hope you realise we’ve all been played. Some of us learned our lesson and tried to be better but you stayed with her and you guys took it to another level. When you ran out of info, you created a stalker reddit where you share info you gather through lies and deceit with some real psychos in the fandom. I hadn't realised what I fed into until I saw the levels you guys cranked it up to. Now I see what a bit of info in the wrong hands can snowball into. I have a lot of regret about that. (I also have receipts)

Do you regret being part of that? Have you even stopped tracking him?

7.   CHASING CLOUT

Some of us did some of the stuff you continue to do but we woke up and realised this shit isn't a game. YOU and your shitty friends levelled up and are fucking with ppls lives. You treat him like shit for clout and not because you want him to be a successful human being. You need to grow up and admit that to yourself. Impossible though right?! Coz then you might lose clout. That is why you're here right?!

If it's not, then why?

TO CREATE COMMUNITY?

I've seen screenshots of your IG posts and what type of community you're cultivating in your comments. Ppl who shit on Pedro's career, his sexuality, his physical appearance, and you've collected a fine assortment of fandom psychos all sharing your posts. You feed them with likes even when their comments are hate filled. Ppl have noticed.

TO STALK PEDROS FRIENDS?

You've posted about contacting Pedro's friends through social media. Going so far as to add trackers to your Tumblr and watch their online status on Instagram. (I’ve got receipts)

TO INTERFERE PEDROS FRIENDS?

You’ve admitted reaching out to Pedro’s old friends. They’re said they’ve unknowingly given information to stalkers they've had to add extra layers of security to their social media. They aren’t there to be used as “sources” during playtime. (I’ve got receipts)

TO STALK PEDRO?

You guys contact his friends, hotel and airline staff for more info on his whereabouts. (I’ve got receipts) If that's not stalking then what do you call it?

TO SUPPORT PEDRO?

Pedro is the punchline of your account. You encourage ppl to drag him by liking their hate filled comments. What’s that about? It would be cute if you weren’t also stalking him but publicly negging the fuck out of you’re victim is a bit tasteless, no?

8.      OBSESSED

You say I'm "obsessed" with you and you've "done nothing to my friends"? No, try, a lot of other ppl in the fandom and I are sick of your holier than thou act when we’ve seen you abuse and attack ppl competing accounts who did nothing to you. You can't fuck up ppls lives and expect to skip off into the sunset. You do shitty things, refuse to acknowledge them and continue to be the best example of what's wrong with this fandom and why it has the reputation it does.

9. WHY DO I "COME FOR YOU"?

I challenge you because you came at others first and like magic, shit hit the fan for them.

Early on you were copying Aude’s style of posting. It's undeniable that your posts were very similar. No one really cared but ppl talked about it in forums and someone sent an anon to @pedrohub who decided to post it for some reason🤔. You decided to attack her in a reblog and accuse her "friends" of sending poorly spelled hate. Then you gaslight her all because she had....stopped liking your posts as much as before. Like wtf?

Then you blamed Arte for hateful anons you were getting. You said it was her because she had blocked you. You said it was definitely she because she's from Ohio (btw Arte doesn’t talk about being from Ohio so how did you know that?), ignoring the fact another fan is from Ohio and is well known in the fandom to send vicious hateful anons (let's call her Wendys License-Plates Girl). You didn't like Artes reason for disliking you and your account. She blocked you so she just didn’t have to see you. She had never said anything bad about you at that point. You produced screenshots of conversations which were had after you accused her but you ran with them as your "evidence" that she had it out for you in dms and was directing a campaign of hate against you. When nothing came of that, you then blamed her for getting you blocked by Sebastiano Mauri because you.....liked her dog pic? Again wtf. There's a trend brewing here.

You created these monsters in your head and you took your anger out on unsuspecting fan accounts. Meanwhile, you were posting shit ppl just weren't feeling and stalking SM in dms. You were tracking him and baiting him to speak to you so you could see his activity tracker in IG. I was the one who got you blocked for your fucking stalker bullshit coz you bragged about it.

You blamed Arte and Aude for bullshit you made up in your paranoid mind. You were told they were innocent by the person you suspectdd of ratting you out but you chose to doggedly go after both of THEM AND NOT ME. Talking shit in dms with whoever would listen. Spinning your usual holier than thou victim routine.

Now, let’s see….

Who has magically lost their account – pascalisfrenchpunk

Who has magically received a death threat – artedepascal (also runs mh_creatives on IG)

Who was bore witness to your bullshit, Known to be friends with Aude and Arte, Known to have connections to get info to Pedro?

Me.

Why didn’t you ever target me since you had vague posted about me being a rat? You knew I got kicked out of the stalker reddit once the Fleetwoods-rumours blog got published for the guys to read.

But...

I don't use IG so I guess you didn't see me as a threat to your clout chasing on there. You only went for ppl with competing IG accounts because all you want is to be noticed by Pedro and to be the Queen Clout Chaser of the fandom.

NO ONE WAS RUNNING A CAMPAIGN OF HATE BUT I SURE WAS COLLECTING A COLLAGE OF YOUR BULLSHIT TO HELP YOUR VICTIMS.

If you have missed who the fans are that are giving this fandom a reputation for being psychos, please see the Story Time series (so far) below✌️

[geneeste]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @mrv3000 like, last year, but we'll just pretend that isn't true!

1. how many works do you have on Ao3? 53

2. what’s your total Ao3 word count?

It's about to be higher, but currently 236,415 (89k of that is co-written with @machawicket, though, so I can't claim it all!)

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Arrow, Stargate SG-1, Bones, Timeless, Pitch, and a few others that are sort of incidental to the main ones.

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

I'm pretty sure all of these are going to end up being Arrow fics (Genie's note: ha! I was right!):

Our Version of Events falling in reverse Chips and Dip (With a Side of Sparkle) Cabin in the Woods The Male Prostitute in the Club With His (Word Redacted Due to Content)

5. do you respond to comments?

I try really hard to!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I was going to say Forfeit (SG-1), but honestly I think it's a toss up between that and time's right but the clock's wrong (Arrow).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This one's tough, because my angst to happy ratio can be pretty hight in my fics, but in terms of, like, purest fluff, probably How the Day Sounds (Arrow).

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have, especially in the Arrow fandom because it's probably the biggest (and therefor has the most potential for toxicity), but it disappears fast.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

LOL yep! I do write explicit smut, but even that is pretty vanilla (which is not to say that's bad, and maybe one day I'll write kink, but I haven't yet).

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I imagine a lot of crossovers, but I rarely write them. The only one I've done (to my recollection) that didn't involve characters from different shows but still in roughly the same universe was The Male Prostitute in the Club With His (Word Redacted Due to Content) (Arrow), in which Oliver Queen met his doppelganger, Jason from Hung. It was ridiculous, and fittingly, my first fic in that fandom.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. Honestly, for the most part my fic is too short for most people to bother with, I think.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 

I wish!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Absolutely! There's obviously Our Version of Events with @machawicket, and I wrote a few SG-1 fic with @danveresque back in the day. I really enjoy co-writing, although I'm almost always the one slowing us down.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Sam/Jack from Stargate SG-1. It was my first love and the only one I come back to over and over.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I am reserving my 5th amendment right not to incriminate myself.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm pretty good at characterization and nailing a character's voice. I also enjoy writing dialogue, although I don't know that that makes me good at it. I'm also pretty good at hitting the emotions I want to hit in a scene and also writing emotional complexity.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing consistently and to completion is a big weakness -- a result of poor executive function skills and high perfectionism, ha. I'm also great at coming up with big sweeping plots and terrible at executing the details of them. And, until recently, I clung a little too much to thinking fic needs to be realistic and grounded -- now I understand that fic can be as ridiculous as I want, because what matters is how much fun I have writing it and whether it gives me the serotonin I'm seeking (as @mrv3000 put it).

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm incredibly impressed by folks who might be polyglots who can do this. I, sadly, cannot.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I honestly don't remember! I have a notoriously bad memory of my childhood and I got into fandom very early. But the first fandom I published a fic in was Stargate SG-1.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

This is like asking who my favorite child is. I don't think I can answer with just one! Favorite funny fic is probably Cabin in the Woods (Arrow). Favorite fic where I just slid easily into the character's voices? Probably the devil's right there in the details (Timeless). Favorite (and only) remix? reclaim (the destiny rules remix) (Stargate SG-1). Favorite angsty fic (of which there are maaaany), probably god himself would call it justice (Arrow).

I'm trying to remember who recently I know has been writing -- I'm going to zero-pressure tag these just a few people, but if you're writing, consider yourself tagged! @annerbhp @mylittleredgirl @sharim28 @joracwyn @starrybouquet @anretc @tielan

[resharc]

a recap on jam

It's been a few weeks since I finished the Acerola Jam 0 (check out the jam if you haven't, there's a lot of cool games!) and I've had a bit of time to decompress and think about my experience. I also was literally unable to do this until this week so hahaaaaa.

If you haven't already, please check out my game jam game, Gunmatic Aberration. Some of what I'm gonna go over will make more sense if you've played it.

but maybe you like having no clue what I'm talking about, in which case, read on

A Summary

This was a good experience and has given me a good bit to think on for the other game. Which is both good and bad: part of the reason why progress has seemingly stopped is because of this. I've been working on stuff behind the scenes and polishing up bits (and rethinking others) to show off later.

I'm happy I was able to release a project that people could, you know, play. From start to finish, with very few bugs that soft-locked or broke the game. People found it fun too, which was a plus.

However, there's a few things that were problems and I'm unhappy with:

The game is confusing to play without any guidance; there wasn't obvious enough signposting or tutorials, which meant I had to tell people how to play (this is not a good sign).

The balance isn't great: some rooms are too hard. Others are too easy. Some powerups just suck, others are too good.

The boss doesn't take advantage of the core gimmick.

The presentation is lacking.

The last one is the thing that stings the most.

The Problem Of Visibility

In the three weeks the game has been around in the jam, my game was viewed 52 times, downloaded 19 times and rated 4 times. I posted it a few times and passed it around my friends. Around 6 of those downloads were from my friends. These are, by all means, not bad numbers. Someone on the Acerola discord found that the mean number of ratings is around 4 - so I'm perfectly average.

Part of this is just due to there being over 900 entries. Part of it is luck. A lot of it is because the game fundamentally doesn't catch your eye. My visual competency is, well

The biggest problem, I feel, boils down to marketing. Let's list a few problems with Gunmatic.

The game looks like a flash game made in 2008. This isn't bad but there's a stigma against those games.

The thumbnail does an awful job at describing the game and getting people to click.

The screenshots are confusing without context and frankly, suck.

The title sucks.

Part of this is just my own general competency. I am not a good artist by any means. This is something I struggle with constantly - I can, at best, make nice-ish looking animations and use some basic tricks to make it look a bit smoother. You can see this in a lot of my other clips. I also suck at names (honestly, my other game has some awful names...).

Focusing on GA, I could've done a few things better here. The easiest ones here are, add a gif to the screenshots and make a better thumbnail. I've done a quick mockup below of what that could look like (note i spent like 5 minutes on this). I could've used the gif in this very post on my screenshots screen too.

Getting People To Play

The second hurdle was actually getting people to play the game. It's one thing to get people to click, but how do you get people to actually play it?

I had a click-to-download ratio of about 3:1. That's, all things considered, not that bad! However, getting people to actually download your game, in a game jam with 958 entries, is difficult. Why play this flash game you need to download when you can play MEGA CHESS, which looks like a Real Game that you can play in your browser?

It probably would've been smarter if I'd just exported this to HTML5 and embedded it into the browser. This would've reduced the hurdle to play significantly: a lot of the most popular games in the game jam were, expectedly, browser games. And games Acerola had boosted (hint hint haha jk unless..........?).

Playtesting

This relates to my other issue: a lack of playtesting. by people who weren't me, i mean.

This is probably one of the hardest problems I've faced - both here and in my actual game. Unless you have friends who are into game development, it's hard to get someone to sit down, play your game, and give you their thoughts on what works and what doesn't. It's a fairly significant ask of someone! They have to play it for a bit, understand how it works, suffer through any problems, and then formulate their thoughts.

I developed Gunmatic Aberration over 2 weeks while working full time. I had a lot of dead time to fill in those two weeks - I should have been bugging my friends for their opinions and telling me what sucked and what didn't.

I didn't do that often.

This, above everything else, is what hurt the game the most. The game is fun, but it's incredibly unpolished and has more potential than anything else. The randomness of the game hurts it (it's a roguelite, after all): you can effectively just Die if you get a difficult room without the right powerups. It's difficult to figure out how to play without explicit instruction. These are all problems born from the developer being the only person to play it.

This is slightly just anecdotal, but I believe the top games in the Game Jam are both made by exceptionally talented people who also had some people giving them feedback. Maybe some more than others - but there was a conversation that I didn't have until the last few days.

i guess thats it?

So! That's what I did for about half a month in March. Then I went on a holiday and have been ruminating on this since.

You might be asking, "wait a fucking minute, you haven't posted anything since... November! What the hell! What have you been doing for the 4 months prior!"

That's cause, uh

um

woah check this out

[deltaengineering]

Best of Anime 2023 (in one sentence max)

Brought to you by the anti-waffling coalition.

Top 5 Anime of the Year:

5. Edomae Elf

Already surpassed by Frieren, but tends to hits the same strong themes on a much smaller scale.

4. Heavenly Delusion

Wildly imaginative and out of pocket, for mostly better or occasionally worse.

3. Mou Ippon

Minimalist and unpretentious blend of sports and slice of life that simply hits a vibe really well, and by that I mean sweaty yuri battle hugs.

2. Bang Dream MyGO

Somewhat generic in broad concept, but knocks it out of the park with uncommonly good character writing around uncommonly flawed personalities.

1. Insomniacs After School

Seishun to the maximum and cheesy romance at its best, this one clinched it mainly due to throwing a supremely satisfying ending into the mix.

Fell Off & Ratio Medal for Best Show That Should Be On This List But Isn't: Witch From Mercury

G-Witch still is nowhere near bad or even mid, but distance from the hype has only made its structural flaws more apparent, to the point where I now think that many shows were better than it.

Big Banana Trophy for Best Character: Soyo Nagasaki (MyGO)

I cannot believe a gacha franchise allowed someone this duplicitous, petty, desperate and pathetic in its main cast, proceeded to not brush it off as comedy, and yet still managed to make her come across as sympathetic.

"Still not watching Jujutsu Kaisen" Award for Best Production Value: Heavenly Delusion

The whole thing is like a demo reel for showing off that you can produce any genre at its highest level.

Best Musical Component: Work (Jigokuraku OP)

Kien Romance (Edomae Elf OP) is the slightly better song, but this one is great too and has much better visuals.

Worst Most Amount of Cumulative Annoyance: Umamusume S3

Merely a subpar advert on the surface, but as sturdy as wet tissue paper when even mildly prodded.

[eyeswaitingfortuesdaynight]

omniscient reader's viewpoint liveblog day 3 💪 (chs. 7-11: ep. 2 - protagonist)

reading this on the subway train as the author intended. YJH INTRO TIME LET'S GOOOOOOO

the korean government must have scrambled those jets quickly!!!!! too bad it's monster food now

'It was my turn to be a clown.' - it's always your turn to be a clown, kdj

i genuinely don't think anyone else survived the train other than kdj's group and yjh. between culling everyone who made a fuss at first and the difficulty of deciding to take a life and acting on that decision.......1/30-50 probably isn't an unrealisitic number of survivors

lgy is truly the 10yo kdj stand in ........i feel so bad for the kid. i hope kdj can learn to love him as much as sys

i know there's at least two sponsorship selections....possibly a third one after the 7th scenario to account for the new incarnations, and maybe a fourth after the 10th scenario to account for the new incarnations that showed promise later? that makes the most sense to me

WHO WAS YSA'S SECOND POTENTIAL SPONSOR??? aughhhh i wanna knooooow

'I felt uncomfortable and excluded this guy.' - LOOOOOOOL oh god damn that's harsh. i'm sure kdj was nicer about it in the webtoon

does.....does uriel sponsor evil incarnations so she can force them to be nice? that is. so fucking funny. i love her.

the star stream trolling sp by giving him weak modifiers is also hilarious

i gotta say, kdj is great at dropping foreshadowing...takes like 100 chapters for the way of being strong without a constellation hint to come to fruition

if twsa had a fandom, there would 1000% be diehard yjh/lhs shippers by the way kdj describes lhs

it's actually Mino Soft in the novel???? nope. rejected. bad vibes, not as funny. not changing this now

lhs is also a reader......i love him...........also i need to take this into account in the future and contrast him with the other mentioned readers (kdj, ysa, hsy)

'Indeed, Confucianism was still strong in South Korea.' - KDJ AND HIS THOUGHT PROCESS IS INFURIATING AND HEARTBREAKING AUUUUGH. he can't understand why people would want to check up on his parents other than confucianism......

yjh doing his best to recreate the shining is never not funny. does he do this every turn????

i'd be curious to know the percentage of incarantions that survived the 1st scenario without killing a human. 1/100 maybe?

kdj is surprised by yjh's high strength this early...i wonder if that's FORESHADOWING.......

3 or 4 skills per beginner attribute is probably average, judging by lhs' profile and kdj's own attribute to skill ratio

kdj has a good way of describing the scene in as few words as possible (specifically, this description of the broken bridge). broad brushstrokes, as it were. i need to remember that.

'I was a bit surprised.' - also noting that kdj has started minimizing the description of his own emotions....he's probably feeling less overall tbh, with the 4th wall

...i guess demonic heads get reformed since i distinctly remember kdj describing knw's corpse as 'just a torso' earlier in this episode. pretty sure that was reflected in the webtoon too

'This couldn't be the exclusive skill of Han Myungoh, who had a big belly.' - this guy is as skinny as a rake in the webtoon WHERE IS HIS BELLYYYY

kdj is controlling his breathing again....but also telling himself to calm down .........it really is a habit

it took less than 5 minutes for kdj to get epically betrayed and abandoned lol

bookmark!!!! i wonder what the max level of understanding is.....

'Despite him being a hated figure, I couldn't help feeling strange emotions.' - 👀👀👀👀 interesting kdj states this when knw's last words were 'Don't want to die'

yjh just destroying zombies barehanded is. so great.

'The man destroyed all the demonic people threatening me and appeared in front of me. An overwhelming force without any weapons. He beat the demonic people with only two fists.' - YJH LITERALLY DESTROYED ALL THE ZOMBIES ON THE BRIDGE BAREHANDED I'M SIMPING SO HARD *swoons*

'His personality had worn out after going through regression three times. His principles were cut away in order to maintain his sense of self. The current Yoo Joonghyuk would never hesitate for the sake of his purpose.' - see, this is a much more nuanced and empathetic description than 'lost his humanity' in the webtoon translation. like killing people for your own purposes is not just as human a thing to do as choosing to save other people. it always struck me as a particularly harsh way to word yjh's personality change, esp. when yjh is kdj's blorbo and kdj knows how yjh got to this point.....i think the webtoon in general tries to flatten kdj's low and high points to make him more plateable for a wider audience, which i noticed when comparing scenes side by side for my fic. which is exactly why i prefer reading the source material of stories over any adaptation - things get lost in the medium translation even with the best adaptations.

kdj specifically calls yjh a professional gamer. which is good because i literally can't see yjh streaming to any audience pre-scenarios except maybe for contract-mandated team streams. he can't perform on command and doesn't give a shit about entertaining anyone except maybe his family. bad karoke aside lol

'I liked, hated, grumbled, and cheered Yoo Joonghyuk on. That's why I stuck with Yoo Joonghyuk for over 3,000 chapters.' - translation of this line in the webtoon is a bit more flowery, but i like this barebones description. it's charming how utiltarian kdj is with everything he describes, truly a reader to the core

'Yet Kim Namwoon died and the others survived.' - huh. i guess yjh saw them through the window....but shouldn't they have seen him through the window when he was kicking down the door? maybe he shattered the window after his first kick and made it hard to see through, especially if the window has wire mesh

'I started telling the story. I told the story using as much concise, short, and accurate vocabulary as possible.' - yup, that's how kdj tells stories. at least he's honest about this.

'His eyes changed and memories that seemed to belong to Yoo Joonghyuk crossed my mind.' - kdj get images along with people's thoughts if they're remembering something??? that's fascinating. tho it would be absolutely hilarious if this was a mousou telepathy situation (fic idea??)

'Due to the impact of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, I could feel Yoo Joonghyuk's mental pain and suffering.' - kdj gets feelings too ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. and yjh is feeling bad about killing everyone in his car even on his 3rd turn AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

'I have never seen a protagonist as careful as Yoo Joonghyuk.' - i'm simping too, kdj

augh reminder to myself to backtrack in proofreader and standardize the lie detection messages - the epub isn't consistent with the format of them. gonna have to check if the webtoon is consistent or not

like how kdj never says he's a seer and lets yjh completely misunderstand. peak trickster behaviour

yjh.... bringing himself to allow another seer to be his companion after the 2nd scenario.........repeating the word in his head...................i'm tearing up, i'm not even kidding rn

'Now Yoo Joonghyuk's face was as difficult as a philosophy book with no commentary written.' - i see kdj failed philosophy, just like me

'Yoo Joonghyuk was smiling brightly like something made him happy. Son of a bitch.' - W E E P I N G YJH IS HAPPY HE HAS A COMPANION THAT UNDERSTANDS HIM AND CAN HELP HIM i'm i'm 😭😭😭😭😭

'…Damn, I have to use that method after all.' - such a good cliffhanger ahhhhhh

[cyrusstarchaser]

thoughts on mint chocolate chip?

Girl sit down I got a LOT of thoughts on this one

Ok first of all: Good mint choco chip fucking RULES. But unfortunately BAD mint choco chip is kinda the worst. I think more then a lot of other flavors mint chip gets a bad rap because of this. Also I should make it 100% clear when I say mint I mean spearmint/the green one - 'peppermint mocha' is a Starbucks ploy to sell more coffee to white girls, it's gross and we all know it.

Aside from making sure it's the right kind of mint, you HAVE to make sure there is a good choco/mint ratio. Now personally I go with 2 parts choco to 1 part mint. Mint can be WILDLY overbearing but it really just needs to complement the choco. If the ice cream is entirely green with only one or 2 specs of chips then it damn well better be the best pure mint flavor in the world cause that sure as hell isn't mint CHOCO. Also get the fuck outta here with your white mint choco ice cream Breyers you look ridicules.

Personally the gold standard for me when it comes to mint choco is Andes Candies - anytime someone tells me they don't like mint choco I ask if they've tried Andes. And on that note - since I am in my Twilight Years (late 30) and I cried like a bitch at that article about people having 'their' recipes printed on their gravestones, I have decided to share my cookie recipe that is so good my college friends refereed to them as 'crackies'. Thank god this was before Breaking Bad aired otherwise they would probably be Methies instead or some stupid nonsense like that. ANYWAY, MY BELOVED RECIPE

Crackie Dough

1 cup butter flavored Crisco (shut up)

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 brown sugar (arguments have been made over light or dark but I say it depends on the ships you are using)

2 eggs

2 tsp Mexican Vanilla

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp salt

2 and 1/4 cup flour

Preheat over to 350, creme the butter and sugar together til it's like wet sand, then add eggs and mix til smooth. Toss in the vanilla, baking soda and salt, then start slowly adding the flour. At this point it is time to add chips and extracts. Now my general rule of thumb here is about 2 cups of chips and about a tablespoon of extract. You can get kinda crazy with this step but here are my family's favs:

2 cups butterscotch chips and 1 TBS rum extract

2 cups dark choco chips and 1 TBS orange extract

2 cups dark choco chips and 2 TBS espresso extract

2 cups blueberries and 1 tsp lavender extract (not beginner friendly let me warn you about that one right now, this takes some tweaking cause they berries are FUCKING WET and lavender is super strong)

I'm currently working out the kinks to a peanut butter choco cookie because I HATE using the Reese chips. I'm thinking of maybe adding peanut flour and then choco chips - I'll get back to you on this one)

AND FINALLY THE STAR OF THE SHOW, MY GO-TO, MY OLD RELIABLE -

I tell you right now you toss a bag of this into that dough and people will be beating down your door to get to them. I've had issues getting these in the past, so sometimes I will just dice up the candies themselves if I can find it or I use dark choco chips and add creme de menthe to the dough.

Also while I got you on the line mint choco Italian creme sodas are really super fucking good too. Anyone who says mint choco sucks is a Hater

[sp4c3-0ddity]

Smack, Kiss, Fall in Love - Part Nine

hooo boy don’t hate me for the Angst(TM) i’m kidding it’s light angst

also @hailqiqi i actually kept it under 800 words this time so take THAT

Previous Parts:  One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight

Pidge woke tangled in her warm comforter, dazed and confused and wondering when her bedroom door migrated to the opposite side of the room. Didn’t it used to be to the left of her bed…?

She yawned, rubbing her eyes before extending her arms over her head - only for her hand to hit something she didn’t expect to be there.

When Lance mumbled sleepily and rolled onto his back, Pidge remembered.

“Oh, quiznak,” she said, alert and tossing her comforter off to climb out of a bed that was definitely not hers.

Her foot caught in it before she could disentangle her legs, and she plummeted to the floor, her elbows colliding with it and sending a shock up her arms.

“Ow,” she groaned, slowly - and more carefully - sitting up and rubbing her red elbows.

“Pidge?” Lance said, peeking at her over the side of his bed. “Did you just--”

“Yes, I did just fall out of bed,” Pidge grumbled while her face warmed.

“What’s the rush?” Lance wondered. “Did I miss an alarm or something?”

Pidge shook her head as she got to her feet and gathered her comforter and pillow. “I just don’t want to have to explain to the others--”

A sharp knock from the door cut her off, and she swore in an alien tongue for the second time in a few doboshes.

“Come in!” Lance, totally and infuriatingly nonchalant, called before Pidge could stop him.

They’ll just think it’s a soulmate thing, he’d said, which meant...what?

(God, if their team thought there was something between them when there obviously wasn’t--)

The door slid open to reveal Shiro.

When his gaze fell on them - on Lance dawdling in bed and on Pidge glaring at him - his eyebrows rose so high they nearly disappeared under his white forelock. “So--”

Lance, shooting upright with his eyes wide and his face redder than Pidge had ever seen it, said, “It’s just a soulmate thing.”

Shiro smiled in a way Pidge could only describe as indulgent. “Right,” he said, “well, Princess Allura’s calling a meeting about how we can shake Zarkon off our tail…”

***

“Pidge, might I ask you a...personal question?” Allura approached Pidge with her hands clasped together, a smile that read rather...untrue on her face. 

Pidge blinked in surprise - Allura hadn’t spoken to her much one-on-one since the disastrous party on Arus. “Uh...sure, Princess.”

“What is that mark on your face?” Allura pointed to her chin. “I’ve never seen anyone with pigmentation like yours, and it’s roughly hand-shaped.”

“Oh, it’s my soulmark.”

“A...soulmark?”

“Do Alteans not have that or some other method to tell when you’ve met your soulmate?” Pidge wondered...while thinking why couldn’t she be so lucky.

“Nothing so visible, no,” Allura admitted with a faraway look. “But if such things are common in humans, why are you the only one with one?”

“We all have one, I think,” Pidge said.” Mine - and Lance’s - is the only one that’s been...activated.” She clutched her right hand in her left and hoped that Allura wouldn’t ask the next logical question.

“I see--wait, Lance?” Allura’s eyes widened.

“Yeah...why?” Pidge said, her heart pounding - and unsure why, exactly, she didn’t want to confess to this particular bond to her alien teammate.

“Lance doesn’t behave like one who’s met his soulmate,” Allura mused.

Pidge’s stomach twisted into knots. “No, I guess not…”

“Wait...is that what’s on his hand?” Allura leaned towards her, inspecting Pidge’s soulmark more closely, and said, “It does look a lot like--” Her eyes snapped wide open. “Did he slap you?”

“Kind of,” Pidge said, and when Allura’s gaze hardened into a glare, she waved her hands and added, “But it’s not what you think! He was trying to keep me quiet--”

“What?!”

“Okay, that wasn’t the right way to explain it either.” Pidge sighed, exasperated, and said, “Look, it’s complicated, so I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“But you and Lance--”

“--are friends,” Pidge insisted, “and for now, it’ll stay that way.”

Or forever, she reminded herself.

And that, she added when Allura shot her a pitying look, would be fine.

***

Pidge didn’t understand how Lance could be so sweet to her one night and fret over Allura like a jealous boyfriend the next.

(If she closed her eyes she could still feel his fingertips brushing her hair away from her face…)

Maybe that was why, after their fight over Taujeer, she didn’t bother searching for him when she couldn’t sleep, no matter how much she wanted him to.

But when he found her, a sheepish smile on his face and his comforter and pillow bunched in his arms, she couldn’t say no.

It was just a soulmate thing, after all.

Continue here

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

In celebration of the Animaniacs reboot's second season coming out soon...

I'm going to list a few things I think the reboot does better than the original show so far (not including technical things like animation quality or sound quality, that's not a fair comparison). Here we go:

1. There's a "Here's the show's namey" variant every episode now rather than re-used lines (like "Pinky and the Brain-y"). I totally get why the original show re-used lines (although by season 3 they do so way less), but it's just really cool the a new and unique one every episode now.

2. Yakko's role as big brother seems more apparent now. He was always the leader in the original show sure, and he clearly did care for his siblings, but there wasn't really a sense of authority there. The Warners, either alone or together, always did their own thing. The fact that they weren't all (physically) the same age didn't really matter in most episodes, and often only apparent due to their (kind of inconsistent in the original-I SAID I WOULDN'T TALK ABOUT THE ANIMATION) height differences. Now, in addition to him being the leader, there's multiple episodes where Dot/Wakko will ask Yakko for permission to do stuff, like keeping the bunnies as pets or to watch TV.

It's a cute touch, a nice little reminder that "Oh yeah they're not triplets".

3. The PG rating has allowed for edgier jokes/language. Characters can say "Hell" now, Pinky almost said "bull-(you know what)" and Wakko almost said "motherf-(you know what)", then there's these:

It's dark but I think it's funny darn it 🤣.

4. Less mediocre segments. I've said it before, I'll say it again, the Warners, Pinky and the Brain and Slappy carried the original show. I also enjoyed Rita and Runt and Minerva Mink segments, but they were cut from the show after season 1, so that sucks. Every other segment on the show I consider kinda okay/mediocre/bad 🤷‍♀️. A lot of characters would've worked better as recurring characters within segments where they're not the stars. Honestly their absence is a positive in my book, while watching the original show I often found myself thinking "Man I wish this show only had the Warners, Pinky and the Brain and Slappy segments in it". I know Slappy isn't in the reboot but that's not a deal breaker for me (the other two segments are a lot more popular so I understand prioritising them). If no Slappy also means no Katie Kaboom, I'm good.

5. More heartfelt moments - outside of the Rita and Runt segments (as in there's a higher ratio of them, not trying to compare how heartfelt they are). In the original, pretty much the only segments that had heartfelt moments consistently was Rita and Runt (Rita's song about humans, "Smitten with Kitttens", "Puttin' on the Blitz", etc). This is fine, it's a comedy show; but it would have been nice if some of the characters that got a lot more screen time than those two (the Warners, Pinky and the Brain, etc) had some too, especially since there are no Rita and Runt segments past season 1 anyway.

I know before the reboot there were quite a quite few heartfelt moments related to Animaniacs-the climax of the Pinky and the Brain Christmas special, Dot's fake out death (spoilers for a movie from over two decades ago-yes it's that old get over it) in Wakko's Wish...basically all of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock". But most of those aren't actually in the original show, only one of them is. Wakko's Wish is a non-canon (I swear "Animaniacs" and "canon" are two words that don't mix but you get my point) movie and Pinky and the Brain series is a spin-off. If we're talking exclusively about the original series that ran from 1993 to 1998, then only "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" counts really.

Maaaaaybe that one moment in Taming of the Screwy when Scratchy tells the Warners to leave...but it was really quick and not taken that seriously (it kinda just felt like build up for a punchline) so I think that one's a stretch (although it was a little sad).

Meanwhile the reboot already has caught up to it (in only 13 episodes as well) with two moments; Brain's backstory in "Roadent Trip" and Yakko's panic attack in "Fear and Laughter in Burbank". They're both taken seriously, last over a minute and say something pretty interesting about the characters involved. It's just nice to see characters other than Rita and Runt be allowed to have emotional moments (again, within the actual show). It's on-par with the original in this regard despite having 86 less episodes. And there's probably more heartfelt moments to come!

6. The Warner's fangs:

They make them look a little more feral! 😁 Very fitting, I wish they had them originally now. I also appreciate that they (usually) don't have gaps in their teeth anymore. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE their TMS designs, but I honestly prefer the Warners with no gaps in their teeth.

7. The PatB segments. Just in general, overall I like them more than in the original show (I'm comparing them to the ones in the original Animaniacs, I'm not talking about the PatB segments in the spin off series, Pinky an the Brain). Not only are they more creative, with ideas like Future Brain and Julia, they also do the running gag thing less. What I mean is, in the original show their segments sometimes would have a running gag they do over and over within a segment, to the point where it becomes obvious that gag is how/related to how the plan is gonna fail. Some examples of segments that do this are "Bubba Bo Bob Brain", "Spellbound" and "Brain Meets Brawn". Now of course we know they're gonna fail, but trying to guess how they fail or the surprise how how they fail is one of the fun parts of their segments. Their segments are already quite formulaic, so why add to that? The reboot so far pretty much only did this once in "Close Encounters of the Worst Kind", so that's good.

8. More variety in terms of musical genres. Most of the songs in the old show are of the old-school Broadway type of music. There's a lot of orchestral music, a bit of jazz. Many songs just add lyrics to pre-existing music. Which is good, 'cause those songs are good. But I appreciate the reboot adding some other genres in there, like pop and hip hop. They're NOT what you'd expect an Animaniacs song to sound like, but they're still amazing! (like The Cutening song or Yakko's rap).

9. The Warners' morality. This one's really important. Ideally, the Warners should act like karmic tricksters. Yeah they can be annoying to anybody, but are generally harmless and actually pretty friendly if left alone/aren't being mistreated. Once someone actually provokes them though, they won't hesitate to humiliate, harm and drive insane their "special friend". This is explained well in "The Sound of Warners" (credit goes to clownmoontoon for the video):

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qnxp2bDmlE1r1jfup.mp4

Sometimes the Warners don't even need to be the ones being provoked for them to go after someone for being a jerk, like in "Morning Malaise", where they call out a radio show host for being rude to their guests, or in "Dot's Entertainment", where they call out a parody of Andrew Lloyd Webber for placing blame onto his actors.

But then in seasons 4 and 5 of the original show they start bothering people and legitimately harming people who literally weren't being rude to them at all. Some examples of this are "Anchors Awarners", "Acquaintances", and "Back in Style":

I guess I can understand in "Back in Style", they were mad about being sold off to other studios against their will, but they took it out on actors who probably had no say in the matter.

Thankfully, in the reboot they seem back to normal, once again only intentionally humiliating and/or harming people who actually provoked them, be it hunters ("Good Warner Hunting",) cocky athletes, ("Gold Meddlers"), rude conductors ("Here Comes Treble"), etc.

...and I think that's all I got. There are other things too but they're smaller points not really worth mentioning. I do like both series the same but wanted to praise the reboot specifically given that I have done multiple posts analysing the original show.

Season 2, here we come!

[marshmallowgoop]

I really do miss Heiji, though.

Right now, I'm slowly making my way towards the (current) halfway point of the series. The aspect ratio's just shifted from 4:3 to 16:9, the classic OST's been switched out, and while Kogoro's voice actor has yet to change, and there hasn't been a single drop of Bourbon, Season 15 still feels like a transitionary period of the anime for me, like a real push into more modern Detective Conan.

I mean, no more fullscreen formatting?

The future is now!

But anyway, I'm bad at math, so maybe I'm wrong here, but a glance at the "Heiji Hattori Appearances" wiki page tells me that this point of the series is also the longest stretch in its entire run without the Detective of the West. From Episode 409 (towards the middle of Season 14) to Episode 478 (towards the middle of Season 16), the only Heiji you'll find is in the openings.

And though I have to say that I love this shot of him and Shinichi from OP 15, "Hoshi no Kagayaki yo"...

I also have to say that the sole Heiji case in which this opening was used, "Conan and Heiji's Deduction Magic," Episodes 406-408, is... not anywhere near my list of top DetCo stories. It has its moments—like Ran and Kazuha getting to have fun and share an interest in magic (at least for a little while)—but Heiji's jealous, irritated behavior across these three episodes, while certainly intended to be funny, comes across to me much more negatively. In my eyes, at least, it's enough to cast a sour, disappointing shadow over the entire thing.

I'd almost recommend skipping this case entirely, but you'd be missing some crucial character insight if you did. Because these episodes also reveal that Heiji... doesn't... realize he's in love with Kazuha?

Yeah. I had the same reaction as Conan. What.

You're telling me that Heiji was seriously just buying time here (Episode 324)?

Heiji: I really mean it, Kazuha... I really wanted to tell you before I die. I tried to tell you many times... When we were back to back, and I felt you trembling, I wanted to say...

You're telling me that he was seriously acting all super smooth without anything of substance behind his words?

Kazuha: If we make it through, will you tell me what you were going to tell me? Heiji: Sure. I'll keep on telling you until you get tired of hearing it.

That, when he drops the ball in the after-credits scene and blubbers that he only wanted to complain about Kazuha's ponytail bothering him, it wasn't because he was being the typical DetCo tsundere who can't admit his feelings, or because he felt too flustered with Shinichi listening to the whole conversation over the phone, or because he wanted to confess in a more romantic setting, or because of really so many things, but instead because he seriously didn't realize that he was in love with her and was just making stuff up?!?!?!

I just. I don't even know what to say? I thought he knew? This is Detective Conan, isn't it? Where the characters are pointedly infatuated with each other but just never seem to say it?

I mean... I guess this confirms that there's no way Heiji would realize he's in love with Shinichi... and that he's probably not embarrassed about said love because no one around him interprets it as romantic... or at least don't after it's revealed that "Kudo" isn't Heiji's Tokyo girlfriend....

Long tangent aside—I swear all that was just supposed to be a side note!—one thing I do appreciate from "Conan and Heiji's Deduction Magic" is Conan's behavior towards Heiji in that early scene between them (Episode 406):

Conan, imitating Kazuha: Guess who? It's me.

It's playful. Conan notices Heiji's irritation and how he's not being his usual upbeat, enthusiastic self, and though Shinichi goes about it in... not the best way, I do get the sense that he's trying to cheer his friend up. When Heiji responds with unexpected distress and exasperation, there is care to show that Conan's concerned—and if his blush is any indication, he's also flustered that his teasing didn't have the intended outcome:

Conan, internally: Hey, Hattori...?

And it's really a little moment, I know, but Shinichi, being very much the typical DetCo tsundere, is often depicted as though he's unhappy and annoyed whenever anyone's affectionate towards him. (And with Heiji in particular, he's suspicious of said affection in the beginning, always thinking that Heiji has ulterior motives, but that's an essay for another day.)

Shots from the 59th ending sequence, "Kimi to Koi no Mama de Owarenai Itsumo Yume no Mama ja Irarenai," come to mind when I think about Shinichi's tsundere attitude, but probably more relevantly here, so do pieces of merchandise and artwork featuring him and Heiji, such as this rubber strap and this illustration that was made into an acrylic stand:

So, I like that bit from 406. Conan's behavior is not meanspirited trolling but instead a lighthearted (intended) pick-me-up that says that, while he has a hard time showing it, Shinichi does reciprocate the affection given to him. He does like spending time with his friends, and he does want to see them happy. I'm reminded of other artwork, like Conan's "dream vacation" that @shirleykarasuma wrote about beautifully here, or the cover for this movie guidebook promoting The Crimson Love Letter that I've stumbled across while shopping for DetCo merchandise (with a bigger image found here):

All of them—from Conan gleefully trying to get a smile out of his usually smiley companion, to eagerly dreaming of playing beach volleyball as himself with his friends, to unabashedly enjoying a piggyback ride from Heiji—are examples of honest, unconcealed emotion.

I can't say that I loved "Conan and Heiji's Deduction Magic" overall. But if the point I'm at in the series now truly is something of a transitionary period, I hope that Shinichi moves into outwardly showing his affection like he does there more often—concerning Heiji or anyone else! A shift in that direction matches what is arguably the thesis statement for the entire franchise; that is, to overcome the obstacles in his path, Shinichi must open up to and rely on others, as it was his refusal to do so that created Conan.

But also... it's just cute. I still haven't seen The Crimson Love Letter, so I have no idea if that cover image has any basis in the film, but I sure hope it does because wow. Adorable. Love to see people wholeheartedly love each other.

[danlous]

Aaand i'm finally finished! That was a journey! Some observations:

Despite that we like to complain about bad fics, i felt the average quality is actually rather high. There were some fics that weren't my thing for sure, but fics that were like actively bad with no good qualities were in the minority. I've done this same thing of reading every ao3 fic with some other small fandoms and they had much higher percentage of shitty fics

2. One thing that was really noticeable, especially since i was reading from oldest to newest, was the fandom's shifting perception of the characters' sexual dynamics. The early fics are overwhelmingly top!Louis and bottom!Lestat, and typically Louis is shown as domineering and aggressive and taking control. Louis is also overall depicted as more masculine than Lestat. Sometimes he verges on becoming a m*ndingo stereotype, like @blueiight would say. Over the months the ratio slowly balanced out, and nowadays bottom!Louis seems to be more common than bottom!Lestat, and often they're written as switches. Louis is depicted as overtly angry and domineering much less often, and his softness and vulnerability is generally acknowledged. I think maybe early on the characters' personalities were ambiguous to viewers, and as the show went on it became more clear what they were like. Although i would argue it was clear already from the first episode that Louis' hypermasculine act was a performance and he doesn't really want to dominate people sexually or otherwise.

I want to make clear i don't think there's anything wrong with preferring top!Louis, people can have so many reasons for what they like in their ships! But there's a really common trend where black characters are depicted as aggressive, domineering and hypermasculine because of deep-seated racist ideas in our culture, and i think it's particularly obvious in this case where Louis in canon is explicity depicted as soft, intellectual, sometimes submissive, and usually more passive-aggressive than aggressive, and Lestat is explicitly depicted as domineering and openly aggressive, and the fandom STILL turned their dynamic into almost opposite of what it is. But like i said this was a much bigger issue in the early days, and fans seem to be more mindful of it now

3. The amount of armandaniel fic is crazy, especially considering many viewers haven't read the books. You know i would never complain about armandaniel's popularity (see my url) and Rice really put crack in this ship so i get it, but i wish there would be more loumand and Louis/Daniel too. The little there is exquisite though. A certain bdsm dynamic is a big part of Armand's characterization, but i feel he's often depicted as more openly domineering in the fics than in canon, where this aspect is more subtle and fluid

4. There is a terrible lack of Claudia content! I feel like there's a tiny Lestat living on some fans' heads saying Claudia is a nuisance getting between him and Louis, but don't listen to him! Claudia is a brilliant character and SO important to the story and loustat's relationship! We need approximately 1200% more Claudia!!!

5. I was curious how the canonical domestic violence would be addressed in the romantic fics, and the answer is it mostly isn't addressed, physical abuse by Lestat mostly doesn't happen, and emotional abuse is less extreme. Then there are are some dark fics where Lestat is more extremely abusive and controlling than in canon. I would love to see more nuanced treatment of this subject akin to canon, where both abuse and genuine love exist, and Lestat is both horrible and sympathetic. I found that many best fics are like that

6. The popularity of feminization and breeding kink in this fandom is absolutely astonishing and should be academically studied. It's unlike anything i've seen in any other fandom. It shows up is so many fics and is fully mainstream, largely untagged, sometimes just a casual line or two, often by writers who don't usually write anything like that, and notably isn't usually a/b/o. Like the fandom took one look at Louis (or occasionally at some other male character) and collectively went yes, this cis man is a woman on some level and on god we're going to help his great feminine longing and knock him up. I feel there are currently some kind of new fanfic tropes evolving in the same way happened with omegaverse in spn fandom back in the day. And it actually feels understandable because if there one fictional cis m/m couple i 100% buy would enthusiastically roleplay hetersexual marriage and have a breeding kink in canon it's loustat

I've made in ill-advised decision to read or at least skim through every fic on the iwtv (2022) tag on ao3. Will report back when i'm eventually finished

[cdroloisms]

UNO REVERSE! top five foursquare duos!!

i can't believe you would do this to me >:( i didn't do it to you or anything nope (<- lying)

um um um four square my beloved .... choosing this is so hard

For Kat's post on the same subject: look here for some context on the AU as well as her top 5! The basic premise of the AU is simple: c!dream and j!dream get put In The Box for bonding purposes and receive a small selection of Visitors !! (The Technos, the Sams, and the Quackitys). This goes ... well. I'd say it's fun times for all, but that's not strictly accurate. Very fun for us XD though, and isn't that what really matters?

Anyway, onto the top five (note: I tried to keep from too much overlap w/ Kat's, bc all the duos in this are honestly really really fun):

5. j!Dream + c!Quackity

c!Quackity has been the specter over j!Dream's head for so long - this implacable weight that lingered over his head, that he couldn't put a name to, that resided in the threats the Warden would hiss at him when he got too testy (I could skin you alive, I could cut off your hands, I could nail you to the wall and leave you that way. Don't test me, Dream. This isn't torture. You don't know what that is.)

He's been told, again and again, that he's had it good. That it wasn't that bad, that he doesn't know what torture is, really - what Sam did was nothing. He's just weak. And hell, he's got something to prove, doesn't he? Something to throw in the face of c!Dream's snide remarks, the Sams' hypocrisy. (To prove to himself that he isn't exactly as pathetic as they all think he is.)

And as for c!Quackity - j!Dream is strange, uncomfortable. This one doesn't flinch at him the same way; this one doesn't bear the same marks of his influence, how he built himself into something through blood and sweat and every drop of fear he'd worked for. In a way, his existence is discomfiting because it - takes the singularity of his achievements from him. He's no longer the only one that was willing to go to these lengths, the only one that didn't shy away from getting his hands dirty. This Dream doesn't fear him nearly in the same way as the ghost of the Warden that follows his every step - and of course, c!Quackity aims to do something about that.

4. j!Quackity + j!Sam

My God. These two. Everything about them had already been so delightfully complex in the original AU - with the context of their counterparts and their situation, it only becomes all that much more complicated. They have all the rough memories of the JMAH timeline; they're forced to cooperate to keep the Dreams under control. There is so much tension (in more than one way- [gunshots]) and they're just. So fucking fun as a duo.

j!Quackity thinks that j!Sam is a creep, period, you get no bitches + please die alone in a ditch + L + ratio. Every time they're forced to interact is only reinforcing this idea in his mind. j!Quackity is the least possessive over the Dreams, strictly, and is the most convinced of the idea that he can still get the revive book - not having had nearly as long of an opportunity to try and torture it out of him. His goal is to make the Dreams miserable and get the book and put them six feet under - and honestly, more than that, his goal is to kill j!Sam As Soon As Possible, Please And Thank You.

j!Sam has Regrets over the whole Quackity thing, in both timelines, and even though he's making more of a concerted effort to Work Together than j!Quackity he's also - not got the highest opinion on working together with anyone except for himself when it comes to the Dreams (just me and him and all that). Everything j!Quackity says and does (emphasis on says, good lord) only seems to emphasize this point in his head. Surrendering Dream to Quackity had been bad enough in the first timeline - to do it now? Is a whole different beast entirely - and one that he's going to continue to struggle with, for better or for worse.

3. j!Quackity + c!Quackity

I couldn't resist these two - oh, the girlies the girlies. They are everything to me. Hand in hand against a world of Weird Ass Sam And Dream Bullshit (What the FUCK, am i right ???) They are subjected to the Rituals and they are Not Happy about it. In some ways, they look at each other and see the difference in timelines most keenly - j!Sam and c!Sam share memories, j!Dream and c!Dream have the commonality of a year of Hell, and the Quackitys - some things are very similar. Some things are very, very different. In some ways, it makes them treat each other more like good friends or drinking buddies than the Sams, who are more inclined to see each other as extensions of themselves.

Where the Sams see each other and use each others' existence to reinforce their ideas of themselves as paragons of Justice and Law, and the Dreams can't quite stomach looking at each other without seeing all the ways their Issues reflect on each other and shine a spotlight on their newly gained liabilities, the Quackitys have a slightly more well-rounded perception of each other. They embolden each other and enable each other because of their shared humanity, find common ground in crude jokes and laughing jibes and time to gossip, in the filth and grime of holding someone down to cut into them and the ensuing intimacy it demands, the heat of skin against skin. They look at each other and there's not really anything to hide, is there? In some ways, this is frightening. In others - it's almost a relief.

(Also, the ways that the Sams are more comfortable with each other when the Dreams are around, while the Quackitys come out of their shells with each other when they're alone? Fun. Fun.)

2. j!Sam + j!Dream

These two. These two. There's no one quite like them - the heady mix of fear and relief and possessiveness that can make the entire rest of the world fade away, sometimes - the two-sided knowing that really isn't matched by any other duo. It had been just them, only them, for nearly a year. No other interference. No other visitors. Nothing. Just me and him.

Neither of them quite know how to function with a witness, never mind several - and no one around quite knows either of them like the two of them know each other. There had been no Quackity to play off of, no Techno to keep Dream company - no one had been present, except for them, in the aftermath of where their timelines had diverged so greatly. Even now, even with so much revealed, there's still so much that resides in mystery. That the others don't know.

It's hard not to look at the two of them and- wonder.

j!Dream + c!Dream

To literally no one's surprise, these two take first place. They're the two that started it all, the two that are featured throughout, the two that it all circles back to, in the end. It's about the ways they hate each other - for not being strong enough, for being able to fight back when the other couldn't. It's about the ways they scream at each other and hit each other where it hurts and what does it matter, really, if they're quoting Sam or Quackity or whoever as they're doing so - what does it matter, as long as it gets their counterpart to fucking shut up?

But it's also about how the Sams arrive and they immediately come up with a plan, bracing against the potions slamming down on their backs and chained against the wall and biting back screams of pain. It's about how they fought, half-delirious from exhaustion and barely able to stand and facing impossible odds. It's about how they keep watch for each other when they manage to get a few moments of sleep. How in the end, even though they hate each other, even though they can't look at their counterpart without seeing the hell they endured and the hell they're not sure they can survive (and the hell they'll have to live through, anyway, because what other option is there?) and at least they have each other.

They fight together; they surrender together. c!Dream snaps at j!Dream to drink the fucking milk, holy shit, it's not fucking drugged (I was watching, I know, I know) and j!Dream forces c!Dream to eat a gapple before their next visitors (heal, eat, I only have you.) It's not quite care, it's nothing like love. There's so much fear and trauma they have to work past before they can imagine confronting what the other lived through (what they themselves lived through).

But they have each other.

(In the end, they're not facing it all alone.)