#Edit:( also for context just we became friends and I was happy)

[ennaku-sirri-da]

ask pabit told you ppl he was gonna kill RONBO but actually he killed me lmao

[haliteatiger]

Happy Werewolf Wednesday, ya'll! We're serving up a big pot of tea tonight so get those cups ready!

Special thanks to Blackbackedjackal and King for their help in putting this together, editing, and especially to Jackal for being so supportive and encouraging. I'm very much not normally the type to do call-out posts, but people need to be aware of Dogblud, as she has hurt, not only myself, but quite a few others as well, and seems to have somehow gotten away with behaving like this for 20-odd years. I'm of the mind she shouldn't be allowed to do so any more, hence this post.

TL;DR - Beware of Dogblud, aka Ashryn, aka DogofBlud, aka ThatDogMagic. Very, very long post under the cut.

With everything happening with DogBlud and Blackbackedjackal's studio, I felt emboldened to come forward with my own experiences with her. This is something I've been carrying around since it happened roughly 2 years ago. It was one of the main reasons that put me off drawing werewolves, my own characters, or engaging any more in the fandom. I've hinted at it a few times but I've never had the energy to come forward and deal with the fall out. I wanted to move on with the rest of my life because IRL was more important than online drama. And I knew her behavior would come back to bite her sooner or later, regardless of what I did. 

It's been very validating to see that I was right.

It was around the time that Blud and I became friends that I was feeling a bit burnt out on werewolves. I'd been trying to pull together my own werewolf-related project for something close to 12 years. The past 4 years had also been pretty draining on me creatively and socially, as it had for a lot of artists with regards to the pandemic. I also had some IRL things I was dealing with: mainly with my marriage and transitioning between medications to manage my anxiety + bipolar.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to screenshot everything at the time. I do have logs from back when we roleplayed together. There are several conversations in them but because they were saved as text documents, they're pretty dubious in terms of solid evidence. 

It would have been better if I had taken screenshots as it was happening, rather than just saving the logs. With what I *do* have, however, I feel as though it may be enough to make the point that I'm trying to make, and to exhibit how horrible things got.

I'll provide some context.

I had talked with Blud on and off over the years, and we had always gotten along. We had a lot in common and after we had started talking more, our friendship eventually grew into a collaborative project. We were going to combine our stories and write a comic based on it. We had a lot of discussions on how Blud was reticent to do this in the beginning and how she wanted a contract to be made up so that in the event that something *did* happen, we could both walk away feeling like it was handled fairly.

Honestly, I should have listened to the first alarm that went off in my brain, when, in an act of ominous foreboding she said something along the lines of don't be so sure, it could happen. It was in response to me being like "we're getting along so well and share so much of a bond right now. I can't fathom that being a problem!" 

The contract never materialized. It was something we had decided to do *after* we had put together something of a prototype project to see how well we worked together. It made complete sense to me at the time as we were both eager to focus on the fun parts of writing and drawing together.

It was decided that I would be the lead artist (doing coloring and final lines) while Blud would do everything else (which was inking, layouts, and the majority of the writing). The both of us felt that she had more experience in those areas. I also believed that she had a better knack for it as well. I had felt that she had a better understanding of story structure than myself. And I thought that Blud had felt the same way about my art. That I had the experience to take point on that. 

Since I had collaborated with other artists and writers before, I attempted to approach the project with the same sort of professionalism I always do. Especially the projects that I genuinely thought stood a chance of being published in the future. We had started out trying to get a feel for each other's flows and rhythms. I had expected Blud to try and meet me in the middle of where our processes would potentially differ from one another, so that we could develop a fairly smooth workflow.

I had also expected, according to our discussions on the matter, that we would value each other's opinions on things and take them into consideration. We had such good synchronicity already.

In the beginning, there wasn't any unusual behavior that caught my attention. Blud was a bit uncomfortable with trying out new things but I did my best to accommodate her so that our project could move forward without too much turbulence. She had also mentioned to me before that she was autistic, and since my husband is also autistic, I knew how difficult it could be when it came to adapting to new routines. But when it was time for her to deliver the first set of layouts, it wasn't at all what I expected.

What I had expected was something with margins, clearly marked boxes, and figures that I could do rough lines over. I also expected notes that confirmed what we had discussed earlier about the project; that way I knew what she wanted or if there would be any changes. She took offense to this, feeling like I was violating our agreement. Though Blud did try to give me space with regards to the actual art, and while she would offer criticisms here and there, I trusted her opinion as an artist and as a friend. But apparently that didn't go both ways. In fact, Blud seemed to be offended that I expected more from her.

Blud agreed to concede. She suddenly seemed fine with the changes that I had asked for after seeing the layouts. I guess she was feeling overstimulated by the change and I might have been applying too much of a critical tone to her responses to begin with. I have had to deal with rejection sensitivity throughout my life and it's certainly prompted me to approach what people say to me online with a bit of scrutiny (sometimes too much).

And while I was mildly annoyed, although admittedly I was more concerned with Blud's overall reaction to my asking for clarification about several things in the layouts, I let it go. But it seemed like there was a problem. The majority of my ideas were either rejected or outright overridden with Blud convincing me that my faulty memory had made me unable to remember what we had agreed upon. Or that I might have been misremembering in my own favor.

There was one time where we were discussing a monster's design. Blud had already decided to settle on one design that she had come up with, even as I continued to offer other suggestions. The story was to take place in my setting, so I was under the impression that I got to decide what kind of creatures should populate it. The conversation ended somewhat ambiguously. I had assumed that we'd come to a solid conclusion later. 

I came back the next day and it turned out that we were using her design because that was what we had decided on. "Don't you remember? You really need to do something about that faulty memory of yours, Tek. I can't be doing this for you all the time."

At which point, Blud would go back and meticulously scour the conversation until she managed to find a set of lines that would make it seem as though I had 100% agreed. Even when I tried to explain that I had meant something else, she took it as an affront on her inability to understand nuances due to her autism.

I admit that my memory isn't that greatest at times, but I've never had anyone complain about it before. And none of my friends have ever minded providing reminders to me if I did misremember something incorrectly. We all forget stuff at times, right? It's *still* something that I'm self-conscious about because (like a lot of people with ADHD) my memory seems selective at times. This was, apparently, a problem that I needed to manage. 

And even as I'm remembering these incidents to the best of my ability, I've already spent so much time recounting all of this to friends. I feel confident in my recollection. There are some details that may overlap or become entwined with other things, but it all basically tells the same story. Especially in conjunction with what's been said by others. You're free to take it as hearsay since I do not have screenshots to back this up.

I will mention (since I've been told it's something that Blud has taken particular interest in) that at one point, I did have a crush on her. I was having some problems IRL, and it was nice to have someone whom I felt actually understood me. I also felt like I saw a lot of myself in her. I think that, at one point, I did describe her as the kind of "girlfriend" I would want. Blud seemed to indicate the feeling was mutual.

Between our collaborative partnership and all of the details we shared about our lives, it did feel like an intimate relationship at times. I had no intentions of pursuing it. We were not compatible in our romantic and sexual identities, and I had no intention of leaving my current partner for her.

I had begun to notice red flags, even if I wasn't ready to accept them yet.

I've had experience with abusive relationships in the past but they were in person, and not online. I knew what to look out for and yet I was being willfully ignorant about our friendship. I wanted to give Blud the benefit of the doubt. I wanted the project to work *so* badly that I was willing to work with her increasing demands as the months went by.

I had no idea that those demands would change into, quite literal, temper tantrums. It would then trigger my fawning response which was due to an abusive family situation that I had dealt with before I moved to Canada. The tactic was this: concede to someone until there was a time that they either understood reason or I had the chance to use it against them if necessary.

I started to take screenshots. I wish that I had taken a lot more of them so that everyone could get a better idea of what was happening. I did go back and manage to record the majority of the first outburst. It was the first inkling I had that Blud wasn't playing with a full deck of cards. I knew that that would be one of the first conversations that she would promptly delete. And consequently, I was right.

This assortment of screenshots will exhibit the first serious confrontation that Blud had with me. I am absolutely *not* proud of how I handled this. I was literally panicking at the time and doing whatever I could to get her to calm down. Because I have a temper that can look similar to this in person, I knew that I had to wait until the post-tantrum clarity would hit Blud. I tried my best to not lose my own temper in turn but looking back, I feel that I came off as sounding too timid.

I didn't want to ruin this project.

I wanted to make a comic with an individual that I admired and respected as a fellow artist. And, with me not knowing how to respond, my main priority was to not make things any worse than they already were.

Below is the conversation in its entirety:

I had taken this screenshot on my phone after I had stepped away to compose myself. Blud had handled the confrontation and criticism with a reasonable amount of apprehension. But what had not occurred to me was that I could have said something that would remind her of past experiences with a roleplaying group.

It was something that had evidently scarred Blud for life.

I took away the wrong things from what she had told me, choosing to focus on the aspects of the "betrayal" that had appeared to bother her the most. And in hindsight, I did not see the correlation. I was genuinely apologetic that I had hurt her feelings.

But I *will* critique Blud for her poor handling of the situation. Whether or not I had hurt her feelings, no one is entitled to act like this or claim that this is what attempting to resolve a problem should look like.

I wasn't sure on how to initially respond to Blud. It had been ages since I'd had to deal with someone flying off the handle like that.

The following screenshots are where the conversation picked up, after she had already deleted the above message:

We had weathered the "storm" and after Blud calmed down, she was ready to communicate. There was a part of me that was genuinely sincere when I apologized to her. I did mean it when I said that I had no intentions of hurting her and that I hadn't considered how my statement would sound to her.

I had hoped that this had been a stress response due to factors outside of our collaboration. And especially when I took into account how she had interacted with me in the past. I knew that Blud had a lot going on IRL, and that she had already put a considerable amount of energy into this project.

I had taken her meltdown more personally than she could perceive that I would, because this was something that was acceptable to her. She had a "condition" that would absolve her of these abhorrent meltdowns and I needed to get used to them if we were going to continue working on that project together.

I was shaking the entire time we were typing in the chat.

I was sincere in my responses. I really did want to work things out with Blud and give her the benefit of the doubt. I could have been taking the things that she said too personally or maybe I had been reading too much into the situation. Was there a chance that I could have been misreading her outburst? I tried my best to keep an open mind though I was still somewhat baffled by the fact that she would have meltdowns as often as she did.

I confided in my husband and some other friends about the situation. They were also bewildered by Blud's actions.

By this point, I was struggling with the reality that this collaboration was most likely *not* going to work out but I still wanted to try. I still cared about Blud. We would still hang out together and talk about things like music, our characters, or our stories.

While I did have the foresight to go back and screenshot this section, I wasn't fast enough to get screenshots of everything else that I will be going over. Blud *did* admit to going back and deleting certain exchanges due to a mixture of shame; not wanting to look at them when she would scroll through our conversations. 

In retrospect, it was very telling.

And even after that meltdown, I still enjoyed the friendship that I had with her. I kept my guard up but I was willing to make compromises on her behalf if it resulted in better communication between the two of us. Blud made me promise to immediately tell her if I had a problem with something. I also agreed to keep notes of our conversations.

It worked for the most part.

In the end though, it became apparent that Blud wasn't willing to do the same for me (even after we had an extended conversation about it). I then realized that I had been tasked with basically *managing* her autism for her. I was already busy with my supposedly "bad memory" at the time; and Blud was more than ready to scroll back up through our conversations to cherry-pick a line or two of text to remind me of what was said earlier.

Because, for her, circumstances couldn't ever change. If they did, it would mean that Blud had lost control of the situation and that she was in the wrong. She could *not* be in the wrong. 

And if she was in the wrong? It would take solid evidence, three witnesses, and a court of law to prove it.

She had two other major meltdowns after this. I managed to step away from communicating with her through one of them and I don't remember the other meltdown lasting very long. She immediately deleted the texts of both of those instances before I could take screenshots of them.

It seemed like I could do nothing right when it came to Blud, no matter the lengths I would go to accommodate her. I knew that it was a common tactic used by abusers. I finally accepted that our partnership wasn't going to work out and I began thinking about an exit strategy. The final straw was when she began to expect me to be at her beck and call.

I had promised that I would be there for her, within reason, and I was willing to offer reassurances whenever she would ask me for them. The promise had been made back when we had first started to talk to one another with more frequency, before Blud had shown me her true colors. I would end up completely underestimating just how badly she would need reassurance.

To be frank, I underestimated a lot about Blud in the beginning.

I would end up mentioning that I enjoyed my space in several different conversations with her. That there was a chance that I might be offline for several days so I could take care of things IRL and recharge my social batteries. I'm somewhat of a recluse. And an adult who enjoys things that aren't online.

She said that it was fine.

I became incredibly anxious when I would talk to Blud, especially after her somewhat abrupt change in personality.

I then attempted to put my foot down about boundaries and this is what she had to say:

I decided to walk away for a bit and I came back after I had had some time to think things over. This wasn't healthy for either of us. I wrote a couple of sentences to say goodbye to Blud before I blocked her. I knew that my actions would probably infuriate her. She had told me in the past that she *hated* not being able to have the final word... which she was able to do through email:

“And I'm not letting you pretend you have control over the situation, or the high ground. You distinctly have neither. But since you're determined to stick to your 'principles' on this, I've decided to make it easier for you.”

She thought that she was absolved of all sins just because I had said that I would stand by her at her worst. And at the time that I said that, I had no idea that her worst would be her trying everything possible to protect her boundaries while stomping all over mine. It didn't matter what she said or how often she would apologize when I would confront her. She kept doing it.

I admit that I wasn't perfect in this situation either.

There were times when I was condescending, critical, or downright mean when I talked to Blud because that was the way I had felt when she was talking to me. I soon realized that it didn't matter either way. I could have been using the friendliest tone imaginable and she still would have perceived it as either mocking or dismissive on my end. There were even a few times where I would preface my explanations with an advisory “please know that I am not attacking you and try to read this in an understanding tone,”etc. I would then post an explanation I had spent hours picking at to ensure that there was no way she could misinterpret the intent. Even so, she still read the majority of what I said as criticism and would take it to heart.

I never expected Blud to do something that made her uncomfortable; nor did I expect her to overextend herself when it came to our project. I would go out of my way to make sure everything was fine when we would talk about it. I only expected mutual respect in return.

When we would get into discussions (arguments), she would never attempt to understand my point of view or let me explain myself. It would have made it about me when it should have been about Blud and her needs. She sometimes would agree to come to a compromise about something, but only if I would admit that I was in the wrong.

I know that if Blud was to look at these screenshots, she'd be incredulous that I'm trying to distract from the horrible things that *I* did. And those horrible things that I did? I tried my best to work with her.

It wasn't just her poor teamwork that bothered me. It was her attitude and the lack of respect that she showed me. She would never ask me to clarify something that I said; always assuming that it was a criticism against her. I can only speculate that Blud did not want to hear about how any of this was her fault, like in the email she sent me.

I don't know if I was actually her friend at any point. Friends make efforts to understand one another. Ideally, they’d want their friendships to continue, and they would want everyone to be getting along and having fun. She seemed to actively defy that.

I would argue that things like this don't just happen in a vacuum. There's almost always a reason for such things, but it's honestly a mystery to me as to where this vitriol comes from. I don't know why Blud sees monsters in every word, especially if they come from a  "friend". 

I've seen her viscously mock herself during meltdowns; it seems like she hates herself and expects everyone else to hate her too. I think that she wants it to be the truth, so that it validates the feelings she has about herself. The behavior patterns that I'd been exposed to are consistent with the idea that Blud is seeking confirmation about the personal assumptions she has about herself. It's what makes her so volatile to those around her. Yet, she refuses to break the cycle.

I hope that she can make that choice in the future but at this point, I'm not holding my breath.

[justalilpearlie]

AITA for torturing my soulmate after he ditched me?

I know how the title sounds, but bare with me for a second.

So for context, a couple months ago I (27F) was put in a hunger games sort of death game with a couple friends where we'd have a random amouth of lives assigned to us and the last one standing would win. We could gift eachother lives or trade with them. To make it short, I got 6 lives, putting me in dark green, but my ally (28M), let's call him S, got 2, and was on his yellow life. So we partnered up and I ended up gifting him TWO of my lives this season, and we became best friends.

The problem started about a month ago, after he won last season and we moved into the next one, yet another death game, this time with only 3 lives each, however, there was a twist. Basicly we were all soulbounded to another person there, and when one took damage their soulmate did aswell.

Everyone went on their own separate ways, looking for resources to start off and testing if anyone they met along the way was their soulmate or not. I did this aswell! And ended up sticking around my friend M (33M). We separate for a little bit, and when I find him again M asks me if I wanna go to the NETHER with him. Worst. Mistake. Of. My. Life.

But I thought "Yeah, a quick trip to the Nether cant hurt, as long as we're careful, our soulmates wont mind!", thats where I was WRONG. Once we got back we called over everyone else in the server who hadn't found their soulmates yet, and two people quickly arrived, S and C (42F), both of which were my friends and allies from the first season! M made us play a little game called "Lost and Bound", or would've if we hadn't figured out early who my soulmate was, when a goat attacked S.

Turns out S was my soulbound and C was M's! And they weren't very happy about our little adventure. They called us cheaters, told us we abandoned them, said they'd be eachothers soulmates, and practically broke up with us… in a soulbound way? They also claimed to HATE us for just a small Nether trip. I was heartbroken I'm ngl. My two best friends and past allies, abandoned me just like that, and claimed I was the cheater!

Not only that, but M was quick to ditch me aswell! He even said he blamed me for it. After that I was left alone with my precious dog Tilly (??F), I built a tower alone since I had nobody left with me. But guess what? Everyone started calling me a WITCH and S stared acting like I was some sort of "crazy ex girlfriend".

This is where I feel like I might've been wrong with how I acted. So my other friend, lets call him R(41M), gave me the idea of taking small amounts of damage to "torture" S. I know its bad, but I was very angry at him for what he'd done and said at the time. So I took R up on it and accepted his powdered snow gift, I'd chill on it often to "tickle" S and scare him a little bit. I'd do this almost every day, sometimes standing next to a cactus aswell once I got one.

But in the end, M, C, S and I teamed up together until we all turned red. From then on I kind of went all in at C and might've sent my pack of dogs after her… and of course killed M in the process. Then S told me to meet him where it all started, before blowing himself up with tnt to let me take the win.

It's been a bit since that happened and we're probably gonna start another of these games soon. I've forgiven him for what he did, and it seems like he did aswell, but… I cant help but feel a bit guilty for all that pain I put him through. AITA?

Edit: I also forgot to mention how C tried to burn my dog?? So I was also very pissed at her about it.

[aita-blorbos]

(OCs) AITA for getting into a relationship with someone I was trying to extort?

For context, in the world I come from, it's a common leisure activity to let our pets fight each other, with the tradition being for the loser of the match to give half the money on their person to the winner. If you and your pets are especially strong at battling, running around and fighting people is a genuinely lucrative business.

Five years ago, I (23M now, 18M then) arrived in this other country on my travels around the world. As you may have guessed from my preamble, so far, I'd been making a living fighting people on the road. At this particular moment, my funds were running low - travel costs to this particular country were astronomical. This is quite normal for my chosen lifestyle, however, and all I needed to do was win a couple battles to recoup my costs.

As a man of honour, it's quite crass to say this - but as a pragmatic man fighting for his life, some targets are far, far easier than others - easy money to earn when you're desperate. A guy and his pets gotta eat to live, after all. In my experience then, one of the easiest target groups was, ahem... young rich people. Most of them, I assumed, didn't have much battling experience. They're soft, naïve, and, if they're out on the streets, very likely to agree to a fight for some entertainment in their lives. And, of course, they're absolutely loaded.

With that in mind, I walked up to a stylishly dressed young lady on the streets, L (24F now, 19F then), laid on some charm, and asked her politely for a fight. I thought she'd be an easy target...and then, she very, very enthusiastically agreed to the fight. And then, she and her various reptiles beat my ass.

After the fight, L explained to me that she loves battling, but no one wants to battle her, since a lot of people underestimate her skill (like me...) and think she won't be any fun to fight. Hence, she was so happy when I challenged her - she even called me "the man [she'd] been waiting for", which was a bit weird to hear to be honest. Anyway, we hit it off quite well after that, travelled around the country together and all. In fact, uh... I may have fallen in love with her. We're dating now, have been for almost four years.

In my defence, my girlfriend is really wonderful. She's not just an amazing battler, she's also really caring and passionate - all her pets, her six feet tall reptiles, they all adore her, and so do my pets. And she's so beautiful too, and so strong... she can lift me easily. She does that all the time. It's very attractive... ahem.

Anyway, every time we introduce ourselves as a couple nowadays, L always talks about how I respect her, about how I was the first person to walk up to her and offer a battle, about how I was the first person to really know her for who she is, etc. But the thing is, that wasn't true. I obviously didn't think highly enough of her when we first met, and to hear her praising me as if my challenge to her was a sign of respect... I can't help but feel I'm lying to her. I'm not as good-hearted as my love thinks I am, and it's making me feel guilty.

TL:DR, I thought this lady was weak, got defeated by her instead, we became friends, and now we're dating but she doesn't know that I first talked to her because I thought it'd be easy to extort money from her. AITA?

EDIT: We eventually talked this situation out. L was mad at me for a week but we reconciled quite quickly, don't worry. We're married now.

(Which means we share our wealth, which means I did end up getting her family's riches in the end, so... success?)

[evilwickedme]

It's very frustrating to talk about fridging bc the original point of it was like a very specific criticism of how minorities are treated in comic books in particular and it's now been universalized so much people think it means "killing a woman off because she's a woman" or "killing any character to motivate another character" (the definition according to tvtropes fyi, kill it with fire kill kill kill kill). Fridging isn't bad because you're killing a character as motivation, and it's not bad because you're killing a minority off, it's bad because it's a pattern of behavior from an industry overrun by white men writing and drawing and editing those stories. You're allowed to kill a woman off if it suits your story, but the issue was that women are constantly getting hurt or depowered or raped or killed off to motivate other, non-coincidentally male characters.

The problem that stood behind the original women in refrigerators website was that the narrative that the comic book industry at large was telling was that the purpose of female characters was to get hurt in order to motivate some other guy. Kyle Rayner's girlfriend gets stuffed in a fridge, we're not sad because her life got taken from her too soon, we're sad because Kyle Rayner just lost his girlfriend. Gwen Stacy gets killed by the Green Goblin, we're not sad because she didn't get to live a full happy life, we're sad because she didn't get to live a full happy life with Peter Parker. That is not to say that the story doesn't still get told. Peter going after the Green Goblin is horrific and terrible and amazing and leads to some great plot and character development. But the choice was not to hurt Peter himself, not even to threaten his loved ones but not actually harm them, the choice - CHOICE! - the writers in the comic book industry consistently made was to hurt a character who was already part of a marginalized group, and to do that for the benefit of a (presumably) white male cishet able bodied main character's narrative.

I speak mostly in past tense because once fridging took hold in the collective popular consciousness it didn't disappear completely, but it did fall out of favor in being used so blatantly. It became isolated cases rather than the main feature of one of the best selling batman books of all time. Characters get killed off occasionally, and those characters are even sometimes members of minority groups, and biases still inform those writing choices, but I'm struggling to remember reading a comic in the last couple of years that specifically fulfills the criteria for fridging.

Anyway if you're reading this in context, you know that at the end of this month (may 2023) Marvel is planning to celebrate the most famous fridging of all time by absolutely not learning their lesson and fridging another character. They're being lazy about it, too - they've decided to do it to Kamala Khan in Peter Parker's book, two characters that mean close to nothing to each other, and being extra awful by making it a Pakistani Muslim woman being killed off during AAPI month, and so far the information we have doesn't even involve Kamala's own friends and family and superhero team mourning her at all. It's supposed to motivate Peter, because it's part of his book, and it's also supposed to parallel Gwen Stacy, and they chose to do... This. Kamala is a wildly popular and beloved character who deserves better, and frankly Peter deserves better too. If you're going to fridge, at least do it well.

But I'm also already seeing white men, who supposedly agree with me and think this is bad, saying, well it's for MCU synergy, not "because she's a female" or "because she's not a white character" (direct quotes don't @ me). And firstly, ok, way to assume the rest of us didn't also catch up to the obvious conclusion that marvel comics is doing MCU synergy, AGAIN. The thing is that those aren't separate concepts at all? Or well, they are, but they don't negate each other. They're trying to do MCU synergy and make Kamala into a mutant, but they could've done that a million other ways, just as cheap and not as offensive - a simple retcon would've sufficed, they just did that a few years ago with Franklin Richards.

They chose to do it by killing her off, and they chose to kill her off in somebody else's book to motivate him rather than tell a story about her, and they chose to do it while celebrating Gwen's fridging for some fucking reason. This is context that, when removed from the situation, makes the whole thing meaningless. And you can say a lot about Gail Simone, but that she didn't have a Goddamn point is not one of them.

[lauri-rosehearts]

Its been a while since I’ve actually sat down to discuss EAH lore or anything EAH related in general. I got a good amount of promps but right now I wanted to focus on one that was submitted to me by @birdbombs714 regarding my thoughts on Alistair and Lizzie’s relationship

Thank you so much for this idea! And happy birthday! (Edit: Where I live it’s already almost 1am so in my time zone, it’s technically the day after as I’m posting this so I’m a bit late. I’m so Sorry. I meant to post this sooner 😭) Thought I’d dedicate this one to you as a little gift if you will! Hope you enjoy :)

Something I find really interesting regarding Alistair and Lizzie in general is the fact that they’re one of very few “future villain and hero” duos that dont seem to have any sort of tense relationship. On the contrary, all the wonderlandians seem to have been good friends from a very young age. But as the characters destined to be the next Alice and the next Queen of Hearts, its very refreshing seeing these two just being friends with no real hard feelings towards each other. Like it honestly makes me wonder what kind of relationship their moms had.

You know I love going into the parents lore when it can provide an expansion on the children’s lore so lets talk about Alice and the Queen of Hearts real quick, both in the context of EAH and in the Alice in wonderland story. In the context of EAH, I don’t think they were ever super close friends like Alistair and Lizzie, but I do think they had a good deal of respect for each other even before committing to their stories. There never seems to be any implication that Lizzie’s mom hated Alistairs mom, which I actually find quite fitting given their characterization in the original story. What’s interesting about their dynamic in the original Alice in wonderland story is the fact that their dynamic isn’t really influenced by something personal like a good amount of fairytale hero and villain duos (for example: Snow White and the Evil Queen). Instead, it’s influenced by the fact that Alice finds herself in a place where all rules and logic work differently, hence why she runs into so many weird and frustrating misunderstandings with the characters. The Queen of Hearts is a temperamental tyrant whose bad side is very easy to get on given the amount of people she executes for petty reasons. Alice just so happens to especially gets on her bad side for the simple reason that Alice doesn’t know how to navigate the logic of the world shes in, and as a result she accidentally does and says things that go against the logic and customs of wonderland and as a result, especially piss off the Queen.

With that said, lets talk about how this translates over to Lizzie and Alistair. I’ve talked about this in the past, but I wholeheartedly subscribe to the theory that the reason Alistair’s last name is “Wonderland” instead of “Liddel” like Alice in the original story, is because during the Evil Queen’s takeover, Alice probably either disappeared or died (this is also potentially supported by the fact that we see all of the wonderlandians’ parents at some point with the exception of Alice), and so, Alistair was sort of co-parented and raised by all the other wonderlandians parents in Wonderland. And so, they renamed him from “Alistair Liddel” to “Alistair Wonderland” as a sort of tribute to both his mother and the world. We know Alistair canonically grew up in Wonderland unlike his mother, so he’s used to the logic and customs of the place despite the narrative of his story’s legacy saying otherwise. He quite literally grew up around Lizzie and the others and I actually attribute this to Lizzies relationship to her destiny. We know from her bio information that while she wants to follow her destiny, Lizzie wants to be a less villainous, kinder Queen of Hearts than her mom, and even then it’s implied her mom wasn’t actually that bad and became a lot more temperamental as a result of the wonderland curse (hence why I also think in the context of EAH, Alice and the Queen of Hearts didn’t dislike each other that much. ). Because Alistair and her were raised right alongside the other wonderlandians, Lizzie has no reason to dislike Alistair the way the Queen of Hearts does to Alice in the original story. On the contrary, she considers him one of her closest friends. Obviously, she probably has other reasons, but her friendship with Alistair is probably one reason she wants to be more lenient in her future reign.

That analysis aside, I definitely think they’re just friends, nothing romantic. I know some people ship them but I personally prefer Lizzie with Maddie and Kitty over anything. Also this is a 100% on the writers but when compared to Lizzie, Kitty, and Maddie, Alistair and especially Bunny’s characterization suffers pretty greatly, I feel. Mainly because most of their individual screentime is dedicated to their romantic feelings for each other, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but the way their relationship is portrayed frustrates me so much so I don’t really pay much attention to it. As a result though, it makes shipping Alistair with anyone else in his friend group also really hard, because when compared to someone like Lizzie who has a lot of development, he doesn’t feel as fleshed out, yknow. This isn’t Alistair slander, its just my personal view. When thinking of the 5 wonderlandians as a group, I think of them as a sort of found family more than anything. And as far as romantic shipping goes, I mainly focus on Lizzie, Kitty, and Maddie as a sort of poly relationship. But anything is valid as long as its not illegal, obviously.

I apologize if this feels really unorganized and convoluted but I had a lot of thoughts and I was trying my best to fit them in this post in a way that felt correlated 😭. But anyway, I don’t talk about Lizzie that often even though shes my favorite wonderland and overall right up there in my top 5 favorite characters in Ever After High so this enabled me to talk about her a pretty good bunch ❤️

[collectorcookie]

I AM HOME AGAIN. Ok so part two of trickstar dynamics: anzu edition. I already kinda made one but it was more about anzu's past sooo it doesn't count.

Anzu and subaru: THE BESTIEEESSS I LOVE THEM SO MUCH THEY ARE SO CUTE. When trickstar was still a very new unit subaru was like "man i wish we had our own uniforms. Wouldn't that be cool" (because at yumenosaki academy having your own uniforms instead of the standard ones provided by the academy meant that 1. you're hot shit aka important and popular enough to have a specific image and 2. you're hot shit enough aka rich enough to be able to afford your own costume). And then anzu is just like "My boy? Wants something?? My bestie? Wishes for uniforms??" And then she SINGLEHANDEDLY learns sewing from kuro in like a week and makes the trickstar uniforms. And subaru could cry from joy.

And much later subaru got some job where he has to wear a suit but he's never worn suits so he asks super model sena for help, and sena is like "well what kind of suit do you wanna wear" and after a long time of thinking, the only thing he came up with was a suit made specifically by anzu for him. That's all he wanted agshetekwhdghr. But anzu was pretty busy so he settled for a suit that was approved by her.

And when they ended up in the industry anzu made him the super sparkly outfit and i KNOW everyone hates that card because of the missions BUT that card has a special place in my heart because even after their early high school days, even after subaru won the ss and trickstar became super popular and anzu became a very important producer in ES (going as far as being a part of P. Association), subaru still adores and appreciates outfits made by her specifically asdffkslagdkfjw.

Also Pretty sure that anzu was one of the few characters where subaru dropped his happy-ultra-cheerful persona to open up to her, being all like "You know anzu, sometimes i feel like half of my emotions are straight up missing". Ouch. He doesn't do that often! If at all!! He trusts her enough to do that!!!!

There's more to say but there's already another post that goes into more details about this (i will reblog it after this but how on earth can you link someone else's post on here)

Anzu and mao: you may have seen or noticed how mao is always like "omg no don't touch anzu that's sexual harrassment" to completely normal affection between friends and thought to yourself "The hell is wrong with this dude". And like, i can only speculate why he's like this but it's probably due to anzu's first experiences at yumenosaki. Poor girl got transferred into a school of boys committing crimes against each other, got kicked in the face (with koga's full body weight), fainted, got a concussion, went to the infirmary, got sexually harrassed by one of the teachers (seriuosly what the hell jin), then got followed around and pressured by a playboy (past kaoru was uhhh...something). Rei ended up finding her and just...hiding her in a cupboard. And later on rei finds mao and is like "hey you. I hid your girl in the cupboards" and mao's bewildered at this statement. And rei continues with "yeah you should probs go pick her up or something". Mao then goes and to his surprise, he actually finds her in the cupboards, terrified and exhausted.This is the context to this very lovely mao illustration:

(Mao's first 5* is literally "let's take ibuprofen together, producer" heeelllpp)

Mao ends up always walking her home after this by the way, to the point where he sometimes eats lunch with her family. (Sometimes the other trickstar memebrs walk her too but most often it's Mao) So yeah, that could be the reason why he's so sensitive anytime someone gets close to anzu. He's just really overprotective of her.

(I will entirely ignore all the more fanservicey stuff that occasionally happens between anzu and mao in the early stories because...it just...feels so ooc for mao. And completely unnecessary in general) however anzu is also very fond of mao, as we see in !-era ss, where anzu notices that mao is beating himself up for not being enough for trickstar and so she goes to his room to specifically cheer him up and reassure him when he wakes up

Anzu and hokuto: ooohhh my gooood, the scene where he goes to visit anzu in the infirmary after she got hurt and fainted and he. He just. He just feels so bad for her getting hurt and then starts this whole ass monologue about why he dragged her into this. This huge monologue where he just lets out all his anger at yumenosaki's state and hopes and dreams for the future and how she gave him hope but he burdened and expected too much of her right at the beginning. AND SHE WAS AWAKE THE WHOLE TIME WITHOUT HIM KNOWING. And his speech just motivates her to actually ally herself with trickstar because she wants things to change for the better too.

And then waaay later she faints again from exhausting herself too much and hokuto notices how much she has been doing, not just for trickstar but as a producer in general. And so to lighten her burdens and to prove to her that they have grown as a unit and do not need to rely on her the whole time, he revokes his rights to participate in the SS. Listen to me. I want you to understand that as a unit, trickstar established itself to prove that change is possible. The entire main storyline in ! is about them beating eichi's ass in DDD. And DDD is such a huge deal because it determines which unit is allowed to participate in SS as a representative. And SS is a huuuuge national tournament for idols sorta thing. So when hokuto goes to eichi being all like "hey mr. president, i revoke my rights to participate in the SS", eichi (who has been supporting trickstar ever since they beat him in DDD because SS is far more important than DDD) straight up grabs hokuto and screams at him something along the lines of "HOKUTO ARE YOU /SRS OR /J???? YOUR GIRL FAINTS ONCE AND THIS IS HOW YOU BEHAVE???!!! SHE'S NOT WITH YOU FOR ONE TIME AND YOU STEP DOWN, YOU FREAKING COWARD?? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW IMPORTANT OF AN EVENT SS IS". And hokuto, still very straight faced and expressionless, simply states "oh i'm not stepping down. I want trickstar to fight more live battles to rewin our rights to represent yumenosaki in SS. Both to prove to everyone that trickstar really is suited for this, and to prove for anzu that she doesn't need to always worry about us anymore." Do you have any idea how much i wanted to howl at the moon after reading that.

By the way this is also the context for this one wataru illustration who was also in the council room at the time:

(When you watch your boyfriend grab your bestie by the neck and your bestie says the most jawdropping shit you've ever heard)

Anzu and Makoto: this is actually a lot more of a relaxed and chill dynamic than i expected. Most of their early interactions are just makoto being "oh my god i'm so afraid of girls i have never talked to a girl in my entire life what even are girls" and then anzu would be like "but i am one?" and makoto's just "HOLY SHIT YOU'RE RIGHT". Anyways after makoto builds a little self esteem it looks like him and anzu just start sharing a braincell sometimes. Like that one moment in finder girl event story where mao is super worried that no one will help him, and the makoto anzu duo don't even talk to each other, they just exchange looks and think to themselves "this guy has no idea that everyone in yumenosaki would help him huh". Fun times.

[londonandrewsandme]

Email to London Andrews Christmas Eve 2016

London Andrew and me. London matters to me, I care about her deeply, even now. Here’s something weird that comes from caring about London, I always try and refer to her as London when posting, I avoid calling her by her real name, Jessica. Giving her some privacy, some distance, between the model and the girl herself. Because I care about her, I became worried about her towards the end of 2016. This was due to some of her posts and what she was saying online.

She had decided to leave Rochester and her friends and family, and spend the Christmas holiday alone in a woodland cabin with her dogs.

I care about her and I was worried by this for some reason. So, I sent her the email below on Christmas eve, because of my concern.

A few years later, she admitted she had attempted suicide during the holiday !

Edited version of email :

“Hello Jessica, I'm really sorry that you have been feeling so down as a reaction to events around you. Your nasty neighbour, ill-heath etc. I worry that, though you live your life via social media a great deal, I feel that some of this is just the tip of an iceberg. We are similar in that we think and feel deeply about many, many things. I've said it you before and I'll repeat - You're not on your own, you especially. Anyway, I'll give a thank you, praise and give the credit you deserve for the help your work has been for me and my wife *********, with or with out knowing it. I came across you a few years ago on Facebook and have been using your body positive and self-love, to try and help ********. (Looking back I remember some of your porn work – I'm no innocent.) And we're getting somewhere at last. ********* problem has been that, no matter how much I love her, she hates herself even more ! Her problem become our problem, became my problem, became a big problem – ending as THE problem. We almost split up in May – that's how bad things have got ! This has been a long slow battle – 17 years of a 29 year marriage. Weight was and is part of this. It's been hard work, but I always thought she was worth the effort (sadly she didn't). Sorry we may disagree here, but to me her size is a physical manifestation of her self-hate and an expression of the fact I wasn't worth the effort to sort herself out. It's been a long slow and resentful battle. There's light at the end of the tunnel, things are getting better, and you have been part of this. You really have helped.

Now you may object to me not accepting ******** weight etc, but it was due to her being unhappy. And , a bit of context – I'm not your average…..

….Anyway, one of her problems was, when I talked about losing weight, she saw seeing skinny models in her head : the power of media image and conventions etc. I’d done loads, got self-help books, all sorts of things to help. For the past 17 years, she was worth the effort for me, but I wasn't worth the effort. Even though she is now doing everything she can to put right the damage done, damage has been done. Using you as an example, images and your body positive messages – and self-love has really helped her, now that she's trying.

There has been a price to pay for all the effort and disappointments I have had to deal with over the recent years..….will be worth it. You have been a real help through out this, even though you don't know it.

I feel really bad that you are also suffering. I feel we are kindred spirits. Both of us have tried things, with and without success. We've both done things to ourselves and had things done to us. More importantly, like me, we're happy as ourselves. But, if others are not happy, it affects us and we can't be happy – we need to do something to help...…...Having read you posts on FB for a few years and now gone back and had a look at your 'Blogspot', I really feel you should publish your story – it's is really interesting. Take a step back and look at your life in a detached way – it's fascinating. Look what you tried, defeats and your victories. What you've created now. Plus advice to young people wanting to enter modelling – the pit falls, how do do it for themselves rather than follow the conventional path of agents etc. etc. And if it were illustrated...…...they would be beating down the door ! Another income source as well for when you put London in the background and become Jessie full time. ….

So, thank you for helping us, your posts are and have helped us both. Stay positive yourself, please. Please try not to drink over this holiday – we've both been there before and in truth, it doesn't help. I dare say you've had better offers than this, but...If you feel bad over the holidays, ring me and ******** for a chat, get things off your chest – talking does make things better. Get some support understanding and sympathy. Plus, I'm not even on the same continent, never mind time zone, which might not be a bad thing. Remember, we are all only human, we need love and support, and you are not alone, none of us can be completely independent of all help or the need for others. I'm solitary by nature – Never lonely when I'm alone - few close friends, but happiest alone. But there are times....Anyway, hoping things feel better and you don't need to take up our offer. All the best for the holidays and the future, have a great time. You have our, and many more peoples love and support.

If you need us,….

All The Best

Yours

Andy”

[calanthe-d]

Is this what being an author means?

In spring, I submitted two of my short stories to two different competitions for anthologies, both if them got in. I have been trying for years now, to be published, get my name out there, so it was a great surprise that two of mine were accepted in such a short time. I was happy for one and okay with the other, because they accepted like 80% of the submitted short stories so it didn't feel like that big of a win.

The other one, however, I was really happy. The theme was "social problems" and "fantasy/sci-fi" which I think are right up my ally, and I had a novella in mind that fitted. I tried with this short story before, edited it a couple of times, and one of my friends was really fond of it (even if I felt it to be a little weak, compared to some of my other works). Their (my friend's) work was published by this publisher last year, and they had a mixed experience, so I was curious, also.

This was all in March-April.

The competition where most applicants got published, I got back 1 edit, which were a few word changes or small grammar corrections, and then it was done, finished, a couple months later published.

The other one... well...

After 2 weeks, my editor contacted me and sent me my first round. I was excited, confident, and optimistic. Most of the edits, I agreed with, but there was a grammar correction that didn't seem right, and also the editor wanted some more world-building descriptions (which were non-existent as I didn't feel like it was necessary/important for the plot). So I sent it back, with a little more descriptions added.

The second edit shocked me. My editor asked what message I even wanted to have, what's at stake, and what does it conclude. We had a bit of a back-and-forth and asked that if its not obvious then why was it even selected. They told me that they were not part of the selection and concluded that its best for me to get another editor. They forwarded it, and we said our farewells in early May.

At the end of the month, I still haven't gotten a response from the new editor so I asked what's up. They told me to be patient cuz the new editor had a lot of stuff, so I continued waiting.

In the middle of July, I wrote directly to the new editor (they were the same one my friend had the year before). The editor assured me that she didn't forget, they are just busy. I continued waiting.

I got my first round with the new editor on August 23rd. I only noticed the day after, cuz I was on vacation and stuff, but I was excited again, and also hopeful, that maybe they will understand. I was so naive. The edits/correntions/critiques were almost the same. I wrote back that I didn't feel like I should add more context and descriptions to the story because it will take away the focus from the plot (it was only a couple of pages long so it mattered), clarified what a phrase meant that they didn't know (its not in english but for my Hungarian peeps, please tell me you know what kézhát means or at least are able to use google), and that I will not change the ending by continuing because what matters have been told and I want to keep some questions open. Also, that the two main characters are without any description, because it doesn't matter, and also I don't want to connect them to any gender.

The editor told me that their gender is obvious from their names (???) and descriptions are important for the reading experience, and some other stuff too, and that the short story is not publishable in this state.

I felt defeated. One more round went down, but then I felt such dread about this whole thing that I could only think of one solution that could make me not want to throw myself off of a bridge.

I rewrote the whole thing. The plot, the interactions, the descriptions, mostly everything. I kept the general theme and world and characters, but it changed so much that it kind of became another short story. Which was my intention because this way I could preserve what's left of my first one and feel okay if the editor wants to change sg big with the new one, because I didn't care for it that much.

It took me almost 4 weeks to finish the new version, but it was longer (too long now), it had world-building descriptions, it had more of a closed ending, more action, made more sense, and most importantly, character descriptions. Except, the editor thought they were girls so I gave them masculine characteristics.

The editor sent it back after almost a month (cuz they were busy again). This round, they told me to add more "body sensations" (they loved to use this word), and that their names (which were made up, by me, I looked them up, they don't exist) are girl names and if they are men (which I have not said, I just gave them masculine attributes) it gives the reader discomfort.

I finally had enough.

I explained that 1. There is no such thing as girl names with MADE UP names 2. It's a sci-fi, they are aliens 3. There are names similar to theirs which are not girl names, and 4. It's important for me to make the characters ambiguous because I am non-binary and gender doesn't matter, and I want the reader to decide what they want the characters to be.

They said that these names are typical girl names but they don't have the time nor the energy to get into it, and also, they are basically human so if they are aliens its an error that they have the basic anatomy of humans.

I was completely decimated. What could I do? What should I do? There are so little enby representation and I wanted my characters to be ambiguous, to be a bit different, surprising, I wanted to use the liberty of sci-fi to step over the line of this cisnormative world, and now it's either I stand by my art, or not get published. And my anxiety told me that if I don't get published now, I never will again. My name will never get out there, my works will forever stay on a barren Wattpad page.

So I did what the editor wanted. I changed their names. I deleted precious lines that required a bit of thinking to understand, and gave back an easy-to-digest oatmeal of a story. The next three rounds, I just did what they asked. I cried inside, I was confused, I was angry, but I just gave up my vision and tried to forget that this whole thing existed.

It's finished now. When the editor sent the email 5 days ago saying that it's done, I only felt relief. Not a bit of happiness or joy. I was just glad that it's over and I don't have spend any more energy or thought on this.

I don't know how I will feel when I will hold it in my hand. This bastard of mine. It took 7 months. It got chewed up, vomited back, beaten, and I don't know if I even recognise it as mine anymore. All the things I wanted to have - it barely holds any of it. It's more like any other story, than my story. How could it be mine if any other person could write the exact same? How is it different? Not my characters, not my phrases, barely my plot. Is it right to call it mine if it's warped to the editors desires? Am I just to write it to their liking?

So I ask. Is this what's supposed to happen? Have I lived in a fairy tale where authors write the stories they love, and not the stories that editors, publishers deem presentable?

I read Jenő Rejtő's (P. Howard) Ezen egy éjszaka (translation: On this night, which is a pun made from the Hungarian translation of "One Thousand and One Nights" (Rejtő famously loves puns and this work is filled with it)), which is about an average worker who writes a play and submits it to the theatre and gets accepted. It shows how his life changes, mostly for the worse, and after everything, this play doesn't even resemble what he wrote, so he goes back home to his mother and continues how he lived before. And I start to feel like that this parody does show reality.

I am just so butthurt and angry and sad about this whole thing, about my work. Do I only have to endure it until I am big enough or is this just how being an wuthor is like? Or worse... Am I just not that good of a writer and it'd be better if I just stop now? Am I even ready for an answer?

[cilogram]

Sparks Japan Tour 2023 Recap

(silly personal edition; unfortunately the only kind I'm capable of)

Saturday July 22nd, Tokyo

(Duo Music Exchange)

This is the standing venue I've mentioned before as being crazy for having massive pillars in line of sight of the stage. It was a sold out show, so unfortunately some people had to be back there...

I was unbelievably lucky with my ticket numbers and my friend and I got to stand in the front row, keyboard siiiiiide. I don't think I can express how happy I was to be there. The show was phenomenal and being in the front able to jump around and dance and experience the music Up Close was just... something else.

I really enjoyed the film score soundtrack to our waiting time before Sparks came on, too. So atmospheric.

Obligatory pre-show keyboard photo number one:

Over the loudspeakers before the band came on, the venue announced that photos and videos wouldn't be allowed during the performance, and there was a hilarious, audible reaction from the crowd as ~600 people quietly reacted like, 'whaaat?!'

(I see there were some rule-breakers in the house, though, so there are some clips and pictures on instagram and elsewhere for those who want to see!)

The stage was really shallow with the band set up and Russell could barely fit behind the keyboard to reach that side, but it was so nice that he made the effort to come and sing to those people up close, and somehow without knocking Ron over.

Also we definitely witnessed the escalator dance!

And oh man, Russell did so many dramatic leaps into the air, it was (as they say) rad.

Out of all the songs we heard that night, I think it brought me the most joy to hear Angst, and The Toughest Girl In Town. I love Interior Design and it's the album I usually put on when I'm coming home from the city at night, so hearing a song from it IN that city at night was just the best. But every song was done incredibly. Particularly Beaver O'Lindy which of course I'd never heard live before (I am sadly not a 21x21 veteran)!

And I love when a song ends and Ron does some little pose when he lifts his hands off the keyboard :')

The crowd was absolutely on fire, in SUCH good spirits! Everyone I saw was just smiling through every moment, or singing along looking elated to be there and lost in the music.

And as I'm sure we've all seen by now, encore Ron wore an Air Jordan hoodie with JAPAN written on it. Extremely appreciated.

Oh, and retrospectively I think I have to conclude that the Shopping Mall Of Love 'yeah's from this night included the hottest 'yeah' of the three tour dates. I don't make the rules, I merely observe them.

This show was everything I could have hoped for and more.

(To my friend I went with: if you're reading this, ugh, what a cherished memory it is to have seen them front row together ;_;)

Monday July 24th, Osaka

(Namba Hatch)

I went up very high to take this photo and the venue is sadly not in it, but please look at Osaka anyway just for some ~mood context~.

(And yes, person trying to see if you could peel one of the Sparks posters off the wall of the venue to take home, I saw you and I support you and I'm sorry you didn't manage to succeed!)

By the way, this venue has an impressive plethora of escalators...

Obligatory pre-show keyboard photo number 2:

You can tell how early I was by the unoccupied seats.

This was my first seated show but 99% of people were on their feet from the moment the band came on and for the entire duration of the show. Absolutely became a standing gig... I was so relieved!

I brought a non-Sparks-fan to this show and it couldn't have been a better introduction. It was just so incredibly well performed and so fun, we had such a great time.

Russell's voice was possibly somehow even better than on Saturday; I don't know, but especially his high notes had so much POWER and he looked super happy with the performances after each song :D

And omdhfhdgdg there was just so much energy from the crowd.

Being a much bigger venue than Saturday, the applause and cheering was incredible :') The audience participation in general was just brilliant!

I really like a lot of the live arrangements of the songs, too, they're so much more powerful than usual. I know with some other bands, live shows are a muddier, albeit wilder but much less listenable rendition of the album tracks, but Sparks really elevate their songs when done live.

Russell also used a few words of the local Osaka dialect when talking to the crowd which was very cute and got big cheers.

The previous venue was too small for the lighting setup I've seen in other 2023 tour photos, so this night was when we finally got to see that in action. As is Sparks' way, it was really well thought-out, so I'm very glad I got to see this more visually dramatic version of the set. I especially loved the rainbow lighting and French flag lighting moments.

This was also our first time hearing A Love Story in Japan. So fun live!

Encore Ron came out wearing a pair of novelty Osaka dialect sunglasses (which he had to lift up to see the keyboard settings 'cause they were obviously too dark, and the crowd giggled at that and so did Ron, it was... fucking cuuute.

Of course there was also a brief glimpse of no-glasses Ron when he swapped them for his normal pair later. Those of you who know me will observe my restraint in the mentioning of this)

When they were saying their final goodbyes to us, someone at the front handed Russell an art piece they'd made (it looked like a standee of him and Ron) and he did a little pose like 'I will cherish this' and then put it on the keyboard, and Ron picked it up and did a little pose with it like 'ooooh'

So cute. So lovely.

Such a stellar show! I wish I could thank everyone else in the crowd for making it so special. I'd never seen so many hands in the air.

Tuesday July 25th, Tokyo

(Line Cube)

(The second brand-related renaming of Shibuya Public Hall has given it the above amusing name. It used to be called CC Lemon Hall and I don't know which is funnier)

It's really nice inside, very modern and spacious and the seats were SO comfortable,

but this time EVERYONE immediately stood up. I didn't detect an ass in a seat for the whole show. It was beautiful. Wonderful. Unbelievably good!

(Unrelated, but in front of me was a maybe-11-year-old boy in subtle russell cosplay; wearing an exact replica of his 'having fun around Japan' outfit from the documentary (complete with the right length of trousers and legit marimekko bag in red))

Obligatory pre-show keyboard photo number 3:

Just before the 2nd or 3rd song there were some technical difficulties, during which Russell tried stalling but then obviously didn't want to stall alone for the whole time and forcibly handed Ron the mic

and Ron said,

"... the voltage in Amurica is 120, and in Japan it's 100... so sometimes things like this happen. We apologize. ^w^"

(yes he did make the face of this emoji)

(and yes I did... phonetically spell out the way Ron says America because it's just... so endearing)

The rest of the show went smoothly though! It was so, so

so

so good.

I could get into some of the moments in the songs that really move me, but I am easily embarrassed.

Okay, I will try (look, I am being so brave)

-When I'm With You: there's a beautifully-held note or two or three in this song that I'm sure all Sparks fans die at when hearing it live. That, and the 'I almost feel normal' line, really get to me.

-It Doesn't Have To Be That Way: I think we all know how rare it is for Sparks to make a song specifically in order to express a message, and I'm really glad they doubled down on that and did this one live. It hurts but it's also so simply triumphant. I love how Russell almost laughs on certain lines because it really is both absurd and exactly what artists have to deal with.

-Number One Song In Heaven. This is just one of the first Sparks songs I ever heard and it blew me into another dimension. It's ominous, it's ethereal, it's weird and perfect, and it's incredible to hear live every single time.

At the end of the show, Russell said how sad it was for them to be ending the tour

but how happy they were to have the last one be here ;__; 'we genuinely really love your country'

Awww Russell ;_;

I left the show so much better off than when I came in, by which I just mean there's something about seeing a band that means so much to you, where it just turns up the metaphorical dial on the enrichment of your life. Thank you Sparks and thank you other Sparks enjoyers!

Well, that was my rambling show report complete with absolutely none of the information anyone usually wants to hear about a gig.

I'd like to thank @adreamofroses for finding me and saying hi, and I'm sorry we didn't get to talk much!

I'll leave you all with a photo of the official merch I got, including some by the art team Tectecs whose adorable art was irresistible. They've got a gallery show going on with all their Sparks work at the moment, too.

and one last photo because I saw my bag looking like this when I stopped to do something, and laughed:

[snowthornes]

💥, 😨, 🍧, 🎭, and 🔪 for Thorne sdjfgksg or whichever of those you want bc I recognize that that's quite a few lol. I just think he's neat

ASK GAME: THORNE BRIERS | SHEPHERDS OF HAVEN | OMNI

SDJDG Thank you so much for sending an ask!! And it's not a problem at all — I love writing about my OCs!!! No matter how much you send, I'll be over the moon. Thank you so much for liking Thorne, that makes me very happy!! 🥹🥹💐💐

As usual, I'll be answering in the context of the SHOH universe! Ah, here's the LINK to the ask game, for anyone who wants to do it!

Edit: Okay, this became. Long. Ridiculously long. I considered splitting the ask up, but I'm not sure how that would work. Will probably do it in the future, though!

MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE ALPHA BUILD BELOW!!

😨 — when scared, do they go into "flight" or "fight"?

Flight! Thorne's not very big on the whole 'go out in a blaze of glory' thing — he'd much rather slip away from the enemy's grasp and live to fight another day.

Actually — and this is a bit off topic — he's not a very big fan of the whole 'self sacrificing' routine that a lot of the Shepherds seem to have going on. Scratch that, he hates it. Everytime Trouble or Blade or any of the Shepherds say something along the lines of sacrificing themselves to save innocents, his eye practically starts twitching in irritation. 🗿

He'd much rather that they all stayed alive, thank you very much. He refuses to tolerate any other outcome. Now that I think about it, it's a bit funny — he'd joined the Shepherds only as a means of self-preservation. He was so sure that he'd fade into the background soon enough, that the Shepherds would just be another odd chapter in his life.

Now he spends most of his time running himself ragged for the order and (secretly) worrying about his more self-sacrificial comrades' survival. Oh, he also spends a good chunk of his time worrying about Caine. His ass was not expecting to be a sort-of-guardian for a twelve year old, but here they are. Ah, how the turns have tabled.

Blade, Dead Serious: Are you willing to bleed for the order? To die for the order? That's what we demand from all our recruits. Thorne, voice floating from another room: It would also be ideal if you, you know. Didn't die. Less paperwork that way.

🎭 — Do they act differently around certain people? What's different between the way they act around friends, family, strangers, etc.?

Oh, boy. Given the fact that his entire surface demeanor revolves around concealing his true thoughts and emotions from others, I would have to say... yes.

HOW HE ACTS AROUND STRANGERS/FRIENDLY ACQUAINTANCES:

Around strangers or friendly acquaintances, Thorne's guard is always up. His charming veneer never wavers, cloaking him like a second skin — he smiles at the right time, laughs at the right occasion, and frowns at the right moment. Everything he does is a calculated mix of genuine and deliberate, engineered to make him come off as a smooth mix of charming, elusive, and trustworthy — elusive enough to make people think of him as mysterious, but pleasant enough to make people trust him.

He doesn't lie outright, however. Not if he can help it. Lies are tricky, and can leave too many threads to pull and unravel. Instead, he deals in half-truths: little bits of truth about himself that he can sacrifice to the masses, all while keeping the ones that he'd rather hide safely concealed behind his smile.

Strangers know him as the dark-haired mage who carries himself with an air of casual elegance, who possesses storm gray eyes that gleam with an intelligent and elusive light.

Others would say that he's a smooth-talking sod who knows more than he lets on.

Others still would call him a smart bastard who's absolutely ruthless in a fight.

Ah, well. Depends on who you listen to.

HOW HE ACTS AROUND FRIENDS/FAMILY:

Around friends or family — and let's face it, those two words are practically synonymous in this case — Thorne is a lot more expressive and reactive.

While it took him a long, long time to get to his point, Thorne begins to drop the calculated front when around the Shepherds. He becomes a lot more... relaxed, and as a result, a trace of his true personality comes out — though sometimes even Thorne isn't sure what that is.

He becomes a lot more mischievous, bouncing off of Chase and Trouble's antics by spearing them with the occasional dry comment or good natured jab. He also frequently comes to Blade, Red, and Halek's defense(?) by playfully coming up to bat with his arsenal of deceptively innocent quips whenever the others are dogpiling them, prompting Ayla to jokingly complain that he was a "bloody suck-up": an accusation to which Thorne responded with a look of mock-offense and a lofty, "I haven't the faintest idea of what you mean."

His terrible sense of humor also comes out in full force. Even the stupidest and flattest of jokes can coax a snort of laughter from him. He's a big fan of Riel's sarcasm, often snorting in amusement — eyes sparkling with poorly concealed laughter — whenever the other lets loose of yet another dry quip.

Overall, he's very different from how he was when he first joined the Order. When he first joined the order, he had treated them as he would any other stranger: charming, but distant, with the distinct air of someone who was sure to leave in the future. Now, he couldn't be any more different.

Trouble had once remarked on his change. He had ruffled Thorne's hair, ignoring his dismayed squawks, while thoughtfully commenting on how different he was compared to when they first met him.

"Oh?" Thorne had responded dryly, disgruntledly attempting to fix his ruffled dark hair. "What was I like when we first met, then?"

"Sort of closed off, even though you smiled a lot," Trouble had said thoughtfully. "Like one of those nobles. And you always kept your distance — almost like you were going to disappear any second."

Thorne had paused. It had felt odd, hearing this from Trouble. He hadn't known how to react. "... And now?"

Trouble had grinned, then, eyes warm and affectionate. He clapped Thorne on the back and slung a familiar arm around his shoulders. "Well, now you're stuck with us, of course!"

Thorne had let out a breath at that, rolling his eyes. There was a pause, the two of them blanketed in comfortable silence, before a quiet voice spoke tentatively into the air:

"Yes, I am."

🔪 — How do they react to injury / misfortune befalling their loved ones (significant other, family, friends)? Do they put themselves at blame?

Now... here's the thing. The more Thorne cares about someone, the more emotional he can get. The more he cares about someone, the less all the other things — logic, pragmatism, himself — matter to him. He's very much the type to love slower but harder. I genuinely think that life threatening injury befalling his loved ones would make him completely fling all his caution and inhibitions to the wind.

He'd be rushing to their side in a heartbeat. If they were on a battlefield, he'd be fighting his way to their side like an animal gone feral: all gnashing power and glinting arrows and a desperate need to get to their side, get to their side, before it's too late. Thorne knows how swiftly a person's life can be snuffed out; how one wound, one blow, can so easily drag them to a realm that no living being can ever hope to reach. He has to get to them. He has to.

His magic would probably start running rampant, responding to the cold spikes of fear cutting through his chest, to the ringing screaming in his ears. Rationally, he knows that he should conserve his magic and energy — that he shouldn't be so reckless, so careless, so impulsive — but all that would be drowned out by his urgent need to get to their side.

Ultimately, I think he'd either reach their side and haul them off to safety while debating between trying to heal them now or scrambling to a Healer (he's not the best healer), or someone else would step in and snap him out of it. If someone like Red (since he can translocate) told him to stay behind while they got the injured loved one to safety, Thorne would probably gnash his teeth but ultimately, stay and absolutely tear into the enemy. The moment the battle was over he'd be rushing off to go check on the loved one.

Once he sees them, alive and— well. Not well, but not dead, at least — he'll probably start crying. Tears run down his cheeks while he desperately tries to stifle his sobs, but it seems like the inhuman control he typically has over his emotions has fucked off to nowhere and he just keeps bawling his eyes out like an utter fool. Someone, either the poor injured loved one, (who now has a Mr. Thorne Briers bawling over their bed), or a trusted friend tries to comfort him, and he stiffens up so much that they fear he'll break. But then he grasps onto them like a lifeline, (or ever so gently, featherlight, if they were the injured loved one), and starts sniffling out a bunch of incomprehensible reassurances and apologies as he forcibly tries to calm himself. (It doesn't work).

He'll probably be extra clingy in the coming days, like a cat wandering around their favorite person. He won't come too close out of fear of smothering them (he probably still is) but he'll repeatedly attempt to ✨discreetly✨ poke his head into the infirmary to check on how they're doing and reassure himself that they'll be fine. If he's close enough to this particular loved one and feels secure enough to do so, he'll probably insist on doing his paperwork near them. The poor healers will probably have to shoo him out with a broom at one point.

Eventually, he'll start to relax and lay off on the clinginess, but — I think he'll be a lot more... forward with his affection than he was before. His masks and pretenses are still there — I don't think they'll go that easily — but they're a lot more transparent, and more easy to see through. For his loved ones, anyway.

Ah. This got long. I'm sorry, I think I just really like the drama 😔

💥 — What emotions do they have trouble dealing with?

Thorne... can be frustratingly complicated when it comes to dealing with emotion. He does a lot of mental gymnastics and unnecessary entangling when it comes to... how he perceives himself, and it can be a headache trying to follow him. Ironic, how someone so determined to never lose his composure is actually an absolute trainwreck. Still, I'll do my best to answer!

(Ah, and a reminder that Thorne's thoughts and opinions do not necessarily align with my own, and that they're not always, well... right.)

Thorne is the type to feel with everything in him — and it's a part of himself that he's grown to despise. Sadness, grief, longing, compassion, and hope: they will do nothing. They will accomplish nothing. He sees it as an unnecessary indulgence — something he lets himself feel just to validate himself. To pretend that he's a better person than he really is. That he can be better.

He can't.

Take compassion, for example. For Thorne, compassion coming from him is a useless token. Compassion is pointless when no action is taken, and he can't— he can't promise anything. And what good is feeling sympathy for anything when you can't do anything to help them?

Once upon a time, he had worn his heart on his sleeve. He used to be brighter, all smiles and laughter: a light that waveringly persisted even after the destruction of his village. And he had tried to help — to save people, to do good in the world. But after a few events that I won't get into right now, he... became disillusioned. Overly so, I would say. After all, what was the point in having a bleeding heart when you wouldn't be able to save them no matter how much you bled? When you would only make things worse? He began to harden and hold the world at an arms length. Slowly, he learned to conceal himself, to manipulate and charm and persuade.

And the more beautiful his mask became, the more he began to despise himself.

To be blunt, Thorne hates himself far too much to indulge in these emotions.

Sadness, grief, longing, compassion, and hope: he began to deal with them by either internally pulling away or leaning into his anger.

Thorne's anger isn't the raging, blood-pumping kind — not usually, anyway. His anger is focused, deliberate, like ice and frost creeping up a metal chain and delicately shattering it to pieces. Anger is easy. Anger is cold. Anger lets him look at the world with a knife-like clarity, lets him ignore the steadfast ache in his chest. Anger lets him ignore the emptiness that follows him wherever he goes. Anger... is protection.

Yes, not a very healthy way to cope. But he'll be having some hefty character development throughout the course of the game! :D

🍧 — Do they still have any objects from their childhood? What significance does it have to them? What would their reaction be if they lost it?

Thorne has a bracelet made of twine, with little wooden star-shaped beads woven into it in pretty patterns! His mother had been the one to weave the bracelet, while his father had been the one to carve the wooden stars.

It had been his thirteenth birthday gift; his father gave it to him the day before his Wreath Day. His mother had woven it for him when she fell sick with the Grey Waste. The Grey Waste was deadly, and she had known that it was very unlikely she would be able to pull through. So, shakily, laboriously, she created one last gift for her son, to be given on his thirteenth birthday.

Thorne had cried for hours when he received the bracelet, burrowing into his father's arms as he bawled his heart out. Now, the bracelet is old and worn; he keeps it in a pouch he wove himself, embroidered with patterns of his parents' favorite flowers in honor of their memory. He would be absolutely devastated if something were to ever happen to it, and would probably be shattered for days before painfully accepting that it was gone.

[aprilblossomgirl]

Never Let Me Go Episode 2 (Favorite + Unfavorite Scene Edition)

I LOVE it when a show goes clean with thematic episodes. We had "Father" in episode 1, and now we have "Friends" in episode 2. Last week, we knew both Nueng and Palm must live up to their father's expectations. Now, we see the steps they made to become 'friends', but we also see how they might connect to their other 'friends'.

I'm still thinking that Nueng and Palm haven't really been on the same page regarding the term 'friends'. For Nueng, it feels like a mix of command, request, and hope, while for Palm, a mix of obedience, obligatory, and resignation. But I feel that both genuinely ask and give it. After this episode, I've just felt sure that the reason Nueng asked Palm to be his friend was that he might be the first person he ever met whom he was sure not having any reason to want something from him. This became clear when I saw Nueng doubt even Ben's intention to befriend him. Although to Nueng's defense, I think with the height of his defensive wall, Ben's approach might not be it. So, this episode is all about Nueng and Palm trying to understand their own intention of becoming a friend with each other.

Favorite scene #1 Eating alone vs. eating together

These scenes are my favorite for many reasons, but first, because they showed a shift in their companionship. To start, maybe it wasn't really that much, maybe all Nueng wanted was a friend to eat together, to do things together, to go somewhere together. Maybe, that's the depth of friendship that Nueng currently needs.

I won't say this shift was a growth, because, well, in the second scene the context (the parents; the duties) was clearly taken off to make it so. Nonetheless, it's the scene where Nueng, for the first time, saw Palm's caring nature, out of obligation, out of command, since it was directed towards another person (the bread uncle) with whom he had no business.

Favorite scene #2 Just Nuengdiao, with his power, doing his tricks. 

It was such a cute way for Nueng to trick Palm into calling his name. Unfortunately, this was not a good day for that, but at least of now he had Palm calling him Khun Nueng instead of Khun Nu. One step at a time. Also, the way he asked his mom to allow him to use the pool, and the way he looked at Palm right after his mom granted his request, well if that look didn't sound like "that's for you".

Favorite scene #3 Looking fond of another while they're doing things they love or they're good at. 

I feel like there is something soft about the way Palm looked at Nueng playing the piano. An admiration, maybe, with a bit of surprise for finally seeing a side of Nueng where he simply looks happy. And the way Nueng looked at Palm doing something he knew will bring comfort to him in the middle of the new environment he's been suddenly move into: swimming. We know how Nueng got his mom to allow him to use the pool freely, and that's for Palm. That's another nature of Nueng in which he feels happy to do something for others, much like his love of playing piano for other people.

Favorite scene #4 Satisfactory hidden little smile, but because of what. 

For not being denied when referred to as a friend? For finally have a friend to eat together on a streetside? Whatever the reasons are, these little smiles say something to me.

Favorite scene #5 Instincts are natural.

And they might have different names. I feel like both Chopper and Palm had different reasons for questioning why Ben approached Nueng and what he might want from him. By this episode, I think it's rather safe to feel that Chopper might have something for Ben. He might have just missed Ben and only wanted to talk with him. Chopper questioning Ben's intention in approaching Nueng might not mean harm, he might really just want to know, but Ben read it differently. It's different from Palm's reason, though. He did it out of protectiveness, moreover after Nueng's bullying. We have yet to see how Chopper will need to clear things up with Ben and to what point Palm should accept Ben's presence around Nueng.

A not so honorable mention for my first unfavorite scene: You need to protect him, both physically and emotionally. / Yes, Mrs. Thanya. I'll do my best to take care of him. 

I understand the heir-bodyguard roles as well as the protectiveness over her son but isn't it too much for Thanya to ask for Chanon's son to protect her own, not only physically but also emotionally? Both Palm and Chanon might have seen the command coming, but what about Nueng? He just stormed off when he felt like his mom didn't trust him enough even to share some incidents; what made her think it was okay to bring up the idea knowing Nueng might still be near them and thus could have heard it? How this would change something between Nueng and Palm again? Being physically protected might be expected, but the idea of that someone also being responsible to take care of him emotionally might be a bit too much for Nueng, I think.

[neonapocalypta]

Minky Momo ep 4

CONTEXT: I'm a big fan of Takeshi Shudo's writing. You prob know him from his work on episodes and movies in the early years of the Pokemon anime. He's my favorite author, though I won't be going into that here. This post is from me watching one of his other creations: Minky Momo. (Specifically ep 4, which he wrote from what I understand.) Originally this was a thread on twitter from March 18th 2022. (when I was sick.) I'm putting it here since I'm trying to fill my tumblr with stuff I find important.

I prob won't post my other first impressions, as those slowed down when I started feeling better. (I actually need to finish this series.) To be honest, this ep is something else, thus another reason why I wanna share it.

Also, this will be edited from its original form for anything I don't think need to be here in hindsight and spelling stuff.

--

Minky Momo ep 4 might be one of the most wild and maybe even sad eps Takeshi Shudo has written (to my knowledge.) Go watch, for real, I'm about to spoil it.

It's starts out fine. Momo's ma is threatening to divorce her dad, Momo DGAF about her grades, just normal shit for Shudo. Then we meet the character of the day, Ken. At first he's just some kid staring out the window during class. Momo is so curious about why he's looking out at the sky, she pokes him with a pencil getting them both in trouble (and failing their tests I think.) She keeps trying to hang out with him and he's all like "fuck off." (my words) For some reason another student knows that his dad is an archeologist and his ma "works late so he has to go home and watch the house after school."

Momo stalks him to his place and he's like fuck off. (again.) Like a week later his bird is sick and he comes into the vet Momo's earth "dad" runs and momo cures it. He asks her to, and I'm not joking to "see his room" tho not in THAT way I promise. Anyway, his house is full of ancient artifacts his dad "found" which includes a map of the fairy world Momo come from. (Honestly this is interesting stuff, I'ma skip it for pacing.) We get to the kids room and find out he's beyond "I'm feeding these crows because they're my only friends". His toys are his friends. Legit. Not making it up. This kid is so lonely that he's resorted to this shit.

Then to make his life worse, but actually in the end not, the one time Ken didn't watch the house his entire apartment catches on fire. He goes inside to save his bird and friends, a cop is like "fine, I'm not gonna go save you kid." and Ken is like an inch away from Death. Really. Ovi Momo tried to save him, but she wasn't gonna get to him in time, so she used her magic to make the toys come alive and (I think?) create a barrier around him until she could get to his room.

At the end of the episode he's like "I know they saved me and now they're from the dream world. Even if no one believes me" ( I can't remember what Momo's land is called rn sorry.) At least he's happy I guess. You know what's wild? This would be the episode most people would remember from the series. The poor abused child grappling with a slipping mental state due to isolation from his parents to protect their stolen property almost dies in a fire to save his imaginary friends. But instead, (unless there's something else I don't know about.) the truck-kun episode happened to be in the same series.

Sad dark plotlines mixed with the wildest of scenarios is one of the reasons I love Takeshi Shudo's work so much. This is peak his work. Damn, I don't even think Ken and Momo became friends. He's Fren exclusive to Mr. Peanut. (A lot of his friends seem to be from other IPs.) I won't forget Ken or this episode for a while.

[haehaeming]

100 random facts about SJ members that may or may not help you with your FF

Or if you’re just... bored

1. Eunhyuk doesn’t like finger prints on screens, glasses, etc... It’s a little thing I find cute

2. Kyuhyun was a fan of SJ’s music before debuting with them

3. Leeteuk knows what ‘daddy’ means in a sexual context

4. Leeteuk also understands the concept of a sugar parent, but it was not a positive experience for him. It’s possible other members also understand this concept.

5. Kyuhyun likes men and women

6. Yesung writes his own music

7. Leeteuk has many unreleased songs

8. Eunhyuk has difficulty with his emotions in a general sense, so he’s thankful SJ understand him

9. When Kyuhyun was a teenager, he has to rebel against his fathers wishes to debut as a singer.

10. Kyuhyun dated many girls as a teenager, but only kissed one

11. Sungmin and Kyuhyun have the highest amount of testosterone among SJ members. This was public information a long time ago, though, and alcohol consumption has probably lowered the number a little over time.

12. Sungmin and Kyuhyun share a love of wine

13. Ryeowook is an affectionate drunk

14. Leeteuk is a Leo Venus which means he’s very annoying (read: passionate) in his relationships (This fact was corrected by @fanbynature , it originally said Heechul was a Leo Venus too but he’s actually a Leo Virgo, bonus fact!!)

15. Donghae thinks Eunhyuks lips look best in the morning.

16. Eunhyuk understands the concept of drag.

17. Yesung is very talkative but only when you’re close to him

18. Yesung would kiss SJ good morning back in the dorm days

19. Kyuhyun shows love through acts of service

20. Yesung shows love through quality time

21. Leeteuk is a huge flirt, any fan who met him more personally will tell you

22. As far as we know, Yesung used to collect all sorts of jewellery.

23. Ryeowook and Leeteuk are into cute things (phone cases with cute characters, charms, etc)

24. It’s said Yesung and Sungmin will sleep the least amount of time, but Ryeowook will sleep the most

25. Sungmin and Leeteuk share a moon phase (Waning Gibbous)

26. Back in the dorm, Donghae would also wake his members with affection, but no kisses.

27. Donghae lost his first love because he was too clingy.

28. Kyuhyun and Leeteuk were consider ‘mom’s friend’s kids’ in their school days because they excelled in everything they did. Like the scold ‘why can’t you be more like my friends kid’

29. Kyuhyun has a HUGE fanboy past. Now he can barely use the Internet without making it clear he’s old.

30. Shindong doesn’t like to be clothed at night or in the summer. He takes off his clothes unconsciously

31. Donghae was entrusted to Leeteuk by Donghae’s father

32. Donghae keeps his habits from the dorm days around Leeteuk even now. When he and Leeteuk would share a room, Donghae would cuddle Leeteuk. Even now, when they share a room to sleep, Donghae sings to Leeteuk to try and lull him to sleep.

33. Kyuhyuns relationship with Donghae has been a little bit confusing for him, but recently he said Donghae is like SJs son

34. Yesung’s favourite song is ‘I’ll Make Love To You’

35. Sungmin is the only introvert in SJ

36. Kyuhyun, Leeteuk and Sungmin are open to book recommendations at all times

37. Because of Koreas age system, Yesung and Sungmin are basically the same age.

38. Sungmin technically ages 2 times on his birthday.

39. Teenage Leeteuk celebrated little milestones in relationships like ‘100 days anniversary’

40. Leeteuk would rather be called his stage name than his given name.

41. DBSJ* worked with a ghost in the recording studio, according to Sungmin

42. Donghae and Eunhyuk share a love of strawberries

43. Kyuhyun does not like to be called with pet names

44. Yesung has always shown interest in Canada for whatever reason

45. Ryeowook played the triangle in his school band. Literally

46. Yesung, Donghae and Leeteuk don’t drink.

47. Leeteuk and Kyuhyun love the colour white

48. Sometimes, Kyuhyun unwinds by solving math problems

49. Kyuhyun cited himself in his college thesis on K-pop’s popularity.

50. Leeteuk is taller than Sungmin. It’s more drastic than you think

51. Donghae and Sungmin have both been deemed as ‘naturally cute’, but oddly enough, Sungmin has said he doesn’t act cute anymore. Donghae hasn’t changed in terms of cuteness once

52. Donghae is very fond of dogs. Kyuhyun and Ryeowook are not

53. Sungmin and Eunhyuk were the closest friends predebut. They would take the bus to SM together and make sure nobody else sat next to them. There’s a picture somewhere online of a predebut Sungmin resting his head on Eunhyuk during one of those bus rides

54. Leeteuk didn’t have many friends when he was younger. Leeteuk still thinks he doesn’t have many friends.

55. Donghae and Sungmin share forgetfulness.

56. Leeteuk and Heechul became friends easily because they’re the same age and look out for each other. Also because if Leeteuk was busy or resting, Heechul would be the oldest and have authority over the young SJ for him.

57. Leeteuk and Kyuhyun taught themselves how to cook. Ryeowook and Sungmin were good at it from the beginning

58. Leeteuk wanted to become an idol because of 90s kpop groups looking super cool. He wanted some of that for himself and now I think he’s one of the coolest people ever

59. Leeteuk smokes

60. Sungmin used to sleep in a pink nightgown. Even now, he doesn’t let the fact go, but he says it’s embarrassing

61. Predebut Eunhyuk stole a Shinhwa CD from SM to impress a girl

62. Leeteuks waist size is 26 inches. The ideal size for women in the west

63. Leeteuk entered to win special edition Nike shoes 100 times total. He won

64. When a younger Sungmin was frustrated, he would vent online. Similar to how Leeteuk would when he was younger

65. Sungmin recently said men ask him for his number when he goes out

66. As far as we know, Yesung used to worry about whether or not he would live to grow old :(

67. Donghae has always had a love of poetry

68. Kyuhyun’s originally near-sighted

69. Both Yesung and Leeteuk struggle to define their relationships with others

70. Yesung doesn’t smile a lot when cameras aren’t on him

71. Eunhyuk doesn’t like seafood. Donghae does.

72. Donghae doesn’t like sweets. Eunhyuk does

73. Sungmin was the first member to open his YT channel back in 2018.

74. Ryeowook is said to be a heavy drinker

75. Leeteuk finds peace in the rain

76. Kyuhyun is said to have one of the biggest hearts in SJ, alongside Leeteuk

77. Eunhyuk first appeared publicly in 1992 on a TV show by complete accident. It made him happy

78. In order to sleep in a new location, Donghae sleeps best if there’s something near him that reminds him of home. This is an old fact holds up today, Donghae often sleeps close to his members

79. Predebut, Eunhyuk and Junsu purposefully tried to make Donghae cry

80. Every roommate Donghae has had, he has had multiple complaints about all of them

81. Yesung bought a turtle a long time ago because he felt bored without a pet. Even after buying the turtle, he was still bored

82. Eunhyuk is constantly getting ‘friend zoned’ by Donghae. It’s mostly Donghae who calls them as friends, Eunhyuk got a million other words

83. Sungmin studies English and music every day.

84. Leeteuk loves to learn and is always studying something new as well

85. In high school, Leeteuk studied German

86. ‘Don’t give up’ was Sungmin’s motto in elementary school

87. Leeteuk and Sungmin are big Na Hoon Ah fans

88. When Donghae was in elementary school, he was taller than his classmates and even had a nickname relating to how tall he was

89. Sungmin is still mistaken for his 20s

90. Sungmin loves to eat, he talks about food a lot, but still diets strictly as a couple with his Saeun~

91. Eunhyuk is clumsy

92. Leeteuk is very different off camera, but he’s always aware of hidden cameras, so it’s impossible to catch him ‘normally’.

93. Leeteuk and Yesung curse like sailors

94. Kyuhyun and Shindong share great memorization skills

95. Donghae doesn’t like to eat alone

96. Yesung is the only Virgo in SJ. Kyuhyun is the only Aquarius.

97. Leeteuk finds some men to be cute. Particularly men with beards (in terms of dating)

98. Sungmin wants to record music in English for his international fans

99. Sungmin and Leeteuk both have a fan they consider a friend

100. Eunhyuk loves to be in Japan

[yamayuandadu]

Arahsamnum 2021: Gilgamesh

You might be justifiably surprised by the presence of Gilgamesh among the figures I’m covering - after all, he’s hardly minor, if anything an argument can be made that he’s one of the only Mesopotamian figures to actually have some presence in popular imagination today. While that’s true, I want to focus on a side of this figure which is very rarely discussed - Gilgamesh as a minor underworld god. Worry not, though, more “mainstream” topics will be covered too, including a text indicating the existence of a scenario in which Gilgamesh and Enkidu were eventually reunited. Read on to learn about Gilgamesh’s fate after the events of the epic.

Our story begins in the Ur III period, just like many other stories covered in this series of posts - it was a really good time for Mesopotamian religion and literature, evidently. One of the peculiarities of this era was the sheer enthusiasm the Sumerian rulers, especially Ur-Namma and Shulgi, had for Gilgamesh. While he’s already known from older sources, it is evident that his popularity skyrocketed thanks to these kings. Not only the stories about him which were eventually forged into the epic we know now were in wide circulation, the kings regarded him as their “friend” or even “brother” and regarded him as a god. The deified Gilgamesh evidently had some degree of popularity among commoners too, as he shows up in personal names such as Ur-Gilgamesh. The character of Gilgamesh the hero is well known, but what was Gilgamesh the god like? Rather surprisingly, he was an underworld deity, something which might seem odd to us considering the themes of grief, loss and joys of earthly life well known from the Epic. The standard view was seemingly that Gilgamesh after passing away became an underworld judge. At least one source states that he received this position from the sun god Shamash, one of the deities of justice par excellence. However, other traditions existed too - for example, one incantation lists Gilgamesh as the ferryman of the dead, in this context grouped with Namtar, Ereshkigal’s sukkal (vizier) and Bidu (the gatekeeper of the underworld). Death of Ur-Namma instead presents him as a king of the spirits of the dead, though as the gods normally envisioned as being in charge still appear in it, he presumably still had to answer to them. Yet another tradition associated Gilgamesh with Dumuzi and Ningishzida, two gods who were believed to spend part of the year in the underworld. Dumuzi is well known, but Ningishzida, as a more obscure figure requires a brief introduction: he was the son of Ninazu, himself a puzzling underworld god, and had a wide variety of functions, being a god of the underworld, of vegetation, and seemingly all around a reliable deity. To my knowledge there is no known explanation for his association with Gilgamesh, though. Curiously, a celebration associated with this trio apparently involved wrestling, possibly meant to evoke the fight between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Also, The Epic in it most famous form technically does hint at Gilgamesh’s underworld role and even brings up Ningishzida. The hero’s mother Ninsun makes cryptic references to her son being fated to dwell where Ningishzida and Irnina (personified victory, here presumably Ningishzida’s serpentine courtier and not epithet of Ishtar) do. Last but not least, apparently a belief that Gilgamesh was reunited with Enkidu in the underworld also existed; I will quote A. R. George (book linked below; p. 141-142) here instead of summarizing it myself:

Following this poem, it’s arguably possible to see Gilgamesh’s cultic role as an unexpected happy ending of the famous epic. Was that the intent of the ancient authors, though? Hard to tell.

Further reading:

The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts by A. R. George

Nin-ĝišzida (Reallexikon der Assyriologie entry) by F. A. M. Wiggermann

[popculturebuffet]

Kool-Aid Man’s Wacky-Zany Video! Review (Comisson for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people. I”m Jake and I do reviews and analysis of pop culture. And today we’re taking a look at something downright weird, a small sliver of pop culture history courtesy of one of my best friends and patreons, Emma Fici. 

This also came about because I had a missing spot in the schedule. See I was going to review Season 1 of Legend of Vox Machina, and still plan to find some way to review the series at some point... but after doing the incredibly exausting days long look at Venture Bros Season 3 (which at this point has gotten exactly one like “sigh”), I really coudln’t cover another series and emma was happy to fill the spot once she figured out something.. and what stygian void of madness she pulled this out of I don’t know but I went from planning to review the most promising show of the year... to a kool-aid man vhs tape from the 90s.

Anyways this tape was apparently part of the Kool-Aid points program, basically you got points off every packet of Kool-Aid and got stuff for them. By the time I was a kid I only remmeber seeing them noted on the packages.. and not really getting the point and throwing the packets out. Could’ve gotten a tote bag or maybe a pitcher with kool aid man’s face but with the horrifying implication this one’s a quadruple amputee. I dunno. I wasn’t with it. 

This tape was also partnered with KB Toys.. and I know all 2 of you reading this who didn’t actively pay me to write about this are probably asking what KB Toys is.. well it was essentially ToysRUs but.. it died first. I didn’t see them oftne, but I still have fond memories of seeing them as they were so rare by the time I was a kid it was like finding some hidden treasure of a store you never knew about and only heard of in some legend... that legend being a catalogue that got mailed to your house but a legend all the same. 

So what happens when two companies who are now dead and past their prime respectively combine their powers into a VHS tape? Find out under the cut!

So we open with a commerical for Kool-Aid... that I will try to describe to the best of my ablities despite the fact it’ll defintely make me look crazier than I already am. So a bunch of kids run around with sonic the hedgehog wheel feet, have bugged out expressions and distorted visuals, while Kool Aid man bursts in to quell their ravenous hoards. This is the FIRST THING I saw in the video

Things do not get more sane from there as we cut into a rap from the Kool Aid Man set to a video that I’m sure is what being on cocaine feels like. We get FOUR of these things and their all a generic rap about Kool-Aid and this wacky video set to whatever public domain footage the makers of this tape had access too and out of context clips of Kool-Aid commericals. At various points I saw him as a rock star, a superhero and jesus christ. And you can’t tell me if I saw that last one for sure there was a lot going into my brain at once. 

So then we get a commerical about hunting hedgehogs set to black and white public domain footage.. and at this point it became very apparent just how.. cheap the film’s budge it is. The ONLY new things are the audio and some of the graphics, some of which were probably native to the editing stuff they used. Everything is either is transparently public domain or old Kool Aid Man Commericals. This may be the cheapest thing i’ve ever seen and i’ve watched 1313 haunted frat aka a film that was marketed as a cheap horror movie.. and is even cheaper than it seems as 90% of it is just one chissled guy wondering around the director’s house in his underwear. But at least that guy needed to hire an actor, hire more actors so he could put in scenes to make it technically not count as softcore porn, and hire catering and all that. I’ve seen all of Doug Walker’s movies. Nuff said there. And this is still cheaper as they clearly just had whoever made this dub over clips. They MAYBE had to hire a guy to do the raps, and given it wasn’t the kool aid man’s va even that I question. Kool-Aid and KB put no budget into this and just wanted to fart something out to give to kids. I mean.. you have the commericals.. just.. put those together on a tape. At worst you have to pay residuals to the kid actors. Or just have kool aid man stumble around whoevers house was free that weekend for a half an hour. There were better options than “stuff whatever we can into half an hour and hope it’s good.”  Kids saved up their hard earned kool aid pouches for this you dicks. 

That said while I condemn Kool-Aid and KB for cheaping out, i’ll give credit to whoever they forced to make this as despite being cheap as all hell.. they tried. They tried to put some effort and creativity into padding the shit out of this.  The ways they pad out the film that aren’t rap or public domain short films, we’ll get to the latter, are at least attempts at humor. Most don’t, but they might for a kid. The target audience was obviously not 30 year old hairy goblins. I still think when making media for kids you shoudln’t talk down to them or pander, but for a vhs meant to sell kool-aid it works. 

The next bit shows that: going mental, which has the voice overs explained as aliens from the planet lip synch who demonstrate the technique lip unsynch. This one , using stock footage of course, has the viewer play a game where they move around squares. It’s goofy, impractical as you’d have been touching the tv (I was on my phone so it was easier) but the neat trick of always ending up on the kool-aid square is inspired. No matter what you do according to the tape it’ll always end up that way and I’m inclined to belivie it as it was clearly rigged that way and I guessed it would be... but to most kids, especially to me if I had seen it as a kid, it would be fucking cool. Even if it’s hoaky, I can still respect they know kids well enough to play them like this. 

Next is the first of three segments with a man trying to get a newspaper out of the.. newspaper dispenser thing... and everyone around him thinking he’s nuts while the thing is clearly haunted and ends up manically laughing at him after the police cart him away at the end.. DESPITE SEEING IT LAUGH AT HIM. So they know it’s cursed they just don’t care. It’s not terrible stuff, but it does feel mean spirited as the guy gets arrested.. just for wanting a paper and wanting to beat up a newspaper machine for actively fucking with him. The guy did nothing wrong. He just wanted a fucknig paper. He was quick to cane the machine sure but given it’s sentient, i’m inclined to agree with him on killing the bastard. 

We then get my faviorit ebit, a fairy tail.. it’s wonderfully goofy as it’s the story of wilbur, a chimp who sabotages plains to fuck with the pilot, pilot bob, overdubbing an old 20′s theatrical short clearly but to great effect. The punchline though is great as a “little girl” (clealry a grown woman but clearly part of the joke) promises if she’s lying may an airplane crash in. It’s funny, goofy and uses the stock footage well. Good stuff. 

Our final segment is Dog News Tonight, which is also pretty endearing. It’s what you’d expect, news from a dog’s perspective, such as  a dog trying to teach it’s master the trick to jump or “saving” a hanglider without understanding what they were doing. It’s good stuff. It also leads to the second and final interactive bit, a trick I recongized as they had me do it in school to show off division. Whatever you start with you end with 2. So while I recognized it it’s still neat. 

And after one final rap, the tape ends with a KB Toys advertisment. 

Final Thoughts: This video is stupid.. but it is enjoyable. It’s just so weirdly constructed, so cheap and such a product of it’s early 90′s time that it’s fun to look at. Will I watch it again? Probably not. Was it fun to peak at at least once? hell yeah.