#I guess some of these go more into late 2000’s | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

petpenname · 7 months

Text

❤️‍🔥Red Wine Supernova❤️‍🔥

pairing: dealer!ellie williams x introverterd(f)reader c.w. smoking, drinking summary: modern college au, dealer!ellie x introverted!(f)reader, slow burn with some sad elements, inspired by Red Wine Supernova by Chapel Roan Parts: 1. I Just Want To Get To Know You 2. Mini Skirt and My Go-Go Boots 3. I Don't Care That You're a Stoner + Epilogue: Falling Into Me a/n: this ones long buckle up

Part Two

Mini Skirt and My Go-Go Boots

Music filled House 03 in each room as the girls got ready for that night's party. Olivia and Ivy share a room, blasting 2000’s pop throwbacks and club hits as they adorned themselves with low rise jeans and sparkles. Phoebe was playing 70s hits from the living room. Her and Daniel in matching bellbottoms, lounging on the couch pregaming already. Sage was in your room, as you struggled to form an outfit. Sitting pretty in her 90’s basement grunge attire, she questioned you about the night before.

Sage: “So she actually came over?! And you smoked with her! Look at you!”

“No, don't look at me! I don't know what to wear!” You say, holding up articles of clothing. “But yeah, she texted me while I was in the bath!”

“Oh, sensual,” Sage said with a wink. Seeing your distressed look she dropped the teasing and turned her attention to your wardrobe which was strewn across your room.

“What about those white boots! You could go as a go-go dancer!” Sage pointed at a pair of knee high white platform boots. You had only worn them out once but they were practically perfect for a 60’s themed look.

You picked them up, “okay yeah, but what do I wear them with?” “I dunno, a mini skirt?” Sage said laughing, she left the room to start pregaming and give you space to get ready.

You end up putting on a pink and orange plaid mini dress that fits your curves so perfectly. You opt to have your hair down and natural, pinning back one side behind your ear. A simple eye look to complete the look with a signature 60s line above your eye, in pink of course.

You stand in front of your full-body mirror inspecting yourself. You are usually confident in your looks but tonight you feel an extra form of confidence. Something about the spontaneity of last night after a grueling finals week.

“Hey y/n, you're almost ready?!” You hear Ivy shout from down the hall.

“Yeah! Coming!” You grab a cute white shoulder bag and put your go-go boots on. Grabbing your phone, extra lip gloss and taking one more look in the mirror before heading downstairs.

Your roommates are pregaming in the kitchen when you come down too hoots and hollers about how great you look. You return the girls compliments taking in everyone's looks. Phoebe hands you a shot and a lime and you all take one for the road. The walk to House 09 takes less than 10 minutes. You and Sage take up the rear of the group adventure.

“So are you going to see Ellie tonight?” Sage nudges you in the side playfully

“I don't know, probably, she said she would be here?” You are looking down to hide your obvious blushing. You had confided in Sage the most about your sexuality. Having come out as bisexual last year you've only had two girlfriends, which didn't end the best. You had a tendency to shut yourself away and you guess that didn't sit right with partners. But you also felt like they never respected your space. You decided to focus on yourself but sometimes, stoned, late at night Sage would get you to confess how lonely you were. You yearned for someone to love you, and for you to love them back.

“Wait, Sage, did you set this up or something like some blind date?” You remembered how Sage introduced Phoebe to Daniel and their relationship was solid.

“No dude!” Sage chuckled. “I promise, Ellie asked for your number, practically begged for it! And plus she's been dropping off to the house for months now, don't you think I would have set you up sooner if i thought about it?”

Ellie begged for it? Intrusive thoughts of Ellie on her knees looking up at you with those emerald eyes flash through your mind, making your heart skip a beat. You sigh, pushing the perverted thought away. “okay yeah i guess not, I don't know she seems cool, i hardly know her though.”

“Well get to know her!” Sage jumps ahead of you and turns down the path to H09, music already blaring into the street . You take a breath of air before following your roommates into the loud college party.

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The next few hours are a blur of colored lights, dance music, and drinking. You don’t drink alot but you are also more familiar with the taste of liquor than smoke. So in the company of your roommates you take another shot and accept a mixed drink from Daniel, the designated bartender for the house.

“Do you guys want to go dance?” Ivy shouts over the music

You all exchange nods, leaving Phoebe with her boyfriend at the makeshift bar and head to the living room to dance.

Whatever was in your cup tonight let you let loose a little more than usual. You worked up a sweat dancing to hits from the 50s to the 2000’s. Before you know it the room was getting a little too hot and you were a little too out of breath. You gestured to Sage to get her attention,

“I'm going to step out back for some air!” you say fanning yourself, still stepping to the beat

“Okay girl! Do you want company?” Sage responds over the music

“No no keep dancing! I'll find you guys!”

“Dont Irish Goodbye on us again y/n!” Ivy points and dances in your direction. “I'll come find you if you're not back in twenty minutes!” she blows you a kiss.

You laugh, “I won't leave! Promise!” Dancing your way out of the mass of moving bodies you head through the house and out into the back yard. The cool air instantly gives you a sense of relief as the commotion from inside gets muffled by the closing door. You choose to sit on the porch steps, staring up at the sky and you start to look for stars.

Due to the light pollution you are only able to see a handful of stars at the moment. While you are looking you hear the back door open and close. Glancing over your shoulder you see none other than Ellie step outside, face flushed and hair slightly damp clinging to her neck. She wore a white tank top, blue flannel and blue jeans, the same dirty converse from last night.

“Oh hey whats up cutie! You made it!” Ellie says when she catches your eye. She fumbles over to you and sits down next to you, letting out a sigh. “Oh my god it's hot in there, yeah?” “Hey, yeah it is” you try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach. She called you that name again. You both avert your gaze from each other, a beat of awkward silence before Ellie says, “you want to smoke with me?” and pulls out another immaculately rolled joint.

“Only if you tell me what decade you're supposed to be dressed up as?” you joke, looking her over. Most of the guests had gone all out with their fits.

Ellie chuckles “Whichever decade that supplies this party with weed.”

“Sooo 90s?” You say as you watch her face light up as she sparks the joint.

“Sure let's go with that” she exhales, turning her body towards you, with one leg bent on the deck and the other stretched out down the steps. She leans towards you slightly as she hands you the joint.

“And you are…. No don't tell me…. 70’s?” Ellie guesses as you take a drag from the joint.

You let the smoke out as you giggle, “no! 60’s! I'm wearing go-go boots” You stick a leg up and gesture to your boots

Before you could think Ellie reaches out and touches your boot, sliding her long fingertips, from the ankle up to the top. “Oh wow, yeah now i see them” flicking her eyes from your leg to make eye contact with you.

Your ears become hot at the sudden contact and you put your leg back down, take another puff before handing it back. There are those flutterings, they are much lower tonight.

“Wow and you're smoking more tonight! You're like a totally different person than who I met yesterday.” Ellie jokes as she takes the joint and leans back on her other hand. “Miss never goes to parties”, she teases.

Still feeling her gaze on you, you can't bring yourself to look at her so you look back at the night sky, leaning back on your hands. “Don’t get used to it, this is my one outing of the semester.”

“Yeah me too, honestly.” Ellies tone turns a little serious as she too looks up at the night sky, taking another drag of the joint and using it to point.

“The Big Dipper should be right there, you can see the start of it, but there's too much light to see the rest.”

“Mhmm” you hum, “I wish i could see them all, I could in my hometown.”

“Yeah me too” Ellie says, “Do you want another hit off this?”

You look back down and the simple motion of your head moving in space brings your awareness to just how fucked up you are. You know alcohol takes a bit to have an effect but you have also never drank and smoked together.

“No, thanks, ugh I'm feeling a bit light headed.” you say.

“Oh shit” Ellie puts out the joint and flicks it away, “Do you need some water?”

“Yeah that would be cool, I just need to catch my breath” You say as cooly as possible.

“Okay stay right here!” Ellie gets up and is gone in a flash,

Your head is spinning and you grab onto the railing for some stability, willing yourself not to throw up in this back yard. Deep breaths in and out help you regain a bit of your strength and feeling. You hear the backdoor open and shut as a few pairs of feet hit the deck.

“Hey, hey girl you okay?” Sage is next to you with a glass of water, you take and sip it slowly.

“Hey dude yeah, i'm good, I don't know if i'll go back inside though.”

“Yeah that's understandable, did you smoke too?”

You nod, and take another sip of water. Sage gives you a sympathetic look through her own blood shot eyes.

“I'll walk her home” you hear Ellie say, who you realize had been standing behind you the whole time.

Sage looks up, “oh yeah, I mean if you don't mind? You cool with that y/n?

You finish the water and hand your cup back to Sage, “Yeah, you stay Sage, tell Ivy I'm sorry for leaving again”

“Sure babes, and hey it's not an irish goodbye if you say goodbye!” She helps you up and says bye to Ellie and you before going inside.

“Are you sure you're feeling okay?” Ellie turns to you, a look of worry on her face.

“Yeah I'm feeling better now, I just have never smoked and drank together before.”

Ellie laughs, “damn what are you a virgin too?”

Such a direct joke caught you off guard, “uh no, i'm not.” you say defensively, turning away feeling your cheeks flush.

“I'm kidding, I promise! Sorry, come on let's get you home hun”

You curse yourself for being so quick to defend yourself, you were actually quite experienced, at least with your own body. You just didn't know exactly how to express that to your partners.

Ellie led you out the back garden gate holding it open for you, you felt her hand cup the small of your back as she guided you to the sidewalk. You let her hand rest on your waist as her warmth warms you up in the cool night air.

“Are you going to go back to the party?” You ask, breaking the silence.

“Nah probably not, i dont really hang out with a lot of people. I just go to sell.” Ellie responds matter of factly.

“What about your roommate?”

“Oh Dina? She’s with Jessie, I love hanging out with them but I have the dorm all to myself tonight!” She gives you that stupid sideways grin again

You smile back at her before looking forward, feeling a bit nervous realizing how close you two were walking. Her hand still on the small of your back, and her index finger tracing small circles, like she was nervous too.

You walk the rest of the block in silence and she walks up to your front door, stepping away from you before saying, “You sure you're okay to be left alone? I feel like I need to see you drink another glass of water.”

Maybe it was the joint, maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was the feeling deep inside of you wishing for someone to be close to you again. You missed her warmth. Either way you find yourself answering before thinking

“You could just come in? I'll drink a glass of water to prove I'm good!” You hold a hand to your chest like making a royal promise.

Ellie chuckles, scratching the back of her neck and looking down, “Oh shit, yeah sure, I’ll come in” Did you just make her nervous?

“Cool” You say, fishing your keys out of your purse. You enter the house, flipping on a few lights and tossing your bag on the table.

“I have to get out of my shoes first!” you exclaim, taking a seat, suddenly out of breath again.

“Here allow me!” Ellie says, skipping to your side and kneeling down, before you could protest she has your right leg in her hands, inspecting for a zipper. “It's on the inside” you laugh at her willingness for chivalry, pointing at the zipper on the inside of your ankle.

“Inside huh?” Ellie said in a tone that made your stomach flip. She finds the zipper, pulls down and slides the boot off your leg. Revealing fuzzy pink socks adorned with a Kirby embroidered at the top. Holy shit you forgot you had those socks on?!

“Oh my god Kirby!” Ellie laughs, “I didn't know what socks to expect but i dont think these were it.”

“What's wrong with kirby?” You counter teasingly, the alcohol giving you some courage post sock reveal.

“Nothing! I just feel like i'm finding out little crumbs of information about you”, Ellie laughs again, “You're like a puzzle, or a riddle? I just want to get to know you.” she looks you in the eyes when she says that.

That last sentence felt so personal. You sat back in silence as Ellie removed your other shoe, revealing a second, pink kirby sock. She looks up at you and you realize she's on her knees, in front of you. Did you dream this into reality? How did such a pretty girl just fall into your life like this? You almost lose yourself in her eyes before she speaks again.

“You still gotta drink water for me, pretty girl.”

You nod, as she rises from the floor and looks around for the kitchen. Rising too and guiding her in the dim lit kitchen you grab a glass of water and return to stand in front of her to drink it. Finishing strong with a sigh and a smile, you set the glass down on the counter and turn to her.

“All done” you say

“Good girl” Ellie says with a smirk, staring into your eyes. Your stomach does a flip again, she is way too comfortable calling you pet names.

Like magnets the two of you slide closer until you are inches away from each other in the dim kitchen light. Both of your breaths hitch as you watch Ellie's eyes dart from your eyes, to your lips, and back up. You swear you could stare at her like this for hours, but you wanted nothing more than to closet the space between you two.

*DING DING*

The ring of Ellies phone sounds off in her pockets, startling both of you away from the tension boiling between you.

“Ah fuck what now” Ellie says under her breath. She quickly checks her phone and lets out a frustrated sigh. “Fuckers need more weed at the party. I should probably let you get your beauty sleep huh?” She says, shoving her phone back in her pocket.

You involuntarily let out a yawn as she makes the suggestion and you hide your face from her gaze. Partially from the yawn, mostly to hide your disappointment “yeah, I should probably sleep this buzz off, I'll walk you out?”

“Sure thing” she says.

You both head for the door, Ellie lingers a bit, swaying side to side before saying bye and dipping fast down the steps. You say bye and close the door behind her. Stealing yourself upstairs to take off your makeup and outfit. A quick self care routine later and you are passed out in bed.

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Ellie lights a joint in frustration as she walks out of H09. She really didn't want to go back there but ended up staying another hour because Jessie and Dina guilted her into drinking more. Thoughts of you swirl in the girl's head as she makes the walk to her dorm. Your eyes, your legs, your lips, your kirby socks. Ellie laughs to herself, and pulls out her phone.

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You wake up the next morning with a headache. Checking the time on your phone you're shocked to see you slept in until 11!

You have a few unread messages:

Ellie: want to meet for coffee? Ivy: I made pancakes! Sage: how can you have so much energy all the time? Be right ther Olivia: shhh sleeping

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“Meet for coffee??” Sage said, mouth full of pancake. You and your roommates are sitting around the kitchen eating room-temperature pancakes and discussing the night before.

“That's what she said?!” you say, pouring some syrup over your breakfast.

“Well are you gonna go?” Ivy asks from the pantry

“I mean, yeah? I should, right?” “Only if you want to girl” Olivia say beside you

“Oh she wants to” Sage says with wink in your direction

“I do!” You say blushing, “I'm just nervous! The last times we interacted were so spontaneous. And this is like, she's asking me out!”

“It's just coffee babes you'll be okay! Its casual” Olivia says with a reassuring rub on your back

You smile at your roomates as you pick your phone up, responding to Ellie

y/n: “Okay :) when?”

30 seconds later you receive a text;

Ellie: “Sweet :), 1pm at the cafe?”

y/n: “I'll see you there!”

You smile at your phone for sec before your roomates all join in on a group “oooooooooo”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1pm comes fast. After breakfast you help clean then retire to your room to shower and get ready. It's a little chilly out this morning so you opt for a chunky sweater, comfortable wide leg pants, and sneakers. After checking yourself in your mirror and in Sage’s mirror, with her approval and luck, you head out the door.

The walk to the cafe felt like it took forever. You become hyper aware of yourself, your outfit, anxieties bubbling up in your mind as you try to stay calm. You round a corner and can see the cafe now, and something in you stops you in your tracks.

Memories of your past relationships flash in your mind. How hurt you were, how misunderstood you felt. Being lonely was familiar but it always stung when someone left your life. You will yourself to take a chance, your roommate’s comment in your mind for comfort. You’re just meeting for coffee, it's casual. With a deep breath, trying to gain some confidence you continue forward. You open the door to the cafe stepping in, warm cinnamon and coffee bean scents fill the air while a lofi beats track plays over the speakers. You look around and it takes you just a moment to find Ellie sitting at a table in the corner. She has a baseball cap on, looking down so she didn't see you come in.

You take in her appearance while walking over. She's manspreading comfortably in dark green cargos, a gray t-shirt, a black zip up hoodie and black converse. You knock lightly on the table to get her attention, startling Ellie who shoots up, almost knocking her chair over behind her.

“Hi there” you say sweetly

“Oh y/n! Morning! Er afternoon, hey” She composes her surprise and smiles at you to sit down. “I got you a coffee!”

You realize there are two coffee cups in front of you on the table. Ellie slides one over and you see your order written on the side in black ink. Medium mocha, with half chocolate. She remembered?

“Oh wow thank you! Do I owe you anything?” you ask, accepting the drink.

“Of course not,” Ellie says leaning back, “I just made it before I finished my shift.”

You take a sip of your coffee, and set it down, taking in the girl sitting before you. You realize that Ellie looks exceptionally tired, she has bags under her eyes and her lips are slightly crusty. She seemed to have energy, although that must be from the caffeine she's been having throughout her shift.

“Did you have a good night?” Ellie asks, breaking your fantasy

“Oh! Yeah, i just passed out after you left and slept so long” You laugh, trying to hold eye contact.

“Good you got your sleep, I wish I did, i forgot I worked this morning and got woken up by my boss calling me” Ellie sighs and sips her coffee

“Oh shit, we don't have to hang out if you're tired?” You say, secretly wanting to invite her back to yours to cuddle up and watch movies. But your body does not allow the thought to come out.

“No! I want to hang out! I actually wanted to show you something, if you're down?” Ellie asks

So many thoughts fill your mind with what this thing could be. Your curiosity is endless and quickly leads to images of Ellie pulling toys out of her backpack.

“Yeah sure, I'm not doing anything today” You say, leaning forward on your hand with your elbow on the table. Searching Ellies expression for any sign of what her intentions were.

Ellie just gives you a big grin and leans forward too, flashing her eyes from yours, to your lips, and back up. Instantly you're reminded of last night, you hadn't even thought about your almost kiss in the shadows of your kitchen. You feel your ears going hot and instinctually pull back to drink your coffee, hoping your eyes didn't display any of your shock from the memory.

“Sounds good, if you're ready we can head out” Ellie suggests, keeping her eyes on you.

You nod and swallow, “sure, ya” you say, your voice a little quieter.

Ellie rises from her seat, grabbing her coffee, waits for you to rise and follows you out of the cafe. “Here follow me!” she says when you two are outside, pointing behind her. You skip up to her side and follow her through campus. Making small talk, asking each other about your coffees & the weather. You realize that Ellie is leading you into the College neighborhood, the street that you live on.

“You want to show me the street I live on?” You ask, laughing because as far as you know, this street is a Dead End. And you have been to that dead end. Maybe she was bringing you to a house?

“I mean yes? And no, we are going to the end, there's a spot over there.” Ellie says, taking another sip of her coffee

You were pretty sure the dead end was fenced off with a thick forest behind it. Not being very adventurous you had never thought to explore past it. You and Ellie walk the length of the block, passing other college students. You approach the end of the street, the sidewalk seemingly ends and you wait to see what Ellie will do.

She turns around to face you, “Do you trust me?”

“I have no reason not to you” you giggle, “you're not going to murder me are you?”

“No! Oh my god, come on, this way” Ellie smirks and nods her head to the side of the street.

House 10 was the last house on the street, and there was a thick hedge that ran the length of the house and the fence. Ellie walks you over and the perspective change reveals about two feet between the hedge and the fence. Ellie slips into the gap and takes a few steps before making sure you are following. You're right behind her, and comment “there are no spiders right?”

Ellie laughs, “dont worry ill scare them off. It's not too far.”

You walk maybe 10 feet between the hedge and fence before Ellie stops and crouches down. Ducking through a large hole in the chainlink fence and popping up on the other side to face you. “Here hand me your coffee!” she says, sticking a hand through the hole.

You hand her your coffee and crouch down to do the same, almost slipping on a few leaves on the ground.

“You good? Here you go” Ellie hands your coffee back and says “i promise its not far now, just through there.'' She walks into the forest. There's a makeshift trail probably formed by other students exploring back here, and you follow her for a few minutes. Listening to the sounds of birds and wind through the trees, you start to hear the sound of running water. The trail winds around, sunlight flashing through the leaves onto Ellies auburn hair. You can't help but get lost in her figure. Your mind trailing off to things too embarrassing to say, you have no idea how long you've been walking. Ellie turns around flashing you a smile, breaking you away from your bedroom thoughts.

“Its just up here! Come on!” She picks up a bit of pace, excitement getting the best of her.

You follow her around another corner and see a pretty amazing sight. Large concrete structures from half of a building, overgrown with vines and graffiti painting the crumbling walls. There are steps leading up to a large concrete platform with two walls in the back. You take a sec to take it all in, Ellie bounds up the steps, turns to you and puts her arms out framing the scene.

“Ta-daaaaa! What do you think?”

“This place is so cool!” You say, following her up the steps and looking more closely at the graffiti. You read “smoke em if you got em”, & “JC’11” probably from a Jackson College graduate. One catches your eye, it's smaller and closer to the ground. A black heart with red lettering that says “girls kissing girls”.

“Ya, right.” Ellie looks around with you at “her” spot -atleast she likes to think she's claimed it. “I found it a few months ago, I come here pretty often but don't really bring anyone. I don't want everyone to know about it.”

“Yea i can understand, its peaceful out here” you respond, focusing your attention back on her

“And you haven't seen the best part!” Ellie walks across the platform to the other side, where the other wall is missing. You follow her and realize that the water you heard had gotten a bit louder since you tuned into it. As you approach the opening in the wall you are perplexed with the beauty you see. A small waterfall cascades over moss covered rocks, flowing into a stream only a few feet wide and away into the forest. All the stars aligned for the sun to shine the most on this spot in the forest. The foliage was lush, moss covered all surfaces, and tiny flowers and mushrooms dotted the scene.

“Yeah, it's pretty great, my own secret hiding spot.” Ellie beams, stretching her arms behind her head, trying to be as casual as possible.

You looked in awe at the scene and Ellie looks in awe at you. Taking in your features, your soft lips, your beautiful skin. She wished she could capture this image of you forever in her mind. Never had she taken someone here before, but as soon as she met you, she wanted you here, with her. And there wasn't anything she wanted to do more than to kiss you.

“This is so beautiful” you say, “want to sit down?” You say turning to her, blushing at the strong eye contact youre met with.

Instinctually Ellie takes off her hoodie, stepping back and setting it down on the ground for you and her to sit on. You are able to see a large tattoo on her forearm, looks like a fern? You both position yourselves on the makeshift blanket, with your legs hanging over the side of the ledge.

“Do you want to smoke? I haven't since before my shift.” Ellie says after a moment of silence.

“Oh yeah, sure! But if you keep smoking me out and buying me coffee i'm going to have to make it up to you!” You say with a smirk, playfully nudging her with your elbow.

“I'll take whatever you give me,” Ellie says as she takes out a joint box from her pocket. Butterflies flutter in your stomach at the possibilities of what your ‘repayment’ could be.

You take the lit joint from Ellie and you two make small talk about the graffiti and nature surrounding you. Conversations turn more personal when you ask Ellie about her family. You learn of Joel, and the farm back home where Ellie spent most of her time shying away with her journal and guitar. Ellie spoke about coming out to Joel in highschool and how he was one of the only people who supported her through it. Her hometown wasn't the most accepting so she did not have many friends let alone relationships. You share your life too, realizing that you and Ellie have more things in common than you thought. Your family came around after a year or so of coming out but you only ‘came out’ to friends and the public when you moved to college. You had a boyfriend in highschool that ended badly and 1.5 relationships with girls since coming out. You say 1.5 because the first one was really a situationship that ended with the girl deciding she was straight.

At this point the joint was dead and tossed in the brush. The sun was drifting behind the trees, casting a cool hue across the forest.

Ellie and you listen to the stream in comfortable silence for a second. The joint is settling in nicely and bringing all your hidden thoughts to the surface. You wanted to kiss her, touch her. Your fingers are a mere centimeters from each other and you could feel the electricity through your whole body.

Suddenly Ellie takes a breath, like she had been holding hers for a second. “CanIaskyousomething?” she says, in almost all one word.

You turn your body to her, leaning forward slightly on your arm. “Anything” you say.

“I know… i know we just met, but, you’re really pretty and I was just wondering… canikissyou?

She rushes the last part but you hear clearly and your heart skips a beat. Ellie turns to look at you, searching your face for anything you're feeling.

You're lost in her eyes again, your mind screaming yes but all you can do is nod at her, doe eyed and longing to feel her warmth.

Ellie breathes in looking at your lips before she leans forward, cradling your face in her hands and setting her lips on yours. The kiss is hot, passionate, slow but needy as your combined lust mixes together right there in the forest. You feel like hours have gone by before you separate, looking into eachothers eyes, a line of spit connecting both your lips. Ellie looks like she's even higher than the joint made her and you can't help but giggle a little before going in for a second kiss. This time your hands go for her, brushing through her hair and grabbing at the nape of her neck.

Separating for the second time ellie breathes, “wow, that was… wow”

You hum in approval, untangling your hand from her hair and resting it on your leg. You're both breathing a little heavy, lips tingling and palms sweaty.

Ellie feels a buzz on her thigh and pulls out her phone to a string of texts, all from buyers hoping to make their Saturdays better.

“Ah fuck, im sorry, i wish we could stay here longer but, work calls…” She says with a sigh. She wishes she could stay here all day with you but Ellie was a business woman, plus she had been saving up for a few things and was so close to meeting her goal.

You laugh, wanting to stay with her too, but you are getting hungry, probably from the joint. “That's okay, will you walk me back to the house?”

“Of course doll” Ellie says with a smile, making your already hot face burn with desire. You both stand and after grabbing her hoodie and coffee, without asking Ellie grabs your hand and begins to lead you back out of the forest.

You walk hand in hand down the street in comfortable silence. The touch shared between you said more than you two could manage at the moment. You are submerged in your feelings and barely notice you getting to the walkway in front of your house.

Ellie stops and turns to face you. Giving you a kiss on the back of the hand she says, “have a great day beautiful, i'll be thinking of you.”

You linger your hand in hers for a moment, blushing, mind blank but you know you need to respond. “Thanks for today Ellie, i'll talk to you soon.”

You start backing up the walkway, both of you not wanting to separate from each other's gaze. You both give one last little wave and you turn to walk into the house.

Sage greets you from the couch, seeing the look on your face she jumps up and runs to hug you in excitement. Bringing you over to sit with her as you tell her about your time with Ellie. You feel this could be the beginning of something beautiful. Although hesitant to get close to someone again, you feel right with Ellie. You can’t help but imagine what life would be like with her.

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a/n: AHHHHHHHHH thank u sm for the love :3 I'm actually so excited for part 3... might even open submissions for other fandoms? idk I'm just having fun! Tag List: @vqxen @bready101 @sourgummywormsss @a-little-bit-of-everybody

#ellie williams #ellie williams x reader #ellie x reader #ellie smut #ellie tlou #ellie williams smut #the last of us

276 notes · View notes

genericpuff · 2 months

Note

I'm not sure if anyone else has made this connection, but I've never seen it mentioned before. I think, similar to Lolita, RS was also inspired by the art of Trevor Brown. His work has a lot of young girls and medical fetish themes (to put it lightly) in a style reminiscent of RS's earlier stuff.

sigh

CW: medical fetish art often depicting children / child-like characters and medical equipment such as needles, gas masks, etc. seriously don't hit the jump if medical equipment or young girls in nurse's outfits or with open wounds makes you squeamish, I will not blame you for turning around now LOL

OP I was about to just... dismiss this. Wave it away as a funny coincidence that is indeed funny, but doesn't have any real evidence to back it up. I had a post typed up in response already declaring this, after which posting I was gonna move on with my day, work on Rekindled, play some XIV.

Because sure, there are a lot of resemblances between Trevor Brown's work and Rachel's old art, but nothing that can't be dismissed in good faith as a simple coincidence of being within the same genre of fetish art (first three are Trevor's, last three are Rachel's).

But then that little voice in the back of my head whispered in my ear, "Puff. You should double check. Just to be sure. Do your due diligence." And I once again found myself on the precipice of the rabbithole that somehow becomes deeper every time I jump. This time though, I knew it couldn't be that bad, I mean, I had enough confidence in knowing that there's no fucking way she listed Trevor Brown as one of her favorite artists-

God fucking dammit. How in the world did I miss this? I mean, I suppose I missed it simply because I'm not familiar with the works of Trevor Brown, but you can bet your ass I became familiar with it in my digging. Yeah, this guy is a supreme creep.

Again, I am not going to accuse Rachel of being a pedophile because that's just not an accusation that should be thrown around without undeniable evidence. What I will say, which has largely remained the same - though even more confidently now than ever before - is that she's clearly someone who took a lot of inspiration and influence from very problematic artists when she was young (I'm talking in her late teens which has me wondering if she started making medical fetish art when she was still a minor-) and then, BEST guess, she started to drop the medical fetish stuff around the time she went to college (which was also the same time she dropped The Doctor Pepper Show, which later got reworked into The Doctor Foxglove Show which was a lot less reminiscent of her medical fetish style from the early 2000's, but still had some of her usual preferences at play) and that's led up to today where she's drawing comics that look like they're for kids but tackle heavy adult subject matter in the worst way possible that straight up perpetuates grooming.

No matter how much experience I have with this already, no matter how much I think I've already seen, I always find more, and this time was no different. In fact - though unrelated to the original topic - thanks to this one fucking ask, I even found the full Mads Mikkelson comic with the completed caption. You know, that one.

And apparently Mads Mikkelson did very much replace her crush on Jeremy Irons.

Who's Jeremy Irons?

Oh yeah.

I just... y'all I can't. This is un-fucking-real. I'm gonna go take a shower, I need to scrub myself off of this 😭

#ask me anything #ama #anon ama #anon ask me anything #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #lo critical #the timeline of rachel's art career and how it came to be in the form that it exists now is starting to become a lot more clear #my eyes are burning #i've mentioned before that i don't like scrutinizing rachel over her past stuff because being a cringy teen on the internet isn't a crime #but there really is something to be said about how much of her past influences have bled into LO #as well as her outlook on the heavier topics that she's tried to “tackle” through LO and failed miserably at

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9w1ft · 3 months

Text

i declare

thinking about the tortured poets department the song, and the charlie puth line, and how maybe like, the act of declaring he should be a bigger artist helps place the song into the greater timeline.

because it’s a sort of weird thing to say in 2024 of an artist that’s no longer up and coming.

charlie puth got his start in youtube in the late 2000’s and released his debut single in february 2015. and leading up to that he had several EP’s and promotional singles. it made me curious, at what point might the people en masse start to pay him attention? i checked google trends and as you can see here he gets a huge jump between the 2014 and 2015 data.

(he then gets a further jump toward 2016 when he did a promo single featuring megan trainor, and then doing “see you again” with wiz khalifa. (coincidentally this song becomes one of the guest duets featured in the 1989 tour movie))

and i was looking around at articles from this time period, when i ran into this tasty morsel:

so i clicked on through

take a little ride with me

so to summarize, charlie puth had his breakout star peak over the course of roughly 2014-2016, during which he was up for an award at the 2015 MTV VMAs. he doesn’t win, and in fact, he loses out to taylor herself! later on in the article it talks about him going to an after party and hanging out with taylor selena and others. so it had me thinking, i could almost imagine taylor talking with her friends that year or that night, or even declaring to charlie himself in the wake of his loss and her win, in a giddy manner, at the party they are reported as having talked at, that he deserves more success than he gets. in this way i came to the conclusion that the timeframe of 2015-ish (rather than 2023) really fits the spirit of the lyric “we declared charlie puth should be a bigger artist”

and

yes.

yes fam.

the 2015 vmas was that vma’s.

that vmas.

let me pull quote an excerpt from the billboard article as i included above, just to emphasize:

4:40 PM: Charlie has the good fortune to walk the carpet in the wake of Taylor Swift’s gaggle of supermodel friends, including “Bad Blood” star Karlie Kloss, leading photographers to alternately yell “Charlie! Karlie! Charlie! Karlie!” as if it were a hectic version of Name Game. While on the carpet, Puth chats with multiple news outlets, and later he says of the dealing with the paparazzi, “It’s amazing that we view people in unnatural states and just love it. I don’t really understand it — it just makes me very uncomfortable. But, whatever. I’m so appreciative to be here.”

such a fun convergence of events, don’t ya think?

and just a few extra points i thought i’d add:

first, i don’t know how many of you remember how taylor was behaving that evening, but don’t you think she was giving major golden retriever energy??

both in how she was chasing after karlie that night,

and also… call me crazy but, her hairstyle??

(also she’s in a houndstooth print, har har)

and i can kind of envision this taylor, who brought the whole bad blood music video crew as her entourage, having more than several bars of chocolate at hand for everyone that night, but ending up eating them all herself 😆

and another thing that helps tie the song to this time period (maybe some of you have guessed?) the line “who else decodes you?” is extra apt because… *da da-da daaaaa*

🤗 karlie had just embarked on her coding journey!

on a more solemn note? i don’t think it requires too much of a stretch of the imagination to see “but you awaken with dread” “i chose this cyclone with you” among other lines pointing to the new layer of stress taylor probably was harboring around being with karlie in public. because this is all taking place in the year directly following kissgate 🥺

so there you have it folks! this is why the tortured poets department is a kaylor song to me 😌

#kaylor #some extra stuff in the reblogs 😌

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spaceorphan18 · 5 months

Text

How an animated series saved Remy LeBeau (again)

It's a bit of a hyperbolic title, but catchy, non?

I was looking over my comic collection as I've decided to reread X-Men's 60 year history over the course of the summer. And it got me thinking about a dead period of 616 canon that I've never actually read. Around the time Rogue hooked up with Magneto and scooted off to the Avengers, I decided I'd be done with comics for a while. And didn't start again until Rogue (and Gambit) came back to the X-books in 2017's Astonishing X-Men. But it made me wonder -- What happened to Gambit in that time??

Well, after his solo ended, he flitted around to X-Factor and hung out with X-23 and then kind of went 'poof' for a good long while.

Why? I can only guess the same reason this is a running motif with Gambit. There's something about him that drives the X-Office crazy. I'm not here to speculate what or how or who of it all. I don't know enough about the back end of Marvel to give concrete answers. But I think what has surprised me (recently) is that he's definitely a fan favorite character.

[Yes, I know he can be a divisive character. Yes, I know elements of his character from the 90s have not aged well. Yes, I know there are those of you who can't stand him. Don't really care - you can get off my lawn, thank you.]

Which got me thinking -- Gambit's original popularity, I believe, stemmed from the original X-Men Animated Series. He had just started showing up in the comics at the time, and had barely any kind of page time. And the X-Men TAS swung and was a hit. And so was Gambit.

I don't really know that Gambit would be around today if TAS hadn't done its thing. Would the X-Office have kept him around? I really have no idea.

But they did try to get rid of him. That was the point of leaving him in Antarctica. And things were just never the same after that. Claremont tried his best in the early 2000s. And then Deathbit happened. Carey's run wasn't bad. But Carey clearly had an agenda for other things... And then, Gambit just kind of faded into the background. (I hear his run as a side character for Laura (X-23) was good - but I haven't read that.)

Bless Kelly Thompson (always) for sparking life back into him with (and his relationship with Rogue). And bless the fact that she actually married him to Rogue. Yes, I understand comics -- my god look what they did to Peter and MJ, no one really gets to be happily married except Sue and Reed. He and Rogue are now really tied together in a way that I don't think is going to be undone any time soon.

Even if the X-Office still isn't thrilled with the guy. Krakoa era has been less than ideal. (I can't comment on it fully - I haven't read much of it, as I'm behind on my comic reading.) But I've heard rumors that one reason Thompson was let go was that she didn't want Gambit killed off. And she didn't like the direction they wanted to take the character.

Which leads me to X-Men 97. Killing him off sucked. Really. As a fan, it really sucked. But - my god, the reaction to it. Gambit was amazing. And all I've heard lately is good things about the character. There's been a Gambit resurgence in the best way. He may have went out -- but he went out with a bang. X-Men 97 made an emotional impact with people. And that changes things.

Gambit is cool again.

And I love it.

What's even more exciting is the fact that the X-Office has changed hands again and Gail Simone on Uncanny who (if her Twitter/X feed is to be believed) is really enjoying writing the character. Which means (hopefully) at least another year or two in the comics of some (hopefully) great Gambit stuff.

And maybe there will be some changing of hearts and minds in the X-Office.

It's actually very exciting.

And, guys, I really (really, really) doubt he'll be completely gone from X-Men 97, too.

Because Remy LeBeau never stays down for long.

But as a fan, it's nice to see him be on top again. And I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon.

#gambit #remy lebeau #xmen #x men #x men 97 #marvel #probably good this is so late at night #it's just a jumble of thoughts I needed to write out #I need to have a marvel meta tag #marvel meta #?#good lord I need sleep

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psiroller · 1 month

Text

My Boy (We Don't See Each Other Much)

a third fic request from unkat has reached me for some gamer au shenanigans. cool, i thought, nice low stakes goofin off fun time au. lets put some military industrial complex in there

cw: institutionalized homophobia, vague references to USAmerican military operations in the 2000's, gamer lingo

The raid was a resounding success by their guild's lax standards. Chilchuck managed to pull a rare light armor piece he'd been looking for, finally catching him up to the modern game; he was surprised by how much damage the standard grinding mobs were doing to him now, even if his defense was always going to be lower than the tanks and fighters he partied with. Laios landed the biggest critical hit he'd ever seen; the broadsword Chilchuck nabbed for him off the Auction House was working well for him. He was clearly still riding the high, humming the victory fanfare under his breath as he took inventory and milled about with Senshi, comparing the ingredients they’d collected, trading amongst themselves. It was late, though, close to Senshi’s prep hours. Marcille was fighting against the cozy lethargy that followed a glass of wine and swiftly losing. Falin had already logged out to take a shower and head to bed, stopping by Laios’ door for a hug goodnight.

Laios went right back to the desktop after he shut the door. He pulled his headset back on and heard the familiar sound of Chilchuck’s raspy inhale and then a long, satisfied exhale.

“Chilchuck!” Laios said, too eagerly. “You’re still up?”

“No, I’m fast asleep,” Chilchuck drawled. Laios snorted and threw a rock at Chilchuck’s head. It passed through harmlessly; neither of them wanted the hassle of dedicated PVP. Maybe Laios wasn’t as keen on roleplaying as Marcille and Falin were, but the roleplaying server had been a lot kinder to him than the standard ones he usually played on.

“You were right about the sword,” Laios tittered. “I really have to start doing the math instead of just looking at bigger numbers—uh, focusing on how sharp the blade is, I mean.”

Chilchuck coughed through a laugh, leaning away from the mic so that it didn’t blow Laios’ eardrums out. “I think some of the guides are a little out of date,” Chilchuck said, relaxed enough to drop character. Marcille was still nearby, though the AFK symbol appeared under her name; the elf she played nodded off, ears drooping. “Critical chance used to be calculated with this really convoluted system that also included timers, so there were only so many crits you could get in the span of a few minutes,” he went on. “They updated it recently so that you roll for a critical every hit.”

“Oh, thank God,” Laios said. “On a timer? How long did raids use to take?”

“Oh, upwards of four hours.” Chilchuck said casually. Laios sputtered. “I know, I know. I guess people had more free time back then… though with how people run multiple raids a night now, I guess it’s down to how committed you are.”

“So critical hit percentage is the thing I should focus on, then.”

“For your build, yeah.”

“Why does everyone recommend focusing on damage per second?”

“It’s a recent change, I think it got pushed out just before you signed up. They’ve tweaked it a lot, so people tend to get confused on how it works now, as it gets buffed and nerfed. Attack and attack speed used to be connected to the same value, so there are other ways you can focus on dealing damage instead of just right clicking the dragon and watching one of twelve timers tick down.” Chilchuck smiled and took another drag. “I think they’re trying to freshen things up a little. I like the changes.”

“Really? Everyone in the forums talks about how much they hate it.”

“If they’re old enough to be using the forums, they’re old enough to hate their favorite thing changing,” Chilchuck laughed.

“But not you,” said Laios. There was a warmth there that Chilchuck didn’t see a reason for.

“Eh.” Chilchuck’s ears burned under his headset. “Maybe a little bit. They don’t make shooters like they used to.” There was a pause. “Oh, right, you don’t like those.”

“Just the super hoo-rah military ones,” Laios breathed. “I can do Team Fortress 2. That one’s pretty fun.”

“Oh! I play that with—a friend, sometimes,” Chilchuck stammered. “Do you… I’m still kind of wired. I got a day off tomorrow. Do you—”

“Yeah!” His mic clipped. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

“Wait, you don’t have a test tomorrow or anything, do you?”

“… No.”

“I don’t like that hesitation.”

Laios huffed and puffed and logged out of Dungeon Divers with little warning, but usernames were exchanged and soon Laios’ avatar (a dragon, what else) popped up in Chilchuck’s scant friend list, nestled between Dan and May.

“I didn’t think you’d be cool enough to play TF2,” Laios teased.

“Cool people play TF2? I thought it was all screaming toddlers.”

“There are a few of those, yeah,” Laios admitted.

“I played the original game. It was a lot different. I don’t really keep up with it these days, but…”

“No worries,” Laios chirped. “I’ll take care of you.”

Chilchuck felt something zip down his spine. “I’m not that bad.”

They played three matches with the usual late night crowd, and it was a miracle if Chilchuck could stay alive for longer than a minute or two, let alone get a kill. Laios, on the other hand, clawed up every scoreboard and sat at the top. He started with Sniper; Chilchuck followed him while waiting for his respawn timer to run out, flicking between first and third person views. He watched as opponents’ heads would pop like grapes the moment they touched Laios’ reticle, faster than Chilchuck’s eyes could tell his brain to move his fingers.

“Okay, maybe I’m pretty bad,” Chilchuck admitted. “Compared to you.”

Laios missed a shot and sputtered. “I’m concentrating…!” A Spy knifed him, and Chilchuck could hear Laios whack his mouse against the table in frustration. Chilchuck laughed.

“Relax, that’s your first one this round,” he teased. “Your reflexes are crazy. Maybe I’m getting too old for twitchy games like this.”

“The mechanics have changed a lot and all the tryhards are on,” Laios conceded, breathing out the annoyance. “I’ll switch to Heavy. Wanna be my Medic? I can keep more of an eye on you.”

Chilchuck sniffed at his demotion to pocket healer, but then at least he’d be getting assist kills. “Alright, fine.”

Many assist kills were had, and all was well. It was fun to watch Laios’ brain work, bobbing and weaving and jumping around. He played like May did, hyperfocused on the movement mechanics; Chuck’s wrists weren’t any good for that anymore, so he usually hung back to support anyway.

“So why TF2 and not Call of Duty?” Chilchuck asked between matches, lighting another cigarette in search of the now-elusive nicotine buzz. “Seems like you’re really good. You could probably go pro if you wanted.”

Chuck heard a rustling against the mic. Sounded like Laios fiddling with the thing, maybe rubbing his face. He heard a scratch of stubble.

“Eh. I just—don’t like the military aesthetic very much, or something,” Laios mumbled. “I, uh. I served, and it’s a little…”

Chilchuck coughed. “You served? As in, served in the army?”

“Yeah.” There was a chuckle from the other line. “What? Is it that surprising?”

“Well, you just never…” Chuck scratched at the nape of his neck. “You never said anything that made me think… I don’t know what I thought. You didn’t seem like the type.”

“That’s because I’m not,” Laios snorted. “I was a good shot, but not a good soldier, if that makes any sense?”

Chuck wet his dry lips and leaned back in his chair. He didn’t lock into the next game, and the queue dumped them out. Laios didn’t reset it.

“So you objected? Conscientious objection? Is that what it’s called?”

“That’s what it’s called, but uh… it takes a while to get that done if you enlisted voluntarily. You have to plead your case for it. I thought about it, but I didn’t get the chance.”

Chilchuck swallowed dryly, then tapped some ash out into the ceramic tray Patty made for him many Father’s Days ago. “So you were kicked out?”

“Discharged, yeah,” Laios sighed. His chair creaked as he leaned back, too. “Other than honorable.”

Chuck winced. “What did you do?”

There was that rustling again. “I, um. If you don’t ask, I don’t have to tell you.”

“Oh, uh. Sorry, I”—Chilchuck’s eyes went wide—"ohhh.”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously? They booted you over a thing like that?”

Laios laughed weakly. “It’s in the regulations.”

“Still? When there’s, like, five wars going on?”

“Yep. I got a little pamphlet about it and everything. It’s rarer these days, and most people now get let off with an honorable, but…” Laios sighed. “My case was a whole thing. I didn’t fit in great with the rest of my platoon to begin with, and I maybe… I maybe misread some signals. You get bored out there, you know. Lonely. Got a little too close to my bunky…” Laios cleared his throat. “He let me down easy, but I guess he said something to somebody. I don’t think he’d go straight to the brass, he told me he wouldn’t, but someone must have overheard and that counts as credible evidence, so…”

Laios popped his lips with a click of his tongue. Chilchuck was frozen, ashes falling from the end of his cigarette into the crevices of his already dirty keyboard. The cigarette had almost burned down to the filter; money burning up in unsmoked nicotine. “I was probably going to leave anyway,” Laios said, to fill the silence. “I didn’t like being out there. If anything it kept me from being stupid and going AWOL. But if you talk to the VA—or my dad, heh—I might as well have.”

Laios wheezed. Chilchuck blinked some smoke out of his eyes and stubbed out his cigarette.

“Hang on, you were on active duty and they’re hassling you at the VA over healthcare?”

“Oh yeah. Anything less than a general discharge is going to get you some hassle. I’m still on general health insurance, lowest tier. I’m not on TRICARE.”

Chilchuck pinched the pressure point between his eyebrows. “There’s gotta be a way to appeal that.”

“There might be. But I’ve spent about 40 hours of my life on the phone with them since I got back, and I’m not keen on spending anymore.” Laios made a blech sort of noise, disgusted, a little childish. “I hate phone calls. Besides, they gave me some money for college, so it wasn’t a complete wash.”

“Small miracles,” Chilchuck mumbled.

“Yup,” Laios breathed. He drummed his fingers on his desk, loud enough to reach the mic. Then there were a couple rhythmic bongo slaps against the table, nervous. “Ready for another game?”

Chuck looked at his watch. It was 4:32 AM.

“Sure. Night’s still young,” he said, for lack of anything comforting to say. “Play Heavy again.”

“Okay,” Laios said, and there was a smile in his voice. So that was something.

#dungeon meshi #ficroller #fic preview #dunmesh gamer au #chilaios #laichil

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whatyadrawin · 8 months

Text

The Fruit After the Flesh 18+ -Chapter 7-

Minors DNI!

Masterlist

Approximately 3,543 words

Pairing: Thomas Hewitt (Headcanon) x AFAB reader

This chapters Warnings: Sexual language, health concerns, foul language, mild mention of abuse, brief mention of infertility. I guess just all the usual slasher fucker warnings? Use your own discretion.

A/n: I went into the ZONE for this one, I spent all day on it, ALL DAY. In this chapter I round out some characters a bit more and I get Y/N to push some boundaries. I'm falling in love with this little world. Check the masterlist for some home layout references if you're interested in the layout of the property. As always, reblogs, likes and comments are extremely appreciated, and I hope you enjoy the chapter and art!

Tag-List: @fan-goddess

Chapter 7

A week went by slower than molasses as you stayed in Luda Mae’s room the entire time, only leaving to get a little bit of movement. You were generously allowed to stay at the Hewitt house until your home could be repaired, the entire time you stayed at the house you were weak with a persistent cough from the smoke, so you slept most of the time you were there so that you could recover; Today, you finally feel back to normal.

You had made a call to a company in the next town over who specialized in reconstruction from fire damage, they let you know that the work would take at minimum 4 months to complete and the cost was fairly high; You were fortunate enough to have a large sum of money from Tilly, who left you a dragon’s horde of wealth in her will, so money was not a stressor for once in your life.

Waking up to the sounds of a farm everyday was comforting, the wind blowing through the tall grass, crickets and birds singing songs, chickens and cows going about their business, it was extremely pleasing to hear these sounds every morning. The more you explored the property, the more beautiful you realize it was, despite being banned from viewing certain rooms and areas, there was still so much to see; you could tell that this family was once quite wealthy, they had a large mass of land and the home was enormous, there were fixtures which only the rich could have afforded, they were old and a bit damaged but the extravagance was still there.

You made your way to the kitchen for some coffee and see Luda Mae frying some eggs, she turns to see who entered and smiled when she saw you,

“Mornin’ sweetheart! It’s real nice to see you up and movin’ around this early. Want some eggs? I just been fryin’ some up for breakfast, there’s also coffee in the pot over by the stove.” She turned back to her frying pan and grabbed a plate to place the eggs onto.

You accept her offer and make your way to the coffee pot, you had been so drained of energy the past week that you always woke up so late and were unable to walk around much without coughing up a storm, today you felt strong. You place your coffee on the table and sit down, the kitchen was quite a decent size much like the other rooms in the house, American houses in the south had such massive rooms, they all felt so spacious.

The kitchen was full of mixed technology from varying eras, the stove and fridge were from the 50’s while the coffee maker and the smaller appliances were all from the late 90’s or early 2000’s. There was a theme to this kitchen which tickled your brain, strawberry themed. The kitchen window was situated in front of the tub style sink, it had white curtains with a red strawberry pattern which just added to the coziness. The walls were colored a salmon pink which beautifully accented the white laminate countertops, you saw that the molding was painted that same soft eggshell white from Luda Mae’s bedroom but the floor was still that dark walnut wood which ran throughout the house.

You turn to Luda Mae and say,

“I feel really bad for staying in your room, I really don’t mind sleeping on the couch or somewhere else so you can get your space back.”

She laughs and replies,

“Funny you mention that ‘cause I have a surprise for you. Been workin’ on it the whole time you been here.”

You were wondering what she got up to everyday, it seemed like she was nowhere to be found whenever you were awake. You even rarely saw Tommy while you stayed at the house, but Luda Mae assured you it was just him wanting to give you space to recover; apparently, he asked about you every day, and would keep watch for whenever you emerged from the room.

You quickly finished your breakfast in the anticipation to see what this surprise was,

“Ok Luda Mae, I want to see what you have in store for me and then I’ll come back and do those dishes.” You didn’t want to seem like a lazy freeloader, it was the least you could do. She responds,

“You ain’t wasting time doing no dishes while you have your first day of full strength. After I show you what I been workin’ on, you best go outside to get some fresh air.” She smiles at you playfully and takes your hand to guide you to where the surprise was.

You pass the main foyer and make your way through the dining room to reach the edge of the living room where there was a door. You were not allowed to go in the room past that door so you were curious to see what she was hiding, she stops you before you go any further and says,

“Ok Y/N, I know you been wonderin’ what’s behind this here door, and I don’t blame you. I want you to close your eyes and don’t peek ‘till I say so.”

You agree and cover both your eyes with your hands, she guides you through the door and walks you into the room,

“Ok now open ‘em!” she says excitedly.

You open your eyes to reveal a large bedroom, there’s a queen size bed still covered in its original plastic in the far corner of the room, and a writing desk by a large bay window overlooking the meadow. Large cabinets and wardrobes fill up space on the walls while another set of doors can be seen on the opposite end near the bed leading to the outside patio; The walls are a very old white color with one good size chandelier in the middle of the room dangling from the high ceiling, still with all its crystals in-tact. Your eyes widen and you are struck with awe, Luda Mae squeezes your hand gently and says,

“This was bein’ used as storage, it was meant to be my daughter’s room from a very long time ago but, I was never fortunate enough to have her.” She looks down at the floor,

“What happened?” You ask, not realizing that it may be a touchy subject,

“Oh, I’ll tell you that story someday. I want you to know that this room is yours to have, regardless of when your home is fixed, it’ll always be here for you.” She smiles at you endearingly and then continues, “And you can call me Mae from now on hun, no need to say its entirety, just don’t call me Luda.”

You nod and follow with, “How come you don’t like Luda, if you don’t mind me asking?”

She shakes her head,

“Me n’ Charlies Pa used to call me that, he was as mean as a starvin’ coyote, liked to hit and berate us both.”

You understood and dropped it, “I’m sorry you went through that, I’ll make sure to just call you Mae then.”

Luda Mae smiles and hugs you with one arm from the side, you match her and hug her with your arm and you both look at the room together side by side.

“I have no words for how grateful I am to have you in my life Mae, you have been like a mother to me and I feel like I could never repay you for your kindness.” You start to feel tears well up in your eyes, overwhelmed with the generosity of this woman.

“Theres’s nothin’ to owe dear, I did this of my own volition. I want you to enjoy it, all I ask is that you start feelin’ like family, because you are.” Her sincerity was enough to make tears stream from your eyes, which she wipes with her handkerchief.

You give her a hug and hold her tightly; you don’t know how to thank her but you promise yourself to make her as happy and loved as she has made you feel.

“You’re such a sweet girl Y/N, I want you to make this here room your home, do whatever you want with it, paint it, move the furniture, hell, whatever your heart desires!” She kisses your head and you release the hug saying,

“Will you help me decorate?” you ask.

Luda Mae looks at you with an excited smile, “I was hopin’ you’d ask!”

After the incredible surprise, Luda Mae left to go clean the kitchen and she sent you to go outside to get some sunshine, she handed you a straw hat and said,

“Go on now, explore a bit. Maybe go bug Thomas for a bit, he’d like that.”

You laugh and make your way outside; you start looking around the property and notice a whole lot of things. In one end of the property, behind the house near your new bedroom was the meadow for the cows to graze, next to the house across from the barn was a wheat field, in another end behind the small forest there was what looked like a vehicle graveyard which spooked you a little; there were cars with license plates from all over the U.S. and many different kinds of vehicles in varied states of decay. You decided not to explore that section due to potential hazards; you make your way through to an unexplored part of the property behind the forest which was between the meadow and car graveyard.

This area of the property had some trees around it which gave it privacy, in the middle of this tree perimeter was a large swathe of tall green grass, you found this odd since most of the land you saw was covered in dry, yellow grass. You tried to make your way through the bush, ensuring you don’t step on something dangerous, the further in you went the more wet the ground got -this must be where all the ground water is rising up- you felt a sense of excitement as you got closer to the center.

You finally reached a pond; it was fairly large and was surrounded by beautiful native plants. The water was crystal clear; you could see right to the bottom which was modestly deep, there were lily pads dispersed throughout the surface, and tadpoles played in the shallow zones. You felt an overwhelming desire to swim in it, the water was so pure looking that it was like a dream. So, you did.

You took off all your clothes, the surrounding forest shielded you and the Hewitts were all too busy with chores and farmwork to bother coming by, so you felt sure that you would be left alone. The water was a refreshing temperature and it felt amazing on your skin which was sweating from the heat of the day, as you made your way into the deeper parts of the pond you see small fish bolting out of your way, you decided to only go as deep as your shoulders.

You weren’t sure how long you were in the pond for, it was too incredible of a sensation to pass up spending time in. The birds sang for you and the water felt so comfortable, the shine of the sun passing overhead left a shimmer effect on the pond surface. You kept your hat on to protect you from the intense rays and you could not have been more relaxed, the small fish now were coming up to your toes and nipping at them which tickled you. Nothing could be better than this, it felt magical.

Back at the house, Luda Mae checked the clock on the wall and called out for you, when she didn’t hear a response, she went to ask Charlie if he had seen you.

“I hadn’t seen that sweet piece of ass nowhere Luda, I been busy as hell fuckin’ with this damn broken fence.” He was mending the fence by the road all day which had some damage from cows messing with it, he followed with,

“Go ask that kid of yours, I bet he knows where she went. He’s always tryin’ to get a peep on her. He needs to let off some of that pent up frustration, the boy’s brain is already like mud we don’t need him fantasizin’ all day.”

Luda Mae rolls her eyes and heads toward the barn where Tommy was feeding the chickens, she walks up to him and rubs his back asking,

“Son, have you seen Y/N today? She isn’t responding when I holler.”

He shakes his head and looks worried,

“Can you go check to see she hadn’t gone too far out? I worry she got herself lost. I have lunch ready for everyone too so both of you come on back to eat when she’s found.”

Tommy nods his head and immediately heads out from the barn to search for you, he began looking around in the wheat field which didn’t take long because of his incredible height he could see over all the wheat. He goes to check the meadow but doesn’t see you, the car graveyard was next which worried him. When he looked around all the vehicles and didn’t see you, he grew more concerned, the forest area had human traps still left in it from the bad days in the past, he was scared that you were stuck in one.

Tommy carefully made his way through the forest, cautious to avoid trap areas, he still didn’t see you and this made his heart race. He didn’t want to find you hurt and there was a very real risk of that, he paused and tried to listen. The sounds of humming could be heard in the distance, that’s when he remembered the pond and he bolted towards it as quickly as he could.

When he got to the pond area the humming was just you singing a song to yourself, he thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world. He decided to quietly make his way through the reeds so he wouldn’t scare you and stop your singing. For such a bulky man he was incredibly quiet, and with his hushed footing he got past the reeds and saw you in the water, naked.

Tommy immediately turned his head away; he was already intoxicated by your body from the night he saved you from the fire where you had so little clothes on already, and now your body was completely bare. Tommy tried his best to be gentlemanly but his aroused curiosity got the better of him and he just sat there gazing at you like a lion hiding in the tall grass watching their prey.

You looked like a mermaid, your singing was like a siren calling to him, putting him under a spell, he didn’t want this moment to end. He couldn’t see anything much below your shoulders thanks to the sun illuminating a glittering glow around you, he wanted to black out the sun for hiding your beauty from him.

Tommy couldn’t resist moving in for a closer look, he had never seen such beauty in his life, all he wanted was to be with you in this pond sharing in the relaxation and freedom. He wasn’t careful where he stepped and his weight was too much for the soft mud shelf to bear, so he fell in the pond making a lot of noise. You let out a scream and turn around to see a large splash, you try to think if there’s alligators in Texas, and panic sets in.

Tommy got his footing and stood up in the pond, the water in that area was deep for you, but on him it only reached under his pecs. You felt relief at the sight of him, his hair was slick and stuck to his face, he looked like a dog with long fur who was getting a bath, it was cute. Tommy gasped for air and moved his hair from his face pushing it back away from his eyes. You were so taken by him revealing his face again that you didn’t move, his dark green t-shirt clung to his chest and revealed erect nipples underneath. You couldn’t help but giggle a little bit after he turned his head to you looking embarrassed.

You had the biggest crush on this behemoth of a human, every day last week was like agony not being able to see him, he was all you could think about which helped keep your mind off the memory of the fire. He didn’t move from where he stood, he also couldn’t stop staring at you, a devilish smirk appeared on your mouth. You move your wet long hair over your chest for modesty and call out to him,

“I didn’t know you guys had a paradise hiding on your property.” He rubs the back of his head and looks around nodding, you follow,

“Why don’t you come out of the pond this way, it’s a gradual incline here so it will be easier to get out for you.”

He shakes his head and tries to turn back to get out the way he came, so you push,

“Thomas, I can move out of the way if you are too scared to look at my body. Don’t put yourself at risk of drowning, just come out this way.” You felt so bold, the magic of the pond gave you a strange confidence, and Tommy being so shy was endearing and only bolstered your sudden jolt of extroversion.

Tommy hung his head and covered his eyes as he made his way past you, he slipped on the slick mud underneath and fell backwards into the water right next to you, splashing you as he went down. You giggled as his head slowly came up from the water, a very annoyed and embarrassed expression on his eyes. He was able to sit with his butt on the pond floor and his head was able to remain above water, he didn’t move from being too scared of further making a fool of himself.

Seeing him so close to your bare body made you incredibly aroused, you couldn’t help but swim up to him and get between his legs so you could hold onto his chest. You smiled at him and said,

“Don’t be embarrassed, I don’t think this pond is very friendly to such… impressively large men. Why don’t you stay a while and just relax in the cool water with me?”

Tommy’s eyes were so wide you thought they would fall out of his head, you saw his cheeks flush and he was breathing heavily, you were close enough to hear his heartbeat which was racing. He had never been this close to a woman before, well, a woman who was alive and willing to be near him, let alone a naked one. You stare into his eyes, they were so full of emotion and deeply blue like the Pacific Ocean on a summer day reflecting the light of the sun on the water, you were mesmerized, you said,

“You have the most beautiful eyes, Thomas; I could get lost in them.” You reach out to move some stray hairs away from his face.

Tommy was overwhelmed with carnal desire; it was taking a lot of restraint to not touch you and he was worried that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop. He had never felt this way before, he thought his heart was going to explode from pumping so fast, he could feel his veins throbbing and a very specific organ was painfully pressed against his jeans. When you touched his face, he couldn’t take it and instead of just grabbing you and taking you, he got up and ran out of the pond towards the house at lightning speed. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt you, or overstep a boundary you didn’t want him to cross, his head was so full of new swirling emotions, he was drunk on the desire you put in him and it was too alien of a sensation for him to handle.

You watched as Tommy got up and ran away from you, it made you laugh seeing him flustered like that. You knew you were tempting a beast but there was a deep lust and longing inside you that wanted him to let loose and ravish you. You were so erotically excited that your groin was aching for touch, it didn’t help that you noticed a massive snakelike shape pressing through his jeans as he got up to escape your spell, the prospect of his size was enough to make you bite your lip thinking about what it looked like freed from the bonds of his pants.

You got out of the pond and put your clothes back on, you made your way back to the house feeling proud of yourself -at least now he must know where I stand- you were looking forward to more overtly flirtatious encounters in the days ahead.

Next chapter-

#what ya writin #thomas hewitt #thomas hewitt x y/n #slasher community #thomas hewitt x afab reader #leatherface 2006 #texas chainsaw massacre #my art #the fruit after the flesh #slasher smut #slasher x reader #slasher thirst #slasher fandom

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catbountry · 3 months

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Kill. Murder. Rape. Suicide. Pedophile. Nazi. Hitler. Covid. Dead. Death.

When's the last time you watched a YouTube video or a TikTok video where some or even all of these words were censored, either by being bleeped out like what used to be reserved solely for swear words, or having sound-alike stand-ins (sewer slide, PDF File) or euphemisms (unalive)?

I'm not sure exactly where "unalive" came from, but I want to say it was in a similar batch of Roblox screencaps of children trying to creatively get past wordfilters by telling people to "go commit die." And I guess Fortnite played a role as well. Apparently "game-end" is attributed to a short film covered by Pyrocynical which was made to be family friendly, but I swear I have this memory of official Epic Games promo material using the term and I don't know if this real or not. I don't play Fortnite and I never will, so this was not considered important enough to really properly commit it to memory.

EDIT: It came from a Spider-man cartoon where Deadpool used it in an incredibly in-character way. Thanks, Guy I'm Going to Reference Later in this Post.

It's an incredibly childish word. It seems like it was one that used to be used ironically until TikTok, being owned by a Chinese company where censorship laws are much stricter than here in the U.S., decided that words like "dead" and "death" and even "hole" were too dangerous of something, causing users to start getting creative and adapting these absurd euphemisms and they became so popular that people started using it who weren't even using it as a cheeky way to get around these word filters, on other sites that didn't have these same restrictions.

YouTubers can say the word "death" and "die" and (usually) don't have to worry about demonitization. The self-censoring that I remember starting on this very website, done as a way to either prevent posts being found through search or possibly offending the most sensitive of followers, is now being used by users to get around the restrictions set by giant faceless corporations to protect The Children, whose parents are giving them unrestricted access to the internet at younger and younger ages. I watched a video from an adult YouTuber crying about Newgrounds-style animations that were on YouTube about My Little Pony and about how traumatized he was by these, while also insisting he had good parents.

Good parents would not have let you have unrestricted access to 2012 YouTube unsupervised at age seven. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I gotta be the one to tell you this. I'm sure your parents are very nice people, but they could have easily used the internet to find out what kind of stuff was available on the internet. That was an oversight.

I was an adult on the internet in 2012. If I saw a parent just sit their toddler in front of YouTube, I would have asked them what the hell was wrong with them. Now, I see my cousin's children with their iPads watching videos of a faceless person playing with Paw Patrol figures, and I feel uneasy, but a little more hesitant to say something since my cousin seems well aware of the kind of place the internet is, and is always nearby when his kids are watching things. The internet was a constant presence for me in middle and high school, in the late 90's to early 2000's, and I saw some shit I should not have seen. But the trade-off was that I had a space where I could express myself openly, a place my mom didn't care about and wouldn't see. I clicked things I know I shouldn't have because I was a dumb, curious kid, and my mom was happy to not have to deal with me and have me be quiet, I guess. And my cousin is only a year older than I am, so I imagine our experiences on the early internet weren't that much different, considering he's also a bit of a nerd.

So this YouTuber aims his ire at the animators, who were making animations for other adult fans of the show (which he acknowledges), for daring to make edgy content of something made for children, holding up this children's media as a sort of sacred cow. For comparison, in middle and high school I was watching crude animations of frogs in blenders, stick figures bashing each other's heads into walls, and torture simulators featuring anyone from Pikachu and Elmo to Osama bin Laden. But because kids like him, kids brought up in the age of web 2.0, found these videos and watched them before their age had hit double-digits, those videos got lots of views from other children. And from that, we got Elsagate and Finger Family, videos that are still around but have mutated from featuring Elsa and Spider-man to now featuring Huggy Wuggy from Poppy's Playtime, or Pomni from The Amazing Digital Circus or Bluey from, uh, Bluey. These aren't edgy animations made for and by teenagers and young adults for a laugh, they're videos presumably made by teams of adults to mass produce and fill with as much shocking, click-baity content that doesn't even require being able to understand English to understand the plot, all to get watch-time to make money. There's no artistic merit to it. It's neither satire, nor is it an earnest expression of love for the source material, the latter of which, whether you like it or not, is where most rule 34 falls. No, these videos have only ever been content slop since this started around 2016. And this shit is still happening.

That same YouTuber has made a video about how we need to stop saying "unalive," which is part of what inspired me to post this at all, and I can't help but feel like this dude takes himself way too goddamn seriously, frowning upon "commit toaster bath" and "late term fetus deletus," which my edgelord, former 4channer millennial brain finds funny (it is too late for me, lads). This dude is in his early 20's and it's really interesting seeing someone discover pretty much things I've known since I was his age, but acting like they're these huge revelations. Like yeah, I've known about media influence on culture since I was in middle school, because of the internet, which was new and unrestricted by the Standards and Practices that shackled old media like radio and television. That used to be something that pretty much everybody on the internet was aware of; it's the reason why we came here in the first place. And you are right that giant corporations are censoring people, but also, the internet being corralled into a small handful of websites makes internet culture more homogenized and disposable. People can still meet life-long friends through the internet, but the sites where I first met some of my best friends are digital ghost towns, if they still exist at all, or they've become overrun with users infected by political brainworms that make them have incredibly strong opinions on a one-off promotional video done by Budweiser with a transgender TikTok influencer. You've got better luck making life-long friends through playing in the same Minecraft server together than you do being mutuals on Instagram or Twitter. And while Discord is the closest thing I've been able to find that replicates the feeling of both forum culture and chatrooms of the past, it's got its own set of problems unique to it. I can just say "Discord kitten" and most people who use Discord will know exactly what I mean.

Whoever decided to stop teaching kids about how to be safe online should probably be shot. Facebook made putting your whole-ass name and face and location on the internet not just normal, but people will find you suspicious if you choose not to do that. God, I fucking hate Facebook so much.

He's right, though, about the social contagion effect of language. This was a concern for me on this website a decade ago, but that was all social pressure. There was no corporate mandate cracking down on people, making them type "st*pid" to get around restrictions. That was all moral peacocking, baby. People did that shit to themselves.

Tumblr nowadays feels more sane, just because those of us left after the porn ban got a couple of years to grow up and chill out. But because of the porn ban, we can only really talk about the effects of it and complain, rather than be able to post our smut openly. Human sexuality expresses itself in some genuinely weird ways; I should know, and you should probably donate to Archive of Our Own to make sure there's a space where these things can be expressed without fear of censorship to protect The Children. But "unalive" is a symptom of a much larger problem, which is to sand off all the edges of the internet to make it marketable; the free market is more than happy to cater to the whims of the CCCP if they think it can make them more money. There's a lot of people in China, after all. The internet has more people on it but they're confined to much smaller spaces. Children don't have their own spaces online, and when they do, they're not as carefully moderated, instead opting for either overworked humans overseas, or dumb robots that just filter certain words and just become an obstacle to maneuver around to tell something to kill themselves with the creativity of someone who's at a sixth-grade reading level. People in their 20's are uncomfortable with nudity and sex scenes in films, perhaps under the assumption that it's always exploitation, that these scenes can't have artistic merit and are solely there to titillate, and given the sort of dumbing down of art thanks to Marvel and Disney, this seems like the only natural result when combined with the trauma of finding things online that you shouldn't have at way too young of an age. I do not like where this is going, and it's really saying something that those brought up in a sex-negative, American puritanical mindset only start paying attention when the censorship is affecting how we talk about death, something we have absolutely no problem with glorifying in our culture.

And if you're wondering why I wrote yet another long-ass essay bemoaning the slow death of internet culture and the Weenie Hut Jr's-fication of younger generations, well, it's because of this screenshot from 4chan.

Now if only they could bully out the tradcaths.

#not fanfiction #tl;dr #unalive #old dog yells at cloud #slurs

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canmom · 1 year

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Animation Night 155: Kunihiko Ikuhara

...or Ikuni to his fans. The Utena guy.

Since the very beginning of this series, Ikuhara’s been someone I’ve been desperate to cover. He’s exactly the kind of weirdo we like around here. And you know how much the Tumblr girlies love Utena.

But only now, at Animation Night 155, is Ikuni getting his due. Why so long? Well, let’s put it like this. Ikuni’s very much a TV guy. Revolutionary Girl Utena is 39 episodes and a movie. Mawaru Penguindrum: 26 episodes. Yurikuma Arashi is 13, as is Sarazanmai.

And if we’ve managed to cram in 13-episode series into this format, it’s always been with difficulty - take Heike Monogatari [AN91], Alexander Senki [AN125] or Houseki no Kuni [AN97]. It generally takes multiple nights. So I thought, that’s fine, we’ll do Adolescence of Utena, the movie, and, um... hmm.

Luckily for us they just made a new Penguindrum compilation movie! Problem solved let’s go!

And with such a long wait behind us, let’s try and do the guy some justice.

So. Who is this guy with the rabbit? (Picture from his website. Though this is a plain outfit by Ikuhara standards!)

If you were trying to summarise Ikuni’s works... you could probably say something like this: surreal, densely symbolic stories about the difficulties of real human connection. Sort of like the anime version of Lynch. But if that sounds too cerebral, let’s not forget that an episode of Utena involves a character gradually turning into a cow for no particular reason. He’s just as much a goofball who loves to tell lies.

Ikuni came into the business back in the mid eighties, at Toei. [c.f. AN149 for a brief history of Toei!]

So. In the late 70s, Toei had established a powerful niche to themselves in long-running, wildly popular series such as Galaxy Express 999, but most of their work was much less high-profile. Take a glance, see how many of these you recognise - I would guess not many! Hot out of art school, Ikuhara became an assistant director under the wing of Junichi Satō, later well known for shōjo anime such as the avant-garde Princess Tutu (2002-3), or Ojamajo Doremi (1999-2000).

But of course, the most renowned Satō project is Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon (1991-7, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon). Satō directed the first half, and then Ikuhara took the reins for the rest. For Satō it was his debut as a director, I’ll talk more about his tenure on Sailor Moon in just a minute, but first, let’s get a little context about... magical girls!

(quick! tell me which sailor this is! you have five seconds)

Magical Girls! 魔法少女 mahō shōjo. An ordinary high school student makes contact with a powerful magical being, who may also be a cute mascot character, and agrees to help. Now she can transform: manifest a stylish outfit, gain suitably themed powers, and fight monsters of the week... but she’s got to maintain a double life as a regular student. The henshin (transformation) sequence itself will usually be an extremely elaborate sequence that is played regularly (a ‘bank’ shot).

By now it’s one of the absolutely central anime archetypes, one people are likely to recognise even if they’ve never watched a magical girl show. It’s been parodied, it’s been genderflipped, it’s spun off a dark otaku-oriented variant.

But it wasn’t always so! Everything must begin somewhere. Very quickly reeling this off then... Osamu Tezuka’s 1953 manga Princess Knight is seen as the earliest proto-magical-girl work; Himitsu no Akko-chan (1962-5) as the earliest true magical girl manga with the elements of the genre, and 1966′s Sally the Witch as the big populariser. In the 70s, Toei started producing them in a big way, known collectively as 魔女っ子 majokko series (‘little witch’).

The actual phrase 魔法少女 mahō shōjo was introduced in 1980 with 魔法少女ララベル Mahō Shōjo Lalabel. With the economic bubble in full swing, other studios started to join the party - notably AshiPro with Minky Momo, and Pierrot, the studio behind epoch-defining megahit Urusei Yatsura, who entered the arena with Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel (1983-4). Why is she creamy? I don’t know, but that’s her stage name as an idol; the manga was designed to promote an actual idol singer Takako Ōta. This business model proved wildly successful, and even today anime production committees usually include record companies who use the show as a vehicle to promote a song or group. Toei no longer had exclusive hold on the matter of girls, magical.

Visually here we’re seeing 80s-style bishōjo, the same as over the fence in sci-fi series such as Macross. Mostly the stories are comedies, following in the footsteps of Urusei Yatsura.

What was missing from the formula at this point? Surprisingly, the henshin sequences! It’s not that magical girls didn’t transform, but they would be more likely to transform into something like an aged-up version of themselves, and the act of transformation wouldn’t be given the same importance. This final ingredient was to be found over in tokusatsu land - Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.

So, that’s where Sailor Moon came in at the beginning of the 90s - first a wildly successful manga by Naoko Takeuchi, and in very short order a TV series at Toei. Takeuchi came up with the idea of fusing the magical girls with sentai: instead of a motorbike-like Rider suit, the girls would get sailor fuku. And that means every magical girl transformation is in a sense a homage to this one.

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Sailor Moon tells the story of a girl called Usagi. She’s a clumsy and forgetful audience-identification character - perhaps even to point of being a Huineng-type character? - but she’s informed by a talking cat that she’s the guardian of Earth, soon to be joined by a number of other girls from her area who are, collectively, the Sailor Guardians (セーラー戦士 sērā senshi). To fight, she activates a magical brooch and, that ^ happens.

Why? Well, the Dark Kingdom is invading! They want to free the villainous Queen Metaria. In past lives the Sailor Guardians fought those guys, and now they need to get back on the job. The forces of the Dark Kingdom (and numerous subsequent enemy factions) arrive in the form of a series of themed villains, much like the villains in a tokusatsu show. Outside of fighting those guys, it’s gentle comedy with a large cast, not so far from the works of Rumiko Takahashi. In fact it’s apparently a fair bit more comedic in tone than the manga, and a chunk of that can be credited to Ikuhara’s influence.

It’s hard to try and summarise the 90s for anime, it wasn’t just one thing. Even as the economic bubble popped, the movies got increasingly ambitious, reaching for more complex emotions and darker themes with incredibly complex animation to match. And to a certain extent, that was also true on TV, by which I mean “Evangelion happened”. But it was also an age of a return to more limited animation. If you wanted to make a TV anime, you had to be smart about using all the tools you could to cut corners. You could keep a bank of reused shots, or for a joke, transform a character into a much simpler caricatured design with more limited animation. At the same time, photography was getting more advanced, and animation techniques were getting more sophisticated.

Even so, a lot of the credit for the art of working effectively in limited animation goes way back to Osamu Dezaki, who back in the 60s and 70s established many of the iconic ‘anime’ techniques. I’ve written about him before back on Animation Night 95, but as much as that covers the history, it doesn’t say a lot about Dezaki’s style. So let me pull in this video, which will helpfully illustrate the important examples...

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The relevant period is when Dezaki directed on Aim for the Ace! (エースをねらえ! Ēsu o Nerae!) - where, in contrast to his earlier work which was comparatively cinematic, he started to push in a more theatrical, abstracted direction, prioritising conveying emotion over realism. Still frames (with the famous ‘postcard memory’ effect), simplified background details framed to draw attention to the important stuff, repeating an important shot multiple times - oh, that’s just Utena, huh? And while Dezaki influenced just about everyone, but for Ikuhara, he’s a massive touchpoint.

Designs were also changing - in contrast to the rounded bishōjo of the 80s came more angular and blocky designs. Take Slayers for example:

Hold onto that thought because we’re going to talk about Utena in a minute. Sailor Moon didn’t go quite that far, but Kazuko Tadano’s designs were very effective in conveying a lot of appeal in quite simple shapes. Usagi in particular has an instantly recognisable hairstyle. But it’s also a style very amenable to simplification.

TV anime in this period ran long. Nowadays, the norm is one cours (‘cour’ if you’re not feeling pedantic) of 12-13 episodes, sometimes not even that. Back then you could easily see counts in the 50s or even hundreds. Such is true of Sailor Moon: crazy popular in both Japan and, in its heavily localised dub, America, and with a premise flexible enough to run for years. In the end it racked up some 200 episodes and several movies.

The Ikuhara period starts with the Sailor Moon R movie in 1993, then the series proper starting mid Sailor Moon R and then Sailor Moon S in 1994. Not sure which episode he took over, but S begins at 90. This is a post about Ikuhara (no, really!) so we should ask, how did Sailor Moon change once he took the reins? Let’s have a look at some of his favourite themes, as they appear in the Sailor Moon R movie, based on his own notes...

Lesbians - Not so much in the R movie, but once S gets going... big controversy! Sailors Uranus and Neptune were a couple whose dynamic was one of the most popular in the show, but this would be heavily censored in nearly every localisation, notably the American one which made them cousins.

Flower imagery - Ikuhara decided to set his first project as director in a botanical garden, naturally.

Lost connections, the distance between people - to quote the linked blog...

Ikuhara compares the reunion between Fiore and Mamoru with that of being stuck on a train in-between stations when suddenly you notice you’re standing next to an old friend you haven’t seen in years.

At first you’re both excited to see each other again and kill the time by catching up on each other’s lives. But eventually you run out of things to say, and the conversation just kind of dies off, leaving you both standing there in awkward silence.

Creative editing, use of music - 18 second long scene of Tuxedo Mask getting stabbed? Musically timed fight? Mm.

Darker themes - let’s watch the girls incinerate a field of flower monsters! At one point Usagi would nearly die! Ikuhara tried to keep it ‘fun’ and lighthearted, but just couldn’t do it, he says. Nothing on the level of where his later work would go, but definitely harsher than your average episode.

Vaguely hinting that some element is key to understanding everything, and then refusing to elaborate further - oh yes.

Which isn’t to say that Ikuhara’s Sailor Moon instantly became Utena. Rather, the seeds of his interests as a director, the sort of emotional arcs he’d like to portray, were there. I regret that I can’t really comment in much detail on what Ikuhara did in his actual run on the TV series - I’m sure I have some big Sailor Moon fans here who could fill me in and tell me if I’ve described anything wrong.

Working on Sailor Moon, in any case, also got Ikuhara used to technical elements that would become part of his stylistic fingerprint. We mentioned the transformation sequence, the elaborate bank shot with accompanying music that would recur in nearly every episode. I am less sure about other Dezaki-esque elements, like jokes based on repeating the same sequence with minor variations.

Eventually, Ikuhara’s run on Sailor Moon would come to an end. The final arc of the show saw the Sailor Guardians facing... themselves, from a distant bad future. But for that final season, Ikuhara had already stepped down. Where did he go...?

You see, Ikuhara chafed under the creative restrictions placed on him by Toei. Turning down an offer from Anno to work on Eva(!), he set off to found his own group, Be-Papas, along with...

the famous shōjo manga artist Chiho Saito, animator Shinya Hasegawa, writer Yōji Enokido, and producer Yuuichiro Okuro

and before long also recruiting composer J.A. Seazer, known for his work with avant-garde dramatist-filmmaker-writer-poet Shūji Terayama - another big influence on Ikuni, incidentally. What did Be-Papas make? Just one anime, after which they disbanded. That anime was... Albert Ei-

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That anime was Utena.

Oh man. This is the one.

少女革命ウテナ - Shōjo Kakumei Utena. In English, Revolutionary Girl Utena. Now the time has finally come to write about it, I’m nervous. Could I possibly do justice to Utena in a single blog post? Is that why I spent so long writing about Sailor Moon?

Let’s start with the aesthetic: French Revolution-esque outfits that would be comfortable in Rose of Versailles. A school made of white stone; architecture that is strange, avant-garde. Roses. So many roses oh my fucking god. It draws heavily on the Takarazuka Revue, which I wrote about previously on Animation Night 92 in the context of Ikuhara’s protege Tomohiro Furukawa.

Utena is about a girl called (wait for it) Utena, who attends a school of sorts called Ohtori Academy. But it’s a school only in a fairly abstract sense - it’s more like a palace. She wears a distinctive masculine uniform, and shortly after transferring in, discovers a mysterious underground duelling society who go to a strange abstract battle arena outside of school hours. There, they attempt to strike the rose from the other duellist. The winner of the duel gains custody of Anthy Himemiya, the ‘Rose Bride’. At some point, whoever possesses Anthy will gain the nebulous power to ‘revolutionise the world’. With me so far?

Utena walks in and immediately wins her first duel, establishing an initially frosty relationship with Anthy. But the White Rose duellists won’t take this lying down. Over the first series of episodes, we learn about each of the duellists and their motivating conflicts, culminating in an attempt to defeat Utena. (She walks up the stairs every time.) They lose every time, but the point isn’t really about whether Utena will win or not - it’s about introducing us to a collection of fucked up guys, and then making them even more fucked up.

But it’s not all high drama. A lot of Utena is just straight-up antics, which is to say, just about any time Nanami is on the screen. There’s a greek chorus of shadow girls who comment on the events of the episode. The broad strokes are hard to miss, but the subtler, more obtuse stuff is the sort of thing that can get you into an almost endless rabbit hole of analysis. Don’t take things too literally! You could probably call it at least a little Brechtian in how much it foregrounds its own artifice.

After Utena’s defeated just about everyone at the White Rose, the Black Rose arc introduces a new element. Now, characters from beyond the duelling circle will go down an elevator to guy who renders a fucked up sort of anti-therapy which will motivate them give into their worst impulses and have a go at Utena. Utena, meanwhile, is harbouring a complex where she needs to live up to an ideal of fairytale prince following an incident from her childhood - and oblivious to what’s actually going on with Anthy.

Then at last Anthy’s brother Akio shows up - the actual prince from the upside-down castle in the sky that represents the power to revolutionise the world, and the architect of the monstrous system. It turns out he’s been incesting Anthy, that she’s complicit in all his shenanigans (guess who was behind the Black Rose thing). Moreover, Utena is pulled in to Akio’s orbit, an ugly, abusive relationship... that is conveyed mostly through visual metaphors involving cars.

The finale is... complicated to explain. But it gives us one of the most iconic pieces of cinematic lesbianism ever animated, as Utena reaches for Anthy, refusing to be pushed away (by stabbing) or let Anthy remain in her state of self-inflicted pain, and they are able to escape the academy and its system, at the cost of being separated. What future they have outside the academy is left unspoken...

And that’s just scratching the surface. If you ask the hardcore Utena fan, just about every element of every shot is dripping with meaning. You can’t take everything too literally, but you definitely have to take some portion of it literally or you don’t have a story and characters at all.

Visually, the characters in Utena are designed by Shinya Hasegawa - and as much as they are recognisably ‘90s’, they really push it. People are long and faces - noses and chins especially - are pointy. Characters tend to be reserved and stoic in their facial expressions, unless they’re Nanami, in which case all bets are off. Animation-wise, JC Staff did the work under Be-Papas’s direction - and as much as it uses limited animation for effect, it’s really got the goods, especially in the duel sequences and the bank shots (Utena climbing the stairs? Not CG!).

Did you know Yoh Yoshinari was on it? I didn’t until today! So too was Mamoru Hosoda.

Remarkably for such a deliberately challenging show Utena was pretty successful! This was the era between Eva and Lain: it was an excellent time to be making something really experimental and push those genre boundaries. (One thing I don’t really know is how Utena got funded in the first place, but all the big names attached to the project probably gave them some pull.)

Alongside the anime came a manga by Saito - but neither is really an adaptation of the other, they’re just two different interpretations of the same general concept and premise, produced at the same time. And in fact, Ikuhara and Saito clashed heavily over the direction of the series, particularly in regards to whether the relationship between Utena and Anthy should be presented as romantic. Saito did not believe that shōjo audiences would be on board with the yuri, but Ikuhara refused to back down. (Saito eventually changed her mind.)

With all this success, they went ahead to make a movie. Now, usually a compilation movie of a successful TV series will cut out down the story to fit the runtime, reanimate a few scenes and call it a day. But this would be all but impossible with Utena, which is so tied to its episodic structure and use of repetition. And in any case, Be-Papas had bigger ambitions!

The film would be titled 少女革命ウテナアドゥレセンス黙示録 Shōjo Kakumei Utena: Aduresensu Mokushiroku, literally Revolutionary Girl Utena: Adolescence Apocalypse, though in English it’s usually given the shorter title Adolescence of Utena. It is kinda sorta a condensed version of the series at first... and then in the latter half it goes completely off the rails. This time Akio is long dead. And he’s not the only one! It ends with this absolutely nuts sequence where Utena turns into a car to drive Anthy out of the academy, pursued by Shiori, who also turns into a car. I still can’t say I really understand it, or how it relates to the ‘car is a rape metaphor’ role in the TV series? But it looks beautiful.

Compared to the series, the movie features the expected higher drawing counts and flashier animation... but the really novel aspect is the architecture. This movie goes absolutely wild with it: the Ohtori Academy this time is far stranger and more intricate, looking less like a regular old European palace and more like something dreamed up by the Russian avant-garde.

It’s less of a summary of Utena and more of a companion piece. Seen on its own by someone who’s not familiar with either... I’m not sure how it would come across! Maybe you’ll just think I’m insane. Maybe you’ll be right.

So, some 3000 words into this post, I’ve finally told you the first movie we’ll be watching! That’s right: we’re going to jump in at the deep end and enjoy Adolescence of Utena. You don’t need to have seen the series.

After Adolescence, Be-Papas disbanded, as if following Monsieur Dupont’s injunction that radical groups must exist for a single purpose and then disband. Ikuhara left anime for a long time, like twelve years. He wasn’t entirely cut out from the industry, occasionally dropping in to storyboard an episode or two (for example, Episode 2 of Diebuster, or the OP to yuri series Aoi Hana). But for the most part, he turned his attentions to other mediums.

In that time he published a shōjo manga, which was poorly received for being a lot more conventional than Utena; he also wrote a novel called Schell Bullet which, get a load of this...

As a result of gene manipulation, society is segregated by genes into "Majors" – intersex humans who maintain a monopoly on stronger genetic material – and lesser dual-sex "Minors". (Ikuhara stated that he chose to make the Majors intersex because he wished to create "a race which combines the good parts of both women and men."[1]) Protagonist Ors Break is hired by the intergalactic trading company Balt Liner Corporation to pilot a schell, a bio-organic mecha, by claiming to be a Major. When the truth of his Minor status is revealed, he comes to an agreement with his superior, a Major named Delbee Ibus, to continue working for the organization.[1][2]

...and another serial novel called Nokomono to Hanayome, described as ‘Lolita hardboiled’ (I believe as in ‘Elegant Gothic’ rather than as in ‘Nabokov’s novel’). This last was a precursor to Penguindrum - animal costumes, the a story about the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks.

In 2011, Ikuhara came back to anime. Why? And why did he leave in the first place? itsamystery.jpg. In any case, his new project was... Mawaru Penguindrum. It’s about, I guess you might say, the abandoned children of cultists who connect to a supernatural penguin being through a hat. But honestly it’s even tougher to attempt to summarise than Utena. There’s a “child broiler” involved. That’s just the start. And this post is already very long.

So, it’s time to split it. You’ll be able to read more about Penguindrum tomorrow (or later today, if you’re also staying up insanely late in the UK).

Animation Night 155, in its cosy new Sunday timeslot, will be running (if all goes according to plan) at 8pm UK time. That’s about 13 hours from the time of this post. The plan will be to watch Adolescence of Utena and the two movies of Re:cyle of the Penguindrum, for a total of about five and a half hours. (Sorry Sailor Moon fans! I’d really like to squeeze in the R movie too, but I underestimate how long Penguindrum is in movie form. We’ll find another day to do Sailor Moon though!)

If you’ve read all this so far, thanks so much! I’ve wanted to do a proper Animation Night on Ikuhara for ages, and there’s so much I can write about. So far it’s all history, but we wanna do some analysis too. For now... hold on tight.

#animation night

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directdogman · 2 years

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Heya, been watching Mr bean lately and thought I'd ask you if there's anything I should know about the bean lore

i deadass almost responded 'why are you watching mr bean' on its own, but hey. it's not every day i get an ask like this. it's actually a common fan misconception that I like Mr Bean all that much, but I'll still attempt to answer this question in good faith. first question to ask is, animated or live action?

for the live action show, I could talk about it for quite a long time, but long story short, it was created by the same creative team as Blackadder's first season (more or less), with Rowan Atkinson starring, Atkinson and Richard Curtis co-writing and Howard Goodall scoring the show. The famous chorale arrangement of the Mr Bean theme is actually real Latin too. Something people forget about Rowan Atkinson is incredibly well educated. In fact, him, Richard Curtis and Howard Goodall all met in Oxford college iirc.

The first line of the live action series theme literally translates as 'behold the man who is bean'. Beyond that, the only real surface level live action lore I can really think of, off the top of my head, is that Mr Bean has co-acted with Willem Dafoe, has destroyed priceless artwork, has been driven around downtown LA while flipping the bird at people he passed, was almost briefly named 'mr cauliflower', etc. Oh, also, Mr Bean isn't fully mute in the live action series, like in the pilot, where he speaks at length before sitting for a university math examination that he isn't prepared to take. So, yes, Mr Bean has canonically attended a university.

I do have a pretty big theory that alleges that Doug Walker's relationship with the Nostalgia Critic is more or less the same as Rowan Atkinson's with Mr Bean, but I refuse to explain Mr Bean lore if I feel it may come up later on in a trial or contribute to me ending up in a padded cell somewhere, so you'll just have to sit and wonder, I'm afraid.

OKAY, onto the cartoon series. The important thing to remember about the cartoon series is that it had two iterations. The run of the Mr Bean cartoon was aired in the early 2000's. Rowan Atkinson was apparently in the writer's room for it, and Mr Bean, like in official media, is semi-mute in it. He often just emotes using various grunts, but can utter short sentences. The animation is very fluid and the characters frequently go off model in order to appear more expressive. The episode plots were also pretty off the wall in comparison to the second iteration. You know the Citadel of Ricks in Rick and Morty, where Rick meets a whole space ship full of identical clones of himself? Yeah, it's canon to Mr Bean too, but y'know. It's the Citadel of Beans, I guess.

youtube

In case the embedded timestamp doesn't automatically work, jump to 9:02 and watch until at least 9:13. Or don't watch any of it at all. Your call. Also no, it's not a dream sequence or anything like that, it's fully canon and really happening. It also implies that Mr Bean remembers that he's an alien for the rest of the series. The scene even ends with the direct implication that the fan theory that live action Mr Bean is an alien IS correct. (Some have speculated that he was perhaps a fallen angel too.) By the way, I'm linking to a shitty fan reupload so this Mr Bean clip instead of any of the readily available public resources because fuck YOU Mr Bean, I refuse to give you your now undeserved 10th of a cent in ad revenue after your DISGRACEFUL NFT line. More on that later.

After they finished up with the early 2000's cartoon series, the show went off the air for a literal decade and then they brought it back, out of nowhere, with rigid (and decidedly cheaper to produce) digital animation. You could compare the change in animation to, say, The Simpsons or Family Guy, where the art style remains the same for every design/background that's borrowed from the older seasons, but now everything moves stiffly/robotically. Newer one-off character designs are also way flatter and less cartoonish, as if the creative juices that went into the original cartoon series are... gone.

I have to say, I haven't seen all of these episodes because they're really not very good. The writing is a lot worse. Mr Bean just constantly talks for some reason, which feels like a pretty stark abandonment of the core tenets of the character imo. Come to think of it, the other recurring characters (like his landlord, Mrs Wicket) is also strangely out of character. Long story short, they just don't care anymore.

The funny thing about the baffling Mr Bean NFT line is that, well, there's basically 4 'eras' of Mr Bean... at least, according to how I group it. Era 1 is the live action series, era 2 is made up of the 2 feature length Mr Bean movies (I group them together, despite them coming out over a decade apart as they don't really connect directly to the main Mr Bean lore and take place outside of London), era 3 is the early 2000's run of the cartoon, and the era 4 is the 2010's cartoon reboot.

Of ALL of the 4 possible places they could pull content from, only ONE iteration of Mr Bean contained digital, pre-cropped assets... The cartoon reboot, which the production company that owns the rights to the character (Tiger Aspect Productions) obviously had, leading to this really strange revisionism (more or less gaslighting) from the Mr Bean brand, like "hey, remember Mr Bean? Remember him? He has an NFT line now! Remember Mr Bean? BUY BUY BUY" Which is funny, because statistically, of all of the four eras, the shitty cartoon reboot is the only era that does not contain anything that interesting to talk about, and is the only one that doesn't contain memorable Mr Bean media, arguably.

Some people 100% remember the time Mr Bean put an armchair on TOP of his car and drove it around in the live action series. Some people remember watching the movies in the theater as a kid and some people remember the zany episodes of the early cartoon series, which aired on Nickelodeon owned channels in the early 2000's... Nobody remembers the time Mr Bean set up a pizza place called 'pizza bean'. Seriously, there's several episodes in the new animated series where the guy just starts up a get rich quick scheme, which falls apart by the end of the episode. It's like Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, except instead of the Ed boys, you're stuck in an elevator alone with an our of character Mr Bean.

So, yeah, the company REALLY milked the final seasons of the cartoon, despite it being the worst Mr Bean content, because that way, they could produce easy content that didn't require any more work. They don't even get Rowan Atkinson in for voices most of the time they make 'new material', just using recycled clips from a Mr Bean soundboard. The entire NFT line, by the way, is just random frames from the cartoon reboot placed against re-used backgrounds from the show, or just in front of a gradient/solid colour. Pretty cheeky given that they minted these NFTS for, get this, over $100 each. I personally wouldn't even accept someone else's money in exchange for having to own a Mr Bean NFT, so I can't imagine who'd actually spend their hard earned money on such a thing.

I could keep going, but sooner or later, an Al-Qaeda sniper is gonna take me out if I keep typing, so best quit while I'm ahead. You were a FOOL to have read this

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toastofthetrashfire · 10 months

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Shadow Meta Series Post#3: Anurak and Old vs New Technology

This is my third post in my Shadow meta series on technology, time, and horror. You can check out my introduction and plan for that in this post!

When watching through the first seven episodes of Shadow for the first time, Josh’s technology usage was fairly obvious. But when I watched through the episodes again with an eye on technology, I was surprised by a few characters who were also heavily surrounded by tech. One of these is brother Anurak.

In his office alone he has two clocks, three landline phones, a tape recorder, a Newton’s cradle, a lamp, a portable TV radio cassette player (thanks @raypakorn for helping to confirm this one), another radio or older music player (my best guess is an FM radio stereo but I can’t find a closer shot of this one), and candles.

My goal here is to do a reading of Anurak’s relationship with technology and put forth a few potential theories as to what Shadow might be trying to communicate through this. Unlike other posts in the series so far, the conclusions on this one remain much more speculation as I feel we have a lot more to learn about Anurak in order to get to a deeper reading. I’ll be relying on some other theories about Anurak, particularly @wen-kexing-apologist 's theory that Anurak is the one-armed man.

Old vs New Technology

What struck me most about Anurak in going over his technology, was the fact that he was pretty even with Josh in terms of how many different types of tech they had. However, Anurak’s tech gives the impression of being more dated. If we go with the theory that Anurak is the one-armed man, then we know his execution happened 20 years before the present day, so 1979.

My theory is that most of his technology predates 1979. It’s hard to track everything down, and we have to consider whether it’s more appropriate to go with the year a technology was invented or with the precise model. Still here’s some of what I was able to track down.

Anurak’s Tech

Three landline phones

While two of these look like the phones found elsewhere in the show, one of these is a rotary which were invented back in 1892. These models seem to have been common up through the 50s with the corded landlines used elsewhere in the show coming on the market in the 60s and 70s.

TV Radio Cassette Player

This one was surprisingly tricky to track down. You can find models being resold online but actually figuring out when they first went on the market was a dead end. Most of the ones I found were from the 80s when they seemed to be most popular. The earliest I found was a model from Japan from 1978. This is cutting it very close but it does technically make the cut.

Tape recorder

The model used here looks to be a Sony TC-150 portable tape recorder and player from 1977–it also makes the cut

The Newton’s Cradle

Invented in 1967

The clocks

Both are analog so safely in our window

Music player

If we go with my guess (FM radio stereo), the first FM multiplex stereo tuner came out in the US in 1961

Candles

Obviously these are pre-1979. But they’re of extra note because we also see the one-armed man associated with candles

Some of Josh’s tech

Walkman

I’m not sure the exact model, but it looks like a 90s era walkman. The 80s versions were much blockier and come the 2000s walkmans were getting into digital players and CD players. Regardless, walkmans were invented in 1979 which makes the year stand out as a split in technology in the show.

Handheld video game console

I’m sure I could be a bit off here, but it looks like a Game Boy, which was released in 1989. The first handheld console with interchangeable cartridges was released in 1979.

Cell phone

It's hard to tell much about Josh's phone. But given the size, it looks at home in the late 90s. We can safely say it's post 1979.

Digital camcorder

Again, not sure of the model, but the first digital camera with recording came out in 1995

Camera

I haven’t tracked down the model yet, but looking at the history of most of the big camera companies, this looks at home in the 90s, definitely post-1979 though

Some Take-A-Ways and A Theory

I won’t pretend my methodology here is foolproof, and it’s hard to know when these were available in Thailand since tech comes to places at different paces. But I think it paints an interesting picture overall. If Josh is surrounded by more contemporary, often cutting edge tech for the time, Anurak is surrounded by the past.

This old vs new dynamic is right at home with the themes of late 90s horror, which I’ll explore in a later post to come. But here I want to think about what it might mean for Anurak to be stuck in the past.

Throughout the first seven episodes, Anurak is consistently opposing and denying change and the supernatural. This comes to the forefront in episode 3, as Anurak is discussing the bible with Dan’s class. He tells them if they follow God, then they’ll know ghost stories are lies.

On the one hand, this could be Anurak denying the supernatural in order to stop Dan and others from finding out some hidden truth. On the other hand, this Christian framework offers a safe black and white logic between safety and risk, reality and fantasy, the abject and the normative.

In any case, Dan jumps in to challenge Anurak. He tells him “If old beliefs don’t work, there's no harm in trying new things.” He then tells Anurak that “closing ourselves off from the world is more horrifying.” These comments show the audience the growing tension between Dan and Anurak. Anurak repeatedly denies the shadow’s reality and asks Dan to perform that same denial. Yet the scene here feels so specific in how it frames Anurak as stuck in the past and tradition.

This is emphasized further as the scene cuts to the video of Trin performing outside of the theater. A sharp reminder of modern technology, queerness, and the supernatural mystery surrounding Trin’s death.

Now there could be a number of reasons why Anurak is stuck in the past and the one taking on this thematic role.

Let’s assume that Anurak is the one-armed man. Then we know that he is likely queer and has gone through a number of traumatic experiences because of this. I’d argue that we could read him as someone who has come to conform and act for those with power due to trauma and a fear of change. Not dissimilar to Chadok from The Eclipse.

I recognize we only have half of his story at this point, and I may need to make another post addressing this once the second half airs. As it stands, I view this as speculation rather than a full reading of Anurak’s role viz a viz technology. Still, the pattern of him being stuck in the past is there, regardless of what the show will ultimately do with these connections.

If Anurak is the one-armed man, has he closed himself off from the world? Is he trying to protect Dan by metaphorically making him hide his queerness by suppressing and denying the supernatural? He continually emphasizes reality, telling Dan that if he doesn’t believe in the shadow it can’t hurt him.

A similar exchange to the one discussed above plays out at the start of episode 5, when Dan confronts Anurak about his sense that the shadow is linked to Trin. Anurak tells Dan that "We're talking about reality here, not feelings," something he also tells Dan’s mother. Denying one’s feelings and over-reliance on rationalism (see my post on surrealism vs realism here) could be interpreted as a coping mechanism, a way to survive by pushing your feelings down and conforming to violent systems.

Perhaps this is a reason why Anurak reacts with fear over the idea that Dan might not forgive his father (and might even want to let him suffer). Of course this is also tied into cultural values around filial piety and we could read it as a fear of Dan straying from the correct path. But perhaps Anurak’s anxiety is also heightened by the fear of seeing Dan choose a path where he refuses to hide his anger and his pain.

In the hospital Anurak tells Dan that he can’t change the way people think. In his office, Dan tells Anurak that he "should let go of [his] fixation on the teachings" since they might be blinding him from the truth. Conform or push for change. Bury your emotions to not get hurt more or use them to fuel you.

This dynamic between Anurak and Dan is also paralleled in what we see of Anurak and Trin in the past. Trin is pushing for change, and, while kinder than the headmaster, Anurak resists, telling Trin, “But you’re trying to change a long-standing tradition.” He acknowledges Trin’s opinion in a sense but really just resists change in a nicer way. He’s not angry or using punishment, but change is still a nonstarter.

Trin pushes back asking “If the tradition was good, then why would people want to change it?” Interestingly, Anurak unlike the headmaster doesn’t defend the goodness or value of tradition. Instead he uses “logic” to point out the difficulty of making changes. Interestingly, Anurak tells the headmaster that “these things can’t be easily changed but we must respect reality,” but then turns to use such “reality” to debate Trin and make him back down.

Reality and reason are safe to Anurak. Much more than the uncertainty of resistance or change. He may not like the status quo, it likely has done him much harm, but to resist and be hurt is far scarier to him. So he conforms, stuck in time like the butterflies on display in his office.

One final piece of technology

I talk about narrative prosthesis in this post, but lets talk real prosthetics. If we continue to assume Anurak is the one-armed man, this means that his left arm is a prosthetic. As @wen-kexing-apologist has noted here, he rarely moves it, and in certain scenes if you watch it closely you can see it reflect light or hang in a way that isn’t quite like his right arm.

Prosthetics are technology, but they fall into a couple different categories. Some are functional while others are cosmetic. Given that we never see Anurak use his arm and it typically remains immobile, it’s likely that the prosthetic is largely cosmetic. Meaning it’s used to make Anurak look like he has an arm, to hide his difference and help him conform. Once again connecting Anurak to both the idea of alterity and difference but also conformity.

I want to mention one other allusion to prosthetics that comes up in Shadow. The bust in episode 7 is a replica of Lacoon and His Sons. The statue famously was missing the right arm for around 400 years before it was found in 1906. A year after it was unearthed in 1509, the pope’s architect held a contest to see who could best figure out what the arm looked like. An arm was added in 1532 that remained until the real arm was unearthed in the early 1900s. It is interesting to think about how the statue was given a prosthetic for 400 years, reflecting values about bodily wholeness.

In one version of the Lacoon myth, he and his sons were punished by the gods after trying to warn people about the Trojan horse. Both the myth and the story of the statue’s prosthetic touch on themes of punishment and conformity tied together with technology.

If my reading of Anurak is accurate, this ties not just to the fact that he is missing his left arm, but to his relationship with trauma and conformity which is expressed in part through his relationship with technology.

Alright! Next time we’ll jump into cameras and horror!

#shadow #shadow the series #shadow meta #shadow the series meta #shadow meta series #shadow meta series post 3 #my meta #my posts

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dorizardthewizard · 9 months

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Galactik Football season 3 rewatch, eps 1 - 3

Ok I'm finally rewatching s3, thought I'd put up some thoughts like I did for the previous seasons

Episode 1:

Oh boy here we go

Ok right off the bat you can tell the animation isn't motion captured anymore which... yeah it's not as good. But the drop in quality is more noticeable in the 2D animation which was already a bit rough in the earlier seasons

New Micro-Ice voice actor :( No wonder the VA's walked out, the budget for this season was 2 pennies, a shoelace and some gum.

Well since that robo cat was disguised as a real one, I'm guessing there actually are real ones running around?

Corso: This doesn't look good! Sonny: NOT. AT. AAAALL!!

What in the 2000's comedy dialogue

They look so goofy 😭

So like, why are the Snow Kids apparently so much more out of shape and uncoordinated than other teams? Everyone else would have had a break too? You don't HAVE to nerf them just to make them the underdogs again, you know

Why is Mice doing the door to door marketing of his drink himself, he's a rich football superstar now? Also very surprised Mark didn't just say that it sucks

Aaaand season 3 tries to tell us there's suddenly distance between Mei and D'jok with no buildup whatsoever. Mei's already chilling with Sinedd what is this pacing 😭😭😭

Mei joining the Shadows is one thing but skipping the training to chill with Sinedd on a beach... she would never. She cares about the team, not just D'jok. She wouldn't do it like this!

tbf D'jok kind of has a point here – disappearing with no good reason and arriving late to the match is irresponsible at that level of play, but it's played as if he's being controlling over her? And no one else is wondering where she went, they just compliment her fit??

Yeah it's not just the animation, the direction is lacking too in the matches but I don't know enough about cinematography and pacing to describe how exactly

Why are they watching this broadcast about Paradisia during half time, hellooo? Did he hijack their satellites or something??

Ngl the worldbuilding around Paradisia is pretty cool

Mei immediately just switches to the Smog skfsfdks BUT THE PACING IS SO BAD THAT IT'S HILARIOUS

Is that allowed? Wouldn't there be penalties for someone using another flux in the match?? I guess it's a friendly

Aarch: It's possible to experience the Smog, if a player is overwhelmed with extreme anger

OK so this kind of messes with the lore of the Smog... I just don't think it should be so easy to start using another flux where the key is just... the emotion you're feeling? I mean sure, it was implied the Smog feeds off negative emotions and/or strengthens them but... ach there just needed to be more buildup to this!

And you're telling me NO ONE accidentally used the Smog before? Not even Rocket, when he was about to punch Luur after Tia got injured, but Mei does over some love drama we don't even know the cause of???

The Shadows stadium is so cool btw, the crystal like shapes on the ceiling, the emo colours... chef's kiss

Yeah it's annoying that D'jok is just acting the same way he used to because the writers don't know what to do with him, but again we don't know how long Mei has been acting like this and I would get annoyed too, although blaming her for the loss of the game was too much. Then again she's probably distancing herself from the team because of how he's behaving with her but again, I'm left here trying to speculate how their relationship broke apart because it was all in a timeskip! I shouldn't have to do that!!

I'm not against them breaking up, I can see how their characters can clash but... give me some more buildup god damn it!

And Mei joins the Shadows... ngl she slays in the outfit but... OUGHGHHG ALL THIS JUST IN EPISODE ONE

Also ngl I think the new writers just skimmed the past episodes and thought that 'pretty girl would go for the bad boy' was enough justification for Mei and Sinedd to get together which like, ugh. They've had like one interaction! And it wasn't a nice one!! Hoooow did they start getting closer let alone start dating AAARGGGHH

Episode 2:

I just... don't think Mei would leave the team like that! As I said she cares about all of the Snow Kids, she'd at least tell Tia or something before running off like that and leaving them to find out from a freaking TV broadcast!

Aarch: If I had a nickel for every time one of my players ran off without telling me, I'd have- ah forget it it happened again

Hearing Sinedd sounding so pleasant is hilarious, it sounds so forced

Oh wait nevermind Mei did try to send them a message beforehand. It's actually really sweet how she addressed each and every one of them individually... Mei calling Ahito little brother and him burying his face in the pillow 😭😭😭

BUT IT'S STILL TOO SUDDEN AAAAGHHFG

TIME TO GET THE OLD MAN YAOI GOGGLES OUT

Okay I love the new dynamic between Aarch and Artegor now that Artegor's gone to rehab been cured from the Smog. Now Aarch is the one who needs a bit of guidance

Harvey and Sydney!! Robo buddies

Artegor just straight up taking up the practice sessions, who's running the Shadows then?

Also he slayed in this outfit

This drill is a little callback to Micro-Ice's test at the very start of the series, except more badly animated lol

Ahito: You're going to need an instruction manual D'jok! D'jok: Oh really? I know you by heart!

Hmm... foreshadowing for D'jok's "betrayal" later?

Love Artie and Bennett, hilarious how excited they are to “go on vacation”

Aw these kids are so excited to go to a beach, it's so rare for them

This soundtrack on Paradisia is quite pleasant actually, I wish they released the OSTs after season 1. There's this one Netherball soundtrack I love

Sinedd is still an ass so I wonder why Mei is even hanging out with him

Episode 3:

Yay the Wambas!

Mark's favourite hobby is cock-blocking Micro-Ice

The Mice delight joke is getting very old very quickly

Ain't the barman that robot announcer from Netherball??

Yuki's convo with the Elektras... something lgbt is happening here

God this is so funny, I love these goths

Enter Lun-Zia! She confuses me because we've never seen her on the Wambas team and there is like, zero mention of her ever having played with them, plus if she was Aarch would surely know of her already and she's wearing civvies from what I can see so... is she just some rando who happens to be good at football or not?? It seems kind of dumb to get someone like that when you could get a player who's actually used to playing in the big league. Why not just introduce her earlier as a new up-and-coming player in the Wambas team?

Every villain needs a creepy witch lady

Kind of funny that Micro-Ice didn't catch on that Yuki is going to the Elektras when they meet them at the bar, come on he's not dumb. Also why is he acting like Yuki is leaving the SK forever, it's just one tournament (at that point, anyway). Actually I'd say it's a good thing if some of their players get some experience on other teams!

But yeah I feel like they could have built this up more – had her talk to Mark or something beforehand discussing why she feels she should do this, idk just something so it doesn't feel like plot point B needs to happen sooo it's happening now.

Aarch: We're expecting you back after this tournament is over! Yuki: You can count on me!

I feel like this whole team member reshuffling should have been done beforehand with negotiations between teams so none of them get stiffed but whatever

Tia: I'm not so sure I want her in the team either! Rocket: Why? Tia: I have my reasons!

SHE WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT. Why is she already salty that Lun-Zia is joining the team?

D'jok: Nice try, feet girl

IS THAT RACIST??? D'JOK!!

D'jok is mean to new person because they're replacing a former team member, we've already done this plot

Kind of wish we'd seen him develop into actually being a good captain as he only started to get to grips with it at the end of season 2, but here we go

Ok it's veeeery interesting to see Artegor's reaction to Aarch being harsh with D'jok and reminding him that he's going through a rough spot. Wonder how much of that comes from the experience of dealing with Sinedd... Artegor might have a soft spot for D'jok considering that “you'll always be a kid from Akillian” conversation in season 2, oouuughh the parallels between those two angry boys that Artegor probably sees himself in!

I also really wish we got to see more interactions between Artegor and Sinedd after Artegor got his mind cleared, would have been weird for Sinedd to have someone looking out for him all of a sudden

Aww Mice trying to make D'jok feel better, crashing a jet ski with your homie always raises the spirits

Aaaaand mood ruined. Mei moved on fast huh 😭 Damn vulture journalists. I actually kinda feel for him

DON'T GO INTO TINTED WINDOWS VEHICLES WITH WEIRD VILLAIN LOOKING DUDES D'JOK!! D'JOK HE HAS AN EVIL WITCH LADY!!!! D'JOK!!!

#galactik football #my posts #dori watches galactik football

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