#I’ve had. a lot of Nonsense to deal with lately

[thebaldursmouthgazette]

Okay so I’ve been thinking lately about spirits and the concept of change, specifically in the context of personal growth. And forgive me if this is a little disjointed, because there’s a lot of various topics that come together.

Because spirits in the fade are very rigid. They represent one feeling or concept, and they represent it rigidly. It is their being, and their purpose, and if they stray from it they become corrupted into demons, they are no longer their original purpose. Justice is no longer just. Compassion is no longer compassionate. Wisdom is no longer wise. Changing in this way is not a good change for spirits.

But people as we know them do change and grow. It is a part of life. And we don’t lose who we were, we just move on from it. The old versions of ourselves remain part of us and we build onto them. And I wonder if taking physical form to be like humans allowed spirits to change and grow the way that regular people do (and I say regular people to mean people as we know them, as actually exist in the real world, since DA spirits are sort of a thought experiment in many ways, and not actually real). And I’m wondering about how the sudden ability to do that would affect spirit society. I’d imagine it would be very taboo to change in that way, because previously, before taking form, change to a spirit is tantamount to death. They may not recognise that personal growth is not a bad thing. It’s not a corruption, it is a part of life.

Sidestep for a moment. When Bellara confronts Solas for killing the fragment of Mythal in Flemeth, he replies that that was not Mythal. He doesn’t consider her advice. He has no qualms about killing her. Yet when the fragment of Mythal we get from the crossroads talks to him, he sees her as Mythal. Listens to what she says. They are both fragments, yet one is considered Mythal and one is not. What is the difference?

The Mythal who we meet as flemeth has lived in the world and among people for a very long time. She has lived as an elf, as a human. She’s lived in a swamp. She’s fallen in love with an alamarri chieftain (most likely Tyrdda Bright Axe). She’s had lots of direct experience with people, and has allowed that experience to change her. She has allowed herself to grow. She now sees modern people of all races as people whose lives have meaning. There is no test of how well we can grovel in front of her to get her help with the blight in origins. In dragon age 2 she accepts a simple exchange of one favour for another, even with a Hawke who shows her no respect. She tells Merrill she bows too easily.

If we take the fragment we meet in Veilguard as a representation of who she was in ancient times, she is very different. She’s changed, but in ways that make sense given the new experiences she has. But solas claims that is not her, and I think it’s because she has changed. She has grown as a person when spirits should remain stagnant, and therefore she is no longer Mythal to him. She is a corruption of Mythal.

She’s also not easily recognisable as a spirit. She doesn’t represent one single concept anymore, and certainly not the one she started as. I’d figured out that the ancient elves were spirits before veilguard came out and I’d have put her down as justice/vengeance and said it wasn’t a very good fit but the closest I could find. Meanwhile the other fragment is definitely retribution and a very condescending brand of benevolence.

I bring this up because there’s another ancient elf that isn’t recognisable as a spirit and that’s Felassan. I could not begin to guess what sort of spirit he is, but he definitely was one. And I think it’s because he has grown and changed too. He has, as people do, allowed his experiences to shape him, change his opinions on things, learned and grown. And while it is not stated, I think this is part of why Solas kills him. He has changed when spirits are supposed to remain stagnant, and thus, in Solas’ eyes, he is no longer Felassan.

So I do think that that sort of change and personal growth, for good or ill, is something that the ancient elves gained the ability to do when they took physical form. And I think it’s one they rejected as taboo, because change is something they considered a corruption of your true self, even though that is not what this personal growth was. Which brings me on to my next point: fragments.

We know spirits can fragment themselves or be fragmented. We know Dirthamen and Falon’Din are fragments of the same original spirit. We know Mythal split into different fragments, with a theory being that she split down different facets of herself (so the fragment that became Flemeth Mythal was a part of her already moving away from benevolence/retribution). I’m wondering if it might have been the custom, after taking physical form and gaining this ability to grow and change in a constructive way as people do and rejecting it out of fear, to fragment yourself if you noticed such a change coming upon yourself, to keep yourself strictly within your purpose and being.

This ties in to my theorising about the cave “Prides End” on the peak of “Sundermount” where a pride demon named “audacity” with an in depth understanding of the blight has been trapped sundered from the fade for an unimaginably long time, and how that might be a part of Solas he fragmented from himself when he sundered the titans.

And a while ago I briefly saw a post about how the wolf statuettes are made from the same material as the Mythal statue we obtain, which IS her. And I can’t remember what the post said beyond that, but I wonder if those regrets are something Solas removed from himself so he couldn’t learn and grow from them. So he would remain stagnant and true to his purpose (even though he changed to pride a long time ago, and learning from these would allow him to move on from that).

It would also add further context to Cole’s quest. Because Cole’s quest is NOT about becoming more human or more spirit. That is a choice he comes to himself. What Cole’s quest is about is whether he should show this Templar unconditional compassion (his purpose), or allow himself to feel anger towards him for what he did to the original Cole (the thing that brought him into physical form, and something outside of his spirit/demon dichotomy. His demon form mercy kills, he doesn’t seek revenge).

Solas is projecting on Cole, but it’s not just about having a physical body, it’s about changing and growing as a person. Cole is fine with changing and growing, he’s fine either way. But if spirits are supposed to remain stagnant and rigidly true to their purpose, then Cole shouldn’t let himself grow. He should deny that growth and cut parts of himself away if necessary. And, of course, Solas does not consider that Cole is fine either way because Solas is rigidly remaining as Pride, and therefore he must be right by virtue of being the one who thought it.

The kicker, of course, is that while Solas is rejecting any and all opportunities for growth, and cutting out the parts of himself that seem to be changing and learning, he has changed, more than he realises. Not for the better, as he could have done had he allowed old friends and new experiences to teach him that sometimes he is wrong. But despite all his active and determined resistance to any change at all, it has happened anyway. It’s just happened in a twisted and gnarled way instead. He’s not changed for the better and learned from the people of the world, he’s twisted in in himself and isolated himself from everything and everyone.

[jinkiezzsstuff]

TYSM FOR THE LADY GAGA FIC!!!!

I have another song fic request...

Alastor (or anyone else really lmao) has to find reader in order to patch up like a deal or smth idk and he finds them in this jazz club thing performing on the stage to 'Noel's lament' from 'ride the cyclone'? Like she's draped across a piano singing abt when she was living she was nobody but in her dreams she was this absolute femme fatale and alastor just watches her from the back of the crowd??

So niche but I was thinking abt it all night

Lots of love 🤍

i actually loveeee this song eeeee i’m so happy to do this, and i am so glad you liked the last one it means so much to me teehee sorry this took awhile i’ve been busier lately but i hope you enjoyed this, maybe i’ll do a part two but if i do it may be real delayed until i clear my plate lol!

song referenced; noel’s lament

warnings: implied to be succubus reader but their not really to standards of succubus, i don’t believe there are feminine pronouns here but there are certain feminine things (dress wearing, feminine terms like suductresd etc), no psychical descriptions of reader as per usual, minor gore and death, reader is sneaky and slipper, alastor is weird about love as he should king, but he still feels emotion, possible cringe parts idk it’s a songfic and sometimes they can be 50/50. LMK if i missed any!

word count: 2.7K

You had a debt to pay, you had to have known this. Alastors mind reeled as he toyed with the pen in his hand, occasionally scribbling nonsense down as he thought. You were always quite the slippery sinner, never being tied down to one place in the pentagram, but this was just ridiculous. Since he’d been back, and warmed up to the hotel, he’d been searching for you, but no sign. No demon has said a word about you either had he still been in touch with Vox he may have had you found by now.

You weren’t dead, and that’s as much as he knew; he would’ve felt your souls absence if you’d died, the fickle fun of making such contracts. There was little he knew about you personally, he new superficial things but nothing that would give him a clue on where you’d hide, a silly mistake on his part. He knew Mimzy would be were the cash or party was, Husk wherever there was a gamble and Nifty, well, normally she never strayed far anyways. As for other souls they were about the same in simplicity, whether they were murderous or cannibals they always had something keen to them that would lead him to where they were.

Alastor failed that with you, unfortunately he’d found himself a little at loss with you, in more ways than one you boggled his mind. He was used to women and men alike hitting on him or being incredibly provocative, but there was some way you did it that made him speechless. Not like when Angel would hit on him, where Alastor felt that sensation of being caught off guard with disgust and shock. No, on the night you made the deal, you were stalking around the back of his sofa inside his radio tower, your hands caressing his shoulders as you passed, sweetly and mischievously offering a pleasurable favour in return for his help. That was something else, that was unique to you.

He still recalls the memory as if he was still right there on the couch, engulfed in your scent, entranced by your siren-like voice, it made him hot under the collar and tight around the waist. Thankfully Alastor was a gentleman and a businessman and there was no way you were getting out of a soul contract through some silly sexual favours. It was definitely trying to keep his composure as your lidded eyes watched his lips move, but he managed as he always does. The deal was fairly boring on your part- you wanted to be his friend.

Red flags appeared in Alastors mind about the validity of that but shook on it nonetheless, however that was all before he disappeared. He’d not held up his end of the bargain but then again neither did you; you didn’t show when he called on you to the hotel and try as he may, couldn’t seem to summon you the way he could with Husk.

Dropping the pen, Alastor stood from his seat and shadowed into the floor, stalking out the window like a snake. Alastor decided a little stroll couldn’t hurt, after all his mind couldn’t rest and perhaps he could happen upon you out in sin city. Alastor enjoyed his time walking, humming and basking in all the horrors that happened around, however he grew bored fairly quickly, and decided to take a detour into Mimzy’s favourite joint.

Alastor walked in like he owned the place and seated himself at the bar waiting for his dear friend. “Mimzy dear, how’ve you been?” Alastor spoke out excitedly and loudly, catching the attention of his fellow demon who had appeared from the back of the bar. Mimzy squeaked and ran up to Alastor on the other side of the bar, shooing off the other demons trying to pull at her, the trim of her dress flying in all directions as she hopped and scuttled. “Alastor! What brings ya here, big man? Coming for a dance?” His smile was indifferent as she spoke but he was quite pleased to see the doll, someone of routine. He watched the demon plop herself down on the seat beside him, his hand fiddling with the whisky in his cup that he magicked up. “Yes dear, afraid I have quite the slippery soul in my hands.”

With both elbows on the table Mimzy leaned in, an excited smile on her face. Alastors head fell to the side, sighing at her desire for gossip, Alastor pushed up his monocle and explained the situation with you briefly. He probably went into too many details about how you looked, or smelt, or perhaps how he thought of you in his absence because the whole time Mimzy was coy and giggles. “Wow Al, sounds like you’re carryin’ a torch for this gal’,” Mimzy teased, walking her fingers across the table in his direction. Alastor stiffened at that watching her do her silly tease wide eyed. What a juvenile thing to assume, that he had feelings for some sinner. “Mimzy, don't be ridiculous!” Alastor scoffed grin still present as he threw his limp hand her way, head tossed back. “There’s no such thing! Besides she’s nothing more than some sensuous succubus, it’s what those types of demons do. Seduce.”

Crossing her arms Mimzy let out a flat ‘mhm’ clearly not convinced by what was being said. “Well Al, tell ya what! You have my back next time some nasty loan sharks come, and i’ll tell ya where your pretty seductress is.” Alastors nails tapped against the table rhythmically as he silently pondered, it’s not like he’d say no to her, just as she wouldn’t say no to him. Fixing his posture from his more lesuride position, he agreed with a nod, gulping back the last of his liquor.

-

This club Alastor stepped into was very reminiscent of a wealthy man’s speakeasy, something that was nestled safely in the depth of the pentagram in an unassuming alley, as if it were hiding from something or someone. It was nostalgic for him, in a sickening way, Alastor didn’t enjoy remembering mortal life as it seemed so detached from him and who he is now. His red eyes danced across the room manically, his static following in suit with every glance he gave. Searching for his little succubus. Low amber lighting, that stuffy smell of smoke in the air, the velvet chairs, surrounding chatter and the piano playing smooth jazz; Alastors body subconsciously relaxed into the familiar environment, as much as he hated his mortal life there were such aspects like this he missed.

He dragged himself inside and sat in a red velvet chair, immediately he slumped onto the table, his elbows on the table, his chin rested on his hand while the other toyed with the fire from the candle, bringing it up, around, and high and low. His eyes dragged over to the stage as the piano rifted into a new tune, the lights in the room dimming and brightening toward the stage. Inwardly, Alastors frustrations imploded making his skin hot and his antlers grow in size; all the light to see you with now focused on the stage for a performance he couldn’t care less about.

Standing to his feet, Alastor gripped his microphone like it was his life line. With a strained smile he began towards the door as the music began, and a voice started introducing themselves and talking about their dreams, however he was too busy being frustrated, and scanning the room for you to fully pay attention to the voice. That was until- “A hooker with a heart of black charcoal.” A breathy voice finally sang out, grabbing the attention of Alastor as he neared the exit. Freezing the static sounds of radio station channels sounded out from him, his eyes widening at the sound of you.

Turning abruptly on his heel, he looked over the crowd of seated heads and at the stage where you were walking on. There was a light focused down on you as you slunk out from behind a curtain furthest from the piano. Straightening his back, Alastor slipped into the shadows and behind a pillar near the bar, just to wait for you of course, to come off. “I write poems to burn by fire light, drink champagne and guzzle gin, good girls call me ‘The Town Bicycle’- don't knock it til you’ve tried my life of sin,” Alastor watched enchanted as you dragged your heels across the stage as you sung, making your way over the piano with seductive grace, something Alastor wasn’t used to being so hooked by.

“Oh, Claude, my pimp knows neva mess with me,” Your voice, once serene and beautiful now, was demonic and harsh, capturing the audience's attention. “Last prick did that faded quick to black,” Like a switch your voice returned to its sweetness, your arms outstretched just slightly, fingers twinkling to emphasise the ‘fade’ you sang of. Alastor couldn’t look away from how you manuerved your body, how your voice carried through the room, and how the lights sparkled against your jewellery. You were a sight for sore eyes as you teasingly brought yourself closer to the piano, that regular soft bedroom look in your eyes. “I have no idea where to find him officers,”

Alastors brow quirked at that, as your hands came up to cup your face with false naïveté. “But if you do, please mention that I’d like to have returned that pretty knife, that I stuck, ten. times. in his, back!” You grit out, sweet façade falling once more making Alastors tail wag, unbeknownst to him. There was something about the way you pulled and pushed the narrative in the song that made him antsy, excited even, and the fact that this was something you stated you dreamed to be, meaning whilst alive you dreamt of killing, of being bad, oh that made Alastors blood rush.. You waltzed around as you continued to sing the lyrics to the chores, Alastors eyes watched closely as you slithered your body effortlessly up onto the piano.

It was like you were made for performing, singing, and he had the brief fantasy of you in his studio singing on air, sat on his lap as you sung through his microphone for the folks of hell to hear, but he pulled himself out of it quickly, scolding himself for indulging in silliness. Now your body was draped across the obsidian piano that shone the reflections of the light, you sat on your hips, legs folded behind you, hands over your heart. “He said ‘I think I am in love with you’- I’ve heard that lie a million times before,” Your posture fell slightly as did your tone, it seemed that there was some truth and sombre in the lyrics you sang, and in a way Alastor felt like he could relate to that; after all what even was love?

It made him feel weak to pity you, to attempt to empathise with your pain, but there was barely any time to think about his thoughts because just as he did, you’d recapture his attention entirely. “Oh, tonight I give into the fantasy,” Your head fell back, sorrow in your tone as your hand caressed your shoulder, pulling down the strap of your dress. “Take love when you can, when you’re a whore.” After a silent moment the chorus picked up, as did you, sliding yourself off the piano and dancing around with a smile. Unfortunately Alastors mind lagged behind, something was just too vulnerable in the way you sang about love, and considering it wasn’t something he often thought about, it peaked his curiosity just slightly.

It wasn’t until the end of the performance when you sung about your death that Alastors attention zeroed back in on you, his eyes catching yours as the song fell out, your head turned in his direction. He watched as your eyes widened and mouth fell slightly ajar before you sang out one last word: a ‘hey’ coincidentally directed toward Alastor. After that the lights on stage shut off instantly, and the crowd applause began.

Alastor watched you be dragged off stage by two larger demons through the darkness, your legs flailing as your arms were restrained, at the sight the purpose of him being here returned. Pushing himself off the pillar he was leant against, he brushed himself off and straightened the crimps in his pants, before picking up his microphone and making his way towards where you’d been dragged. It was a cruddy little backstage area, he’s under the assumption the performers here weren’t treated as kindly as the guests. Throwing the door open he was greeted by the sight of you, the two demons who dragged you off, and some other third one.

You sat on an ottoman in the middle of the room, your entire essence changed as you curled into yourself, your head hung low. Humming, Alastor adjusted his monocle. “Am I interrupting something?” Oh how Alastor loved to play dumb, he watched the third demon, seemingly imp, stand straight anger evident and radiating off of him. “Yeah you really fuckin are red, get outta here now.” The imp barked throwing his hands up in a shooing motion. Your eyes met Alastors, begging silently to stay. “I’m afraid i can’t do that you silly lug,” Alastor tutted joyfully stepping into the room throwing his microphone around like it was a toy. His shadows crawled out from beneath his feet, sneaking up the walls and across the ceilings making the three men anxious. “This little canary happens to me mine, soul and all.” His voice shifted to a more demonic one as the hues in the room shifted.

You sat speechless, watching the mysterious deer defend you after seven long years of being on hold with him. You were surprised he came at such a time, convenient for you. The two muscle demons were quick to puff their chests and step toward Alastor, but before they could properly swing, tentacles emerged from the shadows gripping the torso and hips of the men and pulling them in two. The screams were horrific, and the sounds of squelch and ripping nearly made you yourself sick, however it did the job for the littler imp as he immediately caved. “Oh okay okay, alright buddy, take the siren, no problem take em! Go!” The imp stressed while pulling you from your seat and toward Alastor hurriedly.

You stumbled against his pushing and found yourself falling accidentally into Alastors arms, tripping over your own heel. Alastor caught you without even looking down, arms wrapping instinctively around you as he glared at the imp with a smile. “Oh good, I would have hated to have caused a scene! Ha ha.” Alastor laughed humorously, although he was the only one finding any joy from this as the imp cowered away from the two of you. Pulling you closer to his body, Alastor fell into the ground with you, your body feeling freezing and damp for a moment before normalcy returned.

You didn’t realise you had your hands over your eyes until you felt Alastors hands grip your wrists, and pull your hands away. You blinked up at him before glancing around the room, it was indeed a room, one you’d never seen. “We're at the Hazbin Hotel dear, time for you to see to your deal.” Alastor said calmly, his tone even and his voice soft, his even his static was at a minimum. “Of course,” You say clearing your throat and backing up from his grasp. He didn’t fight against your distance, letting his arms fall and wrap behind his back as they normally would. “Why did you help me back there? I mean you could’ve just poofed us away?” You ask, rubbing the places on your arms where the demons dragged you.

“Why, thats what friends are for my dear! That was our deal, no? To scare off the threats and protect each other?” Alastor coyly hummed, bending slightly at the waist. Looking down slightly you nodded, hands coming up to sit on your waist. Sighing you shook your head, you should’ve known that this would come back to bite you in the ass eventually. “Alright slick, what is it that i’m doing for you?”

[newtthetranswriter]

Hellooooo

I wanted to request a Tokyo Revengers fic for Mikey. Platonic. Reader, although not very flashy, has been in the gang since the beginning. Serving in the first division.

It's reader's birthday, but they never made it a big deal, so no one else realized. That is until Mikey tosses them a messily wrapped box at a gang meeting saying, "Happy Birthday" and giving them a headpat.

I thought it was cute <3<3

The gift can be up to you, as well as the time frame this takes place.

Word count: 615

Pairing: Mikey x Reader Platonic

A/n: Hi, thank you for the request. I’m not super happy with how it turned out, but I did love the idea. I hope you at least enjoy it. Anyways, enjoy, have a great day and as always remember to hydrate or diedrate.

    It was time for the weekly Toman meeting. All of the divisions were gathered waiting for Mikey and Draken to show up, and of course they were running late for whatever reason. Anyways, while waiting I just sat back and watched as the guys got in their usual playful arguments about random shit. Watching as Baji and Kazutora teamed up to pick on a few of the younger members, I was reminded of where it all started.

   I had grown up not only a few houses away from Mikey and so I ended up spending a lot of time around the blonde. We have always been extremely close so it was no surprise to me when he came to me asking me to join his gang when he and his other friends started it. Since that day, I’ve been part of Toman’s first division acting as a kind of babysitter for the more impulsive group. Evidently, I was the only one able to stop Baji from setting a car on fire when he was hungry, so Mikey and Draken thought it would be best for me to keep him in check.

   Other than making sure Baji doesn’t ruin Toman’s reputation, I’m a pretty good fighter when it comes down to it. I may not be the one everyone is watching when a brawl breaks out but I can definitely hold my own. Which is another reason I was put in the first division. I had everyone’s back even if some of them didn’t realize it.

   “Hey Mikey’s finally here.” I heard someone shout from the crowd. As if it were a queue to behave, everyone stopped fighting and stood up straight as we waited for Mikey and Draken to start the meeting.

    I had taken my usual spot next to Baji, not expecting much of anything to happen. “Hey Y/n, catch.” I turned at the sound of Mikey shouting at me. Once I made eye contact he threw what looked like a poorly wrapped box at me. Quickly catching it, I looked at it confused for a second but before I could ask about it, Mikey cut me off. “Happy Birthday.” He flashed a bright close eyed smile, patting the top of my head.

    My eyes went wide. I totally forgot it was my birthday, it was never really a big deal to me and Mikey was the first one to mention it today. “Thanks Mikey, I honestly totally forgot about it.” I said looking back at the present. “But you didn’t have to get me anything.”

   “Nonsense, of course I had to get you something. You’re my friend and it would be rude of me to not get you anything.” He said, taking his hand off the top of my head.

   Before I could respond, Baji spoke up from behind me. “Wait, it's your birthday and you forgot about it?” Baji asked me.

   I just shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. And how sad it looks like my only friend is Mikey, after all he’s the only one who remembered.” I answered with mock sadness.

   Mikey laughed at our interaction as Baji decided the best response to my sarcasm was to shove me. “Ok, Ok, enough fighting we have a meeting to take care of.” Draken said, cutting off the shoving match that started between the two of us. With that he and Mikey went up to the front of the group commencing the meeting.

   It warmed my heart for Mikey to get me a gift even if I never made a big deal about my birthday. He was like a brother to me and he remembered it even when I didn’t, which means a lot.

[doumadono]

hii it’s the twice & dabi anon again.

i’m sorry to ask for another emergency request but i’ve been having so much difficulty with my mom over the past year and a half, maybe two. it’s only been getting worse and now she doesn’t even talk to me. i only get updates from my little sisters and— oh my god it’s just horrible. i feel so bad that i had to leave them. but, i just couldn’t stay, you know?

could you maybe write something about twice & dabi comforting their partner/gf about the situation??

you don’t have to write for both!! either or is perfect!!

i just love the comfort you’re willing and able to provide. (even though you don’t have to. it’s truly heartwarming seeing you do this all. i really appreciate what you do.)

i really hope you’re doing well and taking good care of yourself. please be sure to eat properly and drink water!!

A/N: I'm really sorry to hear that you're going through such a difficult time. It's important to prioritize your well-being, and I hope things get better for you soon. Also, thank you so much for your kind words! Your appreciation means a lot. Even though I'm not doing well lately, I'll make sure to take care of myself. Wishing you all the best too! 🌟

EMERGENCY REQS MASTERLIST

Twice

Amid the chaos that permeated your mind, Jin Bubaigawara appeared with a boisterous greeting that momentarily broke the heavy silence that surrounded you. "Hey, babe! Twice is here to lift your spirits!" he declared with his characteristic energy, though his eyes held a genuine concern as he noticed the weight on your shoulders.

As you poured out the complexities of your strained relationship with your mom, Twice listened attentively, his empathy shining through. "Dang, that sounds tough. But you know what? You're strong for facing it head-on, I admire that," he remarked, his voice carrying a mix of reassurance and admiration.

He enveloped you in a tight hug, and his voice softened, "You did what you had to do for your own well-being. Don't beat yourself up about it." He pulled back, looking into your eyes. "You're not alone, okay? The League's got your back, and so do I."

Twice pondered, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps you'd like to engage in something? Not sure what exactly. Toga mentioned once that staying busy is beneficial - it keeps your mind from wandering into overthinking territory. And hey, if you ever need a clone to handle some mom-related drama, I got you covered. Double the trouble, double the fun!"

Dabi

The faint glow of Dabi's cigarette illuminated his face as he leaned against the wall, his stoic demeanor unwavering. "Come here, doll," he said, gesturing to the spot next to him.

As you recounted the painful saga of your relationship with your mom, Dabi listened in silence. When you finished, he took a slow drag of his cigarette before speaking. "Family can be a real mess, I know that. Sometimes, you gotta step back to save yourself."

He placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. "Leaving doesn't make you weak, ya know? It takes strength to break away from toxicity, in fact." His voice was low, carrying a raw honesty that resonated with your own emotions.

His long fingers traced soothing patterns on your back as he continued, "You're not alone in this. The past doesn't define you, and you're building a future for yourself, not for them, yeah?"

Dabi's lips curled into a smirk. "We're both well aware of the hell it is to deal with toxic nonsense within our own families. Parents messing up their own kids? That's a special kind of mess."

He lightly tapped your nose. "Take it easy, and find ways to keep that beautiful head of yours focused on other things. Overthinking is just a slow way to kill your own self. Don't let it consume you."

He extinguished the cigarette and looked directly into your eyes. "Just so ya know, if you ever need someone to lean on, I'm here. We're in this together."

[tamamatango]

“Holy shit they actually froggin did it”: A Keroro Gunso anime revival preliminary info and speculation post (late as hell edition)

Okay first of all,

AWAKEN

That’s right, vanished-into-the-void bastard Kirb here, I am an alive person still, though I’m certain a lot of stuff on this blog is horrifically outdated. Don’t get too used to my presence, I’m a whole ass adult with a 9-to-5 now and don’t really have the energy to put into consistently maintaining this account, at least not to the degree that I used to (took me well over a whole ass MONTH just to write this post). However, I’ve returned for a special occasion, as basically anyone still in this fandom is already aware considering it’s been forever now:

We are so fucking back

It took thirteen years and counting, but here we are, a brand new Keroro anime project is in the works—no “the short anime of all time” Flash series here, this is the real deal, straight out of 2004–2011, and goddamn is it beautiful. I might’ve been off the mark when I called it for the 15th anniversary, but it’s now the 20th, five years later, and the madmen did what was once thought impossible by many.

So let’s break down what the hell is actually going on here, because when this got revealed last month, Keroro fans on all sides of the globe basically started collectively running around like headless chickens. I’m gonna divide this aggregation post into the following sections:

Where did this even come from

Clearing up misconceptions

Okay so like what is “““Project”””

Collection of statements from official accounts, staff and cast, etc.

The Localization Question (TM)

Miscellaneous thoughts that don’t really fit anywhere else

I was originally going to make this a living document of sorts but some small stuff has already happened since I started drafting this the day after the reveal happened, so this should be it for the time being. It’s a hefty enough post as is. I am just a master procrastinator :V

That takes care of all the goofy intro nonsense, now for the parts you actually want to read, starting underneath the cut!

Section 1: The Signs Were There

As previously stated, 2024 is the 20th anniversary of the Keroro anime, along with the 25th anniversary of the manga’s serialization but apprently even they don’t care about that since they’ve made no fanfare around it whatsoever, unlike the joint 15th & 20th anniversary back in 2019. Maybe they will as we get closer to the manga anniversary in November, but for now-obvious reasons the anime has been overshadowing the manga side by a lot.

If you’ve been monitoring the Keroro PR account on Twitter (you bet your ass I’m still calling it that) you’ll have noticed an increasing output of Stuff over the last year or two, even compared to the prior anniversary. These include but are not limited to:

In 2021, the series opened an official YouTube Channel, where they’ve been doing reruns of the anime (region locked to Japan), PR podcasts, etc. It’s also where the revival announcement premiered on April 1 at midnight JST.

In 2023, the series opened an official Fan Club with a paid membership. Originally it was a temporary project meant to last for only the two anniversary years (2023 for the pilot oneshot’s anniversary, and 2024 for the anime/manga), but was ultimately extended indefinitely due to “good reception” (my guess is it was always planned to be more than two years but they didn’t want to make it too easy to guess as early as last year that the anime was returning lol). They have a merch store, giveaways, and some kind of social component. I don’t know much about it otherwise because it’s a paid membership that I don’t have access to.

The series has had an overall increase in merchandise and collabs since 2022 or so. This has pretty much always been the case, but there was a bit of a lull between the Flash series ending and the ramp-up period to this (I’d start at 2021 when the YouTube channel opened). Save for the 15th/20th stuff in 2019, for which the major project was Keroro UC, a spinoff manga/plamo line that just…never released all the models and has never been brought up again. Guess it didn’t do very well :V

A number of international releases/rereleases happened as well, but I’ll get into that a little bit more in its dedicated section. For now let’s just say that the anime being finally licensed and put up on streaming in North America may indicate the new series will be English translated in some capacity. It’s also made a resurgence in Korea, its biggest market outside Japan, where it’s had new exhibitions and collab cafes, a redub (that only got through 2 seasons I think), and even a new mobile game.

And finally, a week or so before the announcement, a new Twitter account was created specifically for the anime side of the brand. I think this was really the big tip-off, as Keroro PR has been the hub for all things related to the franchise for the last nearly 15 years, even when the original anime itself was still running during Twitter’s infancy. Keroro PR has posted everything for every other anime anniversary. The fact that now all of a sudden they had to sector off the anime stuff into its own account made it clear something bigger was going on. (Accordingly, the Keroro Anime account has labeled Keroro PR the “original work” account, AKA the manga side of things.)

Essentially I think they’ve been planning this to some degree since as long ago as 2021, the first time the president of Bandai Namco Pictures (animation studio comprised of Sunrise staff that took over the Keroro IP in 2015 and are now producing the new anime) openly acknowledged the possibility. I’ll just link my own tweet with the translation of his statement here. This was right around the opening of the YouTube channel, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

tl;dr Momentum for the anime component of the franchise has been building for the past couple of years pointing toward a new anime around the 20th anniversary, so I wouldn’t say this comes off as a huge surprise, though I was expecting something smaller scale than what we might be getting (more on that in the “what is this” section).

Section 2: No It’s Not April Fools, Guys, Plus Other Clarifications

With the announcement spreading across the internet, I’ve seen a few points of confusion going around that I’d like to clear up before I go any further.

As I’ve made clear in the section title, yes the new anime was revealed on April 1, no this is not a prank. A lot of Japanese companies do post April Fools pranks, but keep in mind April also marks the start of the new fiscal year in Japan, so many legitimate announcements are made as well. Plus, the original anime’s exact anniversary was on April 3, just a couple of days after the announcement.

I’ve seen a lot of people call this a new series, season, etc., but officially, the only term used to describe this so far is “new anime project”. That could mean literally anything, from TV series to movie to ONA and so on. I am leaning closer to a certain interpretation, which is what the entire next section is for, but for the time being, calling it anything other than “new anime” is technically not concrete info.

There seems to be a little bit of confusion on what studio is working on this, but in short: it's Bandai Namco Pictures (BN Pictures or BNP for short). As previously mentioned, this is the studio that inherited the Keroro IP when it spun off from Sunrise in 2015. Sunrise, the anime's original studio, is now a brand name for the larger anime management company Bandai Namco Filmworks. Although they've held the IP for almost a decade, this is the first time they've really gotten to do anything with it besides merchandise licensing and some anti-piracy commercial from a few years ago that they’ve ironically scrubbed from the internet now. If you've seen the name Studio BIND (Mushoku Tensei, Onimai) floating around, they're assisting with the production but are not the primary animation studio. Of course this is all assuming this setup continues on to the final project and not just for the PV, but I see no reason to assume otherwise at the moment. It would be rather unusual for BNP to outsource anything if it was solely for a 30 second trailer.

I think that does it for the main points of contention I wanted to address for now, so moving on to the thing we all really want to know…

Section 3: Okay But What Is It Actually???

Well, as I said in the previous section—we don't know, lol. At least not officially. But if we put our thinking caps on, we can make a few deductions:

The anime project will be broadcast on TV. In other words, it won't be an ONA (original net animation). This is determined based on the fact that TV Tokyo, the network the original anime aired on, is on the production committee. For those who don't know, a production committee for an anime is the collection of parties/companies who contribute to the production and funding of the anime. For comparison, the Keroro Flash Series, which aired only on the TV channel Animax to accompany a dedicated timeslot for the original anime reruns, did not have TV Tokyo in its committee. So, it will likely air on TV Tokyo once again.

It's (probably) not a movie. This is going to be more evidenced by point 3 than anything, but BNP has been pretty clear about when something is a movie specifically in the past, such as when Kaiketsu Zorori had various feature films in the 2010s before getting an actual TV anime revival in 2020. Still, we can't be 100% sure until someone directly says otherwise.

It's going to be more than a one-off. I will post the statement in full in the next section, but the Keroro PR account uses specific wording (“resumption,” “new start,” etc.) that sounds very much like they’re making a longer term commitment, so this is straight from the horse’s mouth, essentially.

The series will be a continuation of the 2004-2011 series rather than a reboot. This one’s probably my flimsiest prediction as the PR statements sort of obfuscate whether it’s one or the other, but the character bios section on the new anime portal site gives away a big hint: the Garuru Platoon, Pururu included, is there. This means that we can reason that, at minimum, all or part of Season 3 has already occurred. The character bios themselves also summarize things that weren’t revealed until a little while into the show, such as how Momoka and Tamama met. That all said, the Garuru Platoon members do not have bios, so I suppose they want to keep what’s being done with them a bit of a secret; perhaps they intend to reintroduce them with some kind of dramatic arc again. Either way, if the series does retread/retell some old material, it probably won’t be the bulk of the story. This makes sense to me, as it’s not like the show has been so hard to find in the last decade that a reboot is necessary to get a modern audience on board—it reruns constantly on kids’ TV channels like the Japanese version of Cartoon Network, is available in full on multiple streaming platforms (movies included), and is now on its second rebroadcast of the whole series episode by episode on the YouTube Channel. Unless you’re a literal toddler, if you’re interested in the series, you’ve probably watched at least some of it already.

In conclusion, based on the above (admittedly sparse) evidence, I am inclined to believe the new anime project is a TV series that will air on TV Tokyo as the 2004 anime did and will be a continuation rather than a reboot; however, there is no way to determine episode length, episode count, etc. at this time. It could be a cour (for those who don't know anime, "cour" is your average 12-episode season), it could be consecutive cours, it could be split cour (in other words, goes on break for a season before returning), it could even be a year-round anime if they really wanna go all the way with it. Granted, I hesitate to believe that they would do the latter simply due to the nature of anime production these days, and as far as I know, BNP has not done a single year-round airing since its founding. Even the aforementioned Kaiketsu Zorori revival was a two cour (24-25 eps) series each year from 2020-2022. My guess is we're looking at something similar here, but Keroro is a pretty big deal, so could they make an exception? Maybe, but this setup would already lead to more episodes than the vast majority of anime these days, so it would still be plenty enough to be happy with.

Considering all this and the list of numerous hints that we were potentially getting a new anime as far back as three years ago as bulleted in Section 1, you might question what made me doubt that it could be a series in the first place. Well, besides just the series being so old and it being so long since the anime ended that it felt a little like wishful thinking, at least three members of the cast said that a new series was not something they were specifically looking to do...I think, anyway. Let me explain.

Last year, on December 9, a Keroro birthday event with Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro), Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama), and Takeshi Kusao (Dororo) was hosted in person and livestreamed on TwitCast for fans that paid for a ticket. There were two timeslots for the in person event, and only the evening show was streamed, with the afternoon one being in person only. Now that I have adult money, and being the impulse driven gremlin that I am, I paid for the virtual ticket. Most of it was just cute little segments like the three cast members doing live commentary on some of the birthday episodes, discussing the results of a “favorite lines from their characters” poll hosted on Twitter a few weeks before the event, and a brief visit from Jashin-chan of Jashin-chan Dropkick/Dropkick on My Devil, a series that Keroro recently collabed with for a series of merchandise. Unfortunately the event wasn't archived publicly and they specifically asked to not upload materials to social media, and I'd like to respect that request mostly out of consideration for the cast, so you will just have to take my word for it :P (besides those who were watching me talk about it in real time on discord).

The reason I'm going on this tangent is because, at the end of the stream, a special prerecorded video featuring the three cast members was shown exclusively for virtual attendees. In it they essentially explained that they still greatly enjoy the characters/series and would love to partake in more events and projects, but "not necessarily a new series." I promise you I listened to this clip over and over the entire time it was available and that's what I heard. Now look, the room they recorded this in was echo-y, and my Japanese is pretty decent (enough for my N2 anyways, yeah I did that while I was away from here clap clap) but listening comprehension is my weaker area, so maybe I just take a massive L here. When I started writing this post there was a sentence here guessing about whether they were just being cheeky or didn’t know yet, but an interview came out last month that gave what’s all but a conclusive answer to that. More on it in the next section but tl;dr, they likely did not know it was happening at all. Well, at least they got to be as surprised as we were :V

Anyways now that the thing has been revealed none of the last two paragraphs even matter, so I just prattled on for no reason besides to admit my own shame. Next bit.

Section 4: SAUCE PLOX??? (Current testimonies from relevant people/entities)

Naturally, when the trailer dropped, we got a pretty decent handful of comments from whatever staff and cast are on social media. Most of these are just people going “yay we’re back hooray!” (paraphrased) but the Keroro PR account statements are actually kinda sorta hints? So I’ll start out with those. There’s two tweets that I want to highlight here:

First is from April 1 (JST), the day of the reveal. In this tweet the account wishes everyone well for the new school/fiscal year, but the important part is the last sentence, This can be translated any number of ways (thanks to yoroshiku onegaishimasu and its 50 potential meanings, every Japanese translator’s worst nightmare), but essentially it’s something along the lines of “we hope you’ll support the restart/resumption of the Keroro anime for a long time to come.”

The keywords here are obvious: 再始動 (saishidou) meaning either restart or resumption. I know you’re probably thinking those are two very different things, but the nuance here is that it’s more of a restart in production than restart of the continuity. For the latter, I think it’s more common to see リメイク, which is just the English word “remake” in katakana. Worth noting that the Flash anime used none of these words in its marketing, but it did use language such as “brand new invasion plan,” “rebirth of Keroro,” and so on…in addition to, you know, having a completely different artstyle and a title change to just “Keroro”, which this clearly does not (the artstyle is relatively faithful to the old one and the project is under the original Keroro Gunso name).

The other big word is 末永く(suenagaku), which…also doesn’t have one exact translation, but implies somewhere between years or even an indefinite period of time. I didn’t want to say a specific unit of time in my translation of the statement because well, we can’t really be sure of anything here, but either way, they’re signaling that they’re most likely in it for the long haul.

Then there’s the tweet from the PR account commemorating the actual anniversary of the original anime (April 3). This one uses 新しいスタート, “new start”—no real multiple definition shenanigans here, this is about as literal and straightforward as you can get. In terms of the reboot or not question, this could lean either way, but it definitely adds to theory that it is a series of some sort.

Okay, that’s all for the individual tweets I’m gonna totally overanalyze, otherwise I’d be stuck here for even longer than I already have been. Here’s a quick list of involved staff who tweeted about the reveal:

Unsurprisingly, Kumiko Watanabe (Keroro) posted that day, reiterating that it is real and saying “believe usssss!” (As a reminder, half the internet was convinced it was April Fools for like a whole week)

Adding to the cast comments, Etsuko Kozakura (Tamama) says, “Whoo-hoo! Can’t wait for more news! Keroro Gunso is still the greatest!!”

Jouji Nakata (Giroro) didn’t make a specific comment about the trailer, but has been retweeting the other official accounts and such and replying about it, so he has acknowledged it otherwise. As a substitute, here’s a picture of him visiting the Keroro Exhbition in Ikebukuro a day early.

Here’s an interesting one—Haruna Ikezawa (Momoka) said about the trailer, “Really?! Is this real?!?!?!” While no cast members outside of the Keroro Platoon were officially revealed to be reprising their roles, I’m assuming they’re going to try their best to reassemble as much of the cast as of season 7 as possible—besides Keiji Fujiwara (Paul/Narrator), who sadly passed away in 2020—so I kind of figured Ikezawa would know about this, but maybe not…? Well, considering that the main five were completely blindsided by this to the point where they weren’t even sure this was a real thing until they were in the middle of recording it (as I said previously, more on that later), I suppose the other cast members were just. Not told. I don’t really doubt Ikezawa would return (she even stated it could happen someday all the way back when the then-final season ended in 2011 and did come back for Flash)…but unless they were like really worried about leaks why even keep them in the dark to learn with the rest of the public, idk man :V (so much for not overanalyzing tweets huh)

On to production staff now, here’s the tweet from Satoshi Koike, animation director of the latter third of the original and also the reveal trailer, indicating that he’s most likely back for the new project. It’s just a simple “Welcome back! (de arimasu)” but the images he used were drawn back in 2019 to commemorate the start of the Reiwa era, spoofing the original lyrics of the first opening. The reveal trailer tweet itself from the Keroro Anime account does this too (“Starting today, the Reiwa era shall be known as the Keroro era!”).

New to the staff is Jouji Furuta (yes we have two Joujis now har har), who did the storyboards and direction for the trailer. He’s relatively new to the scene as a whole, with his most well known project being Shaman King Flowers. Although he never worked on the series before, he did a pretty good job emulating the original, and based on the last line of the tweet, it seems like he will be staying on for the full project as well.

And now for a kind of weird section where I talk about the few related accounts that the Keroro anime twitter is following but haven’t made any kind of verbal acknowledgement yet.

First and foremost is Mine Yoshizaki—you know, the guy who created the fucking series, whose name is on the copyright string and whose explicit permission they had to get to do another anime in the first place? Yeah so it’s been over a month since the reveal now and there has been zero acknowledgement from him. I do know his personal social media account has been inactive for quite a few years now (I feel like the anime account is only even following it for symbolic reasons), but he had multiple other opportunities to say something at this point. He did contribute some signed artwork to the anime-focused exhibition that just ended but nowhere in it does he directly mention the new adaptation, and so far he hasn’t commented on it in Shonen Ace (maybe in the next volume, assuming that’s soonish). I have my theories about his relationship to the anime, especially now that the Kemono Friends fiasco has occurred, but that’s all a story for another day or never. I’m sure he’ll contribute something later, but even so it’s just really bizarre to have nothing to say about your biggest creation’s first new adaptation in over a decade. Oh well.

Character designer Fumitoshi Oizaki, who has been around since the beginning if I remember correctly, has been retweeting things, but no official comment just yet. (He discretely left a message at the expo apparently, but didn’t post it online, so no idea if it mentions the new anime.) He isn’t credited on the trailer, but considering he’s still been pretty involved with the franchise’s promotion over the last few years, I would be very surprised if he wasn’t returning.

Last but certainly not least is Junichi Sato, the chief director for the original anime for the first two seasons, arguably its most well-known and critically praised era. He’s also a very notable director in his own right, having headed other famous series like early Sailor Moon and Ojamajo Doremi. Sato didn’t direct the original anime for the majority of its runtime (though he did direct the first four movies), but he still directs and storyboards on projects to this day, including for other franchises’ major anniversaries (namely Doremi and Precure). Though not certain, I think it’s very possible that he returns for this in some capacity, if not as director than perhaps for storyboarding or general advising.

To close out the testimony section, I’m going to share here the translation I did of the aforementioned interview with Kumiko Watanabe in last month’s issue of Newtype (anime-centric magazine published by Kadokawa). I won’t re-summarize it here since it’s not particularly long, but the main takeaways from this in terms of hints as to what we can expect are that a) the cast was surprised by this and potentially didn’t even know back in December when they last discussed the possibility of working on Keroro again, and b) as I previously speculated, this is going to be a long term enough project that at least Watanabe feels the need to physically prepare for it lol. And thankfully, it seems they’re all excited to go back to the series. I spent a long time thinking they might not be up to it again since it’s been so long and they’re much later in their lives/careers (Nakata just turned 70 oh man) but I’m glad I was wrong! Though I don’t expect this to be another 300 episode commitment anyway; in spite of the PR comments I don’t think we’re going for that long with the nature of anime production these days lmao.

And now for a topic which I think many of you are concerned about…

Section 5: “But what if my 日本語 is not 上手???” (The Localization Question)

If you did not get the joke in the above headline without looking it up, it’s probably safe to assume that if you want to watch this Thing, you will need it in a language other than Japanese (and even if you did get the joke you will know if you are truly 日本語上手 when people stop saying 日本語上手 to you). I’m going to focus on English for this post since that’s the primary language of the audience here, though I would be very shocked if there isn’t at minimum a Korean translation—dub more likely than sub imo, since the most famous version of the show there had different names for the characters and was changed to be set in Korea, and the series is HUGE there to the point where it almost rivals the Japanese market.

So, English. Well, if it were a few years ago (say, if this came during the 15th anniversary like I was originally coping over), I would be markedly less optimistic about getting any official translation at all. At that time, the dub was explicitly dead and the only English sub had been delisted for a few years, and even that was only available in a select few countries in Continental Europe on a pretty obscure streaming service called Viewster for like a year or two before getting pulled. It’s no surprise that this particular sub eventually became more well known as the subs on the torrents compiled by ColdFusion (whoever that was, I’m still not sure myself). That was until…

…the magical year of 2021, when our heroes at Discotek licensed the ENTIRE SERIES (minus the movies) for an official English release using Viewster’s existing translations! That’s right, we got all of it. And not only that, the whole series was also added to Crunchyroll, though only the sub; Discotek had the Funimation dub but it seems it did not get ported to Crunchyroll when the merger happened this year. It does seem that Crunchy has still not made the series available outside of the US and Canada, which is a shame, but man is it still surreal to have the entire series legally available both digitally and physically after nearly two decades of scattered fansubs and hardly accessible official releases. Surely this was a huge win for Discotek, right?

Weeeeeell…no. Of course they weren’t able to say it out loud, but it’s been extremely heavily implied that unfortunately the BluRay/DVD releases flopped for them, and they did say they definitely won’t be getting the movies or the Flash series. They also stopped releasing the discs on a one season a year basis and started bundling them together, with seasons 5–7 coming out all at once later this year, so they’re clearly trying to just get it off their plates. To be honest, this was pretty predictable because…it’s been on Crunchyroll since before the discs even came out. Look, physical media is super cool and all, but who in this economy is going to pay $40-60 per box for a handful of seasons at most when they can get the whole damn thing on their phone for like $8 a month. Crunchyroll isn’t necessarily a disc killer; their release of Digimon Adventure, for example, still seemingly did well despite that series being available on Crunchyroll two years prior, but in addition to Digimon being more popular in the west, it’s one $60 purchase for the whole series versus having to spend like over $200 for 358 episodes. I applaud them for rolling the dice and trying to get this behemoth of a release out there, but I’m not surprised about the lack of financial returns.

However, since Crunchyroll now has set a precedent of having the original series available on their platform, we just might get the new series available on there as well—if not as a simulsub, then at least dropped in batches later on. I’m not 100% confident in this, particularly because technically Discotek still holds the license, but my guess based on the way they’ve talked about the series is that they’re pretty open to someone else taking it off their hands when they’re done releasing the original series (and the translations weren’t originally theirs to begin with anyways, they purchased them and did some touch-ups to the existing translation with added typesetting). As far as simulsubs go, the kids’ shows that get simulsubbed tend to be from Toei, with whom Crunchyroll has a known partnership. But if it is split into cours rather than being a year-round anime, I think the chances of a simulsub go up. Whatever the case may be, it’s for sure in a better position to get an official subtitled release than it ever was before. I’m certainly praying this happens because I believe most of the people capable of fansubbing (with good translation anyway) have gradually moved away from the fandom over the last decade for various reasons—myself included, though mostly I just quit fansubbing/scanlation in general for Personal Reasons(TM). Fingers crossed, everyone.

So subs remain as a not-guaranteed-but- definitely-not-low possibility. But what about a dub? If you recall, Keroro has had a very rocky history in 3D with English dubs, with the American dub being in licensing hell for years before finally falling into Funimation’s lap and subsequently failing to take off despite remaining a beloved cult classic to Some Fans (I am not as high on it, but longtime Kirb followers probably know that by now), and the only other English dub is relegated to the network Animax in Hong Kong + Southeast Asia with no official home release, leaving all of it besides parts of seasons 3 and 4 as lost media (and the voice acting sucked ass but at least the script was accurate). But we’re not in the mid 2000s to early 2010s anymore; this is the screamin’ ’20s, baby! So much anime is getting dubbed now, sometimes at almost the same time as the Japanese release! There must be a chance, right?!

Eeeehhhhhh I wouldn’t bet on it. Even the Toei kids’ shows Crunchyroll started simulsubbing usually don’t get dubs (Digimon is an exception, and the reboot’s dub took YEARS to come out). Anime dubs, as far as I’m aware, are not cheap to produce (though it’d be great if more of what the companies are pocketing went to the actors’ wages >_>), and if the show does have the potential to become somewhat of a long runner, I think they’ll need to see more interest around the IP to fund one, and both Funimation and now Discotek’s releases have proved that the audience for it isn’t always there. I also speculate they’d be doing a lot of recasting; the casting process is not as smooth and (I believe) more expensive than it is in Japan, and a lot of the original cast are not working as often in the field anymore and/or have been involved with some pretty serious controversies—I’m sure those in the know are thinking of a specific drawn-out conflict but I’m pretty sure it’s more than just About Him at this point. So let’s just say that while some of the cast still remembers the show fondly, I think trying to get them all in the same project again would potentially open some cans of worms better off left closed. It’s not 100% impossible it gets dubbed, you never know what the industry can manage to make work these days, but I’d wager it’s like 90% not happening. Just a hunch. If anyone more knowledgable than me on anime localization (this goes for both the dub and sub stuff) would like to argue me with better explanations than I have I’d very much be glad to hear it.

Section 6: The Stuff That Doesn’t Fit Elsewhere + Final Thoughts

There’s not going to be any real organization to this section. Here’s just some bullets of miscellaneous stream of consciousness thoughts related to whatever:

The character bios page on the site linked in section 3 has some WEIRD romanization choices. I don’t expect these to reflect on any official localization because chances are they’ll go with what Viewster used, which is largely what the fandom is used to besides the Kululu/Kururu split. It is indeed Kululu here and Kululu has been the de facto official spelling for a very very long time now but I still have a personal preference for Kururu because “Kululu” loses the onomatopoeia joke and I’m a rebel. But like. “Tololo”? Since when has Tororo ever been called that in any media? And worst of all, “Pole”? POLE?? That’s literally never been a thing what glossary did they pull these from.

Also worth noting, Alisa and the Narrator had merchandise sold at the Keroro expo (will talk about that next btw) despite not being on the characters page. This isn’t a confirmation of anything but I would be very surprised if Alisa doesn’t return at some point since she was pretty prominent later in the show and Yoshizaki seems to have a particular fondness for her, and the Narrator will obviously be there with a recast, though jury’s out on if his little ’sona guy will show up too. It won’t be the same without Fujiwara :(

I do want to touch upon the “Keroro expo”, officially known as the “Keroro Gunso Super Gerogero Museum” (expo is a fine shorthand because the Japanese word can mean exhibition also), since I’ve mentioned it a couple times throughout this write-up. This was an event that was held in Ikebukuro just recently from April 27–May 12 that was basically a walkthrough experience recreating settings from the anime, having artwork and stuff sprinkled in between (all reused, no new concept art or anything sadly). The main gimmick was that the venue had an exclusive app that let you take AR pictures with models of the Keroro Platoon. It also had an AI chatbot feature where you could talk to each member of the platoon, and not too many posted pictures of this feature but apparently the chatbots were uhhhhhh weird. I have no idea how much of it is generative from other LLMs, and I’m assuming they programmed it at least partially with their own original input/databases (which is the only way to make generative AI even close to ethical), but from the few screenshots I’ve seen their speech was just a little bit awkward and some of the stuff they said was really bizarre. At one point users started to turn it into an otome game and successfully romanced the frogs, which I’m assuming is a little bit out of the bounds of what they were expecting from this experiment. If they do release that app publicly at some point—they labeled the version at the expo to be a “test version,” so maybe—I sincerely hope they at least fine tune it because Good Lord. Finally and maybe most importantly, there were new voice lines recorded for the exhibit to give it an audio-drama type simple story, but unfortunately it was probably not archived because video recording was not allowed inside the venue. The platoon all had new voice lines along with Fuyuki and Natsumi, reportedly still played by Houko Kuwashima and Chiwa Saito respectively, so most likely they will return to reprise the roles for the new anime, though I don’t think those two were much in question. That’s really like the only important part of this for the purposes of this post I’m not sure why I mentioned anything else here actually. AI chatbot Dororo wants you to know he enjoys tickles from Giroro and Tamama. Yeah this thing’s a little fucked

I didn’t want to get too deep into this in section 3 because it’s not really a production related question, but…are Shin Keroro and related new characters gonna be in this or not? For what it’s worth the site seems to count the Flash series as part of the anniversary celebration, and screenshots with Shin in them are there even if he is completely absent from the character page. Flash was a total reboot so I don’t think it will be that exact iteration of the character if he is in the new anime, but there must be some way to work his stuff into the existing anime canon even with its many differences from the manga. Honestly I think the main obstacle to him appearing is just that the guy is not very popular lol. He’s hardly in the manga anymore and Tomosu and Myou are in it even less. I’m not sure if it was just franchise fatigue following the end of the anime but the reception to Shin was very meh across the board (at least among longtime fans, kids might’ve liked him I think. Which makes sense). So I could totally see them skipping him entirely. There’s still a lot of post-anime manga-only stories without his involvement at all, some that included him but he could easily be changed to some other character, and for the stories that revolved around him, well, the Flash anime got to a decent amount of them. This could really go either way but for now I’m going to lean toward him not being included. If he’s put in I think it will not be until the “second season” (whatever the definition of that ends up being) so we can be eased back in to the existing cast first before shaking things up significantly.

I like the new artstyle, assuming it carries over from the trailer to the final project. It looks like they hit a happy medium between the early and late artstyles of the original anime. This is the most obvious with the human cast who haven’t received new official artwork by Koike and/or Oizaki in a looooong time, and they look much better than the last time we saw them in season 7 where everyone got weirdly lanky for some reason.

Okay FINALLY I’m done here for now I think. At the time of writing we’re pretty much just in a “wait and see” phase with no other real concrete info around that I haven’t touched upon in this post. Trust me, I’ve tried digging for more, but I couldn’t find anything really interesting staff-wise and very few of the staff credited in the trailer are even on social media (sometimes staff can be a bit loose-lipped so it’s possible to get hints there). I’ve also checked every nook and cranny of the official sites of both animation studios and the companies on the production committee and turned up with nothing of note. I’m hoping we get some more info at least sometime between now and autumn.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end (or speedscrolling here, don’t worry I won’t be disappointed lol). I hope you found it informative even though I probably spent way too much time yapping about dumb shit. It took me entirely too long to write this post, but I don’t have as much time as I did as a teenager and it’s been a good few years since I’ve done a really deep dive into Keroro stuff. Needless to say, I’m beyond excited for this project and can’t wait to see how the last seven years of me huffing unhealthy amounts of copium pays off. I’ve had like a month and a half to sit on it now and it honestly still doesn’t feel real!

I will most likely return to report when we get some amount of substantial info—hopefully with way fewer words lmao. Until next time! Ge-gero~

[stemms]

Hello, guys. I’m sorry for being inactive in terms of original content lately, but I’m back, and right now I would like to give you an important update.

I’d briefly mentioned my abusive familial situation in the past, but I never really went into details. However, I’d like to share more context now, as it is directly related to the reason for my sudden disappearance.

I’ve been trapped in an abusive situation for the past seven years, and the longer I stayed in this household, the worse it became. While the abuse was mostly psychological, it escalated to the point where one of my abusers nearly choked me to death. I will elaborate on that incident after giving you some context.

My abusers are my mother and stepfather, with the latter causing me more harm. He tends to always blame me for everything, invent more and more nonsensical rules for me to follow (and randomly abandoning some, only to come up with something else) and get mad if I don’t learn them by heart the moment he introduces them (which happens because of my horrible memory that his abuse worsened). He always expected me to reach out to him if I needed emotional support, but when I was actually struggling mentally, he either preferred to ignore it or cut off the internet because “it was obviously the reason”. Additionally, he’d always get mad at me over the stupidest things ever and use it as an excuse to yell at me for 2 hours. Also, fun fact: some of my top posts are heavily inspired by something he did to me (: (: (: My mother isn’t better because she watched every single time he was abusing me, but never really tried to stop him. Yet, when I tried to confront her about his behaviour and explain that this is literal abuse, she’d gaslight me into thinking it’s normal, and it could’ve been worse, so I’m lucky and he “has good intentions anyway”. She’s also extremely controlling, manipulative, and obsessed with the idea of moulding me into the person she never got to be, as well as always keeping me around.

Since I’ve been dealing with this kind of behaviour for so long, my mental health seriously deteriorated. My hands are always shaky, I flinch whenever my stepfather enters the room, I tremble if he comes too close, I flinch if he touches me, I’m horrified of maintaining eye contact with him, I’m always in the fight or flight mode, I overanalyse his behaviour and always make sure to do anything I can (even if it's humiliating) to ensure that he doesn't hurt me again. Recently, I started going to therapy and taking medication, and it's been very helpful so far.

Although things weren’t perfect already, I didn’t expect my life to be threatened. A while ago, I was having an argument with my transphobic mother about my identity, and after it was over, we had dinner. During the argument, my stepfather wasn’t home, so he was unaware of it, but he noticed the tense atmosphere, and it infuriated him to the point where he went to the kitchen to do the dishes instead of eating with us. I had a feeling that he thought it was my fault, so I followed him to reassure him that my mother’s state wasn’t his fault, and it was just a small argument between us (which was literally true), but he started shouting at me because he assumed I was accusing him of something???? I tried to reassure him some more, and then he lashed out at me and said lots of transphobic shit. After that, he grabbed me, pushed me to the floor and got on top of me, pressing me harder and harder to the floor, started choking me so hard that I could barely breathe, so I bit him, and he continued to choke me and pull my hair. I messaged my English Literature teacher and she called the police. We were interrogated and although my mom told me to downplay it, I was too scared to do so and told them everything, plus showed them the pictures of my bruises.

After that, I couldn’t look at any c!Prime content for a while because it suddenly felt triggering, so I just needed to take a break from my blog and work on my mental health for a while. But right now, I'm doing better and I’m feeling more comfortable about c!Prime again, so I should be able to make more content soon. I must admit, I'm not that hyperfixated on it at the moment, but I’m definitely going to do more c!Prime content soon because these freaks are too fun :)

[arachnidiots]

GET TO KNOW THE MUN.

what made you pick up the muse you have? i wanted to try tumblr rp again (i had once in the past but i never stuck with it) and a friend convinced me it wasn’t so scary so i got to thinking well… who can i write and who do i kind of want to write? in my former rpc community, marvel was NOT a hot place… garbage fire actually, and if you were writing a canon it was even more of a dumpster fire. that being said, i really wanted to try my hand at peter parker, and i’d already been writing a lot for him outside of rp for fun. i used to have a little fic type thing that was ic/first pov and it brought me a lot of joy. liam was a test, more than anything. i’m surprised that they’re still a muse i write. they were an oc i made with a friend for fun and i thought why not give it a go and the love has just been so overwhelming that i can’t imagine a blog without liam and peter. they’re a package deal

is there anything you don’t like to write? probably just smut? i don’t think anything else comes to mind

is there anything you really enjoy writing? chaotic and nonsensical threads will always be some of my favorite. often it’s something i can write a lot quicker but also makes me think and try new things. i love when a thread makes me learn. i love learning so also any threads that open my eyes to something or broaden my knowledge about a subject. crossovers are really good for this because i get to explore new shows/movies or revisit loved ones.

how do you come up with your headcanons? something probably happened to me in the moment or i stared at a pinterest board or i heard it in a song

do you write in silence or do you play music? it takes a very specific kind of music to make me write. i either have to be so disinterested and unfamiliar with it or extremely familiar, like know all the words and the pacing. this has led to some embarrassing top five end of year songs

do you plan your replies or wing them? mostly i just wing it but if i get an idea for a future piece of dialogue or concept i will write it down in my notes

do you enjoy shipping? yes, but i don’t think it’s a must or priority! i love it if it happens or if you have any interest in it, but i’m not really always thinking about it

what’s your alias/name? birdie! i’ve had some mutuals call me bird too. i think it’s funny when people use the phrase “a little birdie told me” and i love to see posts with it and laugh to myself about it.

favorite color? red, but i’m not sure what shade

favorite song? i don’t have one but anything by bleachers or florence + the machine i will always love. lately ive been enjoying my kink is karma by chapell roan

last movie you watched? transformers the last knight…

last show you watched? i’m currently making my way through st: enterprise, i’m on s3!

last song you listened to? isimo by bleachers

favorite food? bread. any bread, all bread

favorite season? i suppose spring can be nice but i grew up in a place without seasons so i guess i love the idea of spring

do you have a tumblr best friend? does it count if they’re a best friend i pulled into the tumblr rpc? or a best friend who happens to have a tumblr? no? okay well, i have love and stars in my eyes for every person i meet on here. i make best friends like a six year old during recess. you’re nice? you have a cool shirt? we’re best friends.

tagged by : i stole it from the dash! / tagging: you steal it from me!

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

CW: Intrusive thoughts (nearly acting one out which would hurt an animal)

Hi! I’m not really sure how to go about asking this, but a few years ago I was professionally diagnosed with autism and whilst it explained a lot of my behaviours there are still quite a few that aren’t “normal” and I’m not sure if it’s something else, but I thought you’d be the best person to come to (I’ve tried talking to my parents about it several times but they brushed it off, and since I’m a year off 18 I can’t really do anything about it myself).

Throughout most of my life I haven’t like getting dirty, and whilst this is partially a sensory thing, every time I touch something that I perceive to be dirty—even if I know that it’s clean and it has been cleaned several times over—I can’t touch it and if I do then my hands feel like they’re covered in a thin layer of filth and I can’t concentrate on anything else until I wash my hands thoroughly, and this can lead me to washing my hands at least fifteen times a day, but I can go days without showering and not feeling bothered by it at all. My parents sometimes ask me why I just seem to “randomly” wash my hands but I don’t want to tell them the actual reason because they’d say I was overreacting, but this can lead me to not wanting to touch people at all, especially their hands because they’re usually the dirtiest part of a person (with a couple of exceptions) and like I said I can’t stand the thought of having some else’s germs on me. Again I don’t know if this is an autism-related thing since sensory issues also come into play but I haven’t seen much about it in relation to ASD.

Another couple of things I wanted to ask about was intrusive thoughts and dissociation: I’ve been having intrusive thoughts for the last few years and most of the time I can deal with them but lately I’ve been really struggling with not acting them out, for example I’ll get one urging me to physically lash out or tell yell slurs or verbally abuse someone and it’s difficult to hold myself back now, which is similar to when they first started, where I got an intrusive thought to strangle one of my pets and it was difficult for me to not go through with it (don’t worry they’re fine I didn’t hurt them) but it distresses me that if I was zoned out enough for even just a bit I could go through with them.

As for the dissociation, again that’s been happening for a couple years, where it’s been manageable, but the last few months/year I keep zoning out a lot for long periods of time to the point where it badly impacted my grades and school work because I’d barely ever be able to pay attention in lessons, even ones I enjoyed—the teacher could be standing right in front of me and talking but I wouldn’t be able to hear a word they were saying even if I was looking at them, and a lot of the time I wasn’t even aware that I was looking at them because my eyes wouldn’t take anything in and I’d be completely inside my head. Lately it’s been getting worse because whilst I’ve always had vivid dreams it’s started to get increasingly difficult to tell what are dreams and what aren’t—even ones that are completely nonsensical—because it’s gotten to the point where my dreams feel too real and my waking life feels fake and my mind and body feel numb, my dreams feel so much more vivid and realistic, and it sometimes gets to the point where sometimes I don’t know whether I’m awake or not because real life doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t help that for the last couple of weeks I’ve been having nightmares almost every night, which ends up in me waking up terrified in the middle of the night because it feels like the threat’s actually there so I’ve been perpetually exhausted due to disrupted sleep and insomnia because it’s gotten to the point where I’m scared of falling asleep. Back to the dissociation bit, a lot of the time I also don’t seem to know what I’m doing or where I’m going and it can again sometimes feel like I’m dreaming even though I’m wide awake because my mind and senses feel disconnected from my body, I think this is sometimes described as brain fog? but I’m not entirely sure.

Sorry this turned out to be really long but I just wanted to see what your thoughts were because I’ve been really struggling lately, and there’s currently nobody else I can talk to about this. If you respond then thank you in advance, it would mean a lot to me.

Hi there,

I’ll do my best to answer this.

The washing your hands part reminds a little of OCD. And it can coincide with autism. Here’s a Venn diagram showing the difference and similarities:

The link to this article will be below if you want to read it.

I can’t really help you with the dissociation part, that’s something that needs to be talked about with a professional or therapists. Maybe some of my followers can give advice.

I’m sorry I couldn’t answer your question fully. But thank you for the inbox. I hope you have a wonderful day/night. ♥️

[fuck-customers]

Ever since I started working in an ER I’ve had a lot more things to submit here, and today shall be no exception because I have Some Things To Say

1. You do not need to be taking a patient you’re visiting outside for “fresh air” (or anything else) in the middle of the fucking night. It is 11pm, this patient is in a wheelchair, and maybe the nurses on the floor don’t have a problem with this because it doesn’t trouble them at all, but it does trouble me. When you take this patient from their room on the floor, through the ER, to our outdoor roundabout just because there are some benches there, I then have to walk you all the way back to the floor once you decide to come in. And I know I’ve complained about something similar with this before, but this is happening to me tonight and I’m just annoyed. The main admissions in the front is open from 8am-8pm. You literally have all day to come visit with the patients, and we have courtyards up front that are closer to the floor and are specifically designed to allow for patients and visitors to enjoy time together outside. We have nice tables and benches and plants, and it’s fenced in and protected. So there is absolutely no reason you need to come and do this nonsense late at night. Plus it’s winter, it’s fucking 25 degrees outside! Why are you taking a patient recovering from any illness/procedure/whatever outside in the cold? I know the rooms can get stuffy, but like open the damn window instead.

2. Please stop calling ambulances if you’re just going to refuse them. It takes an ambulance out of use, along with the EMS workers in that ambulance, and takes it away from someone who may actually need it. I understand if you’re having weird symptoms of sickness or pain and you’re scared and want reassurance, especially when healthcare isn’t the best for everyone, but it puts considerable strain on the ambulance system to have you call them over just to send them away again. And at my hospital we have scanners that allow us to hear calls for police or fire or EMS, so when an ambulance call goes out we all have to get prepared to jump into action because we are assuming that ambulance is coming in. So it puts everyone on edge to hear someone call for EMS and then just refuse them. And yes I know ambulance rides are expensive and not all insurance covers them, and that people who don’t have insurance would have to pay for them out of pocket, but then don’t call for them in the first place! As we always say, if you feel your symptoms are severe enough to seek help, then you should always just seek help and come into the ER, whether you come by ambulance or private vehicle or what have you. So if you do call for an ambulance please make sure you are going to actually make use of the ambulance.

3. Along the same lines of the ambulance situation, here is just some helpful info for people who want to be good samaritans: If you see that someone is in need of help, first assess whether or not they are conscious/cognizant. If they are conscious and alert, please first ask them if they would like to have an ambulance called for them; some people don’t want to deal with an ambulance, even if they are seriously hurt, and that’s their right to make that decision. If they are unconscious but otherwise seem fine, then use your best judgement. Take into account the context of the situation. Did you find them lying in the middle of the road, or were they on some grass in a park? Do you see blood, or are any of their body parts in obvious distress (such as a broken bone)? Are you able to rouse them by speaking loudly? Remember that it could just be someone sleeping, and maybe they don’t have anywhere else to rest. However, if they are unconscious and not breathing, or you see blood and/or broken bones, then you should call for help right away. That’s definitely an emergency situation, and we will thank you for being a kind person and getting a stranger safe assistance. But just be aware of the situation so you’re not calling EMS unnecessarily. Y’all have no idea the amount of times we’ve had someone call an ambulance for a stranger just for the person to then refuse the ambulance; even the best of intentions can be a strain on others.

4. This one is an obvious PSA, but please don’t drive drunk (or high, or any form of intoxicated/impaired). Earlier today there was an accident where someone got extremely drunk and drove down the highway and crashed into a family of 9, causing their vehicle to roll over. Thankfully the entire family was fine aside from some scrapes and bruises, but there were very young children in that car, and I’m sure all of them were terrified during the accident. Alcohol isn’t worth possibly taking someone else’s life, or your own. Alcohol isn’t worth hurting someone else, or yourself. Alcohol isn’t worth going to jail for. Please don’t drive drunk! Stay safe and make good choices!

I think that’s all I’ve got for the moment. Sorry this is so long, I’ve had a frustrating day

[meximango]

Day 26 - zip - Vaile + Altani + Mogren + Cahsi + Luvon - G

Summary: Altani is having a fashion crisis. She needs the help of her friends.

No this is still not a continuation of the silly sleepover fic, sadly (Mogren ain’t around for that one), buuuut it does allow me to try to test the waters of them all interacting together! --

“Oof. Maybe I should have gone a size up.” “Nonsense. Skintight is in! It’s hot! This was definitely the right choice.” “Might I offer my tailoring skills? I brought my kit with me in case anyone needed modifications.” “Teehee, you look so different from normal, Tani! Are you sure you won’t burst the seams when you try flexing too hard, kupo?” Altani panicked, letting the dress slip down her waist again. “What!? Could that happen? I don’t have a backup dress, and you know I love flexing!” “Hmm.” Luvon reached for the dress and tested the ribbing area between his hands. “This material is quite stretchy. I do not think you have to fear that. If something happens, then I have my sewing kit, or maybe the party will have glamour plates for rent?” “If that were a thing at this party, then why did I even bother buying this dress from Hancock?” “Oh shit, you bought that from Hancock? No way he gave you a good deal on that. Should’ve gone through Tataru!” 

Vaile briefly interrupted the goings-on with a loud sigh. “Tell me again: why did you insist I be here for this jester fest? I’ve been ready for a solid bell already and I’m the only one here not wearing a dress. I could’ve just met you all at–” “Excuse you, mister, my top half is a suit jacket just like yours!” Vaile rolled his eyes. Semantics. “And what’s that have to do with anything anyroad? I’m already dressed too! Plus, I know you. If we didn’t make you check in with us first, you wouldn’t have shown up at all. Besides, you promised.” Just because Cahsi was right didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. He scoffed. “Wow, one of you is finally ready. I feel so blessed and not at all bored.” “Oh, you want to know boredom, kid? Let me just reach over here to my precarious paperwork pile that’s a few moons overdue, lock you in the office with that until it’s done, and you’ll be begging to come back here to watch us get dressed!” 

“Wh–no I would not. And don’t make me sound like a pervert! You all said you were decent, that’s the only reason I came in here–” Altani and Cahsi burst into laughter at the same time. “Haha, yeah, true. Just a joke. Though I dunno,  you can see a lot of Altani’s back right now. Looking good by the way, Tani. You’ve got this!” Cahsi gave the slightly flustered au ra a thumb’s up as encouragement as the poor warrior strained again to try to get her dress on the rest of the way. 

Mogren instinctually shielded Altani from Vaile’s view, even though he couldn’t care less about what any of them looked like in a state of undress. 

“Cahsi, you should be careful about moving around too much yet in a crowded room. Remember, the paint is still dryi–”

“Why do you wait so long until it piles up anyway, you idio–” “Just let out your breath, Tani, I’m sure that’ll work–” “Oh!” A sharp inhalation of breath followed by a long exhale. “Whoops. Sorry. A moment too late, Lu. Think I smacked you there by accident.” The long-suffering sigh of someone who has too often had to wrassle a rowdy group of engineers into order. “Yes. That would be my shoulder. Well! No worries. How bad is the damage?” It was Vaile’s turn to laugh, though it certainly took on more of a mocking tone than the others’ had. “Oh, her entire left hand has to be redone! It’s all over your shawl. Now we can be even more late to this party that I didn’t even ask to go to!” “Well, you smart-mouthed punk, I don’t see you helping anyone getting ready! And stop complaining, kupo, nobody’s forcing you to attend!” Mogren shrieked, headbutting Vaile in the stomach. It did about as much damage as throwing a plushie version of a moogle would have. He grabbed the moogle and chucked them to the other side of the room, back to Altani’s side. He nearly whistled at the job well done. That spin on the moogle’s arc was beautiful. Mogren, dizzy from the actions of their rude acquaintance (friend status revoked until further notice!), knocked into Altani–who graciously gave them a nuzzle under the chin with one claw as comfort. The wind was a bit knocked out of their sails with that one, so they settled onto her shoulder, hmmphed! in Vaile’s general direction, and started braiding one of the long green and pink locks of hair she tended to keep in front of her face. 

Hair styling duty was assigned to them, and so even if other things weren’t going to plan, Altani’s hair at least was going to look beautiful! (they’d already finished with the others. Cahsi’s hair was pinned back in a masculine style, with just a few little curls framing her face cutely. Luvon’s hair was extra fluffed up and flipped out with a few decorative pins. His hair was so short, it was done in a snap. Vaile–well, the grumpy-pants hadn’t let them touch his hair.) “Eh, just lose the shawl. We don’t have time to wash the nail paint off of it. I’m sorry, buddy,” Cahsi apologized, taking Luvon’s arm covering and tossing it in the general vicinity of her dirty laundry pile. “If you want to dig through my closet, feel free to borrow something that feels nice on your hands. I might even have a feather boa somewhere in there!” “Ooh, that would be delightful. Thank you, dear!” Luvon had been grumbling earlier about being forced to wear shoes for this event (curse these foot prison contraptions!), so having some sort of fabric he could play with in the downtime would help to distract him from his pinched toes. Cahsi reached for the red nail paint that had a loose cap but luckily had not tipped over and spilled during the frenzy of activity that was all of them trying to get ready for the past few bells. Cahsi had finished most of their makeup ages ago, at least–Vaile didn’t know it, but she was going to attack his face with some nice eyeliner and an eyebrow pencil before they left–but now she had to redo her nails. She got up to find the polish remover to start over on her left hand, pausing to turn up the orchestrion player while she was at it. She could barely hear any music over all this shouting since Vaile arrived.

As Cahsi settled back in to carefully fix her nails, Mogren had switched shoulders and was dutifully finishing up with the braids. Luvon was still digging through the closet. Altani was still struggling, to the point of embarrassment. Vaile really had nothing to do… “Ok, fine. Altani. Let me help you with your dress.” He told himself it was just fun to piss off Mogren further, getting in their space they clearly wanted Vaile out of. To rub it in their pom that this was something Vaile could do, that their little moogle hands were useless at. Mogren’s scowl (not that moogles really had the facial features to do so, but the feeling was there) combined with Altani’s gasp of delight was entertainment on its own. He smirked as he sidled up and took stock of the situation. “You just need me to zip it up, then?”

Vaile started without really waiting for confirmation, but damn was this one poorly made zipper. It kept getting stuck, and that had nothing to do with the size (though as pointed out earlier, it certainly was a skintight ensemble). 

Altani nodded, causing Mogren to nearly tumble off her shoulder, still having their claws in her hair. “Right! I can’t really reach back there thanks to my copious musculature–” “She has wide shoulders and needs to stretch more,” Mogren deadpanned. “What are you, my mother? But yeah, that. I guess.” “You focus so much on strength training and then wave me off when I remind you to stretch, kupo! Don’t complain about tight hamstrings again to me.” “Healer’s recommendation: do the stretches. Anyroad, most people are unable to fasten their own dress up all the way on their own, regardless,” Luvon chimed in, now bedecked in one fabulously pink feather boa, and a bejeweled pair of star-shaped shades as well. “Cahsi, is it alright that I…?” He gestured toward the sunglasses on his face. This party was at night, but his eyes were so sensitive to light, so it wouldn’t hinder him to wear them. “Ooh, forgot I had those. Of course it’s good; nice choice!!” Cahsi approved. She had finished with her nails and was blowing on them to try to dry them a little faster. (Vaile was beginning to feel underdressed. What was the dress code for this party, again? Cahsi looked like she was going to an eternal bonding ceremony as both the bride and groom, Luvon was as colorful and bedazzled as a worker at a Skyrise Celebration Fête, and Altani was trying to slip into a sultry evening gown with a leg slit for days. Vaile’s own button-down shirt and vest seemed substandard, but that was fine. The less attention on him, the better.)   “See? It’s not just the stretches.” Altani stuck her tongue out at Mogren as Vaile continued to fiddle with the zipper. He got increasingly frustrated as the zipper continued to snag. He didn’t want to break it, but it refused to cooperate and he couldn’t be held accountable for what he’d do to it if it continued to defy him. He finally dragged Luvon over wordlessly by the arm to give it a go. The guy may have been the shortest of their group, but he was also stronger than Vaile (not that he’d admit it out loud), and he was the resident clothing expert. If anyone could get the dress fastened, it was him, surely? “...” “What’s the problem?” “You may have forgotten, but Altani is almost twice my height. I can’t go any higher.” Luvon demonstrated, reaching as far as he could with the zipper, which was still only up to the bottom of Altani’s shoulder blades (and the dress was meant to zip up to her hairline). “Yeah you dumb-dumb, give him a boost!” Mogren helpfully suggested. “There is no need for name-calling, and no, that will not be necessary. I am sure Cahsi has a stool around here somewhe–eep!” Too late! Vaile didn’t want to wait any longer. He’d already been milling about for an entire bell, and Cahsi’s room was such a disaster zone right now, who knew how long it’d take to find a stool. He lifted Luvon up around the waist so he could reach the rest of Altani’s dress. “Before you say anything, I know. Just do the rest,” Vaile said before Luvon could pipe up about the various furniture around the room he could have used instead of this truly undignified alternative and lack of respecting boundaries. Cahsi coughed to stifle a laugh, and Altani did her best to stay still, but her slightly trembling shoulders betrayed how amusing she found the mental image of what was happening behind her. Mogren was under no obligation to stay quiet, and their squeaky little laughs were the only sound for a moment until Luvon complied. One, two, three seconds. A bit more snagging, but he did it. “Please put me down now, Vaile. And ask next time!” Luvon tapped Vaile’s wrists impatiently. “Right. Sorry. Thanks.” Vaile’s social blunder tricked him into polite terms. After all, he had just manhandled the guy and demanded he help. 

Once safely back on the ground, Luvon dusted himself off and offered a smile. “You’re welcome. Now, Tani, how does the dress feel? The fit seems rather agreeable, for the style. There weren’t any extra fabric bunches or too much strain. I’d say Hancock got your measurements just right, somehow…” “Yeah, let’s not think about that. Just promise not to go back to him again for clothes, he’s a creep,” Cahsi shuddered. Altani did a little twirl, showing off the dress to the room. The others gave their praises. Mogren had finished her braids during everything else, and pulled them back into the rest of her hair, which lay atop her head in a bun with some additional braids surrounding it. “It feels great! Though from now on maybe I’ll stick to shopping with my friends and trying on garments before buying. Good teamwork on the dress, you two! Though Lulu did most of the work, ha!” “And what about me, kupo?” “Fantastic, flawless, amazing job, Ren!” Altani had gotten a hand mirror at some point and was admiring the braids with a sparkle in her eye. The moogle puffed up at the praise. Vaile clapped his hands together loudly, once. “Yep, the dress looks great. Well, now that everyone seems ready, why don’t we get this show on the road?”

He expected everyone to agree and for them all to file out the door at a rapid pace (he was unsure about Mogren, actually–was Cahsi going to cast a concealing or trans-mog-rification spell on them? Or would they be ditching the puffball for the night?). Instead, everyone was giving him an appraising look. “We can’t have you leaving the house like that, Vaile. Just a few little touches should do!” Cahsi shook her head, grabbing her makeup bag. “Wouldn’t you like to have pretty nails like the rest of us?” Luvon was suddenly holding two different dark shades of nail paint out in front of him. “I think you owe Mogren a little apology for throwing them earlier. How’s about a little styling session?” Altani held up a comb and some pins, while Mogren had a bottle of hairspray and was cackling maniacally. It was a completely unfair fight, four against one. Vaile didn’t stand a chance. 

[silkclan-gossip]

SilkClan – Moon 1 By Snakepaw 🐾

Hey there, it’s Snakepaw climbing my way up to the top—literally and figuratively! I’ve been keeping my ears open and paws busy, and trust me, there’s a lot going on in SilkClan that no one’s talking about. Good thing I’m here to break the silence. Let’s get into it, because things are getting interesting.

🌕 Major Events:

Twoleg Nonsense: While I was up in my favorite tree (don’t ask how high), I spotted a Twoleg playing with a kittypet near our border. I swear, it looked like they were trying to teach it to pounce. Good luck with that! The warriors brushed it off like no big deal, but something feels off to me. Twolegs and kittypets don’t just “hang out” for no reason.

Duskkit’s Breaking Point: Look, I get it—being treated like a helpless kit can be a real thorn in the paw. Duskkit is fed up with being babied, and I’m here for it. He’s especially tired of Minkpelt hovering over him like a hawk. Not sure if he’s got a plan to deal with it yet, but knowing him, he’ll blow up eventually. Can’t wait to see how that plays out.

🌿 Warrior Drama:

Larkweb Scares Off a Rogue: So get this: Larkweb basically scared a rogue out of our territory with just his words. Yeah, no claws, no bloodshed—just a stare and some threats. It was pretty epic. But what’s up with Basilstar? She looked like she was annoyed by the whole thing. Maybe she wanted some action? Who knows, but something tells me she’s not exactly Larkweb’s biggest fan.

Wisteriaspeckle and the Chicken: Wisteriaspeckle strutted into camp with a Twoleg’s chicken dangling from his jaws. I gotta say, it was a bold move. But he’s been acting kind of… distracted? I heard him mumbling about Saplingstar and StarClan. Maybe he’s feeling guilty about taking from the Twolegs, or maybe he’s just trying to impress someone. Either way, that chicken didn’t last long—tasted great!

Burrowfleck’s StarClan Musings: Speaking of StarClan, Burrowfleck has been off in his own little world lately. He had another dream, but surprise, surprise—he’s not talking. I saw him staring at the sky like he’s waiting for something. Whatever it is, it’s got him all riled up. And he’s still holding a grudge against Pondquill. Can’t say I blame him after last moon’s fiasco.

🐾 Snakepaw’s Gossip Corner:

"You know what’s been bugging me? I keep feeling like I should be doing more around here. Yeah, I might be young, but I’m not useless. At least Posyclaw is cool enough to listen when I talk about it on patrol."

"Oh, and did you see the way Duskkit snapped at Minkpelt? I swear, he’s going to lose it one of these days. Bet you a mouse he makes a scene soon."

"I overheard Wisteriaspeckle, Burrowfleck, and Posyclaw having a pretty tight conversation by the stream. They’re getting really close, but what are they planning? Makes me wonder if they’re up to something big."

Relationships Rundown:

Crush Alert: Word around camp is Minkpelt has a thing for Pondquill. Seriously? That guy? Well, Minkpelt’s always been a stickler for rules, so I guess they’d balance each other out. Whatever happens, I’m keeping an eye on this one.

Posyclaw, Wisteriaspeckle, and Burrowfleck: This trio is tighter than a thornbush. They’re always whispering about something, and I don’t trust it. Either they’re planning something, or they’re just best friends who love a secret. We’ll see.

Basilstar vs. Larkweb: Tensions are still thick between these two. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a showdown soon. Just saying.

That’s it for now, clanmates! Stay on your toes, because things are only going to get crazier. Until next moon, keep your claws sharp and your secrets sharper.

– Snakepaw 🐾

[arkus-rhapsode]

So I know I’m a bit late on this, but I’ve been mulling this over for a bit and with the recent VA actor strike talk I kinda came to some realizations. So you probably have heard something about Charles Martinet, famed voice actor for Mario retired. Being replaced in the upcoming WarioWare/Mario Wonder games. Now there were a lot of people giving their thanks to a man who has been the voice of a gaming icon for generations a proper send off, but something had really got me thinking. Charles Martinet is a celebrated VA for his work in a Nintendo franchise. Nintendo the company that isn’t really known for vocal performances.

Nintendo is many things in the gaming industry, but something that you’ll notice that even in the modern era, there really aren’t that many games nintendo puts out with voice acting as a prominent feature. With games like Pikmin, Splatoon, Animal Crossing etc, all having “actors” there’s still a big use of nonsense words. Even Mario while there was voice acting in it still used very brief phrases and words. Or even some games that are still silent experiences like Pokemon.

Now there is a few exceptions to this in terms of Nintendo franchises, Fire Emblem has been a murderers row of talent of the VA industry for years. And while British actors aren’t as well known stateside, the Xenoblade games are fully voiced narrative games. Games like Zelda have only now begun to include bigger named VAs in their works like Matt Mercer, Kate Higgins, and Chris Hackney.

But these come off more like outliers. Fire Emblem is a second party series that only in recent entries really started using well known voice acting talent and direction. And while Xenoblade Chronicles is wonderfully acted, it’s still a lot of unknowns in the broader voice acting scene. And as mentioned previously, Zelda is only now beginning to add fully spoken voiced talent in their games, yet even that game isn’t fully acted outside of certain cutscenes with a fallback on Twilight Princess style jibberish when engaging with characters. I don’t say this to diminish any of the work done by these actors, I’m just observing that when you think about their roles in comparison to Nintendo’s brand, it’s not that prominent.

For the sake of comparison, narrative heavy game publishers like Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and BioWare are no stranger to beefing up their games with well known VAs working in the California scene. And it makes sense why these publishers were targeted when VA’s proposed their own strike. But in that list Nintendo-one of the big video game publishers in the world-was left off.

So what does this mean, what was the point of this ramble? Well I think it really speaks to in my opinion the work Charles Martinet did. To consistently be the voice of a franchise for so long and so popular that everyone knew who they were. To be a well known actor for most of their work in a Nintendo game. The most popular Nintendo gaming franchise. A company where the acting talent/voiced narrative cutscenes is not really part of their selling points. I think that it’s very impressive of one VA was able to have so much of an identity given all of the hurdles.

Im excited for the new voice of Mario. And while im not going to make any predictions on how nintendo will deal with voiced narratives content in the future, I do think it is a testament to how this very old school approach to game presentation can still be effective.

[waffleweirdo]

Finished Path of Radiance!

In total it took me about 40 hours and about 4 months (oops)

Long story short I really liked this game both in story and gameplay!

Now for some more rambling thoughts:

*will include spoilers*

Gameplay:

The best way that I can describe what I enjoyed about the gameplay is a good balance of information. I think there are a few other facts that could play into this (this is the fe game I went into the most blind, and difficulty). But in general I felt like there was a good balance of systems and ‘calculations’ to manage in battle. My wording here might be nonsense, but essentially there aren’t as many active effects like engage or fates that make everything overwhelming. While there aren’t as many automated tools like the later entries (I.e aggro indicators in three houses) have so I was more so forced to check possible outcomes manually. Now this probably isn’t ideal if you really want to play strategically, but I don’t! I typically play these games mostly around feel, and this method of play helped me develop a kind of sense of what would likely happen and a greater familiarity with my own and enemy units and I thought that felt cool!

Another possible contributor to this was the difficulty. It started off a bit difficult while the units were all still weak, then got pretty easy in the mid game (except daybreak!!), before getting fairly tough again around the last 6 or so chapters. Which is a curve I generally like! There were moments I would’ve liked it a little bit harder, but it was overall very satisfying! (For context I didn’t use any bonus exp until after chapter 18, and only used the majority of it around chapter 27).

Some other minor gameplay things. I thought the mechanics surrounding laguz were cool too manage! Plus they tied in really cool thematically and I felt awful attacking helpless laguz (the fact that the game made me feel awful is a good thing!). This game was the fe game that I knew the least about going in, and I managed to only ever use a guide for one chapter which I enjoyed, but I do think it means I probably missed a few recruitable characters. I’m pretty confident I missed at least three, though it might’ve been more oops… I really liked the use of bonus exp it was a cool way to still level up units that don’t necessarily earn a bunch naturally, or buff underperforming units, and as a sort of difficulty regulator. Gameplay wise my favorite unit was far and away Astrid. She snowballed so quickly! I was shocked when Titania had beaten her for most victories. I though item management was a bit tight sometimes, but not really in a good way. The fact that the shop had different stock every chapter was a bit frustrating, especially when it would remove basic iron weapons so units with only an e rank couldn’t train at all. But overall it wasn’t too big of a deal. I also didn’t realize how op forging was until the mid to late game, but that’s on me.

Characters:

Ike was BY FAR my favorite fe protagonist. His consistent attitude and personality made him a lot more interesting. Although he didn’t have the most complex character journey ever, he was still enjoyable, and always felt like an engaging character, rather than being one note. He consistently works well with the rest of the cast, and the way that he serves as an optimistic force, yet isn’t without flaws is really nice. I think he’s just a great character! I also really like that he didn’t turn out to secretly be a noble. I think this is the first fe game I’ve played with a protagonist who is not a noble, or secretly revealed to be a noble!

I feel very guilty that I never got around to using Soren much and thus didn’t get many of his supports because he was really interesting and I would’ve liked to see how he grew past his outward facade. But even so the story did a good job of depicting his growth, even if it was somewhat subtle. I also guessed that he was the spy for Daein, but nope!

Elincia was great too. She never stood out to much, but throughout the whole game she was engaging, and it was nice to see her growth. Again I didn’t get to do too many of her supports which was a bummer.

I guess this is as good a place as any to talk about supports. The way the PoR levels them up based on deployments? Very cool! Really excellent idea. The support conversations I read? I really liked them! Why. WHY is there a limit on supports? And even more so why was it so strict? Essentially what this meant was I was constantly juggling which characters I cared about the most, and if I ever found another character whose supports would be interesting? Well let’s hope I have a bunch of supports left, or I have to change my mind, or hold supports for possible future characters. It’s awful, and locked me out of probably 3/4 of the supports I was interested in. It sounds minor, but honestly really did affect my play through a lot. I care about supports and having them so limited sucks!

Jill ended up being one of my favorite characters. I was interested when she first joined us. I think my first thought was, “what is she up to?” But her story of learning the truth behind Daein’s propaganda and choosing to oppose them was really touching, and equally tragic. The dialogue where Mist offhandedly mentioned that she and Jill were about the same age… augh!! Plus Jill’s supports with Lethe were great, another reason why supports shouldn’t have bee-

I think the other character I want to highlight is Nasir. He’s one of my favorite characters for sure, and his story is really intriguing. Even learning his relationship with Ena and his ultimate motivations it still feels like there’s so much we never got to learn. Especially never having truly gotten to reconcile with Ike… it’s just really interesting. He traveled with us for so long, and always felt like a mystery, and even finally understanding him came too late… it’s just really neat.

Story:

The story of this game was interesting, the main plot thread was helping Elincia retake Crimea, which was a fairly standard though well done story. Archetypal in a sense. But largely what I cared about was the story in regards to the laguz and beorc. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just interesting to note. In that sense some moments of the plot felt largely unremarkable to me, while some moments where the two converged felt really interesting. The discovery of the truth behind the Serenes massacre and Ena’s reunion with Rajaion stand out to me. In the sense it’s sort of hard for me to reconcile my thoughts on the story. I didn’t really care much when Ashnard was killed, but the moment I understood who Rajaion was I wanted to cry. I think largely PoR’s story is a success, as there were more moments that I was interested than moments were I was disengaged, and I do generally think of the story fondly.

Having the full vision of how the conflict between laguz and beorc was depicted I think there are probably some things to critique, especially in some moments where it doesn’t feel as far reaching as it largely should. As in sometimes it feels like that racism is far too easily ‘solved’. But ultimately I think it fits PoR. PoR isn’t trying to be a story that is incredibly focused on fictional race relations. But it doesn’t shy away from including and exploring them, and out of the fire emblem games I’ve played it does by faaaaaaaarrrrr the best job. Plus it does have many really good moments that I think are genuine standouts.

As an aside, I’d also like to say that the info system is really good at adding in additional plot relevant reactions by characters, and showing the effects of your actions on civilians and the world around in such an excellent way. I can’t exactly pinpoint why, but some of my favorite moments just come from the one off interactions in it with characters you know you’ll never meet again. It’s cool!

I guess my thoughts of PoR’s story and themes come down to the fact that they are far from perfect, but ultimately succeed where it matters.

Sequel?:

I wasn’t really sure what to call this section, oops. This is the first time I’m playing Fire Emblem game that has a clear sequel! Which I know even less about going in than PoR.

Knowledge going into PoR: It has the Black Knight and Ike

Knowledge going into Radiant Dawn: It has Micaiah

So these are a collection of things I’m still wondering about which might possibly come up in the sequel? Though even if they don’t I’m satisfied with the conclusion of PoR’s story, and leaving loose ends isn’t a bad thing.

Ahem. What’s going on with Goldoa’s royalty? What’s going on with Sephiran? The apostle is a descendant of one of the warriors that fought the dark god? Is the Black Knight really dead? And most importantly Chekhov’s amulet that contains a literal dark god???!??!?!? Anyways I’m sure that will end just fine.

One of the moments that I’m most interested in was Ike’s final fight with the Black Knight. I took one look at the battle forecast and saw that Ike would immediately die, remembered Ike and Titania’s promise and booked it. Though I really wonder what might have happened if I did something different. Though honestly I’m okay just wondering.

Aaaaand yeah. That’s everything I can think to say at the moment. I liked this game a lot! I’m not quite sure how I’d rank it among the fe games that I’ve played. But I’m very excited to play Radiant Dawn and see what that has in store.

[marshmallowprotection]

hi! hope you’re having a good morning/afternoon/evening

i’ve been really unmotivated lately, lot of shit has happened but shit happening never really stopped me from getting my stuff done so i’m somewhat burnt out altogether

could you send some fluff from the choi household?? any domestic scenario you can think of, it doesn’t even need to be romantic!!! anything you think it’s soothing is enough

sorry for the odd ask :(( remember to drink water and to take care of yourself ^^

"I'm not getting in that thing."

"Saeran, c'mon! You don't have to be a stick in the mud. [Y/N] said it was a good idea! If you want to have ice cream together, you have to come into the fort! I won't even ask you for the super secret passcode to get inside! You're free to come in! How else will you get to the mini fridge? It has your favorites! C'mon!"

"No."

"Saeran doesn't have to join us if he doesn't want to, Saeyoung. It's okay. You can put that tomato magnet on Meowy so she can take his place. She won't eat his ice cream like you would, anyway. That's the win in his book."

"[Y/N]! I would never do that to my baby brother! You know he ikes his ice cream plain! I want a million toppings on mine! I would never eat a single ounce of his ice cream! Not just because he likes his without a load of sugar! But, because he's my baby brother!"

"...All I'm hearing out of you is that you'd consider eating it if it had a load of sprinkles and marshmallows on top."

"No! Besides, you forgot about spaceship gummies!"

"So, you would eat it!"

Saeran sighed at the two of them. The redhead shoved past them into the blanket fort that Saeyoung had strung up in the middle of the living room and grabbed a pint of ice cream from the fridge he placed with a fan at the back. He ripped off the seal and took a big bite from the center with his spoon. He sat down back there as the two of them bickered.

This was what he could expect from life with his brother and [Y/N]. Sure, it wasn't Mint Eye, but they knew how to get under his skin as well as that place did. At least, he got free ice cream out of this deal. They would continue to banter like that without realizing he'd come into their fort for a while.

Sometimes, Saeyoung was acutely aware of his every move, and other times he would let it fall to the wayside in the name of letting his guard down. His mistake, of course, given the fact that it let his brother sneak past him to enjoy a moment of peace that didn't have any nonsense directed at him.

It wasn't bad...

It was home.

[possibilistfanfiction]

hi i just wanted to say thank you for writing about queerness the way that you do - it’s incredible and has been immensely helpful to me lately. like i’ve agonized over wanting a haircut and a binder and to change my pronouns and have never had the courage to do anything about it, but reading your stuff is making me want to go through with it all. i had to pause a few times as i read your most recent piece (ava’s pov of butch bea) because i was overwhelmed with relief seeing ava and bea want that stuff too. i didn’t realize wanting it could feel so freeing. like i’ve never seen queer people written like that before, and never knew i needed to see it until now. it’s helped me feel okay about wanting the aforementioned things, and also okay about not knowing what i want or how i want to be. all around your fics are so healing and enlightening as far as gender and sexuality go, and gender and sexuality aside they are also flat out masterpieces. i cannot even begin to describe how much they, as well as your other posts on the subject, mean to me. thank you so much

:) thank u!

& i will say that i have spent the better part of the last 15 or so years just vibrating around trying to figure out what makes me feel good, especially in my body & how others perceive it. which is really hard! but trying stuff rocks — i figured out i wanted top surgery but not to transition in other medical ways bc i got a binder! the peace i felt with one felt right, & then i got to explore from there. i have had … so many haircuts lol & most of them have been good! (imo everyone deserves to buzz their hair at least once & just. deal with it lmao. a rite of passage.) now i don’t give a fuck about “what side of the store” clothes are on bc i know exactly what i want clothes to fit & feel like, & i have a tailor, so i just pay more attention to fit & fabric than i do any “men’s” or “women’s” demarcations, especially when most of the places i shop are mostly just vaguely androgynous earth tones anyway lol.

(of course this is with the caveat that there’s enough safety/financial stability but) try everything! especially stuff that’s not at all permanent!

there’s no way i would know what makes me happy & peaceful now if i didn’t try stuff in the past! do i want to wear button downs & chinos & have ppl call me sir?? no i would rather pErish. but did i always know that! of course not, & i got to have the space to try how that would feel. i definitely also know that i never want people to think i’m straight (lol but ppl are stubborn); i had a weird summer bc my hair was rly long, which i loved, but then started to feel just dissonant about… occasionally a little panicked by? (in addition to some transphobic nonsense thru work, which ofc doesn’t help). but once i sat down & was like what the fuck is going on — & felt safe enough to just sit for DAYS in dysphoria to try to figure out the root of it — i was like oh ok cool, easy, i can fix this. i knew i didn’t want to cut my hair rly short again (probably never again or at least for a Long Time, i don’t like ppl thinking i’m a man), but i didn’t wanna keep it long, so i was like ok great, stupid masc bob here we come, & my hairstylist is queer & has a soft butch wife, so i was set lol. but without getting to have space for the past decade to just try things, & to learn how to sit in dysphoria thru therapy rather than just Run Away from the feeling every time, that would’ve been a lot harder to navigate. i used to be VERY adamant abt they/them pronouns but i don’t feel that way anymore, & nothing earth shattering happened or has happened, i just… don’t care. i care more abt my privacy & agency than abt disclosing identity & experience than i do a pronoun, & so i get to make that choice whenever i want, which has been rly wonderful. & getting to try things will help you learn where ur most comfortable, especially as u continue to grow & change.

& like… it’s fun! queerness is so fun! i think beas queerness is fairly ~fraught~ canonically for obvious reasons but in any universe it’s nice to just let her take a fucking breath. kiss a girl, put on a hoodie, cut your hair, take a nap by the beach. it’s not so serious, not all the time. & ava is just FUN, her queerness is so so bright. to me it’s always just seemed like she was never Not queer bc ava has so much life to live & so so much to discover abt herself & the world. she’s falling in love with everything all the time, & with Wonder! & of course that includes queerness! it’s at the center of it bc it’s who you are & who you love, but it’s also just… people, & connection. i used to write rly angsty shit abt being queer & in moments of indulgence i do still enjoy a romp ofc to flex those wow sin & hell & an orgasm being so holy muscles lol, but queerness is my everyday life, & it shows up in the soft happy places more than anywhere else.

anyway, try everything!! especially a binder (bind safely!!!!!) & pronouns, even just online or w a few of ur ppl. if there’s a word you like for your identity, try writing it somewhere or just telling a friend (i texted my best friend that i liked the word ‘dyke’ a lot after having made ‘dyke on main’ jokes abt myself for ten years … we both just laughed). & of course haircuts & clothes are so fun, & they should get to be fun!

but even beyond that (& part of why i think ppl like reading stuff i write, maybe?) is that like so much healing for me in pleasure & peace in my queerness is so tied up in those same feelings abt … everything. food! sex! moving my body! my home! small acts of service! luxury! softness! skincare! the ocean! like whew, waking up & being like this brings me quiet joy, mary oliver was RIGHT, just lets the whole world kinda shimmer. not loudly, not in any remarkable way, but eating good food & having a good beer with someone who sees you for who you are; fresh flowers in the vase; LINEN PANTS; the dog asleep at your feet — all of those things to me are both queer & holy, inextricably together in my life. my wife’s queerness is very compatible w her religion & spirituality, & that’s rly rly beautiful to get to be around. queerness is abt deep care, too, in small ways: checking up on a friend after top surgery, still masking indoors, keeping my dog on lead unless i know her recall will be perfect. it shapes every part of my life. to me the mundane is the most glorious thing, & i have figured things that i love bc, for as scary as trying stuff can be (what if people see me? what if i hate it?) — you know, the most important question: what if you love it?

[basedkikuenjoyer]

I learned Skip & Loafer was a thing last week, I’m already caught up. I don’t usually have the time for binges anymore. But damn it, it’s so sweet and earnest it gets a full on appreciation post. Some light spoiling ahead. Starts with MC Mitsu. Rural girl moves to the big city isn’t new, but she actually tracks for me as someone who’s had the experience. She’s not a hick; she’s only in Tokyo because Mitsu has way more potential than Ikajima can support. That’s real, even the way you sorta have the town’s hopes on you. You get that nice, fuzzy quote from the lovely best friend Fumi early about eating good food pass or fail. It captures the vibe so well. Such a nice, strong skeleton to build a leading lady off of. Not exactly new territory but it’s been out of style for a while. There is that real edge of acknowledging the growing issue of rural depopulation in Japan. That said, if we’re talking new ground there’s a clear standout...

Nao-chan. Sweet, sweet Nao. Here she is launching into dropping some great wisdom about fashion and how it only needs to have as much of a role in your life as you want it to. One of our big wrinkles is that Mitsu goes to stay in Tokyo with her aunt who is trans. Great example of someone well past the finding yourself phase. Nao’s in her late 30s and she seems to have come out around her mid 20s. We know there’s some things like a falling out with her father and trauma from school days bullying but this is the type of series we may never actually see it. One of the cool elements is that Mitsu already presumably knows about all this. The two have long been close because Mitsu was one of the first people Nao felt like opening up to. Based on other examples I’ve seen, it’s pretty cool how casually everyone just refers to Nao as Mitsu’s aunt. Even ends up being a cute plot point.

What’s so well set up though is that Nao is honestly an amazing foil for Mitsu as well. There’s an implication she was the standout compared to her brother. A lot of hopes pinned on that salaryman career. But on someone who was treated poorly by back home. Either way, always cool and sadly too novel to have a trans woman in a maternal role. Especially an example where the junior is not also queer. She does a great job at it and when I compared these two to that Gilmore Girls vibe it was high praise. I need more of her adorkable boyfriend Goro too!

Last are these two dorks. Yuzu & Makoto. I adore blondie’s story arc. She’s naturally pretty and legitimately enjoys fashion...but hates all the nonsense that comes with the obvious popularity. It’s a hard line to tell that story without her coming off as a brat, and it’s hard to say it resonates without sounding conceited, but it really does for me. I’ve been there, talent or beauty or intelligence attracts envy. It doesn’t feel good to deal with that. You don’t want to rub it in you just hate it ended up being a problem. You do have those times people think it’s just, okay to treat you like a doll or be nasty to you because what do you have to complain about?

But for these two, they get over that hurdle. Makoto realizes she’s being unfair and that Yuzu just wants to enjoy a group of girls that aren’t obsessed with dating. Reminds me of Mugi in K-On a bit and that’s fun.

Give this series a go, it’s got a lot of heart. Will say the official release is worth it, especially if you’re here for Nao-chan. She...has a weird way of speaking that flummoxes the scans in some scenes. Bad enough it changes the meaning. The anime adaptation is great too.