#Queenie reads JJBA

[liesonthefloordramatically]

top possibilities for JOJOLands setting, pulling only from geographically appropriate islands I have lectured about in the past year:

Japanese-occupied Micronesia during the Japanese Mandate (unlikely)

Japanese-occupied Micronesia during present day (slightly more likely...but why)

Okinawa during present day (more likely than either of those but kind of tame)

Okinawa during present day but it’s about Japanese imperialism (less likely AND less tame)

Okinawa during the Japanese Mandate of Micronesia (NOW we’re cooking and also I’d read that for the Taisho-vibes)

Guano Islands (unhinged but it explains where the money is from)

any of the other numerous islands in Southeast Asia that Japan invaded during WWII (unlikely, unless Araki has gone really wild)

the above but during present day (more likely...but why)

the above during present day...but it’s about the continuing legacies of Japanese imperialism (again, I would read this, but would Araki write it?  probably not)

Hawai’i during present day (why)

Hawai’i but the main JoJo is there to work on the sugar plantations (...I would read this but also. why)

[adventures-in-asexuality]

ways to absolutely murder yourself late at night: listen to part 2 of Juno Steel and the Monster’s Reflection without having time to listen to part 3, and then reread this danged fic by accident >:U

[crazydiamondscenarios-blog]

Hello there, everyone! I’m sorry it’s taking me such a long time to get through the requests that are still in my inbox. Frankly, I’ve been losing interest in JJBA, but I won’t give up this blog yet.

I still have around 7-8 requests still in my inbox. I’ll be getting to them in my own time, meaning you should expect random, rare visits like these time to time. 

Also, while I’ll need to update my blog, as for a quick update, my main account is no longer killer-queenis. You can find me most active at @doomfists from now on. 

killer-queenis → doomfists

That is all! Thank you for reading!

[liesonthefloordramatically]

A wild 2022 recap post appears!

Stuff I made this year:

Fiction: The only fic I wrote this year was the surprisingly underrated put a blue ribbon on my brain.  Not sure why more folks weren’t into it other than all the obvious reasons www.

Playlists: Apparently the only two playlists I remembered to share this year were Camp Fireside Lagoon (a soundtrack for our Sleepaway game) and ExU: Calamity (what is says on the tin).  I wish I could say that I have a bunch of secret playlists that I didn’t share but I mostly don’t.  Creativity really flagged this year, partially because of exhaustion.

RPGs: Wrote two Sleepaway supplements: The Emissary and The Phoenix.  Got to see The Emissary played live, which was cool!

Knitting: Finished baby’s first sweater and knit two shawls and three hats???  Maybe someday I will remember to upload pictures of stuff I knit.

Other stuff: Look, I was complaining about how little I wrote this year and then I remembered that I also finished my dissertation which was like 115k, so.  Yeah.  That was a thing.  Also defended my dissertation, so I’m now Dr. Queenie!  Went to Europe for the first time???  Moved across the country!  Started a new job, so now I’m Prof. Queenie!  Got diagnosed with new, exciting medical conditions!  Somehow made it through year three of the pandemic!  Have been mildly depressed since July and exhausted basically non-stop since September which might explain why my creative output has been miserable. 

Media I enjoyed this year:

Books: I read...A LOT this year (like 40 books, which is not a lot for me pre-grad school but is a lot post-quals).  Have really been taking advantage of the library’s ebook lending program.  Some favorites: The Murderbot Diaries (genuinely shocked it took me so long to read this because it’s painfully up my alley), The Stormlight Archive (absolutely understand how it took me so long to read this; you could kill a man with the length of these books), Dead Collections (meditations on memory and archives and gender, heck yeah), Several People Are Typing (the howling!!! the howling!!!), Spear (this book was written for Queenie age roughly eight), The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (highly recommend reading this one without knowing anything about it; it’s a delight, especially if you know anything about Hollywood history).

TTRPG: Winner for new TTRPG I played this year was The Price of Coal!  Also finished a campaign of Sleepaway and am currently running an extremely fun campaign of Blades in the Dark, but those are both in the Ol’ Faithful pile of TTRPGs. 

Video games: Top game was Disco Elysium!  Honorable mentions to Scarlet Nexus (deeply underrated--the monster design and soundtrack are both out of control and the characters are SO fun) and Fire Emblem: Three Houses.  Baffling honorable mention to Stranger of Paradise, which I honestly expected to hate and then wound up weirdly emotional about?

Manga/comics: Finally finished reading The Wicked + The Divine which was extremely good and made me feel emotions.  My inability to read things in hardcopy for fun is really cramping my style, though.

Fanfic: I actually didn’t read a whole lot this year--partially because I read a lot more published novels, which means that I have had a bunch of fics languishing on my Kindle for uhhhhh months.  Some fics I liked this year include (in no particular order) a man by any other face (CR C2--this might be my favorite fic I read this year), path of the traveled sun (CR C2), displacement (CR C2), Familiar (CR C2), you’ve haunted me all my life (Tales of Berseria), at the violet hour (CR C2), From the Mixed-Up Files of The J. Lavorre Catalogue Raisonné (CR C2), a sort of beacon where there used to be a dull roar (CR C2), separating salt from water (Our Flag Means Death), dreamers to come (ExU: Calamity), Man of Nothing (JJBA: JJL), and after the scripture (your mother beside me) (CR C2).  Special category for this year is “AU concepts that verge on crack but 100% work”: More Things in Heaven and Earth (CR C2) and the fire kept closest (burns most of all) (CR C2). Extra special nod to and from our own/live to ourselves (MDZS), a fanfic with a plot and setting so simultaneously unique, unhinged, and well-executed that it seized me by the throat for like a month.

Films: Everything Everywhere All At Once!  Which I watched...3 1/2 times this year.  Honorable mentions to Cyrano and Encanto.  Wow, I watched a film this year???  Shocking.

TV: Our Flag Means Death and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean.  Although we’re not done with the latter yet because we’ve been watching an episode a week (we are like...16 episodes from the end, I think? It’s been slow going).  I really need to figure out how to get myself to watch things on my own because there are things I want to watch.

Podcasts:  Continuing to listen to a lot, especially since I have an hour commute each way, plus I live alone so...need to hear human voices sometimes.  Top picks: Trice Forgotten, Second Star to the Left, The Silt Verses, and Exandria Unlimited: Calamity.  “Isn’t that just Critical Role?” Arguably, yes, but specifically naming that mini-campaign because it destroyed me (straight up made me cry on a plane in Sweden).  Honorable mentions to Enthusigasm, Keep It Steady, Within the Wires, Keeping It 101: A Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion, and The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality.  I think Within the Wires has made it onto my podcasts list almost every year that I’ve done this which is really a testament to how consistently good it has been across 7 (!!!!) years.  If this seems like a lot of podcasts, please know that this is only a fraction of what I listened to this year--to give you a sense, I tore through the entirety of Meiji at 150 (which is 150 episodes) in like...the first three weeks of term...while listening to all my other podcasts...

Music: Another weird year--Spotify refuses to give me Wrapped because I won’t download their wretched app, but apparently “Pepper” by Death Cab for Cutie was my top track for this year?  What happened here?  All I can really think is that I probably put it on loop for the 2-3 weeks of midterm grading when I was in a fugue state.  My other top tracks--literally my top 11--are similarly songs I listened to on loop while in a fugue state.  What does that say about my taste in music this year?  Unclear!  What does that say about my mental health?  Nothing good!  Anyway, you should listen to “We Have It All” which was #6 on my top tracks but does genuinely slap.  Also did a bunch of grading while listening to Foley Artist which was A Choice (it’s a great album, but there are sections that are stressful to grade to).

Anyway, あけおめ！！！ 良いお年をお迎えください (this is a threat)！！！

[liesonthefloordramatically]

hi- this might seem really weird but, queenie i love your jjba fics so much. they are genuinely such a comfort and i adore your characterization of jotaro and kakyoin and all of them and, i just felt the need to tell you that 🫶🫶 i seriously love them so much and my friends and i frequently make jokes about how you need to like publish a book or something so yeah :)

That's not weird at all--and I'm so delighted to hear that!! Hearing that people, like, talk? about my fics? with their friends? is for some reason just mind-blowing to me. Sharing fics can sometimes feel a little like yeeting words into the void and having no idea who is reading them, so I'm always really touched to hear when they've made an impact. ;w;

(I do have a book manuscript that I'm working on but it's for, you know, my day job, so probably a lot less fun to read than fic, unfortunately.)

[liesonthefloordramatically]

finally got to watch the first two episodes (yes, I know, it’s been A Time) and I am once again feeling extremely normal about Gloria Costello

[liesonthefloordramatically]

sometimes I reopen my (WIP) PPT proving that Stands are spirit possession and I discover some truly incredible unfinished slides

[liesonthefloordramatically]

unfriendly reminder that the kanji for Stand is in fact 幽波紋, which is just the kanji for hamon/ripple (波紋) with 幽 (lit. dark but used to refer to many things related to spirits/the spirit world) slapped on the front

[liesonthefloordramatically]

well

[liesonthefloordramatically]

new JJL chapter spoilers:

I can’t believe “have they been doing human sacrifice in the Jesus hole” is a legitimate question I just had to ask

anyway

[liesonthefloordramatically]

the unfortunate thing about me as a person is that if you say, “man, we don’t know anything about where Rohan’s family is from other than the names of two of his ancestors 310 years ago,” I will open 19 tabs and research an entire probable genealogy

[liesonthefloordramatically]

current mood (JJL spoilers below the cut):

[liesonthefloordramatically]

LINEAR TIME CONFIRMED TO BE CANONICALLY FAKE

[liesonthefloordramatically]

@trisshawkeye said: “What’s even in America?” ARAKI-SENSEI YOU ICON I’m fascinated by his thoughts on Christianity. The souls-ascending stuff in JoJo always struck me as quite stand-out and unusual so it’s cool to see where that came from!

This essay is from around the time he started writing Stone Ocean, so I’m really curious if he’s written anything more post-Steel Ball Run...

That said, I’m retyping a section of his interview in the Ripples of Adventure exhibition catalogue solely because the sheer force of it made me rocket off the face of the planet the first time I saw it (fortunately it comes with an English translation so no translation work on my part this time):

--- I was surprised that 12 sheets had to be filled with artwork, which is quite a lot.

★ Since these pictures had to be displayed at an exhibition, the first thing that came to mind was Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”  That mural features Christ and the 12 Disciples, so from that perspective it coincides with the number 12.  And from my own recollection, the duodecimal system has 12 at its base, with 24 being a multiple of 12, the number of hours in a day.  From that I can see it’s a “repetitive number” connected to eternity, while phrases like the 12 disciples and the 12 gods tell me it’s a “number of good fortune.”  So when creating the collection of 12 sheets, I really stuck to that number 12, including 12 characters, along with 12 Stands as well.  Also, since Judas the Betrayer is a significant figure in “The Last Supper,” I thought of using “There’s Always a Traitor” as a theme for this artwork.  So I gave the characters these profound expressions, implying that they might be on each other’s side, or might not be, and a traitor might be among them, as I think this adds a sense of drama to the project.  In addition, I was thinking about a deep meaning behind the poses and style of drawing I should use for the characters, so each one would leave a lasting impression on guests.

For the record, he’s talking about this piece.

[liesonthefloordramatically]

anyway, new JJL chapter mood

[liesonthefloordramatically]

please give us a little bit of your thoughts on diu and its metanarrative

Oh no, anon.  I.  Started responding to this.  And then disappeared into the wilderness because of ~*~migraines~*~, so this is approximately.  Four hundred years late.  I’m so sorry.

Anyway, I’m going to try to keep this brief because writing meta is weirdly anxiety-provoking for me?  But also like…I do love DIU with my entire heart and I think it’s super fascinating, SO:

DIU is really interesting, because I feel like it, more than any other part (other than JJL) feels like it’s about a community.  Because, at its heart, that’s what DIU is about, at least in part–the community of Morioh.

Most other parts, the core cast is established pretty quickly–you have a few people they fight who then join the party or a few latecomers, but DIU is adding characters more or less right until the end.  Hayato is really important for the climax, and Josuke doesn’t know him until the very last arc!  I think that’s something that some people really don’t like about DIU–it’s much more sprawling–and also that JJL is getting a lot of flack for now, but…I think that’s one of the really interesting things about it.  It’s a story about community and the power of community, not about any single member of that community.

(JJL as the flipside of this–a story about a community but also about the toxic parts of community, whether that’s keeping secrets or betrayal–is really interesting to me.  But that’s another topic entirely.)

Also, Josuke as a protagonist who just keeps collecting people is really interesting to me, especially when juxtaposed with the JoJos who come immediately before and after.  Jotaro wins over…Kakyoin, basically, and otherwise doesn’t really recruit anyone.  (And even then, Kakyoin volunteers himself.)  Giorno, for all his charisma, has a set group more or less from his entrance to the gang–he doesn’t win anyone over who wasn’t already semi-aligned with him.  Josuke.  Just.  Keeps.  Collecting people.  That scene after Shigechi’s death always blows my mind–he just calls up all these people and they all show up!  What the heck!  How did he get their contact info!

(Jolyne also collects people!!!  Someday I’ll do something with the Josuke-Jolyne parallels other than hold them in my heart quietly.)

((SOMETHING SOMETHING QUEER FUTURITY COUGH COUGH))

Another really interesting thing about DIU: the sense of scale.  Jotaro and Jolyne are out to save a parent.  Giorno is out to save…Naples?  But he isn’t necessarily shown demonstrating a lot of empathy and care for individual civilians (Bruno does that).  Josuke wants to protect his town, but the town is both a geographical area and the people within it.

(I think the fact that Araki is from Sendai really shines through in the sense of place in both DIU and JJL–it’s one of the things I really love about it.)

Okay, one last thing because I physically cannot stop talking about Kujo Jotaro:

I think that DIU is a good time for Jotaro in some ways and a profoundly bad one in other ways, in large part because it’s a story about community.  SDC has civilian casualties, but the enemy Stand users are basically all assassins.  Meanwhile, in DIU, Stand users are everywhere and everyone.  Josuke uses that to his advantage, but I think that would be deeply threatening to Jotaro, who, as we know from Stone Ocean, is basically trying to handle everything on his own.  Anyway, [insert the full text of “linear time is fake” chapter 3 here]