#Image of Myself essay for kids

[friendtechbd]

Myself paragraph 8-10, SSC, HSC and all students 100-500 words

myself paragraph 8-10, SSC, HSC and all students 100-500 words. Go through the below written paragraph carefully, hope you will be able to appear in any exam by reading it. Myself paragraph 150 keywords. In today’s fast-paced world, personal growth is essential for individuals seeking to thrive personally and professionally. We can unlock our true potential and achieve success by dedicating time��

[turtleblogatlast]

Thinking about the Don Suave scene and what it means in terms of LGBTQ+ representation because my brain does nothing if not torment me with random topics to ramble about on the regular.

Anyway, I just wanted to ramble about why I like the scene but to get it out of the way - the scene can very easily be interpreted in so many different ways, and all of them are valid. I personally see it as Leo having at least some attraction to a man. And the following is an explanation of my own interpretation and thoughts on it and what it means especially for Leo’s portrayal in the grand scheme of things.

Long-winded interpretation under the cut!

Now, to start with, it’s important to me that in the scene Leo looks at Don Suave in the very beginning and then for the entirety of the rest of the time the man is on screen, Leo’s eyes are closed. Yet, in the end, he is still visibly enamored with Don Suave, happily cuddling up to him as he’s being carried away.

You can very easily interpret this as Leo being spellbound and that’s honestly super valid and I believe he likely was at least somewhat in the beginning, but considering how fast he looked away and how he never looked again, I personally think it makes more sense to read it as Leo just finding the man attractive, at least somewhat. (For the record, I personally headcanon Rise Leo as bisexual with a heavy preference for men, but I want to be blunt when I say that any interpretation is valid. Literally any. Ace, pan, gay, bi, none of the above or a mixture of something new literally all of it is more than okay and fair. Hell you could even interpret this entire scene as more romantic attraction than physical and it would still work. Anything goes!! Don’t bother people, guys, really.)

The main reason I take this scene to be at the very least LGBTQ+ adjacent isn’t just because of how it’s portrayed, but because of who Leonardo is. Not in terms of Rise of the TMNT, but in terms of the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™️ franchise.

Leo’s a character who, while changing with each iteration, has still at his core been around for decades upon decades as “the blue one”. One fourth of the team. He’s the one most are going to look at as the Leader, and oftentimes he is the one closest to having the title of Main Character. Not to say the others aren’t just as important, but Leo’s presence in the A plots of basically all TMNT media is often something very main character-esque.

And that’s very, very important to note. Here we have a Main Character of a prolific and decades long-running franchise distributed by a children’s television network. You can play around with his and his brothers’ characters all you like, but there is always going to be challenges to dodge around, especially since this was still in 2018-2019.

For example, you can play around with their designs so long as they’re color coded turtles, but their sexualities? Now that’s tricky.

“But what about Hypno and Warren?” Not main characters and also they’re Rise originals. They have a lot more room to play around with than a character like Leo does. But even talking about main characters in the franchise, you could arguably have an easier time playing around with Donnie or Mikey’s sexualities than Leo or even Raph, as (unfortunately) the former two tend to get more B plots, so they’d likely have had a little more leeway (still not a lot though.)

So, where does this leave us?

It leaves us in a place where outright stating and/or showing undeniable proof of Leo’s attraction to men is very, very difficult. So, workarounds!

Workarounds like the entire Don Suave situation.

To be honest, as left up to interpretation and lowkey and deniable as it is, this whole scene means a lot to me because of who Leo is as a character. It’s just nice when we get so see even the bare bones of representation with characters that have been such a large part of pop culture for decades, y’know? Even if more would be so much nicer, this is better than I thought we’d ever get for these boys.

And, again, literally nothing I’ve said is the only way to interpret it, I’m more than happy when people interpret media on their own honestly, it’s just something I’ve been thinking of lately and I was wondering if others felt the same way.

Whatever you think when you interpret this scene or Rise Leo as a whole, I just thought this would be interesting to think about, even if it was ramble-y, haha.

[meraki-yao]

RWRB: A list of thoughts on the Campfire Scene

Ok I went to sleep for another hour to calm myself down and now I can form coherent thoughts about the scene and not just scream and squeal

It's a three-minute scene with two shots. The first shot is a little over two minutes

When Alex asks his question, Henry, who was looking into the fire, tilts his head towards Alex as if to listen better. After Alex finishes, Henry looks up towards the sky, like he's wondering how to answer

Alex doesn't really react to Henry's "Once upon a time" even though he's not directly answering Alex's question. He just listens, and that's such a beautiful thing

Nick deserves a round of applause for this scene, his monologue was two minutes long, and monologues are really hard to perform because it's just you who keeps talking, you don't really get to react to other things or people, it's just you, so Nick is a fantastic job

Nick's delivery and tone, and the way he sometimes ends a sentence a bit like a question (ex: "acutely") makes it sound like Henry's been thinking about this story/ metaphor for a while but this is the first time he ever verbalizes it, so while he knows what he wants to talk about thus he doesn't need to pause a lot to think of the story, he does occasionally need to think of the next word or line because again, he never actually said any of this out loud before, and Nick does that so well

@pippin-katz pointed out that Nick misspoke and said "sent the suit a prince of armour" which is hilarious, and while because movie, this shouldn't happen, realistically we all have moments where we mix words up so it almost feels more... authentic? Also, I didn't pick it up but now that Pippin mentioned it I'm really aware of it lmao

Also Henry/Nick's voice here is so soothing? I can almost imagine him telling bedtime stories to his and Alex's kids like this in the future. I wonder if Henry would write children's books because it feels like it'd be something he do and something he could write really well, if this clip is anything to go by. Plus I stumbled across an audio of Nick reading "The Emperor's New Clothes" before (I literally have no context of why he was reading that and it was literally just audio, not sure if I can find it anymore) and it was so soothing and calming that I fell asleep to it one night. Besides the full-cast RWRB audiobook that I'm practically demanding at this point, I wonder if he would be interested in doing more audiobook/narration stuff. He's really got the voice for it

The King sending a suit of armour to protect the prince's heart kind of further proves my point of the King being a much more loving grandparent to Henry than the queen in the book, and him worrying more about Henry himself than the image of the crown. He noticed that 1, Henry is an emotionally sensitive person, 2, Henry is gay, and both of those things could be turned against him easily, and he will get hurt. He does love Henry, just not in a way that's good for Henry. If we get a sequel I do hope we can see them reconcile in one way or another. It'd be a nice example for people in the same positions.

The "Nothing will ever happen to him" line!!!! I wrote a whole essay about Kensington and this line because somehow this line was one of the most powerful ones to me, but to know that it was originally Henry's word just adds another level of pain to the Kensington scene

You can see Henry's face light up when he starts talking about the peasant boy. And Alex's quick eyebrow raise and deep chuckle. It's so beautiful, I wanna cry

We talk about Alex's heart eyes, which, yes, but Henry's look of pure adoration and love at Alex when he says "Truly Alive" makes me want to melt

I yelled a little at Alex when he started to lay back down (as in I verbally shouted "DAMMIT ALEX LOOK AT YOUR MAN") because I felt like if Alex saw Henry's face in the following lines he'd figure out Henry has issues earlier? But then I saw a take saying the shot was framed like theatre where Henry's both centre stage and in the spotlight so the focus is on him, so Alex was designed to lay back down on the timber bench to make the entire space for Henry

Henry's look of sad longing when he talks about the peasant boy pulling apart his armor is heartbreaking

I wonder if this was originally planned to be the changing point from Alex's POV to Henry's POV? Because in that case I do think the lake scene worked better as a changing point

I also wonder how did Henry end the story in his head up to this point? Because as hopefully as the last line is, at this point in the story, Henry still doesn't believe he can keep this

I get why scenes are cut because when you're putting together a movie, there are a lot of things you don't see for individual scenes until you put them together. This is why as much as I want the cast and crew to get the premiere they deserve to have, I don't really want an extended cut of the movie, because things were cut for a good reason

That being said, if the cornetto scene and this scene proved anything, is that the scenes themselves are fascinating, and I WANT THEM ALL

[nyaagolor]

Merry DL6mas!

I wrote an inordinate amnt of words about Edgeworth and MVK and dynamics and meta and w/e, stuck it below the cut so I don't obliterate ur dashes

So originally I wanted to make a relationship flowchart for all the characters and then realized that the amnt of caveats would make the image entirely text so I’m just forgoing the image altogether and doing this group by group starting with the VKs bc DL6mas and whatnot. It’s an essay and also unorganized so um. Have fun or apologies in advance? 

Anyway. I think AA1 intending to be standalone and then getting these additional games does some fun things to the characters but especially for Manfred. I’m of the opinion that he was not created or written to be deep or nuanced or anything. He’s the final boss, we weren’t supposed to get more on him, he’s honestly just a symbolic representation of the forces Phoenix works against rather than a character in his own right (in AA1 at least). He’s cartoonishly evil and that was supposed to be it— and then we get JFA and Franziska and suddenly Manfred gets all this retroactive characterization as the story is built beyond its initial parameters. That’s part of the reason why I’m so interested in him— all this new information comes exclusively through other characters and insinuations rather than him actually being on screen up until Investigations and even then it’s like 4 lines. We get more on Manfred, yes, but it’s a shadow on the wall. I’m sorry to bring up allegory of the cave about the gay lawyer simulator but w/e I’m a melodramatist, it’s an allegory of the cave situation. The reason I bring that up is because I don’t really think about Manfred in the same way as other characters; I piece together how I think of him though his relationships and impact on others rather than as an independent dude. His past is inconsequential to me and the ppl who flesh him out are the real troopers but he matters to me more as a vessel for narrative themes than anything. This is all to say that everything I’m doing is conjecture and just kind of filling in the gaps based on my current understanding of the text. Headcanons for the broad and far-reaching audience of me, myself, and I. 

That being said. The whole spiel I just went on about “Manfred as defined by his relation to others” works quite nicely as tie-in to how he feels about Edgeworth, because I think Edgeworth occupies this symbolic space in MVK’s mind. Yes, Edgeworth is a kid he mentors and who lives in his house and who he is legally responsible for, but Edgeworth is also this physical manifestation of his failures. Edgeworth is a child, yes, but to MVK he’s a ghost, a consequence, a punishment. He may not be a VK, but he IS karma (sound the turnabout melody I am kissing you on the lips for this line btw). 

This also means that the way MVK views Edgeworth as an extension of his own thoughts about the DL6 incident rather than solely as his own person, which is something that changes pretty drastically over time. The way he talks about and to Edgeworth goes beyond who and what Edgeworth is as a person because for MVK, there was always an aspect of the self in there, and MVK interacting with Edgeworth is as much a reflection of his own identity as it is how he feels about Miles. 

If there is one thing the entire VK family does extraordinarily well it's projection, and I think MVK has been doing this since he brought Edgeworth into the picture (and before that, but it’s only relevant to me now). This is personally how I rationalize how absolutely batshit half of MVK’s actions are. I know the actual reason is “we expanded the characters around him which necessitates certain actions to drive the plot and inconsistency results from this expansion” blah blah blah paratext more or less confirms this, but we are going full Watsonian in this bitch. 

I have talked at length about the actual medical stuff around gunshots and how bullets are typically removed from joints specifically because of how badly they damage the surrounding tissues over time, I’ll link the post if anyone is curious, but tldr bullet wound symbolism. I bring this up now because I think the bullet acts as a physical representation for DL6, it literally and metaphorically tears him up inside. No one else knows about this murder, most people have forgotten the penalty, but he never did, because he can’t. For someone who has structured his entire self on the idea of perfection, this is an event of unprecedented magnitude, and the living proof of it is eating dinner at his table every night. MVK sits with the weight of what he’s done, and whether or not he feels justified or guilty or w/e doesn’t even matter because it’s making him lose his goddamn mind. His behavior gets more intense, more irrational, because before he was just a massive, scheming, paragon of perfection (and corruption but shh) but now he is in this inescapable cycle as the result of his choices and his choices exclusively. I don’t propose to know nor care about how he felt about it or what the specific emotions he felt were because they’re not particularly important in my mind, only that the lingering ghost of DL6 is driving MVK kinda bonkers and that drastically alters how he interacts with Edgeworth and Franziska. 

I’ve seen a lot of debate about why MVK took in Edgeworth, but my hot take is that he actually doesn’t know. I don’t think MVK ever processed DL6, I think he is filled with contradictory feelings (how ironic) and that this is what eats at him through all those years. Why did he take in Edgeworth? Because he felt guilty? Because he wanted to train him into everything his father hated as a twisted kind of revenge? Because he wanted a prodigy and saw himself in Edgeworth? It’s all of them, it’s none of them, it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t know. Why did he prosecute Edgeworth right before the statute of limitations ended? Was it revenge? Hatred? A way to test his prodigy? To project his own gnawing nest of emotions onto the person he felt embodied the incident? Same deal. (the real answer is that it doesn’t really matter bc we were not supposed to think about it this hard but. Shh. dw about it.)

I don’t take much interest into Manfred’s inner world because I ultimately think that a lot of his actions, while completely under his control, are him acting on impulse, on him doing irrational things because DL6, in a sense, killed him too. He comes out of that elevator a different person (not worse (can’t go down from rock bottom), not better, just a different kind of asshole), but destroyed from the inside out by a murder he committed. He’s so arrogant, so entitled, that he could never let this go, and I think that drives so much of the insane shit he tries to pull. He has centered his life around the axis of DL6 and he will always be pulled back into its orbit. The further we get from DL6 the more time he has to think, the more it tears him apart, the more the contradictory feelings about it rear their heads in turn and create this guy who is just desperate and angry. And when it’s days before the statute of limitations he just becomes completely subsumed by it all. He was always cruel, but now he’s cruel and desperate and completely willing to drag everyone down with him. The desperation is the important part. 

I will say though that he is, irrefutably, his own downfall. He molded Edgeworth in his own image, he created Phoenix Wright the defense attorney as a consequence, and it is the two of them who send him to his death. He is the one who planned the murder of Turnabout Goodbyes. From beginning to end, it’s his own hand. Manfred is one of the only characters in this series whose actions are not precedented by extenuating circumstances. It’s allllll him. He’s the bitch. He has been and will always be a selfish prick and for as much as he is lashing out because of DL6 he does so by dragging others in. 

Extremely long prelude to say that I think how he treats edgeworth varies so wildly over time and is so irrational in its presentation because of everything I mentioned before. He is Edgeworth’s greatest kindness and his worst nightmare— at the same time!! Multitasking king. He takes in Edgeworth as a snap decision for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand, and I think because of that he never quite views Edgeworth as a son (at least in the traditional sense). Edgeworth is not his child in the same way that Franziska is his child (and we will get to her in a different post I promise), but he’s not just some random kid either. Manfred is emotionally tied to him through DL6, and I think the fact colors the way that Manfred treats him. It’s a dynamic that I can’t really put a label on, because it’s mentor/student with so much extra baggage that it feels different than that. There is an emotional connection between them, a sense of atonement and revenge, and I don’t think either of them will ever be able to articulate what that means. Manfred does not address Edgeworth as his child, and I think there is an attempt in his language to distance himself from Edgeworth, but he finds himself drawn to Edgeworth all the same (bc Edgeworth is DL6 etc etc). He did not ask for a child, he does not WANT a child, but he has one! Get fucked!

MVK is obsessed with his own image, with this idea of perfection, and insofar as Edgeworth is DL6, Edgeworth is an extension of MVK. He pushes his ideals and tactics onto Edgeworth the second Edgeworth decides he wants to be a prosecutor, because even more than Franziska, Edgeworth is MVK’s living legacy. He is quite literally Manfred’s midlife crisis and I think Edgeworth wanting to be like him and becoming this Demon Prosecutor is this insanely fucked up kind of catharsis in MVK’s mind. And as Edgeworth becomes more like him, as he takes up MVK’s mantle, he becomes a mirror— that is where shit gets fun. I don’t think I need to spell out the ways in which MVK was simultaneously caring and cruel to his kids— you’ve seen Sound the Turnabout Melody, you’re seen Turnabout Goodbyes, we know this song and dance. 

The more time Edgeworth spends around him, as Edgeworth reflects more of Manfred back at himself, MVK simultaneously becomes proud and revolted. Edgeworth is growing beyond the consequences of DL6 and into a mirror of his adopted father figure mentor person. He is, from the ashes of DL6, becoming Manfred von Karma, and I think that drives MVK insane. He is becoming firmly entrenched in MVK’s life at this point. For as much as Edgeworth is DL6, he is now MVK himself. He becomes a walking contradiction, and Manfred’s projection then manifests as this rapidly oscillating clusterfuck of reactions. Edgeworth is out of his control but he’s super important to MVK— recipe for disaster. 

He builds Edgeworth up, teaches him everything he knows, starts to treat him like a son while at the same time irrevocably traumatizing for the rest of his life. He loves who Edgeworth is becoming while hating everything he stands for, and I think this absolute garbage pile of a child-rearing philosophy is as much a projection of himself as anything. It was never about Edgeworth the person. At first, MVK does not care in the slightest about Miles Edgeworth and it is only when he does, even a little bit, that shit hits the fan in my mind. Edgeworth the physical manifestation of DL6 is being overtaken by Edgeworth the Demon Prosecutor, and MVK starts to be proud of him— but this is an eventuality he did not plan for and cannot do anything about. For both of them, it’s personal now, and no amount of pushing each other away is really going to fix that. 

Anyway I don’t think literally any of this was intended. Manfred is not this deep, I am making literally all of this up, but it’s fine. If you got this far I salute you. Miles time. To pivot to Edgeworth’s POV for a while, I think that from the very beginning, Edgeworth looked up to MVK. It’s not the same idolization that Franziska does, but it’s up there. Obviously he idolized his father, but DL6 not only served as a complete evisceration of his family but also his ideals. Gregory the man was dead, but if criminals can kill his father and get away with it, that collapses the foundation on which Miles built his understanding of justice. Gregory the defense attorney– his ideals, his legacy, his philosophy– he died in that elevator too. Edgeworth pivots, completely independently, from a man who wants to protect to a man who wants to punish (and I firmly believe that this was his own decision and not Manfred pushing him into it, if MVK had not adopted him he still would have become a prosecutor just not so much of a dick). 

But so Manfred takes him in, and was spectacularly ill-equipped to handle this. I always saw Manfred as emotionally distant on the best of days (he’s born in the 50s what did u expect) but for Miles, who he barely considers a son at all, he isn’t capable of being the emotional support he needs. He never would be and never wanted to be. That’s layer one of baggage. What MVK does provide for Miles, though, is a purpose. Miles does not wallow in his father’s death, because he is taken in by someone who acts as a paragon of Miles’ new worldview. Manfred never lets a criminal get away. He is perfect in that way, and it gives Miles a tangible (albeit impossible) goal to strive for. MVK mentors him in this worldview and gives him the tools to outlet his grief and rage into something productive— fucked up and wrong, maybe, but productive. That’s layer two of baggage. 

For as complicated and twisted and contradictory as MVK’s feelings towards Edgeworth are, Edgeworth for most of his childhood sees MVK as this pillar of everything that is good and treats him with intense amounts of respect. He accepts any cruelty as tough love, he adopts his ideals and his tactics and his suit. Edgeworth needed *something* after the grief of DL6 and MVK is what he got, so Miles latches on and never lets go, for better or for worse. Miles Edgeworth is not Manfred von Karma but he actively tries to take his shape because whether or not it’s reciprocated, Edgeworth loves him and everything that he stands for. Manfred cares about him in that respect at the very least. And ultimately, this is my big take on Edgeworth: I think Edgeworth actively chased MVK. He became MVK on purpose. It’s a result of trauma and built entirely on false pretenses, but Miles is the one who takes the initiative and Manfred indulges him— And then Turnabout Goodbyes happens. 

Everything Edgeworth is, everything he made himself become, is wrong. Edgeworth has molded himself into a person he does not recognize and that person turned out to be a monster. The person Edgeworth idolized, respected, and maybe even loved is the very person who destroyed his life. He is wearing the skin of the monster he wanted to destroy, and he did it on purpose (in his mind). This is not to say he had much if any agency in this situation— this is not a path he would naturally take, this is structured entirely under false pretenses, and he was clouded by grief, traumatized, and most importantly nine, but what matters here is that Edgeworth FEELS like it’s his fault, and the complete collapse of his worldview AGAIN is what drives all the bullshit of RFTA. Edgeworth is not MVK (and you can tell because he is capable of self-reflection which MVK is ostensibly not (or at least unwilling to)), but it still drives him to this complete and utter devastation. He sees Manfred in himself and it isn’t until AAI1/2 that he’s able to see Gregory as well. MVK filled a need for Edgeworth at the lowest point in his life (and absolutely made him worse but that’s not the point). Edgeworth respected and loved Manfred’s ideals, STILL chases the idea of the man, and because of that still cares about him. He becomes aware of who the monster he loved is, and how has to reconcile with what it means to be that person’s reflection and legacy despite knowing— and feeling, and BEING— all the harm he caused.

Those contradictory feelings that I talked about earlier? Love and hatred all mixed together— questions that cannot be answered and actions taken without knowing why? That’s Edgeworth’s final gift from Manfred: he inherits the bullet and the legacy he carries forward. Unlike Manfred, though, Edgeworth takes that pain and shares it, lets other people in, scoffs at the veneer of perfection and allows himself to be hurt and vulnerable and it is only in that way that Edgeworth can break out of VK’s shadow and break the cycle. He holds onto the ideals that he learned from Manfred, separates them from the nastiness and acknowledges the place they came from. It’s obvious in the way that Edgeworth carries aspects of that legacy forward that he’s capable of disseminating everything that Manfred is, acknowledging the way he’s been influenced by him and what he still respects about the man despite it all, and make peace with the rest of it. The cycle of violence and corruption started with Manfred and Edgeworth makes sure that it ends with him too. 

I have a ton more to talk about with respect to his teaching methods and the nitty gritty of how he interacts with his kids but that’s for the Fran post. This is more of the “whys” than the “hows” but I’ll get there :)

Anyway, I think that’s it. I’m sure there’s more that I’m missing but my head is beyond empty rn and I can’t think of anything else I wanna talk about with respect to these two. I know I literally just spewed 3k words about into this textpost but I do love chatting about them (total shock I know) so if u also have thoughts or ideas abt anything related to them lmk :3

[itsnotnina]

back-to-school thoughts

When I was a kid, the end of the summer holidays always brought around a wave of excitement. As much as I loved the six weeks we got off, going back to school was a whole new level of excitement. Going back to school meant a new start (I think my brain still functions on a September-to-September calendar), seeing friends I hadn't seen in all summer, and the opportunity to reinvent myself.

I would spend hours upon hours watching 'DIY stationery tutorials' and 'What's in my Bag' videos to try and recreate my image in the days leading up to the beginning of the year. I'd collect all my newest pens and pencils (which I would inevitably lose before the Christmas holidays) and pack my bag and anxiously wait for 8am the next morning so I could run off to school.

I couldn't wait to see which teachers I'd have, who was in my classes, and how I'd stack up against the milestones of getting older.

Now - as an adult in university who pretty much hated her last few years of school - the last few weeks of summer are rife with stress. The simplicity of childhood excitement has been replaced with a complicated cocktail of deadlines, money stress, and the pressure to constantly perform.

Yeah, university can be fun. I love my friends, I love my freedom, and I love the satisfaction of achieving my dreams. But the joy of learning that I felt when I was younger often feels crushed beneath an avalanche of essays, group projects, and the constant mental math of wondering where this takes me.

I sometimes think about the younger version of me - who read academic journals for fun - and wonder if I'll ever recapture the carefree excitement of a new academic year.

Maybe it’s not about recreating that feeling but reimagining it. It’s not about colourful pencil cases or new backpacks anymore (although, I love me a nice, new notebook or some cute pens). It’s about finding small joys in the chaos - coffee with friends, a doughnut during exam season - and reminding myself that growth, no matter how daunting, is worth it.

So here’s to all of us still navigating education, whether you are at school or university. I hope that this year is the best it could possibly be, no matter what your best looks like.

[shiongenkai]

9, 12, 15, 20, 23 for shion. kidding. haru

SKJDFH oomf you've done it now. good luck.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

No I'd become Ren in an instant. Im sorry king I go to bed at 5 AM I can't wake up at 4 AM and do chores. It just can't happen. I'd die.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

I've gotten really into Mortkranken Haru because I personally think it'd be way funnier than Sinostra Haru and it's killing me thinking about all the stupid useless shit he would know bc of it. I just find it compelling and funny and that's all I need in a headcanon tbh .

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

HARUTOWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HARUTOWA SOLOS!!!!!! HaruShion can't compare yet. If we learn more maybe. Dude I am so scared for more info on Shion. Im so afraid. Anyway HaruTowa solos forever and ever.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Other than his obvious besties (Romeo, Rui, Towa) because I love arbitrary rules being imposed on me..... honest to god Yuri. Hear me out. They're both workaholics who are Eccentric and kind of pushy. Haru purposefully gets shit wrong to bother people (i.e. Ren) but Yuri would love to correct him and Haru would probably be amused about it enough to keep it going. They both have specialized knowledge in their field and they both like to problem solve, and they both benefit from a good relationship (Mortkranken gets more specimen to study through Haru, Haru gets medicine and shit to help with the farm). Plus they can have bitchfests too and I know this. In t his essay I will,

23. Favorite picture of this character?

Every time I see this image I cry from laughter.

But all the night out outfit warding cards contain the cutest Harus ever. Particularly Ren's. Ren's Haru's are all the best Harus does this help.

..... Shion bonus round. Im making all of this up btw. Hope this helps.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

NO? ALL WE KNOW IS THAT HE BREAKS SHIT. THATS HIS ONE CANON TRAIT. HE BREAKS SHIT. SKJDFHSKJDFH I LIKE WHEN SHIT IS UNBROKEN.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

I think everything I think about this guy is headcanon other than 'he breaks shit' but I guess a headcanon I haven't shared is that despite being a Dionysia student Shion spends approximately all his time in dorms that Aren't Dionysia. Mortkranken, Sinostra, Obscuary occasionally.... Dude does NOT chill in his own dorm ever and it shows. Absolute terror wherever he goes and he is banned from all local restaurants forever god bless.

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

Can I be honest. Haru/Shion compels me so hard but Haru/Shion/Towa freaky love shape makes me very happy. Haru loves his boys who try to kill each other with lasers and homoerotic tension.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

If I can't choose Haru which I can and I'm just restricting myself for the fun of it,

Taiga.

Listen to me. Look at me. Look. Okay. Look. listen. If. Okay. Look, listen, if Shion is. The mermaid, right? And he's known for destruction, right? And eating a mermaid flesh, and if Taiga, and, (I AM FORCIBLY DRAGGED OFF STAGE)

23. Favorite picture of this character?

[chestnutracc]

I hate how some people after season 2 are just putting hate on Aziraphale. I mean, he in fact, left the Crowley, but he had his own reasons as well, didn't he? Aziraphale have a very compliceted relationship with heaven but he is in fact an angel and he want to belong there OAAAAAHHHHH—

Quick frame from animatic, u can find it on my instagram for example :) chestnut.racc (quick self advertisment haha)

Anyway, those kind of videos where people are insulting Aziraphale or smth like 'me after s2' and the video of taking of his face or covering them all on some kind of placats. I'm shittin myself. I know that thats grief after the ending but... Man his whole life or more like existance is not ONLY about Crowley in fact :/

Look how we get a chance to speculate why did he do that? What was his reasons? I think that the ending of Good Omens was (not only just marketing catch (that dramatic pause for a kiss and 'betrayal') but also a planned procedure? I love them both [Aziraphale and Crowley] equally so you shouldn't think this is a desperate attempt to protect your favorite (wha de duck I am saying, this series have a few months now so it is not a fresh topic... For me it is oh goddd ANYWAY)

Alr, here is another image so you won't go so quickly and read all that shit or not

Hkhm... Let me give yall a wholeass essay in my second language.

Kidding! Not so extreme. Haha. Anyway. Those are the possibilities why Aziraphale decided that he should leave to heaven. Of course, there could be a few. Or everything. Or none. It's just my personal opinion :)

Again, assumptions, personal opinion, don't want to offend anyone. Thing up⬆️ that's the part where you can argue with me, debate maybe. Whatever. Thing down, I gues bunch of headcanonc? I don't know, they are theories? You can as well say what you think!!⬇️

Goosh, sorry for the mess. Lets start already. Yeah. Uh. Right. Right. Alright. Why Aziraphale chose heaven?

1. Aziraphale overall is an angel... Literally... So uhm he is naturally connected with God, wich he as well worships. He don't have to stand with heaven, but he still has a deep bond with good. Leaving the heaven would be, right, a great decision for his wellbeing. It's clear that he's not on their side. But he did not left his God. Saying 'no' to Megatron would be something that would make him feel terribly guilty and overall devasted, as he would disobey his own moral code and he would gave up a part of himself, I suppose.

2. For 6,000 fuckinf years he had been arguing with himself about feeling for Crowley, right now doesn't matter if platonic, romantic. He was renouncing Crowley so many times that he don't know him, he's not his friend. Yet he could not resist, but be with that redhead. Don't you think that he was having some, oh I don't know, moral crisis? Imagine choosing between two most importanr things? The creature you love and, for Azi, a literall purpose of creation - serving God? Oh man, he was in this state for over 6,000 years. If he would say 'no' then, would he ever get another chance like that to habilitate? He was working so hard, for so long, but he didn't had to chose through all those centuries. Now he had. I guess it's logical, that he choosed his creator.

3. Clear and logical! If Crowley would be back to heaven, he wouldn't have to choose between two thing he loves. Ah you clever one :). Nah. He literally said that he wants to work with Crowley. What can I say more.

4. Obvioulsy, he did not wanted to chose what we know of we SHOULD from serial. And pervious point... And previous previous. It felt like he had been lost or something in it all. I mean, he needed to choose if he wants to take Crowley, if he wants to go back. He was rhinking about the kiss, probably about heaven, what would they say, what would they do. To him, to Crowley. What he should say to Megatron. I suppose he was impetuous with that decision. Imagine lying (he is a damn angel whaaa) to yourself for thousands of years and then just having to confess. Nah, he would like better to stay silent and still lie 🙂 oh god why he is so stupid. Crowley is also stupid. They both are!!!

5. He was mad. Similisr to previous point. He felt like he did not belong with Crowley, as he was devasted. And also Crowley ignored him as well, as Azi ignored Crowley. But i want to focus on thing that he said that he NEEDS him and begged to not to leave him. Easy peasy. No communication between those doveys.

6. He was afraid of loving Crowley as - what would heaven say? What would god say? Will they be happy? Will they be safe? Is it really possible for them to be together? Demon and angel?

7. He considered himself as a failure for Crowley 👍 after he said yes, when Crowley was always saying no.

8. He was afraid of the consequences refusing heaven. Like, he literally was making out with devil, then went o heaven, hell's fire couldn't kill 'him' (ik it was crowley but not for heaven), he was hiding Gabriel, he did not cooperated with heaven. There were a few times when he sinned... A lot. Uhm. Well,I DO have a reason to suppose this could have been some kind of test or something... Because what the hell? From archangel, later no one, then back to the archangel?

Aug! Sorry, long post. Rage hit me. I'm going to sleep now, goodnight :)

[xxx-ang3l-w1th-a-sh0tgun-xxx]

my special interest list (& blank version)!!

I've used this template to list all of my special interests I've ever had (i think?). the most recent ones are skate 3, dinosaurs and autism (yes autism is a special interest of mine - i know so much about it from extensive research as I'm still working on getting diagnosed).

special interests in this list - kathleen hanna/bikini kill/le tigre (also the julie ruin but i didn't have room for that image), animal jam, how to train your dragon (books and films), five nights at freddy's, life is strange, coraline (book and film), wolves, minecraft, dinosaurs, skate 3, slugs, autism, iceberg charts (also video essays ESPECIALLY if they're about iceberg charts)

these special interests aren't ALL current. for example, how to train your dragon was my biggest and most obsessive special interest for many years when I was a kid, but not so much anymore. i still love httyd but not as a special interest.

feel free to use the blank version, i didn't make it myself and I'm not sure where it came from. (if anyone knows just lmk and I'll credit them) 🫶

[relentlesslyexisting]

(I don't normally diary post, but work was so slow yesterday and I thought maybe my JUNE thoughts would interest someone.)

Today the kids are taking exams so I have literally nothing to do at work. I'm not sure I can read for the next 7 hours without wanting to kill myself eventually. This job can be actual torture sometimes. You know a lot of Japanese public schools don't have Wifi you can connect to? A part of me wonders if I should pretend I'm sick or something so I can leave early, but I think that might be all too transparent. I wish I could surf the web or something. Not even the slowest day at the museum I worked at in college could have prepared me for this. I have to wonder why they'd make me come to this specific school on a day where there is literally nothing for me to do. Who the fuck made this schedule?! At least JUNE magazine is pretty entertaining. I don't think the prose are hard to read really, my biggest issue is the unfamiliar kanji. I suspect most of the kanji I'm coming across is pretty literary? At least in this specific story. My dad would get a real kick out of it. A short story called "Death in Kuruizawa," in a literary magazine that also publishes speculative essays about rock musicians being bisexual and lamenting that Lou Reed got married… It's not exactly funny, but it is amusing. I wish something like it still existed now, but magazines are obsolete.

I'm no expert on JUNE magazine, and can't speak on its evolution given that my actual experience with it is pretty limited, but there is this insular feeling about those early issues. It really feels like a special nook for the freak, pervert women of the late 70's and 80's. This was like 20 years before the term "fujoshi" became a thing, these women were simply "tanbi-kei" enthusiasts or literature fiends. Really enjoyed this short essay I read where this lady talks about spending the whole day running around Tokyo trying to find a compilation of Orikuchi Shinobu's work that contained his short story "Kuchibue" only to realize that she would have found much more success if she had just gone to her local library. But I totally get her, consciously or unconsciously there is this thrill about the hunt for obscure pieces of media. It's much more fun to discover something than to find it easily, if that makes any sense. While visiting Portland this summer, I came across this tiny Japanese import store that had the fucking Kaze to Ki no Uta and Hensoukyoku image albums. I mean, I wasn't even purposefully seeking them out, but doesn't it feel good to know the true value of something that's very likely overlooked?

Anyway, as slow as my work day is, I have my kindred fujo spirits keeping me company in my JUNE scans. I'm sure none of them could imagine that someone like me would be lapping this shit up the way they were when it was just coming out. And that makes me smile.

UPDATE: I may suffer brain death if I keep reading like this.

[serendertothesquad]

Seren's Studies: The Odd Squad UK Trailer

Well, 8 days after my birthday really ain't bad for a belated gift. At this point I'll take what I can get.

Even if it means I have to crawl out of sleep to do it.

*deep sigh*

So you might be thinking, "Hold on, we got a new trailer?" And to that I say yes. Yes we did. PBS grew enough balls to actually give Odd Squad some love during a programming initiative that has absolutely nothing to do with it. And they put it on Vimeo, apparently, which puts all the audition videos that have been unearthed (for OSUK, OSMU, and Odd Squad) in an entirely new light.

But wah wah wah, you didn't come here to read my ding-dong ramblings. You came here to watch me be the biggest loser to ever lose at losing and dissect a 30-second trailer on a weekend. You know how movie trailers stuff all the important bits about a movie into 30 seconds? This is the telly equivalent.

Below the break, I'm going to shred this trailer to pieces, scream, cry, and of course, analyze. Come join me, if you dare.

So I'm going to reiterate a point I made in the Seren's Studies essay for the gadget competition video in regards to Ozzie, in that he's wearing an outfit that looks like it belongs to some kind of Flight department. (And yes, my headcanon about there being a boat that can travel in the sky shall remain strong in spite of this trailer. Whether it will be shot down like a cannonball through a boat that can travel in the sky remains to be seen.)

But anyway. We have him carrying a box (transferring departments?), what looks to be some kind of agent in the back (Security?), and what looks to me like an old Nissan logo against a map (of the UK? yes, of the UK, duh). Off to a hell of a start here.

The trailer doesn't give us the name of this girl -- which is odd, considering she's one of the protagonists -- but just as a refresher: this is Orli, who is from the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls (because of course) and transfers to the UK precinct in order to help with rising oddness rates. My guess is that, while Ozzie transfers from departments, Orli will transfer from precincts. Essentially, she's there to help Americans like myself (and also children, and also parents) understand British terms and culture. Which is fine, because otherwise kids would understand jack about how the United Kingdom does things beyond what's represented in media.

And we have a look at our first villainess! This is The Trifler, named after a British dessert and armed with the power to turn things into...well yeah, trifles. If you've been keeping up with the news, then you're probably aware that a BTS photo of her was found last year when OSUK was getting off the ground. Now, we have her in an official capacity!

I will say that I love the wordplay used here. Combining the British and American definitions of the word "trifle" into a badass introductory phrase is absolutely beautiful and I want more of it.

Haha lol shot from the press release big funy now laugh.

...Wait, hold on, does that mean the image used for the press release was a BTS photo? Because this sure as hell isn't the same angle.

Oh my God.

Not my absolute dumb ass thinking the context of this scene was a welcome party for Orli, only for the celebration to be for a fucking movie opening that got the attention of local news outlets and Eric Stonestreet.

...Okay, the telephone box is great too, and if there's not another Doctor Who reference they can yote in there then we riot, but I- a fucking opening of a movie?

...

Hold on, I'm noticing the Odd Squad logo on the popcorn and the cup.

This is Odd Squad: The Movie opening in the UK, isn't it.

Ah yes. Because I sure would fuckin' love to relive the joy I had when the "Odd Beginnings" two-parter decided to make the movie an in-universe piece of media. Look, I me- you guys had to be there when I recorded the Seren Reacts video. I was taken aback. I nearly fell off the bed. I was tempted to go to the neighbors and sit on their picnic table and cry. And that was when the COVID pandemic was a new thing!

And now I get to experience the hell all over again, four years later, when the pandemic is (largely) over and I'm in my mid-20s.

Look, if they're keen on torturing me like this, then that's how you really know it's a return to form. All they need to do is drop the word "serendipity" somewhere in there and I'll launch myself off the cliff and into the water and hopefully not on a pointy rock.

Normally I'd say how happy I am to see the tubes again after they got one dedicated episode and a handful of appearances and mentions besides that in Season 3, but..."Down the Tubes" is one of my favorite episodes for sleep-talking Oswald alone. And in Season 3, my total count for favorite episodes I can count on only one hand.

Worth noting, though, that in addition to the UK Headquarters being located in an abandoned train station, the tubes are named after the London Underground. Because...y'know, the Tube, and...yeah, they couldn't pass that pun up because they need Britain money somehow.

See, this is how you can tell I'm an Odd Squad veteran.

I can, with about 90% accuracy, pinpoint the context of a scene only seen by few. For example, I can tell you that this is Orli fighting with a woman over tour bus tickets by playing RPS. Because fuck her American money, American money does not net you tour bus tickets to tour the UK and...uh...well, I don't know if Ozzie has any pounds to buy any.

Ah? Aaaaaaaaaahh? Man, I'm good!

Unless Oddmented Reality had some (and please don't ask me, I've never played it), we've now had flying books in every season bar Season 2.

Honestly, that's a sin.

If this means the return of cold opens, then bless them.

It's 12 episodes with 11-minute time limits, though, so I'm a little wary...but bless them. Season 3 had only a select few before they laughed and tossed the concept out, so this is a good return to form.

Also, this is hella good camera work.

I'm...at least inclined to believe this is Ozzie attempting to boost workplace morale by getting a few agents-in-training to cheer.

Which is great, but I'm just thinking of Olympia asking Otis how he feels about his cheerleading skills and and him telling her they're perfect. It works, because Ozzie kinda looks like Otis!

Hey, hey, you guys remember aaaaaaaall the way back in "Zero Effect" where they had that shot of the agents cheering?

You guys also remember the last episode of OddTube S1?

This is like a mishymashy of that and it is glorious.

Also, our first look at the girl who is, by every sense, part of the Flight department. And Onom, even though he got a mention in the gadget-making competition video.

A few folks were asking about this, so I feel the need to clarify that this is a thing in the Oddverse that has been done numerous times before, especially in the first two seasons. You don't wanna blow 10 seconds of airtime on having two agents find the nearest tube entrance, let 'em phase through the floor.

'Tis magic, baby.

I can also predict, with about 70% accuracy, how the OSUK premiere is gonna go.

...

It's gonna end with Ozzie being transferred/promoted/demoted to the Investigation department, isn't it.

Look, the franchise's timeline is a bitch and scares all the neuroscience people at Harvard Medical School, but I did this before with a simple Season 3 trailer and I got a fair bit of it right. When a few OSUK episode titles and synopses come out, then we'll see if I'm gonna reach for the stars or fall hard on my ass.

Okay, I'm inclined to take the logic applied to New York City and apply it here, in that it's too much money and effort and time to edit every piece of signage here into a Shmumber-fied equivalent...

But that's a fucking McDonald's ad up there near the top, and let's be honest, that's one of the most gobsmacking things about the whole damn trailer. We already have a Burger King replacement, so having a McShmumber's is absolutely not out of the question.

(Also, that meal deal is $5 USD. If you're an American, I don't need to explain why this makes me more irrationally angry than it should.)

Besides that, Orli, this is a one-way, two-lane (with possible merger) street, which can absolutely be seen in areas like this in the United States and I don't know why I'm bringing this up since agents cannot and have not been automotively inclined.

"No, that's not odd. It's Britain."

Dumb lil' American I am (who is, in fact, aware how British people drive), but I gave a visceral cough at this line. This is the kind of shit OSMU should have gotten, and failed to deliver.

That aside, though, Ozzie has a bit of a different icon on his shirt now. It's either the London Bridge or a black H, and I know Fergie would cry her eyes out looking at it, bless her soul.

"I'm blue! And if I were green I would die! If I were green I would die, if I were green I would die, if-"

Okay, okay, I had to get that out of the way. I'm sorry. I'm never sorry.

The smartwatches were also something seen in BTS photos back when OSUK was first announced to be a thing. Still running on that Apple technology and crushing creativity.

Perhaps the best sleep paralysis demon I've seen since Yui in the Precure All-Stars F movie.

All right, I'm starting to see the massive differences between this Headquarters and the Headquarters of yore. Keyholes, the blue thing meant to be a simpler copy of the metallic circle structure, the...I mean it do be fuckin' big...

Also, we got our first look at a moving breathing Chef O, who's on promotional material at the very least but isn't exactly a main character. Sort of like what Oksana was: a side character.

Hey, it could be worse. It could be a Ginormouse coming to eat you up for lunch.

(For the non-believers: this is the Oddverse. I'm not explaining shit.)

I see somewhere in the crew of this show we have a boomer who still believes in the usage of the digital camera in the year of our Lord 2024.

No, but seriously. It wasn't believable in 2014 when Otto owned one, and it's less believable now. I've been more frustrated about this than about the badge phones, because there's only so much ironic low-tech stuff I can take before I drop everything and leave.

I was gonna write a joke about how they used to feed cocaine to mice in the 80s for anti-drug PSAs, but someone apparently wrote it for me. Which, unsurprisingly, is not the first time that's happened.

That's on you for not being Odd Squad-savvy.

All of you.

Yes, even Captain O.

-------------------------------------

And that's it. A short trailer, but a hell of a goodie. I'm honestly hyped for this return to form, especially as we approach the franchise's 10th anniversary. Hopefully, the crew has at least learned from its mistakes with Odd Squad Mobile Unit, and will make the most out of these 12 episodes.

And because even this show isn't immune to the curse: if you like what you see here and want more episodes to come beyond the 12 we're getting, watch the ever-loving hell out of this show. Legally, of course. Boost its ratings. The crew is definitely up for making more.

...And donate to your local PBS station if you got a Lincoln or two lyin' around. That too.

Thanks for reading. If you want to view the trailer for yourself, you can do so here:

[musicalgifs]

when constance blackwood said i lost my virginity to a carnie in a porta potty before i died. like three hours before. it was kinda porno. he was ancient, like 32. he had this tattoo on his forearm: it was of two skeletons having sex. it said ‘born to bone’ on the bottom. i fake laughed when he said that because you should always laugh at guy’s jokes or they’ll think you’re a cow. my mom and dad owned the blackwood cafe in town. it's been in our family since like, forever. the blackwoods have been feeding uranium city since they opened the mines. my family had pride when it came to that. until i went to high school, where having pride about our town was only like, the lamest thing you could think to believe. after a while i started feeling kinda crummy about stuff, like ashamed? at the cafe i would catch myself looking at my mom and thinking, ‘what a loser. a stupid dead end loser in a stupid dead end town’. my parents were good people. and all i could do was think horrible things about them. i really wish i’d never thought those things. but i got so angry that i was born in the only family in uranium that raised their kid to think it was okay to do your working, living, and dying there and it… it got all kinds of poison after that. anyway, my virginity. i just wanted to get it out of the way. i just wanted to do it so i didn’t have to think about doing it anymore.... no. actually, i just wanted to lose it. in the worst horrible possible way. constance the lifer lost it to a carnie in a crap box in a crappy town. why, of course she did! and then... i rode the cyclone with the other kids in the choir, and that’s when the accident happened. we were at the top of the loop when the roller coaster made this kind of screaming metal sound. sparks were shooting all over the place and then the screaming and the sparks just stopped. and there was like this… weightlessness. my heart jumped a gazillion beats a second but i didn’t scream like the other kids, no. i was just soaking it all in. ‘cause on a certain level it was so rad! and it was like something unlocked in me. my heart welled up with all this love for everything. images and all this feeling flooded into me like… like climbing back into my bed in the morning and feeling the warmth left over from my body. hanging upside down from the monkey bars until my head starts to tingle. smelling jiffy markers. putting glue on my fingers and chewing it off, listening to music and dancing around my room before going out to a party and pretending like i'm going to have the perfect time! finishing an essay, undoing a knot, pizza night, halloween, watching my baby brother dance naked to abba! being in the choir at the height of the hallelujah chorus and feeling all of the voices rattle my bones. i started laughing like a crazy person, giddy with endorphins. all dancing leprechauns, and rainbows and unicorns, streams of chocolate, whirling rides, flashing lights! there's no shame in loving my small town. the only good things that happened to me happened in uranium. it took a horrible accident for me to realize how goddamn wonderful everything is.

[sweetmariihs2]

List of inspirations that I noticed in ✨️The Amazing Digital Circus✨️

an almost-essay (PART 1)

When I watched the first episode for the first time I started to notice several similarities to other subjects that I also like and know, other fandoms and popular things on the internet, and I soon thought about sharing them on Tumblr (which I'm doing now).

I know there will be things that other people have noticed that will be missing from the blog, but I will try to include all the things that I remember recognizing at that moment. Feel free to share them, though!

I don't know the formal names of some things I'm gonna mention, and also my english It's not the best, I'm trying to practice my writing <3

I'll have to divide this blog into two parts because Tumblr doesn't support more than 10 images per blog. grrgrrgr I really wanted to put everything together but I can't. At the end of the blog I will put a link to part 2 and you can continue reading [when i finish the part 2 of course]

1 - Popee the Perfomer

Popee the Performer is a low-budget animation made in 2000, at the time when 3d animation was still a new technology. It's a collection of shorts and they talk about three circus performers' interactions. People found this on the internet in 2021 and they started a new fandom on top of it. What makes this show talked about it's the disturbing situations the characters put themselves through. There are a lot of violent scenes and sometimes the characters die by the end of the episode, but when we go to the next one they're just alive again, and that makes us question if they are living stuck in an eternal loop with no way of getting out of that small circus setting.

The 3d is pretty simple, mostly because it's old, but that makes me think about the connections between PTP and TADG are the aesthetics, the whole "disturbing adult cartoon about serious topics with a children's colorful aesthetic" thing, and also those connections with the Nintendo 64 graphics. I'M GONNA MENTION IT TOO!!

And a part of this fandom also it's part of Raggedy Ann and Andy's fandom. They were pretty close in 2021.

2 - Raggedy Ann And Andy

Ragatha, next one

I'm kidding there's more

Their fandom started around 2021 because the YouTube algorythm just decided that it was time to recommend a video about Raggedy Andy to EVERYONE! And that's how I discovered them too <3 (I WAS THEREEE I WAS THERE). Andy got the main focus and he was everyone's dream boyfriend lol

Also that's completely unrelated but I wanted to say that I'm one of the people whose video was recommended to everyone through YouTube algorythm and helped the fandom to grow even more (I'm so proud of myself guys I'm sorry awnqbehdjwndbwjdnh)

I believe that if that first video that helped me (and more people) to discover them were never recommended to us, maybe Ragatha wouldn't even have that design!! It's alright that Ann is a doll from the 1900s, but the whole "Raggedy Ann And Andy" thing wasn't a fandom topic, they were just normal ragdolls and they were recognized only by grannies and "the anabelle doll" (this one makes me pissed)

3 - Nintendo 64 (and old 3d art)

And this recognition that it is a fandom united this subject to other famous fandoms, leading to the same audience, and this audience is also TADG's audience. I'll talk more about this at the end of the blog! (Edit: Part 2 of the blog. *silently cries*)

And there's this blog:

That low budget 3d aesthetic it's turning really popular recently. I'm not much of an expert on the subject since I don't know much about games, but I recognize it from the old graphics and my biggest reference is Mario 64. There's a good explanation for it being so popular, I have a theory that it's related to liminal spaces, but I'm not sure. Still, it's worth mentioning.... and also that bubble character really looks like chain chomp!!

They're besties

4 - liminal spaces (backrooms and the "dreamcore" aesthetic)

happy balloons because the backrooms scare me (i hate it)

I think if you're on Tumblr it's very likely that you already know what the backrooms are. A part of our reality, but outside of it. There are floors and floors of eternal levels, where you wander in the same place and don't go anywhere. As if you had broken the matrix and were trapped outside, in a bug. This has become very popular on the internet and it's interesting that it is being used as inspiration for creating a show.

Furthermore, there was also the popularization of aesthetics such as dreamcore, traumacore and weirdcore, which consist of images that look like they came out of a dream. Things that you recognize, but don't know where they came from, like a deja vu, which makes you uncomfortable. It's extremely linked to the backrooms, since it's the same feeling. Many of the images are things that take us back to childhood, to the past, but they are not right, as if they were corrupted. Old 3D is also used a lot to make some of these images, like the example I gave of the Nintendo 64. The fandoms are all interconnected!

In this whole concept they also like to be inspired by childhood characteristics, such as old images of toys, empty birthday parties, playgrounds, and it also takes us to that famous sensation on the internet that I don't remember the name of, but it is basically feeling afraid of a place where people should be going, but they aren't. Abandoned places. The fear of being alone. All those topics revolve around each other. They makes us question abour reality, "do I even exist?" (I know I do, but writing characters that way and exploring the possibilities is kinda nice)

I know a brazillian youtuber that made a good video about it, her name is Replai and in the video she talks about how Poppy Playtime's art was made, but I know that most of the people reading this don't know how to speak in portuguese so... yeah. It's a good video.

5 - Children's aesthetics (but something's off)

This gif speaks for itself. It's that traumacore/dreamcore/weirdcore thing that I was talking about.

Still talking about that empty feeling of knowing that something it's familiar but don't knowing where it came from, childhood memories can be related to this, as they are vague, distant and sometimes carry a feeling of sadness. I'm not a great expert on the subject, but somehow the way that's explored scares us, I know there's a good explanation on the internet. This reminds me of the reason why people are afraid of clowns: they wear this fixed smile on their face and try to appear friendly, but it's this frozen, empty expression that leaves us afraid that there are other intentions underneath. And the fact that they are so related to childhood and children's innocence makes us fearful, because we don't know if they can do any harm to them. (of course, this all happens subconsciously, you don't think about it that way but your brain activates this instinct of fear) (not you YOU, people with that phobia)

I refuse to believe that these things are not interconnected. There is a strange feeling that can be explored from this childish aesthetic and connection to childhood.

Many media are using this aesthetic as part of their stories, especially horror ones. Five Nights At Freddy's was a pioneer, exploring this in the early 2010s, and then there were other franchises like Poppy Playtime, Bendy And The Ink Machine, other FNAF games (and there are also discoveries of things that do this unintentionally and that were created before this popularization, like Popee the Performer. In music we also have great examples like Melanie Martinez's old albums, during the Cry Baby era. There are also other aesthetics who like to explore this childlike-creepy vibe, and they're a little unrelated to all this stuff, like Morute/Dollcore). Whenever I talk about this I remember FNAF SB Daycare, as it is the result of all these topics we have talked about so far. The Security Breach DLC "Ruin" decided to explore this fear of empty, abandoned places, but which once had happy children walking through the corridors. This feeling is very scary.

Do you remember when I gave clowns as an example? The circus is also a way to explore this scary+childhood feeling. A place where there should be lots of games, but which only causes fear, as in the case of those scary clowns. It's quite common in the media for the circus to be used as a focus of terror, however in the internet version we were talking about just now, it doesn't have to be directly a horror circus, just feeling that childish sensation and feeling that something is wrong is enough. Enough to make us feel uncomfortable. It's like the characters were suffering, but they can't scream for help, and it's a disorted vision of how a circus should look like. Hi Pomni!!

The Daycare Attendant also explores that.

6 - Bendy and Fnaf (for the same reasons I already told you all, but one more)

Jax it's Bendy's and William Afton's lost son. We don't need no DNA test.

(I'm obviously just kidding btw, his design was probably inspired by them, MOST ESPECIALLY BENDY and maybe the Cheshire Cat from Alice because of his smile??? Idk)

stay tuned for part 2 <3

[scoonsalicious]

Here we are ladies, gents, and the non-binaries. The long-awaited Chapter 27 which you've blessed us in FULL today. 8 parts??? what have I done to deserve this? And I've got so many thoughts I Literally had to stare at my screen to collect myself because where do I even start????? Well, first off, I can start with the fact that that was amazing and you're incredible, and thank you for this. I've got so many things to say but I'm literally short-circuiting so AAAH. okay. I'm doing it by roughly by parts so I don't miss a thing. And since you've given us 8 parts, expect this to be the longest essay yet (I'm not even kidding please I apologize this got away from me)

First off, the slow build-up was killing meeee. But then again, I do love seeing them having normal conversations (I mean, a dick in the garbage disposal isn't exactly normal but I digress because that part made me laugh) and seeing Bucky be so protective of her because he has a point. Jesse is out for blood and leaving Pocket alone would be a terrible idea (I mean, well, we obviously see this later). I love their banter too! The teasing and the joking and Bucky's smug lil "nothing I haven't seen before" like okay, pipe down. I love Pocket's stubbornness, arguing with Bucky that she can handle herself (which she can obvs) but I couldn't help but giggle when she *pouts* "I have a gun" *pouts* when Bucky told her that even Nat couldn't handle Jane in hand to hand ESPECIALLY when the unhinged snake is set out for the kill and a super soldier at that.

Now, the footage of Jacky in the Hydra base. That was….a lot. It honestly was so disturbing and scary. It's absolutely insane the way Hydra manufactured her obsession with Bucky. But it's also genius in the sickest way. Because THAT is how you make sure you get a mission done. A teenage crush turned obsession? I mean, have you seen one direction fans back in the day? They were unhinged and could hack anything and that's without training (I was a fan too and I saw it all happen online LMAO). Now we have someone who is a teenage girl with an obsession, who's fucked in the head with all that Hydra manipulation, has super soldier powers, a highly trained assassin and has been made to believe that she can get everything she wants? Who’s stopping that? She makes serial killers look sane. She's been set out to him before anyone even knew she existed. Honestly, that whole thing just had me sitting staring at the wall for a few seconds before I could continue because it's insaneeee. It's so scary, just thinking about someone like her existing in the real world. But that part where she was about to jerk off to Bucky's picture has me laughing and feeling distraught at the same time. But that hint of Bucky being uncomfortable about it followed by Pocket's comment about already sleeping with her, at first I thought he just felt guilty about it but after reading all the parts? A foreshadowing that he's never been comfortable in the first place? I see what you're doing. But god, massacring a whole Hydra base and just the image of her Carrie-style but with a proud grin. Chills. Get her away from me please I'm scared.

(on a side note, Pocket thirsting over Jesus Barnes in Wakanda please BIG MOOD. That really reallyyyyy short clip of him in Infinity War throwing that sack with one hand has me falling in line like, yes sarge, me next please. ANYWAY back to the story)

I'm glad they cleared up that whispering in the conference room when the whole below the paygrade comment. Because people keeping forgetting that were just in Pocket's POV and with that comes some unreliable narrating sometimes because we obviously won't get the full scope of what happened because we're only seeing her thoughts and her perception on the situation. Which is why I always think it's important to think on a broader scale outside what's shown on the text. But god, THAT much money? I'm still heartbroken for Chloe though because she didn't deserve that. But sigh, we just discussed not letting Pocket leave the safe house for her safety and then suddenly we're leaving her alone? Barnes? Really? Have you read any fanfics in your life? Anyway.

That whole commentary about the whole trafficking situation was so spot on. I have nothing else to add to that because you pretty much said it all. It's both sad and so enraging. BUT AH NO. YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO LEAVE POCKET SERIOUSLY. But she genuinely did think Dimitri was the least evil of them all so sigh. I already knew where this was going and I already had a hunch who this "Hydra" boss is waiting at the club. But lol the gasp I let out when I read her name. *insert that 'why am I gasping, I already knew that meme' here* Even just that hint of Jordan being so quick and strong since she's a super soldier, it really sets the tone how Pocket really can't get out of this through physical strength. And now the face off begins.

But damn. I honestly didn't think she'd get even crazier yet here we are. I even felt my skin crawl just knowing the amount of time Jerms spied on Bucky, Pocket, and them both together. She's literally been watching their every move even in the confines of their bedroom. And that gives her so much upper hand because all the fights, insecurities, weaknesses, all their trauma and past, what makes them tick as a couple, what breaks them down, she knows it ALL and she's obviously going to use that to her advantage. Well, she did and she did it well. Imagine playing a cheese game with someone who already knows all your moves. How can you win against that? Every time she says she "loves" him I have the urge to throw up. Like girl you don't. You’re obsessed with him. There's a huge difference. And God that she show here obsession and delusion and that really is the best play Pocket could make. Shattering that deranged fairytale she has in her head of Bucky ever wanting her.

That part, where Juno admitting to feeding Bucky all the things she'd been feeding him, especially the degradation parts. When you're so desperate to try and save a relationship, you really do become willing to try anything and take any advice even if it's not the best ones. And like I said many parts ago, she's smart so the way she manipulated Bucky (who's already so insecure and broken and such an easy mind to manipulate) was so calculated that it was always going to be a success.

Which brings me to the infamous video which was without consent, might I add. The way Jayla made it seem in her text when she recounted it Bucky was so far from what actually happened. She really was selling it as if they'd fuck like no tomorrow and Bucky turned into this feral sex god or something. But that's her delusions playing it up, making it seem like it was the best sex ever when in reality, that couldn't have been farther from the truth. That wasn't fucking, hell I don't even know what you call that. I mean, I could be pushing it here so please do correct me if I'm wrong, but that was SA in a way. An unenthusiastic yes is still a no and you could clearly see that Bucky wasn't into it, tried to stop it even. And with men, there's a different dynamic when it comes to SA because of patriarchal standards and toxic masculinity and this misconception that they always want sex etc. And it truly was pathetic on Josef's part claiming that they fucked because, dude, what was that? But it also left a bad taste in my mouth for Bucky. Because what I saw in my head was just him laying there while she took what she wanted, I guess. And yeah, he didn't push her off and there was a part of him that was so hurt and angry thinking that Pocket betrayed him that he wanted to get revenge but even then, he didn't seem that excited on the fact. I mean, the snake had to bring up the articles and Steve over and over and over again because that's the only way she could keep Bucky angry and hurt enough to not protest and just, let things happen. And she was feeding him lies and hitting exactly where it would sting with that purple push up bra because how could she have known that right? In Bucky's head, that was confirmation that she was telling the truth because he didn't know that Jenny had access to footages. She played her game well and she stabbed him exactly on where the stitches are so that was a lost cause on Bucky's part.

And God, I have all my reports saved in one doc and I really did hit it already did I. About me saying how Bucky probably let Russia happen as a way to punish himself too. And that Jayla truly did play into Bucky's insecurities with those articles because what fight does he have against America's Golden Boy? When he already believes Pocket deserves someone better and that someone took form into the person he's insecure about the most? How can you not spiral? I know I'm repeating myself but we truly can't just ignore what Bucky went through with Hydra in all of this. He's got such a fragile mind and self esteem that it's already easy to break him down if you truly think about it. Now, imagine having someone who knows EVERYTHING that made you crumble and has all the ammo and information to be able to say just the right words for you to trust them? And, well, speaking from experience, you really can't know you're being manipulated until you're out of it. I didn't realize how bad my experience was until I retold it to a friend. So I don't Bucky had an ounce of awareness as to what Joanna was doing to his mental state. It was the sickest most calculated thing what she did that I think even the most secure person could feel that security crumble even for a little. Now you have someone who's already fragile and insecure in the first place? He honestly stood no chance.

Obviously, it doesn't take away the fact that Pocket was still hurt and she has every single right to be. But I think she was more hurt that Bucky wasn't secure in their relationship and her love for him rather than the act itself. Because the way it happened really was kind funny and God I cringed at the way Jocelyn took so so long to even get him going and not even get him going at all because Bucky had to think of Pocket to get hard. And he truly only got himself going by imagining it was Pocket. I mean, he had his eyes closed!!! Beyond me how Juan was able to keep going since Bucky was practically screaming someone else's name so fucking obvious and loud and I have no doubt she heard it since she's a super soldier but she's a different level of delusional so I'm not even surprised. Taking what she could get probably.

I can't WAIT to see feral protective Bucky on the next part. And as much as I want to see all the action, I kinda want him to see him be so calm with his confrontation with Jude. Because you know what would truly break that snake? Bucky telling her over and over and over how he could never love someone like her in all the languages and all the phrases he could. Is it evil of me to want him to break her down on a mental level rather than physical? Because to me, that would be a much more worth it revenge with all the emotional and mental abuse she's done on Pocket and Bucky. Because yeah, Pocket saying those things already hit a nerve. Now imagine it coming from Bucky's mouth? The man she claims she "loves"? Either way, I have no doubt you're going to feed us well so I'm going to be happy not matter what happens. I CAN'T WAIT.

— Jnon 🤍

\y Beautiful Jnon,he 'dick-in-the-garbage disposal' line will live rent-free in Bucky's head for the rest of his life, lol. I like to imagine that it's a visual that got Pocket through a lot of tough times. I loved writing their banter (tbh, I love writing banter in general, lol). I just adore seeing them in a little bit of domestic fluff. And .Bucky has definitely seen it all before, lol. Literally nothing Pocket's got going on hasn't been exposed to his... intense scrutiny, lol. When it came to leaving Pocket alone, the safehouse was probably the safest place for Bucky to do it. I mean, Carthage knew about the Wiggle Room, but she didn't know where the safehouse was.

I'm pleased (which is weird to say) that the Hydra footage was disturbing-- it was 100% meant to be. Like, back in the '90s (the glorious '90s, which I miss with every fiber of my being), I was a HUGE Hanson fan. Like, so rabid I look back on it with embarrassment, lol. And I was thinking-- there's no one with greater obsessive focus than a teenage girl with a celebrity crush, you know? And it just kind of made sense to me that Hydra would harness that to ensure the greatest success to assure they get their asset back. And Jade's not a teenager, but she grew up in isolation, without peers her own age, so I see her as emotionally stunted. In a weird way, she has that in common with Pocket. They were both prevented from growing up in the natural order of things so they could serve the agenda of men. They're like two different sides of the same coin. And Bucky was so uncomfortable at the idea of seeing Jade get off to photos of him, because she did, essentially sexually assault him-- he was never comfortable having sex with her, and the idea that she was using his photo for sexual gratification long before he ever knew she existed makes him feel even more violated.

Let us discus Jesus Barnes. Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have had impure thoughts of a man, repeatedly, lol. But for real, if you're not familiar, please check out Rock Me, Sexy Jesus from Hamlet 2, which is literally THE ONLY thing I can think about when I see this:

Like, turn my water in whine, please. (I'm not even sure how that works as some kind of filthy entendre, but I'mma leave it 'cause I like how it sounds, lol)

I almost didn't include the bit about Bucky telling Pocket what he actually said to Jade during the mission briefing, but I realized I didn't want her thinking he divulged her secrets. He did some shit, but he didn't do that.

Bucky has not read any fanfics in his life, unfortunately, but this just gave me a hilarious idea for a oneshot where Pocket tries to get him riled up by reading a smutty Bucky Barnes fanfic to him, so thank you for that, lol.

Sad part is, Pocket trusted Dimitri. And I think he trusted her, too, which was why he was so betrayed when he found out she wasn't who she said she was. I did need Bucky to leave Pocket alone, but in his defense, the safehouse was the safest place he could have left her. I mean, Jade knew about the Wiggle Room, knew that she would be working there, but she didn't know where the safehouse location was. So, it seemed liked the safest place at the time, and it would have been if Dimitri hadn't shown up for her. Everyone wanted Pocket to kick Jade's ass, and I wanted it, too, but Jade's always been too strong and fast. All Pocket could use to beat her is her wits.

Having her spy on Bucky and Pocket was actually a late addition to the narrative, and I'm so glad I included it, because it really cements how messed up she is. And it gave her so much ammo to use against them. They really did not stand a chance with her having all that access. (Also, I know you meant "chess game," but you wrote "cheese game" and I am in so in love with that, I'm going to pretend you did it on purpose, lol). I also wanted to show that Jade wasn't just crazy, but she was smart, too, and resourceful, which is what makes her so much more dangerous.

And you're not wrong-- the Russia incident bordered on sexual assault. I don't think he would ever see it like that, being a man from the '40s, but it was. An unenthusiastic yes is just as bad as a no. She pushed and manipulated him so badly, he really had no chance. And once she brought up that purple push up bra? It was over. Without knowing she'd been spying, how could he not believe her?

I'm dying to hear your thoughts about Chapter 28! I can't wait! Love you!

[blue-phoria]

When you type out a full essay in reply to someone and at the end praise them for not flaming and blocking you immediately for having a conversation - Only to realise that while you were typing they blocked you and flamed you lol I don't want it to go to waste so I'll just put it below the cut v @milkshotalate @mxsickfuck Thought you might wanna give thoughts of it Cw - talk of exposure therapy - suibaiting at the end

"Exposure therapy should only be conducted by a professional under supervision and with extreme caution." Where are you getting this from that exposure therapy is dangerous unless under a medical professional? Sounds a bit gatekeepy for people who cannot afford or do not trust doctors to have their best interests in mind.

Might be just once example but I did it myself as a kid on my own, it sucked for half and hour, but after I was calm and could look at the image that scared me without fear.

"Just throwing yourself at something that makes you uncomfortable could go very, very wrong incredibly quickly." Meditation and Agere can also wrong for some, but well for others. Do you think that those also can only be done under the guidance of a doctor? "I agree that character creation is a great way to project intrusive thoughts in a healthy way, hell I do it, but purposefully consuming content that disgusts, disturbs or otherwise distresses you because you feel you somehow deserve it or need to feel disgusted again is NOT the move." Your last paragraph is spot on, don't go out of the way to find things that make you upset, I am completely on board with it. But at least in the spaces I am in "don't like don't read" is a proship talking point. Yet for antis it seems to be the opposite, they seem to want to find content they hate to disgust themselves and have someone to be angry at. I was in an encounter a while back where someone found my blog and was doomscrolling it and sharing it with their group chat, talking about how much they hated me and how they wanted to send me hate.

Sounds fun sign me up - I also hope the anon who came to you for advice, sees ur behaviour and decides not to trust you with their mental health anymore lol

[hazellark]

Originality: Fanfiction, Genre, Trope

So I wasn't going to post this anywhere ever, but I saw a post that made me angry so now the internet, and my one follower, get my essay on Fanfiction. I wrote it for a class, in case the sectioning is a bit weird, but it is a piece of writing I'm proud of. I have an annotated bibliography I will post separately. A different title that didn't make it to the final report:

Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words or is the Cost the Thousandth Minute Spent Here

Image from: “Canon vs. ‘fanon’: Genre devices in contemporary fanfiction.” (McCain 8)

I started reading at around the age of 5, and I loved it. I was one of the kids that actively went to look at the books in the book cubbies of the classroom during free time, and once I was good enough at reading, I began tearing through the series I had available. Magic Treehouse, Boxcar Children, fairy tales, books on horses, cats, dogs. My parents wanted my siblings and I to always be able to have the books we liked available to us to encourage reading practice, so my dad made us all personal bookshelves and out of necessity, I ended up with the largest one. In elementary school, I chafed against the 3 books a week checkout policy. In middle school and early high school, with my limit removed, I would check out as many as 15 (my record) books at a time. My backpack rarely went a day without having at least one book inside. When I was still a preteen, my parents tried to encourage us to read critically one summer by offering to pay us for book reports, and I went ahead and read my assigned book and two more, hiding myself in my closet for a day to read all the way through Eragon. I would take free books home to the point that my personal bookshelf was often double stacked. All that is to say that I have always really loved reading. So when a friend showed me a site that allowed me to read hundreds or thousands of stories about characters I already liked, that I could access anywhere through my phone, I fell head first into the world of fanfiction readers.

Image from: A screen capture of my bookmarks page, on 4/17/23

When a reader begins, they're given books with simple words. The books tend to have consistent vowel sounds, and use basic words from everyday life. If they learn the written language early in life, odds are they never felt the need to seek out a greater variety of literature at that point in time. Books were basic fictional stories that taught how the lines on the page turned into communication. It's only once the basics are established that a learner can start to read for themselves. Fast forward a couple years and with a solid foundation of vocabulary, a reader can begin to have choice in what they read. One of the earliest classifications for literature that a reader gets is genre. Even books built for kids can range from the fantastical, like the Magic Treehouse series, to nonfictional books about animals, space, and history. As the years stack and a child reads more and more, they will begin to both notice and be taught about patterns. Even without knowing the labels, humans are used to pattern recognition, and as Thomas C. Foster put it, “Part of pattern recognition is talent, but a whole lot is practice: if you read enough and give what you read enough thought, you begin to see patterns, archetypes, recurrences”(Foster 29). The classroom and experience show similarities in story structure like the Hero’s Journey model, in characters like the tragic hero, and in story elements like a dragon fight to save a damsel.  At the point where a reader can recognize similarities, they can identify the types of stories they like, by genre, archetypes, tropes etc. Generally, people have a type of story that they like best, and shared qualities between two stories are attractive. A reader turned writer may like an idea, and want to put their own spin on it. The “what if” is the basis of all new stories. Foster, summarizing Northrop Frye, asserted that, “Literature…grows out of other literature; we should not be surprised to find, then, that it also looks like other literature”(Foster 29). In a world of literary repetition, what is originality? And in turn, what does that mean about fanfiction?

Image from: The back cover of Diana Winne Jones’ “Dark Lord of Derkholm” 

Following Frye’s line of reasoning, Foster concludes a very bold idea: “there’s no wholly original work of literature”(Foster 29). Yet contrarily, he goes on to explain that one of his favorite novels contains multiple recognizable archetypes and story elements, and called it “wildly original”(Foster 29), very intentionally using the word original once again. Those two statements seem to contradict themselves, but he draws the line at the combination of the familiar into something different from any piece on its own. My personal belief is that original literature, mixed from familiar traits like genre and trope, is spawned from the onset of the author asking the question “what if?”. We both agree that external inspiration does not deny creativity.

Image from: The fandoms tab of the AO3 main page

Genre

It’s not uncommon to ask someone their favorite genre. Most readers have a favorite genre, or at least a top two or three. It’s also not uncommon for genres to coexist in a piece: A high fantasy story can have a romantic subplot, a science fiction tale can have undertones of tragedy, and an autobiography can focus on the comedic parts of life. Introducing an element from another genre can be a strategy to keep an audience engaged, a way to fill time, or a side effect of a kind of world building. Fantasy, scifi, autobiography, romance, tragedy, comedy, mystery, westerns, horror, realistic fiction, and more are all considered genres of prose by at least some portion of the population. There are genres for nearly every kind of written work imaginable. There are letters for business, condolence, between friends, there are applications for jobs, schools, grants, and many variations of poetry. Beyond “types of things,” what is genre, and what does it have to do with originality?

Like how there is no singular list of major genres, there is not really a strong definition of genre that. In an article for “The Kenyon Review”, Northrop Frye grappled with two diametric definitions of genre, one being that it precurses and is “independent of creation” and the other being that genre is that it is born of and reliant upon the genesis and comparison of new works (Frye 8). His ultimate conclusions are that genres come from archetypes, and that “all literary genres are derived from the quest-myth” (Frye 15). Though he never says it explicitly, it can be derived from his statements that genre is related generally to content of works. The researcher David Chandler agreed with Frye on the difficulty in defining genre, stating that “Specific genres tend to be easy to recognize intuitively but difficult (if not impossible) to define”(Chandler 2). He goes on to say genres exist because classifications are necessary to make distinctions and descriptions, but that genre is not a static concept, something closer to a negotiation between the culture and the idea of it. He specifically notes that “Each new work within a genre has the potential to influence changes within the genre or perhaps the emergence of new sub-genres (which may later blossom into fully-fledged genres)”(Chandler 3). 

Suffice it to say, giving completely rigid definitions for genres does not work forever. Like with teaching metaphors, they work at a specific moment in time, but they might lack details, or be slightly incorrect, because the goal is to impart a main point rather than act as a perfect mapping of an idea. What can be said about genre is that it “provides an important frame of reference which helps readers to identify, select and interpret texts”(Chandler 7), and, in a later section about taxonomies of genre in film, indicates that similarities within a genre may be related to narrative, characterization, basic themes, setting, and iconography(Chandler 13). A loose definition can be drawn then, that literary genres are generally larger scale classifications of writing that involve the content of the text, useful for helping readers interact with the text for lower effort.

Due to genre being a wider classification of literature, it is not inherent that shared genre indicates a lack of original content. Conversely, because a genre tends to share enough content elements that by simply knowing the genre the reader understands parts of the book, genre forces some degree of shared features. Though not his intent, Chandler does address the mix of the two ideas, “while writing within a genre involves making use of certain 'given' conventions, every work within a genre also involves the

invention of some new elements"(Chandler 6). Though genre necessitates similarity, it does not inherently necessitate sameness. 

Image from: The YouTube channel ColeyDoesThings

(Note: Do NOT look up unknown fanfic tropes, you will SEE things)

Trope

Like every other literary happening, most people encounter tropes regularly, even if they are not always identified. They can span genres, or largely exist within one. Examples include found family, the wise mentor, friends to lovers, other worlds, the chosen one, and long journeys. They can act as a draw, a dissuasion or a cue to readers for what may lie in store. They exist normally, in altered form, in parodied form and more.

Trope mimics genre in the issue of varying definitions in different spaces, but because it is a “smaller” concept, it is a little easier. Speaking from the view of literary YouTube space, the content creator Merphy Napier identified trope as ”a literary pattern that gets used often enough that readers obviously, clearly, and quickly recognize it and generally know what they’re in for” (1:10 - 1:22). This is, again,  very similar in concept to genre, and for good reason: both need to be able to be used for clarification. Trope is, however, tied more closely to the story than genre is. Napier, later in the video, says that “All books either have tropes as the baseline of their story or as certain elements within the story. And what the author does to them to make them unique to that author, unique to that story, unique to those characters is what makes those books great” (7:42-7:55). Throughout the video essay, many examples pop up, namely characters, relationships, plot points, and setting, all of which fall under possible classifiers of genre. The general understanding that tropes are smaller scale classifications yet very similar to genre is well demonstrated by one of Napier’s examples: ”There are also certain genres that rely on tropes as their very definition. Time portal fantasy needs [time portals] to exist. If someone writes a time portal fantasy that doesn’t have the main element in it, the trope, this is bad” (4:05- 4:23). Overall, trope emerges as a smaller, similar structure to genre, though one a bit more story-centric.

Like with genre and exemplified in the second Napier quote, tropes are just a sum of a whole. They can be vital to a story, but there is always more. It should be said though, that most of the time, when people call a story unoriginal, it comes from the perception that too many genres and tropes are shared between two works- it is never just one or two. Because genre and trope necessitate similarity, the more shared genres and tropes, the more similarities are also shared. Thus, it is fair to say that two pieces of writing with enough shared tropes and genre seem unoriginal. Typically, when people do bring this up, it is due to a cause and effect- one story becomes popular and other writers jump on the bandwagon, writing similar stories in response to the popularized one. This explosion of subsequent stories is what generally leads a trope to be called overdone, and a story unoriginal. While there is merit in saying that in these cases the trope is no longer new, “overdone” is an opinion, based on the amount a reader is willing to read that trope (8:35 - 10:40). 

Image from: “The Works inspired by this one:” list of the fanfiction “Yesterday Upon the Stair”

Fanfiction

If someone spends a certain amount of time engaging with the internet, they likely hear about or see fanfiction in one of its variant forms. Though some sites are more popular than others, fanfiction, called fanfics or even just fics, exists in a variety of spaces in a variety of forms. “Household name” sites for the written format include Archive of Our Own(AO3), Wattpad, Tumblr, and Fanfiction.net (ff.net), but podfics (fics of the audio variety) can be found on Youtube, and threadfics- fics written with the thread function of social media posts to get past the character limits -get written every day on Twitter. The average reader finds their way into the fanfic space by first finding the community writing, drawing, and generally creating or engaging with the content of a published media, known as the fandom. 

Though fanfiction is sometimes called a genre, it varies in definition according to the context. The most basic definition is that fanfictions are “fictional works based on a work the author liked.” The meaning it carries in casual use is that fanfics are unmonetized, fan-made pieces of writing that are shared in an online space, generally designated for such writing. For example, fiction written by fans of Disney’s “Encanto” or the anime “My Hero Academia” would be called fanfiction, because of their format and the fact that they cannot be monetized without breaking copyright. However, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is not called fanfiction, because it is a published piece of work, based on a piece of literature whose copyright has already expired. Once again, there is more than one definition, and in this case, finding a middle ground cannot encapsulate everything. 

Fanfiction is a genre in that knowing a work is fanfiction can provide some expectations of what the story may contain, but fanfiction is a direct effect of other media, and while it is a type of fiction, it is larger than most genres are individually. The second definition may be correct by denotation, but it is not what people mean in conversation unless they want to imply even certain well known works like The Aeneid and fairytale retellings count as fanfiction. The third definition opposes the second, and even then it misses information. In her thesis, Katharine McCain, quoting Katherine Morrissey questions, ““How do we attempt to process a concept that is simultaneously claimed as an activity, an identity, and a connection to others?”(McCain 13). Fanfiction, as a concept, is too big. Fanfiction as a genre is inconsistent within itself, like every other genre. The definition of fanfiction, as it is used in conversation, misses the community that built and change the culture and practices. 

However, even if it cannot receive a codified definition, modern fanfiction can be described by some of its key characteristics. McCain identifies her subject as “a particular type of fanfiction—one that is becoming more and more prevalent among fans and acafans alike: a fanfiction defined primarily by its communal nature, its reliance on the Internet, and its desire to combine the creative with the critical”(McCain 13). Looking at this through the lens of AO3, the internet enables quick access and easy communication. An author may start a work and draw inspiration from the comments left on the works, as most writers of multichaptered works do not have everything written when they start to post. A common practice is writing fanfiction inspired by other fanfiction, as pictured above, which is born of the common attitude, “___ idea was good/bad, but what if.” Taking an aspect of a story, often a trope, and tearing it apart then putting it back together is the fandom way, and occurs both with canonical content(from the original source material, and also called canon) and fanonical content (based on a general consensus within a fandom- generally on what should have happened- and also called fanon).

With that in mind, McCain’s four main characteristics of fanfiction are the sharing and overlapping of content, common language and medium, “bad” writing, and the overlap of the creative and the critical. (McCain 15,16) The first and fourth aspect are both heavily tied to fanon and canon, the former referring mostly to the chain of inspiration from the source to a writer to other writers, and the latter referring to the practice of asking “what if” in creation. The second and third aspect both refer to the largely unmoderated nature of the fandom. Fanfiction spaces are always inventing, and are unrestricted by published work conventions. Regarding the second aspect, new terms are invented and propagated within fandoms to communicate the new ideas they generate. Fans describe genres and tropes alike as “alternate universes(AUs)” if they are not present in canon, for example fantasy AUs or Coffee Shop AUs. Formatting also varies greatly from fic to fic, as authors are free to format their story with any format they can create, and often will make specific choices to impart certain ideas or feelings on their readers. For example, keeping everything in lowercase can be used to make the reader feel like something is off, or slightly incomprehensible. The third aspect largely refers to Sturgeon's Law, a term derived from Sturgeon's Revelation, and imparts the idea that “90% of everything is crap.” Fanfiction can be written by anyone, and requires no editor to be published. Naturally, every level of content emerges for viewing- there are only filters when the author employs them themselves. 

Fanfiction is very blatantly unoriginal by most standards. It makes use of characters, settings, and tropes that can be directly traced to a source material. One writer, Patricia C. Wrede comments on her blog that “Fanfiction, as I have pointed out elsewhere, can be looked at as a sort of map of various alternate routes through the implied decision tree that the original writer used. The whole point is that it’s not purely original in itself; it has to have something to be an alternative to, or an expansion of”(Wrede, “Wrede on Writing”). An important note is on the wording “purely original.” Throughout the article, she agrees with the points of Frye and Foster, that near everything in existence draws from something else. Paired with my opinion that originality (not pure or true originality, just uniqueness) is spawned from the “what if,” this could mean that near everything has equal potential to be considered original or unoriginal. Genre and trope commonalities may have weigh-in as to the amount of uniquity in a work, but if hardly anything is “purely original,” there should not be a gold standard with which to punish other literature.

  As a final note on originality, it is important to note that even though originality is idealized, what matters most in a story is that it entertains its audience. It can contribute to that enjoyment, but as Wrede puts it, ”Originality is not the be-all and end-all of literary quality; it is simply one of the many and several ingredients that writers use to create stories.”(Wrede, “Wrede on Writing”).

Image from: The “History of Equestria and Other Headcanon Stories by Ink Rose” playlist on the YouTube channel of Ink Rose

Beginning to read fanfiction was a massive change to my life, but not in terms of type of content, or quantity. My main genre is still fantasy, and any drop in quality I attribute to Sturgeon's Law, as without the levels of review that published works receive, every level of writing makes it to visibility. Rather, it greatly increased the accessibility of reading. I no longer had to carry around books to everywhere I went, I could bring a phone or a tablet and with all my downloaded stories, I could have a much greater amount of readable content for much less to carry with me. For example, on family car trips I was capped at bringing more than 4 or 5 books to avoid taking up too much space. After I burned through them all, I would have to find books from whoever’s house we visited, hunt someone down to play cards, or set up a movie player. Fanfiction, existing in the online space or in the downloads of an electronic device, meant I could bypass the space limit, and, should the mood strike me, read near indefinitely. And I do read near constantly- waking up in the morning, between classes, while waiting, in my free time, in the bath, during breaks in schoolwork, when I really should be doing work, before bed, in bed, and possibly more. Some days I read a total word count greater than any individual Harry Potter book (the longest one is 257 thousand words). I did similar things before fanfiction, sometimes a book or two a day, but now I can read it anywhere, anytime.

Being a fanfiction reader means that for any popular media, I can typically find a story with my favorite character. It means that for any less popular media sources, I reread fics over and over, and lament the lack of a large pool of writers while bookmarking the works of my favorite authors and subscribing to their accounts, their series, and their works to catch everything they make. It means checking my email every day to see if any stories I read have a new chapter, and deciding between reading those chapters, if I remember the story, or ignoring them, waiting for the fic to be completed before reading it all at once. It means filtering out story elements, ships, or tags I don’t like, and reading the tags if I don’t, and even still stumbling upon something I didn’t want to read. It means reading vastly more than my mom, but still being told I need to read more “real” books and stories. It means walking around with downloads that make up days of reading available at any time, and that collection still not even coming close to my bookmarks count. It means having an account that some swear is the most personal thing they own, saying they’ll take their account information to the grave. It sometimes means loving and hating my fandom’s community in equal measure, and choosing to read on or leave based on prevailing feelings. It means loving characters or settings or worlds powerfully enough to read and read and read and read and only stop by the limits of the fandom size and my willingness to change my standards. 

The closest word to the love of reading is bibliophilia, or the love of reading/collecting books, but while I do love reading books still, I think I’m closer to a lover of stories. I could never read forever, as it is not where I find fulfillment, but it is where I find joy. I read everywhere all the time using my phone, from one of my dozens of open AO3 tabs or hundreds of downloaded fics. Nothing is entirely original, but it doesn’t need to be. I filter to my tastes and set myself loose, because I love reading fanfiction.

Image from: A screen capture of the main page of the fanfiction site “Archive of Our Own”

[shadesofgrace88]

I watched Elemental for a second time last Friday night. It was really neat to take in more of the details (background, music, character design, etc.) this time--while also still enjoying the movie. I really wanted to appreciate it on the big screen again and help the box office (even if it was a little). It was just as exciting and touching to watch as the first time.

[I kind of wish this was the title screen in the movie, but alas...]

Now, some further thoughts...

🎨THE ART🎨

I got the art book as soon as it was available, but made myself wait until I watched the movie to open it. I got it a month before the movie released. Legit left the plastic on, haha. The art in it is so mesmerizing. I do wish some of the behind-the-scenes 3D stuff had been added as well, or even a single layout from the movie. (hopefully some bonus features for the DVD!)

As much as I love and admire 2D art (which the art book is full of), I'm not sure if that alone would have displayed the emotions this movie needed and portrayed as deeply. I'm also pretty sure 3D has always been Pixar's thing anyways...Correct me if I'm wrong though!

But reading through the art book and learning about how they handled the process, how long they studied certain things for animating and creating this world was so fascinating. Finding ways for it to connect and work together made my art-loving heart so giddy. I remember coming across a Twitter post where one animator talked about how they managed to animate fire hugging by putting two matches together. Sounds simple, but it's so interesting and with the level of lively detail given to the fire characters, I imagine it was difficult to construct and render.

On the second watch, noticing when Ember lit up when happy was so cool. It wasn't just a smile or happiness of the eyes, but the entire character! I also found the stretch and squish of the characters to be really fun and cute. How the different elements reacted to their world was cool. Wade's hair! It's a wave that constantly moves! There's so much detail hidden in so many little things. The way they reflect onto one another. The glow from her fire. I love the outline to their characters. I think the art book referred to it like a membrane? It's more visually pleasing being kind of sketchy and not just a slab of bold lineart.

There are so many stunning panoramic scenes throughout the movie that showcase the brilliance of the world-building and characters. Such as the rainbow shot in the gif below. I honestly love the underwater scene so much. I found it more romantically alluring than even the Tangled boat scene.

💞THE ROMANCE💞

It's not just a slap-them-together-and-call-them-a-couple kind of romance, in my opinion. They have a plausible meet cute into not really "enemies," but they each have their reasons for the events that mesh them together. They have arguments. Like, realistic arguments...For a "kids movie." (I honestly hate that mindset so much because I prefer animation over live action stuff, but that's an entire essay, so moving on). The arguments aren't petty and stupid or miscommunication. They help each other to grow without being controlling or overbearing. And omigosh, THE CONFESSION! The date montage!

The romcom moments matched the evolution of a typical romcom beat sheet. (I'm writing a few myself so I've referred to it often). They have individuality as much as being a unified couple. Their relationship progresses fluidly along with the story. Low key kinda sad the gif below was just promotional, haha. She's like a gremlin teasing him 🤣

🎶THE MUSIC🎶

Gosh, the music. I get so excited with how well it matches the movie overall, and how well it crencendoes and grows quieter at just the perfect moments. There are so many scenes where it's just chef's kiss, but I don't want to spoil them, so...yeah. It's so whimsical. The Firish music is imagative and charming. Some of the musical bits reminded me of Spyro the Dragon, which is my favorite game series.

Thank you Thomas Newman for bringing Elemental alive with such a gorgeous score. And to Lauv--"Steal the Show" is such a bop.

✍️THE WRITING✍️

One critique I've seen a lot from people is how the story is unoriginal. To be honest, tropes exist for a reason. It's not the tropes that's the problem, it's how they're executed. And Elemental does it splendidly. Me personally being a hopeless romantic, I of course adore the romantic aspect of the film, but the relationship between Ember and her father is so vital to the story. It's practically why the story even kind of exists. Especially after watching it the second time and catching how many beat sheet moments align with her and her dad. When Ember said THAT near the end, I was crying even more, because...relatable.

As for the immigration part of the story, I can't speak much on it since I haven't had to experience that. It doesn't feel like my place to talk about, but from what I've read from others who can relate to that, they've mentioned it being well done. I hope this message of the story can find more audience, because as much as I enjoyed the trailers (that teaser was perfection--no plot spoilers, simple, cute, awesome introduction to the setting and characters), the official trailer and TV spots did not do justice to the heart of the story, in my opinion. I really kind of despise how much they advertised the "toot toot" joke when it could've involved more about the central theme of the movie. Like I said, Ember's relationship with her dad is so important.

Whoever marketed it as "Romeo & Juliet," I have a question...Why??? That play is a TRAGEDY. Just because "they can't be together" should not have meant they passed the advertising as a story similar to Romeo and Juliet. Wade and Ember are also more clever, lol. People are saying they haven't seen Elemental marketed, while others say it's been everywhere (signs, billboards, etc.). BUT, either way it was marketed poorly. The official trailer really should've delved more into the family and father/daughter dynamic more. For releasing Father's Day weekend, why was that not a decision during marketing???

By the way, it's not just Zootopia but with elements like I've seen people saying. This is an actual romcom, meaning the romance is actually crucial in it. I ship Nick and Judy, but it's not confirmed--let's wait for Zootopia 2 though, which announced back in January. Both films handle discrimination (and I love Zootopia), but where Zootopia has an actual villain, the "villain" of Elemental is the pressure Ember feels being an immigrant daughter and the opposites attract. External forces vs internal. Just because it's a modern city in both films, it really seemed like it had to be that way for Elemental. Like how the elements live among their world. The intro scene when the parents first arrive paint such a good image of the setting immediately.

I also feel like Wade and Ember are older characters. At least 20s, considering the passage of time mentioned and worrying about careers. Which is cool to me as an older audience member. I really want Elemental to survive and possibly maybe continue the story in some way, but after reading an article stating that a writer said there was going to be a baby at the end...Like, please don't. Let them live first, lol. As a couple. As Ember getting new experiences. Let her have her internship. What's Wade doing after they move? If they did a kid route, please do it as an epilogue or later short like Carl's Date. I just hate how society/movies/books are like "the couple has to have kids to prove their love" kind of thing. Bro, I think Wade has proved his love...

Anyways...

The casting was also terrific! Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie really did an awesome job bringing Ember and Wade to life. The emotion in so many scenes hits hard. Side characters were done really well too. I know some people wanted air and earth to be shown more, but maybe they could be more in the future? In the art book, the reason water founded Element City was because it was assumed the most opposite to fire.

I've read that people will just wait until it's on Disney+ because of fast releases anyways. Cheaper too, I guess. But Elemental really deserves to be enjoyed at the theaters with good sound quality and epic graphics. As much as I can't wait to own this movie to re-watch at home whenever I want, I'd gladly wait an extra few months to let Elemental shine in theaters to try to make it's money back and more.

Again, I'm begging people to give Elemental a try. It touches on so much more than romance, even though it did an amazing job as an official animated romcom. Family is a subject that is just as important to the core of the film. It's fun, funny, and artistically and musically awesome.

Thank you to Peter Sohn for pitching Elemental. For getting this story told and made. Thank you to each and every Pixar crew member who helped bring this world alive. I appreciate your time and effort put into this movie so so so much. You deserve so many awards and love for this project 🩷

PS, hubby found the classic Pixar "A113." Did you spot it?