#So this recap was really hard to write for a lot of reasons which some of you know about

[jazeswhbhaven]

Demon Butler Buffet, Enjoy your stay | April Fools' Event 2025 | React/Recap Spoilers Part 1

Henlo everyone, I'm finally back into my react groove and hopefully nothing else fucking happens with my health (crossing fingers)

So this is going to be just a recap of everything since it's been like a week or so since the break between the story parts and there's an update tonight/morning! The second part will probably be more detailed honestly, so expect very little writing and more screenshot action lol

Summary/Recap!

Basically, we start off the story by looking into Solomon never losing a bet, ever. But this is not the case with MC. They found themselves in a pickle while in Abyssos, losing a bet...and now they've gotta pay up.

Not only do they have to pay up, but they have to in Earth currency?! So MC sends off Ppyong to get 1 millon Won they saved up in their bank account, only to then be told they were gone for so long that their bank account is frozen!

I mean, this would make a lot of sense though, considering that in Minhyeok's side story in main, MC had been gone long enough for him to do the anniversary of visiting MC's parents.

In order to get the money needed, the kings are going to have to make that moneyyyy for MC! Meaning they're going to get a part-time job on Earth, but the question is...how can they?

It is known that they could just teleport there, however this would cause all of humanity to simply crush and go insane. Remember the Cthulu theory if he appears? Sorta the same, basically the Kings can't all be on Earth at the same time or everyone dies. And it also explains why Asmo can visit by himself or that one time when Mammon and his nobles went to Earth for his birthday (y'all remember that little selfie! I would dig for it but phew it would take forever)

And this is where we are introduced to Zepar, who is Zagan's prior mentor and what seems to be close friend or...something more. Now the reason I poke at the the something more, dipping into Zepar and Zagan's dynamic is that Zepar seems to hold some kind of resentment toward his prior disciple. He also comments that Zagan is nearly as strong as he thought he would be using the talisman's and there seems to be something they were supposed to do together (travel Hell together? or further?) and instead Zepar is stuck in Abaddon and Zagan has his freedom. That's all they really bothered to dwell on, so that's all I have to go off of.

In the meantime though, Zepar uses red talismans which are much stronger in magic, but come with a price. Each devil will experience something while on Earth that's not of their character. This will only take effect during the use of the talismans while they are on Earth.

And with that explained, MC and the Kings are transported to Earth, specifically to a Host/Hostess cafe that's throwing a themed Maid/Butler event. This is where we meet the store manager, Lizzy, and later Jihoon who oddly looks like Yoosung from MysMes but he's way more fuckboish lmao.

The store manager explains the role of being a butler to the boys but uh the majority of them don't understand what that means. It appears that only Lucifer and Leviathan are keen on what it means to be one. Also during this time, Satan is doing unhinged shit as per usual that screams cat behavior lol

Mammon is doing pretty well, but he's more channeling his inner "Bimet", Beel is uh himself (other than his pale skintone wow) and while Leviathan is doing well, he's very forgetful, seems to be the affect from the talismans. But also to note, Asmodeus can't get hard, and Belphegor giggles a lot when he's awake. Lucifer seems to be more gentle and nice which is unlike him (though we find out in his recent L card that this isn't an effect of the talisman but his true nature when he's in butler mode) but MC doesn't know that yet. For Satan, his speak is off, for Beel, he's more clumsy and not as hungry, and Mammon? Well I wasn't too certain what his side effect was, he seemed very normal. But also who was killin' it in the Butler department was none other than Luci <3 but with context now from his card, we all know why that is! He was born for it.

Either way, the boys are doing their best during the event to sell the most merch and "win" the most money. During this time we see the customers acting similar to how the fandom probably would if we saw them irl. There's even a thing where they try to take photos of the Kings and can't catch their human forms on camera, but we see...their true forms reflected instead which was a neat detail that I liked. So for the butler outfits for the boys, we see them sprouting the traditional tux with tight slacks to show off their "assets". But a fun little surprise is Levi wearing a maid outfit complete with stockings. I swear he always gets the best stuff. An even bigger surprise though is when Levi lifts his skirt and there's...an animal tail, in the form of a butt plug! Satan does mention that the tails look uncomfortable to deal with and it made me think, ah man he doesn't like butt stuff normally does he? Which is fine, though that means you'd reallllyyy have to convince him to let you peg him. Belphie though seemed eager to put one on (hehehehehehe), and apparently it's Asmo that has supplied this for everyone.

So after this little display and having the customers go around trying to "grab" their tails, the store completely sells out! So now that MC can take a break, they find Jihoon in the changing/break room area by his lonesome and he seems to be sulking about not being the center of attention for the day. Not only that but uh...he starts flirting casually with MC???? This rightfully pisses off MC, because this whole time that was most likely his goal to sneak off with MC and not even work. But Levi and Luci come to their rescue! Poor Lizzy, she actually likes a guy like that.... shame shame.

Speaking of Lizzy, it seems that she has some expenses she needs to pay for and worries about it. She especially mentions that Jihoon fucking borrowed money and hasn't paid it back yet. MC gets angry at him again, and Satan senses this, and asks what's up. After a quick rundown, Satan and the Kings decide to give Lizzy things that are worth a lot of money so she can sell them and get the money she needs for all her expenses!

Now for the Kings and the "winner?" Well...there isn't one. The store manager explained that since they all worked the same hours they all get the same pay. That's all fine and dandy, but it doesn't prove who sold the most! And despite MC's debt being paid off, that's pretty much all that matters rn to them, especially Satan.

And we find out that the nobles followed behind to watch their respective Kings at the cafe and I find that super cute.

And that ends the rough summary of part 1 of this event! You know what time it is....

Screenshots!

Don't yell at the bby (yes I know he's a grown demon man but don't yell at himmmm)

Ooo the ground sinkin', he's so l a r g e ain't he?

hehehehhehehe my OC's hubby/babydaddy is cute

Asmo coaching you for your OF would actually be hilarious. I'd write that.

I swear Leviathan everyday with you

Beel is so cute when he does this honestly. Since I'm short, my friends would do this to me as an affectionate thing :3

The whole gangs hereeeeeeeee

Bimet the scammer right on time tryna collect some coin

Yes Levi because the hate fuck afterward would be n a s t y which is why I'd even bother doing anything like this in front of you in the first place. 💀

LMAO Satan really said "Ain't my problem" and proceeds to be excited until everyone brings up that MC would never forgive him if that happened

No like when are we gonna see the cutie in the middle??? I know he's overly horny as fuck but idkkkkk he seems adorable to me

That's so cute, he considers them friends even though they hate him lmao my poor unfortunate narcissist <3

Okay so the majority of the time Asmo was carrying Belphie and I think that shit was so cute. Like I know Asmo is sweating cum because Belphie's barely clothed body is against him but it's like awh no one else offered to carry him so

Confirmed that he likes to use puppets and what we saw before was just one of his many puppet creations. I wonder if there are other designs...

I'm crying, Belphie really thought MC was in the mood and was willing to strip right in front of everyone. He really just don't give a fuck.

it seems, that there's a lot of history here...and that there's a lot for Zagan and Zepar to come to terms with. Though I would say that Zepar has already accepted the "it is what it is" mantra and Zagan is holding on to a distant memory. I feel sorry for him honestly and Zepar probably had more "life" to him back then. Just like Zagan used to talk more.

damn he didn't have to do him like that

Aye, not too much on Luci now...or we about to box once again Levi

Lizzy! :3 I enjoyed her

knowing the context now of why he's doing this makes it all the better omg 🥺❤❤

MC is cute here. But also, yes me too MC....me too.

This man is gonna have a few more wrinkles after today lmaooo he was stressed out the entire time

Sir. 😒

the storage room would be fine with me

Yeah that thang is thangin on a daily basis 💀💀💀

AND that concludes Part 1 of my React! Part 2 will just be more screenshots, since I pretty much summed up the entire story so far here. See ya over yonder~ (click below to go to the next post! for some reason it didn't show up in the tags...hrm)

[kamari333]

A 2025 Recap of Kam's Fanfics

This took me all day to put together, for some reason XD But now I've got it and I can share it!

I hope if you read through all this, and click into a fic, you find something you like! Let me know with a comment (or two) if you do!

The very first fic I every posted on AO3 was "Resonance".

I had never actually played Undertale before, but I had watched someone else play it. I stumbled into the UTMV on complete accident, and was greatly inspired by the fanon at the time (early 2017). I decided to just.... go for it. Try writing a story where all the AUs I liked and thought were cool got to come together. I got to experiment with characterization, motivations (and the logic behind them), prose, dialogue, and of course narrative. From May 3rd 2017 (i only posted on May 5th because that's when my account activation was approved -- this was back when you needed an invitation and there was a waiting list) to June 30th, 2018, I wrote this story with no plan and (if i remember correctly) no betas.

"Resonance" is an action-adventure story. It's initial premise is to compare and contrast various AUs by pulling them all together in one place. If you've ever seen "Into the Spiderverse", it is a lot like that, but with Sans Undertale, and written before "Into the Spiderverse" was even a thing. It takes the '6 Skeletons' trope that was pioneered in the xReader subgenre of UTMV and puts it in the context of Fontcest and Sanscest (as well as other ships like Soriel, Papyrus/Chara, Frans, and Papdyne). It gives some passing exploration to heavy narrative tropes like incest, self-harm, major character death, rape, torture, the yandere, drug and alcohol abuse, and sacrifice for the greater good, making it a Dead Dove if I've ever written one.

"Resonance"'s greatest strength, I think, is its character depth. I think I put a lot of good work into fleshing out the 6 main characters throughout the story, justifying the choices I made for their deviance from canon and their purpose in the narrative. It's other strength is its emotional impact: I think, for a first try, I did fairly well with the big emotional setups.

Where "Resonance" falls a little weak, admittedly, is its narrative drive. This is the most obvious in the ending, which drags on a bit without really giving a solid conclusion. While the story serves the purpose I intended for it, the open ending lacks a concrete satisfaction that i cannot articulate. Even so, it is an ending that leaves no room for doubt about what the status quo going forward will be, and at the time of writing it, that was enough for me.

I consider "Resonance" to be my Magnum Opus, proof that I can finish what I start.

💙❤️💜💛🩵🧡

The next big work (skipping over a few smaller things) is my "Ebott is a Multiverse" series.

"Ebott is a Multiverse", or "EMV" is a series of fics which lend focus to various ships, all taking place in the same continuity (and tristate area).

The first installment in EMV is "The Last Laugh".

"The Last Laugh" is a 5 chapter story detailing key events for its focal relationship that take place over 9 months. From February to November of the 4th year since Monsters came to the Surface, we follow a Classic Sans and an Underswap Sans as they figure out how much they're in love.

This first fic was originally intended to be a sort of 'revenge', inspired by both a fic and a prompt left by another rather talented writer in the Fandom (if you're still around, hi again CrushingOnRazz!) I worked hard to build up to the climax of the fic, so that everything would fall into place for the most emotional impact. I think the ending ended up being one of the most impactful of any ending I've ever written.

That being said, I ended up feeling like it still needed more to the story, a continuation as it were, so I planned out the 'skeleton' and rough path for the direct sequel "Happily Ever Laughter".

"Happily Ever Laughter" is still ongoing, however, because before I could even start it properly, I had already been sucked into another fic in EMV.

The true monster of EMV is "Burlesque". For certain reasons, "Burlesque" has both a "Censored" and an "Uncensored" version. The Censored version has all onscreen erotica removed, with fade-to-black cuts and some references changed. At the current chapter count of 57 (still unfinished), the wordcount difference between Censored:Uncensored is 224,949:254,502 words (so ~30k).

"Burlesque" is a another ship fic, this time following the relationship events of an Underfell Sans, Dancetale Sans, and Underlust Sans, all navigating their polyamory, personal issues, trauma, and the subtle pressures of late stage capitalism in fantasy U.S.A.. Together, they overcome their self deprecation, the price of rent, invasive honey badgers, sexual harassment, and the strength of their own horny, all so they can say "I love you." The story begins in February of the 4th year of Monsters coming to the Surface, and extends into December as of Chapter 57 (a work in progress).

EMV also features two other ships as focus ships (with at least two more planned). One of those ships is Outertale Papyrus/Underfell Papyrus/Underpatch Sans, which has enough content in "The EMV Anthology" that I am already planning to transplant it into its own sidefic. The other ship is Dancetale Papyrus/Fellswap Sans, which has comparatively less screentime but is no less delightful for it.

Having had so much fun writing erotica, I ended up participating in Kinktober 2017 in October 2017. This was the beginning of an annual holiday (of sorts) for me, as I have participated in Kinktober every year since (2017-2024).

My complete Kinktober Archive is currently in a series. In it, I get to explore different relationship dynamics, ships, kinks, and possible story elements. I alpha-test a lot of stuff that sometimes gets refined and filtered into more serious fics. Included in (but certainly not limited to) my experiments are: Doggo/Burgerpants, Vegetoid/Reader, RottenCherryBerry (which has become a Kinktober tradition), Mafiafell/Outertale Sanscest, the closest thing to Bad Sans Poly I will ever tag, and Stretch/Nightmare (which will be mentioned again later). The series currently has over 500,000 words of kinkplay in it, with a Table of Contents at the beginning of every fic so you can find the exact tags for every chapter quickly.

I also began an xReader in November of 2017. "Welcome To The Underground" started as an experiment to see if I could write 50,000 words in a month (in an event known as NaNoWriMo). I ended up meeting the 50k goal by the end of the month, but the story was still not completed to my satisfaction. I would continue to chip at this fic until 2020, when I finished it at just over 102,000 words.

"Welcome To The Underground" is an Isekai xReader Songfic where you, the Reader character, are a young adult (in your 20s) who is dropped into Undertale's Underground. In it, you resign yourself to the fate of every other fallen human who isn't Frisk (re: to die), and only make the effort necessary to make your remaining time as worthwhile and comfortable as possible. Throughout the story, you make friends, sing songs, get hurt, get back up again, and discover that you can do things you didn't think you could do, even if it sucks to do them.

I think this story was something I needed, a sort of symbolic rite of passage into adulthood for me (since at the time of writing, I was strugging with my identity as an adult, and lacked the confidence I needed to take control of many aspects of my life that I should have already). It certainly wasn't a solution to all my problems, but I think writing this story was the start of some kind of personal growth which I have worked hard to cultivate since. Whether it has any similar meaning to my readers, I don't think I'll ever know, but hopefully a little bit of that 'just-keep-going' vibe gets rubbed off on you guys if you come on this journey with me.

One of my favorite parts of writing this story was picking the songs. About halfway through I also started writing Parody lyrics to some of them, adjusting words here and there to fit better with what the Reader character needed. The most satisfying of all parodies, however, was the true, complete parody I wrote of a Weird Al song. I am still very proud of "Sans Pick Up Your Fucking Sock" (the song).

I became a big fan of Nilchance's "ain't this the life" series, which is about the relationship between a classic Sans and the incestuous Underfell skelebros. It's a fantastic read if you're a fan of Kustard and Kedgeup and Fellcest. I mention this, because I ended up starting not one, but two fanworks that spin off from ATTL.

The first ATTL spinoff I wrote is "Ain't this a Lamia". In it, the Undefell bros find a lamia in their livingroom, and gay shit ensues.

I dunno why, i just thought that the poly would be even cuter if they had a horny snake with trauma and sass. I adore Slinky very much and hope he gets everything he wants <3

The second ATTL spinoff I wrote is "Ain't this more than Lust" In it, Red and Sans discover an Underlust Sans confidently selling himself for lunchmoney in a back alley, and gay shit tries to ensue but gets tripped up by trauma and sincerity (as of now -- I hope to add another installment to increase the percentage of gay).

I'm actually really excited to develop this story more, because i love the way these characters foil each other. ATTL Red just FITS next to an Underlust guy and it fills my heart with fluffies.

Both of these are the start of a series of the same names. The fics in them have an accumulated wordcount of ~30k each.

Kinktober 2019, Day 12, (Oct 12th 2019) is the inciting moment of my "Dr33mtal3" AU. (which is loosely, loosely inspired by, but is decidedly not Dreamtale). It's the first bit of writing where I tried to take my own idea and give it some life. Although technically i wouldn't start work in earnest until April 2020, when the first designs were made. That's why I consider April 7th to be Dr33mtal3's Birthday.

[Post 1] [Post 2] [Post 3] (These are all very ugly art compared to what I can do now lol)

After getting the designs started, i went into the fics!

The "Dr33mtal3" fic series on AO3 has substantially more multiverse content than content focusing on the isolated AU at this time, but isolated AU content is being worked on.

To delve into more of the isolated AU, I started taking Character Asks on the "Dr33mtal3" AU Blog in April 2022. Doing these asks really helps with improving my art. I have so much fun with them! I especially love when I get asks for other characters, like MadMewMew and Burgerpants !! But I do still also love the asks for the skelebros!

As for the Multiverse content, you will find plenty, both on the blog and on AO3!

Some of my finest work can actually be found in the 'Anthology' fics, specifically "An Anthology of Nightmares", which turned out to be of the gothic horror genre, and "An Anthology of Dreams", which was written with the intention of cerebral horror. They're both a little lovecraftian too, if you squint, although I was aiming for something else.

In An Anthology of Nightmares, you see what it's like to get picked up by Nightmare from many different peoples' point of view. You also see some of Nightmare's Castle, and what living there is like.

In An Anthology of Dreams, you follow along viewing Dream's life from the point of view of those around him. You start with the PoV of a Science!Sans (Sci), and eventually see Dream from several thoughtful angles!

You can also find my 3-Longpost long super-essay about Dream's house in these fics here on tumblr!

[Dream's House Post 1] [Dream's House Post 2] [Dream's House Post 3]

These desolate and unsettling anthologies are, however, only backstory for the Romance I am cultivating in what I plan as the main fic of this series: "Poignance". Although this story is only 14 chapters and 30k words in at this time (clearly unfinished), you can still follow an Underswap Papyrus into what will eventually be the slow burn epic romance he doesn't see coming.

This list is not comprehensive: there are numerous oneshots as well as unfinished works which have been pushed down my list of priorities. A few I want to make brief mention of because I like them:

"The Body Snatchers" Where an Underlust Sans starts a queerplatonic relationship with Fresh.

"A Night of Guns and Feathers" A thinkpiece about a relationship between a Mafiatale Sans (specifically the one detailed by my friend Catsitta, whom is called 'Karma') and D3!Nightmare.

"My Best Wingman" An Underlust fic I wrote for the To The Bone zine. Focuses on the brotherly relationship between Sans and Papyrus.

"Site Skin Ideas for UTMV Readers" A meta-fic to help make AU Disambiguating Freeform Tags easier to read and identify in the UTMV fandom.

"Bitty Magnitism" On of the fics I wrote when I was on a Bittybones kick, writing for the EMV spinoff series "EMV Bittybones Event" . Its about a Fellswap Sans going to a Bittybones adoption center, and the consequences that ensue.

Thanks for reading this far! I hope you found something you like!

[kohabielnin]

Headcanons Truth & Inference Lovers

Today I wasn't going to write anything because I woke up sore and sick, but as I felt a little better, and I saw something that made my day, I decided to write a little. I removed Emma and Naib because unfortunately I didn't know much, but in their place I put Rosemary

D.M/Désire Mélodis

• If he already showed you off when you were just his employee, now that you're his groom/bride, he won't give you a moment's peace,

• He cares about you, of course, but that doesn't mean he doesn't tease you and irritate you sometimes,

• To recap what we already know, D.M is a demon among humans, so unless you like not walking for days, don't irritate him,

• His snake has great affection for you, so it's normal for it to wrap itself around you while you're sitting on D.M.'s lap on his orders,

• He loves seeing your face blush when he says it loudly at parties, "I'm sorry, ladies, but I don't want to keep my beautiful bride Y/n waiting for me", yes, he says it loud and clear for everyone to hear,

• Honestly, Mr. Inference and Gatto really feel sorry for you

Noir/Saphir Mélodis

• I'm sorry, but your right to go on missions with him has been revoked at his request,

• He cares enough about you to keep you away from all the dangers of the missions he and you were on,

• When he's not on missions or it's at night, he loves sharing calming moments like taking a shower together or sleeping cuddled together, which he says calms him down after a stressful day.

• There isn't a day that goes by that Tuberose doesn't tease you, of course you also tease him back, so Noir usually watches the mini wars that you and Tuberose have,

• Leon already liked you a lot and with you officially being family, the hawk allowed himself to get attached to you,

• He's not as present as possible, but he tries to make up for it by spoiling you whenever D.M allows him to rest

Tuberose/Jack

• Let's start with a fact, he will only stay with you if Lady Rosemary also likes you,

• His face was once a reason for you to fight with him, but after he showed it to you, after months of pestering him about it, you never wanted to see him with a mask again,

• Rosemary thinks the relationship you two have is cute and is happy to participate in it too,

• He tends to be quite protective of you and Rosemary, so it's not surprising that if he sees D.M teasing you he'll get jealous,

• He'll never admit it, but he loves it when you sit on his lap and Rosemary plays with his hair, he finds moments like that comforting,

• You and Rosemary are his treasure, so he will not rest until you are both satisfied in every way, he is a man devoted to both of his treasures

Rosemary/Grace

• What led her to accept you in a relationship with Tuberose was her knowledge of plants,

• As she is usually busy with important matters, she tends to leave you alone most of the time, but that never stopped you from going to her and massaging her shoulders,

• Tuberose likes how hard you are to be in a relationship with him and Rosemary,

• She may also end up suffering from jealousy if she sees you with DM a lot and when that happens she doesn't leave your side and doesn't let go of the hug,

• Her calming moments with you are when you are massaging her shoulders or lying on her lap, she always smiles stupidly when she sees your sleeping face,

• She likes to give you bracelets or flower crowns, because according to her it makes you more beautiful, as flowers make your beauty more evident.

Gatto/Aesop Carl

• It took him a while to accept being in a relationship with you,

• Don't force hugs or any other type of touch, he doesn't feel comfortable, so it's better to wait for him to ask for something like that,

• He's a bit shy so he'll always stutter when he asks you for some kind of affection, which is why he prefers not to speak, just open his arms or lay his head on your shoulder or lap, even if it makes him extremely red,

• Cat loves being on top of you, filling you with hair, it's her fault that Gatto ends up touching you even more,

• He loves it when you make him coffee or just pat him on the head, because it reminds him of things his mother used to do,

• Even with little courage, if D.M says something that doesn't please you, he will defend you because this is one of his ways of proving that you are important to him, but after D.M leaves, please, make a coffee and pat his head , he gave his all to defend you even though he was scared

White/Saphir Mélodis

• Let's be honest here, you being engaged to him hasn't changed the way he acts towards you,

• Surprise hugs, kisses on the forehead, nose and cheek, messy hair, are just some of the things he does,

• His owl likes to sleep on your head and that's extremely cute,

• Making him blush is something rare, but it is one of the cutest scenes that can exist,

• Let's face it, White is a cute romantic, so he goes out of his way to see your beautiful smile,

• He loves to affirm that he loves you, in public or in private, there is no one who can stop him from proving his love for you, even if he doesn't like kissing you in public, light caresses like kissing your forehead and stroking your hair are allowed for him in public

[retromimic]

re: Astarion's age (and others)

I made a random post last week about Astarion's age and I have been thinking about it since.

I also realized that we do have other characters we can use to have a better idea of timelines and stuff.

And by other characters I mean Jaheira and Halsin.

More under the cut, tl;dr at the end

Jaheira

Jaheira is from the first two Baldur's Gate games, which both take place over 100 years before BG3 (1368 and 1369, so 123 before BG3, which is in 1492).

She's a half-elf, who age pretty much the same as human, but live longer, so she probably was in her 20's or early 30's in the first games, which would make her about 150 years old in BG3. This makes sense with her appearance, as half-elves live for about 180 years.

Note: Based on appearance only, it's possible Jaheira was older in the first games, but considering they were released in 1998 and 2000, I highly doubt they made the hot half elf lady an actual middle-age woman lmao

Side note: Minsc

Minsc is a human and also from the first two games, but there is a canon reason why he's still alive and doesn't look like he got older like Jaheira did. iykyk

Halsin

He just straight up says he's 350 years old. He's an elf.

He also does look old, but not that old.

Shadowheart

We know she is at least 40 years old (but not much older), and she doesn't look too old. It's subjective but to me she looks like a human late 20's, early 30's (I do think she looks older than Jaheira did in the first two games, but graphic quality and time does affect that). She's a half-elf, so that also checks out.

Recap so far:

Half-elves:

Live for about 180 years

40's: young and soft

150's: Mommy™

Elves:

Live for a long time (in game: at least 350 years, in DnD lore: about 700 years)

350's: Daddy™

Now onto the baby

Astarion

The information can be conflicting, so I'll try to break it down.

The tombstone

This is where it gets complicated because not only is it hard to read, but also is kind of contradictory.

It's written in the Thorass alphabet.

The initial dates are the easiest to read:

229 - 268 DR

Which would mean he was 39 years old when he died. Which a lot of people find it a bit hard to believe considering he looks much older, especially if you compare him to Shadowheart, who's not only older, but also only a half-elf.

I'll come back to it later.

What makes the tombstone complicated is the date Astarion adds. They are hard to read, the first one is barely readable and the numbers 5, 6, 7 and 9 can be easily mistaken for one another when it's someone who just had the most emotional moment of his life carving it in stone with a dagger.

The general consensus from what I've seen has been that it's 498 and that the dates on the tombstone are omitting the 1 (so the dates would actually be 1229, 1268 and 1498 DR), or that Larian made a mistake and should have made the dates in NR, not DR (which would bring the dates to 1261 and 1300 for his birth/death)

Both options have flaws because of the date Astarion writes should either read 492 (omitting the 1) or 460 (NR instead of DR). Neither are really plausible because the last number really doesn't look neither like a 2 or a 0.

The first option would also mean that Astarion died 230 years ago, which we know is not true. A lot of things in-game (not just Astarion) confirms it.

The second option would place his death 192 years ago, which is the most plausible.

But then how to explain the error in the date he adds?

Either he fucked up and doesn't know what year it is.

Or the first number is actually a 2, and he wrote 268, which is the year he died. We'll go with this one.

So, conclusion? Astarion was 39 years old when he died, 192 years ago, making him now 231 years old.

Physical appearance

Now, onto his look.

As mentioned earlier, Astarion doesn't look like he's younger than 40-something half-elf, so some people think the tombstone might be reading 129, giving him an extra 100 years at death, which would make more sense, but there is clearly more than just one dot on that first number, and there is a more plausible reason for him looking so old:

Vampire spawn appeared as they did in life, though their features were hardened and appeared predatory.

Source: Forgotten Realms Wiki

Add to that nearly 200 years of torture? That would make a man look a couple decades older.

And it's not really hard to imagine he was 39 years old at death when you see him, mostly post-Cazador, with softer expressions. (There is posts about it on here, sorry I can't link)

There is one last argument against this, which is the fact that elves reach "adulthood" at around 100 yeas old, and that Astarion already had a job and everything when he died.

But that's really easy to explain;

Elves physically reach adulthood at the same rate as humans, but their concept of adulthood is different, which is why "socially" they are considered adults only much later.

But also, this is socially, and socially, Astarion grew up in Baldur's Gate, a multi-cultural city, so he didn't grow up with elven mentality. Him having a job at 39 years old is very much plausible.

SO.

TL;DR:

Astarion was still pretty much a child when he died at 39 years old, 192 years ago.

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

everything i read in june!

i worked a lot this month but somehow still read 6 books! and we have some real highs and lows lmao so let's get into it

The Second Life of Inspector Canessa by Roberto Perrone

I planned to read this book on my holiday but didn't get round to it, and I'm glad because it's so bad it honestly would have ruined my holiday a bit. It's ridiculously misogynistic; every woman, even the two main female characters, exists solely as a sex object. Every character is constantly thinking about sex, which makes every character seem the same and gives the book this very monotonous feeling. There's actually one part where the main 'good' guy character accuses one of the 'bad' guys of having disgusting views about women and I was like dude you have those exact same views!!!! There are also a lot of characters (like, way too many) and the fact that they all think in exactly the same way makes them hard to distinguish or care about. The plot is also terrible and so is the writing. Really not good!

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Now this book was fantastic. It follows a young Iranian-American poet dealing with addiction issues as he basically finds reasons to live. What I wasn't expecting is how it flashes between his life, the lives of his loved ones, and these wonderful poems (the author is actually a poet, this is his first novel) which made it feel much more expansive. Beautifully written - again, the author is a very accomplished poet, and you can absolutely tell. Would highly recommend.

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

DON'T HATE ME but I honestly prefer the film 😶 the book was good but it's so short that it doesn't really do much more than communicate a vibe, which the film does even better imo. Glad I read it but honestly, just watch the film, you don't get any more from reading the book.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

This was genuinely incredible, an instant 5 star read. It's about a family of American missionaries (husband and wife + four daughters) who go on an evangelical mission to the Congo in the 1950s. It follows them across decades, as the Congo becomes independent and then, as a result of an American coup, is subjected to a dictatorship. Colonialism and religion are obviously two of the major themes, but it also focuses on the incredibly uncomfortable family dynamic and how it mirrors the way they interact with the local community. The story is told from the perspectives of the women, and they all have such fully-realised characters that their voices are easily identifiable. Heartbreaking, mind-opening, entertaining and informative, really truly would recommend it to everyone!

The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons

I think the best way to describe this book is 'meh'. It wasn't good but it also wasn't bad, it just kind of. was? I didn't dislike it when I was reading it, but I never found myself thinking about it after I put it down. It just felt like it lacked drive and meaning, everything was quite superficial and contrived. I didn't really care about any of the characters or the story, but it was fine, I guess?

On the Calculation of Volume (Vol2) by Solvej Balle

I read vol1 on my holiday and challenged myself to wait until payday to buy the sequel. I then devoured it in two days and now have to wait until NOVEMBER for the next one 😭

To recap, the series is about a woman trapped in a time loop. The first book covers the first entire year of her experience, and the second book is the next two years. The first was very focused on the breakdown of her relationship with her husband, and she ends up living secretly in their home so she doesn't have to face the pain of him not recognising the person she's become. In the second book she starts to accept that she's trapped, and try to make a life for herself completely within the 18th of November. This leads to her travelling across Europe in an attempt to replicate the changing of the seasons, and assessing her impact on the lives of other people when everybody else wakes up and has no knowledge of all the other 18th of Novembers. I enjoyed this one even more than the first, and am so SO eagerly awaiting the next one (there was a very cruel cliffhanger).

Currently Reading + On My Radar

I'm currently reading Kala by Colin Walsh - I'm enjoying it but the pull quote on the back says it's for fans of Tana French and Donna Tartt, which I think is quite unfair because now I'm just comparing it to those writers' books and it is nowhere near as good lmao. I want to maybe read some non-fiction this month, and my friend leant me Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, so I'll probably read that too. As always, if you read this far ily ❤️ let me know what you're currently reading/something you're excited to read in July!

[titsthedamnseason]

KBR made a board for Phoenix on Pinterest! I don’t know who Tom’s love interest will be: Phoenix or RJ. This made me excited for some reason, and KBR made both Phoenix and RJ hot. I hope they make boards for Winnifred and Spencer!

haha i knowwwwww so curious about the love interest and why they are keeping it so secretive. audrey and tom seem to be the only ones that they are gatekeeping hard which makes me super intrigued about why!

honestly the pinterest boards got me more excited too which im thankful for bc despite him being one of my top three cobalts i felt so meh about his book which im realizing now is probably related to the lack of information we have on it, it's just easier to be excited / feel more connected to the other ones.

i wonder how much spencer will appear in ce. selfishly im like yes i want all the spencer content please but at the same time i dont want her and xander to interact when we're in a pov that we dont really get to see it or only hear about it secondhand. a lot of people have theories that they will be together during this time either long distance casual or will have a full on relationship and break up and then their book will be second chance (or ive seen a few people saw they will break up and xander will have a diff love interest which is a theory i REJECT). i could dig this honestly only if their book is dual timeline. kbr dont really do that too much but it's one of my favorite writing devices and i would love if their relationship kept developing but we didn't really get to see it and then their book either recapped the CE timeline or switched back and forth. but also, a reunion when theyre a little older could hit hard!

ik kbr said they are fs focusing on cobalts rn but xander's better be the first non-cobalt book we get!! he's had more set up than most of the cobalts tbh lol (kbr's hale favoritism always has my back 🤞🏻). maybe this is wishful thinking but i could see them interrupting the CE to write his book especially with how much of the foundation they already laid out

i also loveeee winnifred and i cant wait to meet her! i feel like i have an idea of what her pinterest board would look like in my mind but i wonder if they will match that or if there are surprises in store since she's such a mystery rn

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

6 month solstice/full moon check-in livejournalstyle

So i've been advised to recap the past 6 months. Especially since this current Capricorn full moon is exacting at 1 degree Capricorn which happens to be the same degree as My Ascendant. (Pinkmoondoll number 1 :@!!!!!)

The Cancer full moon happened at around 5 degrees on december 26th 2023. That is my ex's birthday. On winter solstice 2023, exactly 6 months ago, i cut her out of my life. We were already broken up for a long time before that but i continued to let her stay in my life for a few reason, namely guilt & fear. Guilt because of the emotional turmoil she projected onto me & fear because, well, we are married and i didn't know what would happen to my immigration status if i cut her off. I still don't! This has not changed yet.

Pretty much everything else about me & my life has changed though. internally at least. Having her out of my life has allowed me so much freedom to get back to who i am & live with integrity. The only people left in my life now are ones who are respectful, kind, have their own shit going on, appreciate that i am my own person too, allow me to breathe, don't expect anything specific from me, don't toy with my mind & emotions. They are just glad to let me be who i am. No one tries to control me anymore. i feel so wonderful because no one can control me.

So the past 6 months has been a series of stages of getting back to Me. unraveling all the lies i was fed for years, healing from the pain of being manipulated, feeling that so much of my energy was wasted. Truly truly wasted. i'm not one of those people who can live without regrets lol. i wish i broke free so much sooner, the stress destroyed my health for years. But ultimately, this is how it went down, so i strive towards acceptance.

For the first few months of this year i was really on a huge substance abuse kick! im not gonna specify what, but iykyk. Like i really just could not bear the weight of what i was feeling. Every day i was finding out more and more info about lies i'd been told, stuff happening behind my back. All i could rly do was take pills & tunnel vision into ableton or drawing or whatever. it helped repress my emotions & i got a lot done during this time but it was unhealthy & the more it progressed i saw how unsustainable it was.

around spring equinox shit HIT THE FAN e_e So this would be the quarter year mark. Well it was march 15 when denji ate the ziploc bag and had to get emergency obstruction removal surgery. That immediately halted all projects i was working on. I was still taking a lot of pills to cope with the stress of that situation & at that point i needed them just to function at a base level. Then i think april 4th or 5th was when i found out Sammy died, which...i mean yeah i've spoken a lot on how horrific that was & still remains to be.

I mean , like, that shit, rearranged my whole brain, that shit reset me. this also marked the time period where like... my psychic senses really began evolving. idt it was necessarily linked to sammy's death, it just weirdly shifted around that time. i think the lunar eclipse in late march caused some type of quantum leap idk man idek. Then the solar eclipse in april sealed the deal. Ever since then the craziest stuff that i cant even rly talk about has been happening to me & i immediately felt compelled to like, quit all drugs and just fucking ascend lol.

Sooo first i started w pill numero uno, the really diabolical one, middle of april i just said fuck it, i am done. at this point i had abused it so hard it wasnt even doing shit for me anymore, even when i took tolerance breaks, it was genuinely pointless to continue. i did wonder how the fuck i was ever gonna function without it and i was scared. The final few weeks of april were just a total write off, didnt do shit, totally depressed & grieving & miserable but weirdly hopeful too. Like i knew i just had to suffer and get it over with.

pill 2 was actually pretty easy to cut back on because ive quit it a bunch of times before & know what to expect, and since i was already suffering so bad from pill 1 after about a week i thought yeah i might as well stop the other one too lol. there was no noticable increase in suffering from stopping it. So by the 2nd week of May it had been around 3 weeks of feeling like pure ass but i was starting to feel WAYYYY better and my normal goofy self again.

That is the worst thing about adhd meds for me lol they robbed me of my whimsy and goofiness T_T Like i was so serious all the time T_T it was even kinda affecting my relationship w slimbo. Like i couldnt be affectionate i was just a robot. All i cared about was working and i was so impatient. As i came off the meds i started to remember how nice it is to just be slow, be in the moment, enjoy simple things with my love, not constantly bound to this gnawing neurosis pushing me to squeeze maximum productivity out of every single second.

like i said , i'm 1 degree cap rising sooo this neurosis is something that exists firmly within my personality, for sure. i mean, if u cant tell, I Be Doing Things lol. And i get very competitive with myself. the dark side of me is that i want to be the best at everything. A big part of my adult life has been learning how to relax. learning how to have fun, learning how to be a little pointless. Without the meds this is a struggle for me so with the meds it was genuinely impossible not to be completely controlled by the rabid impulse to work.

So getting off the meds was a big exercise in confronting my fear of Not being the best. my fear of chilling, my fear of being still & unoccupied. But i did it! And i feel so much better. Like holy shit, i feel SO much better.

By the mid-May i was picking up steam in just being able to live again. a lot of the brainfog & physical heaviness lifted. I was still not very productive at art or music, but i was getting really good at not letting that bug me. spending a lot of time working in the garden, got back into yoga, reading, just doing leisurely stuff that felt expansive to my inner world rather than trying to externalize anything. psychic experiences continued to amplify. became interested in tarot again as i no longer felt i was living in fear of my higher self.

after getting off the pills i began feeling really fixated on the notion of quitting weed. Previously this had been genuinely unthinkable to me. Like, me and weed, we were One, every person i'd ever been as an adult had smoked weed, it was weirdly part of my identity, for 15 years i genuinely believed i could not exist without weed, like i would just lose my fucking mind if i stopped. i did not believe in myself.

But as the psychic experiences progressed i felt strongly that i want to go deeper. Previously i had been afraid to go deeper. In that regard i think i was truly afraid of my own potential. I wasn't ready for it, and that's actually fine. A lot of people aren't.. But as May was coming to a close i knew that i was ready, and actually, it was crucial of me to put an end to this. I was enjoying finally having some sense of peace & joy after how crummy it felt quitting the pills , i didn't really want to disturb that state of being, but i also was having that feeling again that i just need to "get it over with".

So when it struck June 1st i was like yeah fuck it. Let this mark a new beginning. as soon as i realize something is no longer in my best interest its almost impossible for me to keep going with it! like i can't live with myself. I guess that's where my fixation on being "the best" can serve me sometimes. if that makes sense.. Like i willllll always end up putting my foot down and saying NO :T

So yeah. it's recent enough that i don't really feel the need to detail how the first 2 weeks of june were sooooo sucky and emotional and generally dysfunctional. couldn't even read or draw or do any minor tasks i was sooo out of my mind. Not much needs to be said about it. i just had to simply allow time to pass. a lot of days spent in bed crying & dissolving.

right around the 2 week mark we went to missouri & this is when i started noticing myself feeling way way better. the whole time i didn;t even think about weed or my symptoms at all. i was so present in each moment and it was so easy to just feel....alive. also had some intense psychic experiences, one of which i haven;t even talked about on here, and i probably wont because its too sacred. The overarching theme between all the experiences i've been having since late march is that they feel too sacred to tell anyone. The high priestess emphasizes secrecy in some matters..

Which brings us to now, june 21, 21 days w/o weed, 3 weeks. I know that sounds like nothing but this has been 15 YEARS coming. that's half my lifespan so far. and now i just feel fine. i got thru the blues of quitting, all the repressed emotions, im sure they'll still pop up from time to time too. but ultimately i am just so fucking relieved to be free of that shit and like, functioning, able to sleep, not riddled with anxiety and self hatred like i was when i started as a grieving baby teenager.

i guess i wanted to write this to remind myself what a monumental shift i have made in my life in the first half of 2024, and how insanely far i've come in the grand scheme of my life, in a relatively short timespan. because i keep getting this feeling of self doubt where i'm like wait... it's almost july and i've barely completed any tasks, i still havent finished my music, wtf am i doing :( But i dont think i was supposed to finish it until i shed all these habits that were causing major roadblocks in my path!

shed my ex, shed pills, shed weed. shed grief! shed self doubt. emptied my vessel & it has allowed room for so much new life to come through. new forces being channeled. my mediumship abilities now are in focus and taking off at an accelerated rate. for the first time in my life i'm not in survival mode. i feel this is my reward for living through it all when i wanted nothing more than to give up for so many years. i prayed for death, every day, i really did. now i am dead! the old me died. and i carry her memory with honor, i carry on the parts of her that wished to remain and be loved, but she is effectively dead.

for the first time in my life i am really proud of myself. i don't feel so competitive with myself anymore. i don't need to prove myself externally. i do not require any validation of my existence. i can sit with myself without feeling extreme self induced dread & despair. i feel worthy even though i am still (from the outside looking in) at the exact same place i was at 6 months ago.

i'm finally feeling ready to work a little harder again, but not because i'm desperate to gain anything from it. just because it's fun, and fundamentally, as stated above, that drive is a part of my personality, a part of me that i love & cherish. number 1 is the magician. the mage patchouli ~~~ the alchemist. create for the sake of creating.

if anyone read this far, thats wild xD but thats dope too.. I guess one thing i'd like for the future is just to inspire people that you can alchemize the tragedies of your life and all the suffering into something much greater than yourself. You can get through it and be happy with your meager little life one day, even if it takes 30 or 40 years, it's worth it to try & worth it to get here. You do not have to wallow in sadness and self doubt forever, even if u see no way out rn.

i'm happy just being me ^_^ i have so much fun when i'm in my mind. bladee voice ~~be in your mind, be in your mind, be in your mind~~. i love how simple everything feels right now. i love how people & entities can come to me because they trust me to receive their messages & understand them. My own projections do not get in the way anymore. I shed so much. I am free. Happy Strawberry Moon everyone.

SIncerely, PMD9

[boysplanetrecaps]

Build Up Episode 0: Getting to Know the Boys Part 1: Team AllRound

Hey, friends! I’m struggling with writing the recap for episode one of Build Up on MNET because I want to stop and give you the background on everyone, which makes the recap really hard to follow. So I figure I’ll spend some time giving you their backgrounds in four separate posts, to help you get to know the guys. I mention things like where else you may have seen them, if they're in an idol group, who knows who, etc, as well as my opinion of their voice based on their teaser performance. I think it’ll make the recaps easier, both to read and to write. In this first post of four, I’ll be talking about the twelve contestants who chose to join the “Allround” category, as opposed to “Soul”, “Power”, or “Unique.” Let’s go!

Before we go on, I just want to let you know that I’ll sharing my informed opinion on their singing voices. I am going to be a little bit harder on them than I am on singers on Boys Planet, with the understanding that these are all great vocalists. We’re looking for the S+ tier guys amongst a group that is A tier at worst. So if I say anything a bit negative about a fave of yours, understand that I’m not saying that he’s a bad singer! Every guy here is an excellent singer. Cool? Cool! 

I also have to apologize, but most of my screenshots are going to be pretty awkward. The video I'm watching makes it really hard to use because every time you pause it, it opens all sorts of porny popups. When it's paused, it has a huge pause symbol in the middle of the picture. So I have to try to take screen shots while it's in motion. It's not easy! Hope you understand.

Also, I have even less time than usual to proofread these posts, so please forgive me for my inevitable typos. <3 Thank you!

Choi Suhwan

Suhwan is currently a soloist. He’s released a few digital singles, none of which have really taken off, unfortunately. You might remember him from ProduceX 101, where he made it to episode 11, so the final cut before the finale, finishing in 28th place. Pretty good!

He was V17, doing a cover of Energetic by Wanna One. I wasn’t blown away by that performance -- it sounded a little processed, and I wasn’t completely sure it was live --  so I sought out another one. Here’s a live performance of his song Losing Sleep. Unfortunately, in this performance, I found his voice a little too nasal and affected to be to my taste, and he had serious issues with his upper mix. He’s not a terrible singer, but there are a lot of stronger singers on this show. Or maybe I’m wrong and he’ll do better next time. Fighting! 

Bitsaeon

Bitsaeon is 28, and is the main vocalist from M.O.N.T. He seems to have a predilection for soft fuzzy sweaters. He was V36, singing Rose Blossom by H1-Key, and all I wrote down in my notes was “this is just a really nice voice.” I just really liked it. Clean, smooth, easy to listen to.

I think this performance of Creep by Radiohead shows both what I like and what I don’t like as much about his performances. He does a lot of this soft whisper singing in his covers, which seems like a waste of what he can do. I love his full belts -- they’re so good. I want to hear him sing full-on more often in songs, like he did with Rose Blossom.  

M.O.N.T. has a whole complicated dealie that I just don’t have the energy to figure out -- the wikipedia page explains some of it. They’re mainly a three member group, with a leader, a rapper, and a main vocal. They haven’t put out any singles in a while, so I’m not sure what’s going on with them. 

Incidentally, Bitsaeon almost certain knows Jay reasonably well. Jay was involved in this thing called MONT Arena that was supposed to collect more members for MONT, so along the way I’m sure they met. In fact, Jay is still signed to the same agency as them (along with a few other agencies).

Seunghun

Seunghun is 24 and a member of CIX. His teaser song was V01, Rain by Paul Kim, and his performance was kind of… not my favorite. He sounded at times almost like he had a cold, and at other times I’m pretty sure he went off key -- I don’t know the song so I can’t be sure but it sounded off. He showed a lack of agility on one of his vocal runs, which means that as he tried to sing a lot of different notes all in a row, he had trouble transitioning from note to note quickly and hitting them all neatly. He had to switch awkwardly to falsetto to hit a single high note in the middle of a line, which is kind of not the goal. I think he may just have been nervous or having an off day. 

Seunghun also competed on YG Treasure Box, which I didn’t watch, but maybe you did. 

Let’s talk about CIX, baby! (Ok, that joke relies on you pronouncing it “six” but it’s really pronounced “see-eye-ex,” if you read the hangul). 

CIX is a five-member group under C9 entertainment, which is also the home to Cignature and Epex. CIX features Wanna One’s Bae Jinyoung, who is the center and face of the group. As sometimes happens in cases like this, the member who was in the big Produce group is famous and attracts stans, while sometimes the rest of the group just doesn’t get as much love, and the group as a whole suffers. See also: Gugudan, Weki Meki. However, CIX does ok. Per genius.com, “The group has released several Top 10 albums in South Korea, including Hello Chapter Ø: Hello, Strange Dream which gave them their first chart-topper in the country. The group’s singles have also consistently landed in the Circle Music chart.” So CIX is a little bit closer to say, IVE than it is to, say, Weki Meki. 

Personally, I like CIX -- I think the members are talented --  but I don’t love all their songs. However, their song Cinema is so smooth and lovely, it’s like a glass of orange-peach juice for your soul, and that’s in great measure because of their smooth vocals. (Seunghun is the one with the blue hair in that clip, if you want to watch it.) In fact, this is the song I wanted to listen to in the car on the way to the hospital to have surgery a year or two ago when I was feeling pretty scared. My fella said, “This is nice. I like this.” So if you never heard it, give it a chance. I’m looking forward to getting to know Seunghun a bit better and seeing him on a better day.  

Yeo One

Yeo One is 28, and is a lead vocalist for Pentagon. I don’t have to tell you about Pentagon, right? Another excellent group who lost a member and whose popularity has ebbed and flowed. If you watched Boys Planet, you know about Hui, and you know that I like Pentagon a lot! 

Yeo One left Cube Entertainment just a few months ago, in October of 2023, along with several other members of Pentagon, so though Pentagon hasn’t disbanded, their further activities will be a bit tricky. He had a sold-out solo concert recently, and was profiled in Rolling Stone Korea, so he’s doing ok for a recently solo artist. Yeo One is a lead vocalist of Pentagon, not one of their two main vocalist, and on kprofiles, he actually ranks in last place in the popularity poll. He often would be given pretty brief lines in most Pentagon songs. But we will get to know him and get to love him on this show, right, team? 

He performed a ballad for his teaser (V40) and all I wrote in my note to myself is “I hate songs like this so much I almost can’t think straight.” So, instead, I found this little song that apparently he wrote and performed himself -- it’s light and charming. It sounds like a guy sitting by the fire making up a song on guitar and singing it to himself. He’s not a super skilled vocalist from what I’ve heard thus far, not a powerhouse like Hui, but he has a charming vocal color and is just sort of a generally a lovable dude.  

Hwang Inhyuk

Inhyeock / Inhyuk (I’ve seen it transliterated both ways -- both would be 인혁 in Hangul) is 26 and is apparently both a soloist and a member of a vocal group called Unison. Unfortunately, I can’t find anything about them since there’s also a Japanese group called “Unison Square Garden” and when you search “Korean vocal group unison” all you get is information about K-pop songs sung in unison, so…. Yeah. Inhyuk is also a composer and lyricist, and has competed on I Can See Your Voice (I’m not sure which season) and Sing for Gold. 

He was V29 and performed a song called The First Day. Again, my perspective is skewed because it’s another feckin’ ballad and no thank you. The opening section when he’s singing in a soft, almost gruff voice is really charming, though. It’s so different from what you’d expect from his appearance and general demeanor. He has a really distinct vocal color, and I think he should have chosen “unique” rather than “allround.” Once he heads into the chorus, which requires belting some higher notes, his voice falters a bit. I just get that feeling that maybe he can do better than what he showed in this teaser. Maybe he wasn’t warmed up properly, or maybe he had a bit of a cold, something like that. The potential is there and I sense training was involved. I’m going to keep an open mind about him. 

Geonu

Geonu is from Just B and is 22. In addition to going on I-land, he also went on a show called Dancing High, which also featured Seo Won who you may remember from Boys Planet. God, there are so many of these shows. I kind of remember Geonu from I-land, where he did pretty well, making it close to the end. It’s kind of a shame that he didn’t make it into Enhypen since Enhypen is definitely short on vocalists. 

If you want to check out one of Geonu’s previous performances, here he is doing a duet performance of BTS’s Butterfly on I-land with Heesung (who did go on to debut in Enhypen). 

Geonu has gotten a bit better since then; here is his audition for this show, where he was V10. 

His upper mixed register has gotten stronger and a lot less breathy compared to when he was on I-land, but he seems to have developed an unpleasant nasality. Maybe being on this show will spur him to adjust his methodology. He has a really pleasant vocal color and a lot of potential. 

(I discuss Just B in Bain’s write up.) 

Jang Intae

Per my online sleuthing, Intae, age 27, is a singer-songwriter and is one half of the duo 415. (Their group is named for the fact that both members were born on April 15th, 1997.) 415 has put out seven digital singles and performed a few OSTs, but their MVs generally get fewer than 10,000 views. I think his general style and vibe isn’t what I personally look for in a musician -- it’s a bit too “acoustic lite” -- but I bet a lot of people would like what he and his duo partner do, if people gave them a chance. 

His teaser performance, V37, was Missing You by BTOB (a song performed on Girls Planet 999, if it sounds familiar to you -- a member of BTOB is on this show's judging panel). It started off really nasal, but got a bit better as it went along. He strained a bit on the high notes, unfortunately. It wasn’t the best performance, but I’m not going to condemn him for 90 seconds of imperfect singing. I hope that as I see more from him, he gets to show more of what he can do.

Jeong Yoonseo

Jeong Yoonseo is a trainee, and little info is available about him. He’s V32, performing Starlight by Taeil. There are a lot of background vocals -- I think there’s a guide track behind him the whole time! -- so it’s hard to pick out his pure voice. It sounds nice from what I can hear.  That’s kind of all I got! (Side note -- I’ve seen his name listed as Jang, not Jeong, but if you read the hangul, it’s Jeong, so IDK.) 

Hong Seongjun

Seongjun is 24 and is (was?) a member of a group called BDC, a three member group under Brandnew Music that debuted in the latter end of the pandemic, in September 2020. All three members had been on ProduceX 101. Seongun himself was eliminated in 51st place. They put out several comebacks but never really caught on.

On their kprofiles page, it says “On August 18, 2023, BRANDNEW MUSIC officially announced that BDC will end all official promotions as artists under the company on August 26, 2023, after they mutually decided to end their contracts. Thereafter, the group have been active in Japan and have a fan meeting planned in Korea on December 3, 2023.” I’m not sure what to make of that, but it doesn’t sound great obviously. 

I went to check out their M/Vs and remembered that I had actually listened to Moon Rider for a few months there at some point. Pretty decent song, but it got only 3.6 million views. I think it’s just kind of tough for three member groups. 

He was V27 and sang a chipper acoustic little song by 10cm. For me, him having such heavy backup vocals for so much of the song kind of makes me wonder, why would you do that?  It’s the same thing as the situation with Yoonseo. Isn’t the point to show their vocals? That said, this was a pleasant enough performance -- clean and sweet, with decent agility in some of the runs -- but not something I’m dying to listen to over and over. I think he didn’t really understand the assignment and chose something that would be nice to perform with people watching you, instead of something to sing in the dark.

Jeong Inseong

Inseong is 29 and is main vocal of a group called KNK. 

He was V06, performing a song called Letting Go by Day6. I looked it up and this song came out on March 28, 2016 -- just a few weeks after Lim Junhyeok had to leave that group. It being called “Letting Go” is a bit… pointed. Kind of like when f(x) did a song called Four Walls as their first comeback (and last) as a four-member group. Anyway… I really liked this. I just wrote in my notes, “ooh, likey.” This is just so good, I don’t even know how to pick it apart. It’s just a combination of stellar technique and smooth natural vocal color. He does have to go into falsetto to hit a super high note, but he transitions almost instantly. This is good stuff. 

KNK debuted in 2016 as a 5 member group. They left their first agency in 2018 but continued as a group at a new agency, losing one member and gaining a new one. Over the last few years, two more members have quit and one more joined, leaving four in the group as of now. 

Their most recent single, Ride, came out in September 2020 and currently has about 1.7 million views on Youtube. It’s so easy to tell when Inseong is singing -- it’s like when Kihyun sings in MonstaX and you’re just like YES, come THROUGH. I threw Ride on my playlist just so I can hear more Inseong. 

Inseong has been in a bunch of music shows, and also participated in Mixnine, so he may know the other Mixnine contestants, Ma Jaekhyung from Romeo and Donghun from A.C.E. However, he had to withdraw early from the show, so maybe not. 

If you want more Inseong, here’s a fun duet he does with the “Korean Madonna,” Kim Wanseon. 

Taehwan

Taehwan, 30, is the leader and main vocalist of Vanner, and was V13, singing Goodbye by Park Hyo Shin. You probably know by now that I’m not much of a ballad girl, but at least this is sung simply, with a really warm, textured voice. He does sound really pinched on the higher notes, like his throat is closing, and he gets a bit nasal at times, as well. In my opinion, he lacks technique, but has a lot of natural talent. He also has a great smile. 

Vanner is a five member group that debuted in 2019. They had a lot of support as they debuted, and even got significant crowdfunding. They went on Peaktime, as did many other lesser known groups -- and they won! Good for Vanner. Their most recent EP charted very well overseas. Their song Performer, released five months ago, has 8.7 million views on Youtube, and their song Jackpot, released on Jan 30, 2024, already had almost 4 million views at the time of writing, an incredible performance for less than a week. So it looks like Vanner is really starting to take off.

Taehwan may have met Ma Jaekyung, Bitsaeon, and Hong Seongjun when they competed on Peak Time.

Ji Yeonwoo

Yeonwoo is another trainee I just don’t know much about. Apparently he went on a show called Wild Idol, which I haven’t seen. But I do know that his teaser song, V24, Suffer by Charlie Puth, was great. A great combination of a song I actually liked and a voice I really liked. He has great agility, leaping up into falsetto and back down again. He does get a bit pinched sometimes on higher notes, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t bother me. Maybe it’s just I’m so glad it’s not a ballad!

Ok, that’s enough for now. I’ll see you in the next one, when I tackle Team Soul, featuring everyone’s favorite. You know who I mean.

[yurisorcerer]

If anime were appraised solely on their last episodes, Metallic Rouge would be pretty decent, but they aren't, so it isn't.

I'm not going to recap all the various little revelations and plot twists here because honestly who could possibly care? The gist is that the events of the preceding twelve episodes don't truly matter because everything was really just building up to this, a showdown between Rouge and her father figure Dr. Jung, a character who is barely in the show before this point (even in his hooded guise as The Puppetmaster), and who feels ancilliary to much of what the series was trying to do before now.

The actual events of this episode feel very random and I'd almost say fanficky? In isolation it's not a terrible finale but finales of course do not occur in isolation, when taken against the backdrop of everything Metallic Rouge could've been, and indeed *actively tried to be.* The Neans' plight doesn't matter because the entire thing was orchestrated by Doc Jung, which he demonstrates in a long monologue that comes off as trying way, way, wayyyy too hard to make this boring cutout of a Super Intelligent Chessmaster type character seem interesting. If the show had just focused on this from the start instead of interpolating like four unrelated plots along the way, it might've worked a lot better, but it's inherently hard to know.

It would certainly feel less distasteful. I cannot get over the fact that this series treated "serious examination of discrimination and a moral question over the ethics of armed struggle," regardless of its (deeply shitty and unbelievably milquetoast) conclusions, as just another hat it could put on and take off at will. None of it ends up mattering! At the last minute Rouge just decides to free the Neans, because *now* she thinks it's the right thing to do. If we were going to build Rouge up as some kind of liberator and savior it would've had to start many episodes ago, and despite occasional toothless gestures in that direction it, really didn't. I hope fellow tumblr user @naomiortman doesn't mind me digging up the comments they left in the tags of their reblog of my last writeup on this show, because honestly, they're completely correct and get to the heart of the problem of why *this specifically* was a pose that the show should never have attempted to strike if it wasn't going to commit.

The whole thing is just very offputting!

And as for everything *else* the show tries to do, the genre-hopping was occasionally fun when it remembered to not be stupid about it, but that was really only a handful of episodes in hindsight and if someone doesn't feel that that's enough to make up for the show's *many* writing mistakes, I find it very hard to disagree with them.

And then there's the last couple minutes of this episode which....reveal at the end that Clown Robot Girl was secretly a Usurper all along and installed a virus turning all Neans into murderbots, which just completely threatens to saw the legs off what happened mere seconds before, and then it turns out to completely not matter because Gene installed an antivirus beforehand because he knew this would happen somehow? (Gene is a nothing of a character and is another reason this show's writing sucks eggs.) And thus Neans have freedom now, because of a completely unforeshadowed, last-minute minor plot twist that occurred offscreen.

This show is hilarious, and deeply unserious. My friend Sredni (@ihfsttinuf) also pointed out that apparently a bunch of this a wholesale bite of the end of RahXephon? I haven't seen that show so I can't comment, but like, lol. (EDIT: That's apparently by the same guy, by the way! So if anything it's self-plagiarism.)

Just so this entire post doesn't come off like an angry rant, there are a few things that work. Mainly the buildup of real, mutual trust between Rouge and Naomi. (Or maybe I just want it to work because otherwise this show truly does have nothing going for it on the writing side.) At the very least, it's delightfully gay, I like the visual of the two of them together inside Rouge's mindspace. Although even this comes with an icky side effect in that Naomi is now like, functionally dead as her own physical person. IDK man, any time I try to give this show credit for something I find another way in which it could have so easily done better.

Hey, at least they brought the dedicated combat theme back, that's good. And Cyan is right, Rouge's new form does look really cool. (Why did they feel the need to kill Cyan, by the way? You can't both have a shitty central narrative AND kill all your best characters.)

I don't want to come off as though I just completely hate the thing top to bottom. It was entertaining on a week to week basis, but in trying to do so many different things it just kind of does nothing, and I find it really frustrating for that reason. The visual aspect of the show remains compelling (I love the Gladiator designs, seriously), but I could never in good conscience recommend this to someone even if I don't "regret watching it" per se.

What a mess! Glad it's over.

[spaceorphan18]

I have to be honest. I don't like the podcast but it's also very easy to say "you don't like what they say, don't listen to it" Truth is, it's the only podcast for Glee that is done by someone who was in the cast and as I'm only human, I do hope every time that I can hear something akin to what I expect from an official podcast. Also, the frustration comes from one thing you said and that I see happening. They might be not aware of it but by glossing over (this message is going to be split)

some things they are in fact giving certain pairings/characters haters a reason to hate. And they polarize the opinion of the audience, ex, the winner for the contest of the best episode in S2 was, what a coincidence, the episode that Kevin said it was his favourite. Why? Because he said it was his favourite. This is not how it's supposed to be. And since I'm never going there to write them about it the only thing I can do is getting upset on my own hoping to see something change. P.S. Personal opinion take it by what it is, although I never bashed her, I do think Santana was a lot of times a terrible person. In no way someone should be allowed to be so mean to other people (hello?S6 speech to Kurt). She has been terrible from S1 with every possible character, including Brittany when she went to school with her new girlfriend and kissed her after her performance. Naya was amazing in portraying her but Santana bullied a lot of people and was def not an example of goodness.

Hi Nonny! Phew, a lot of things going on here. First of all, though, thank you for being polite in my in box. In general, don't bring wank into my in box because I will go off on you (or delete it). Also, I've had sleep now, so I'm in a much better mind set. You guys get me before bed and I will not be as eloquent.

***

I do hear your guys' frustrations. I do. And it's not like I'm not disappointed, too. I keep going back to The Office Ladies and Pod Meets World podcasts -- where the hosts do a thorough recap and break all the things down. It leads to a very satisfying listening experience. And PMW specifically - the cast breaks down what it was like to be a child actor and the ups and downs of that -- which is honest but really, really open. The thing is, too, they're aware of their audience and how it effects them.

One key difference though -- is while no set is perfect, the experience on The Office and Boy Meets World was, on a whole, much more positive than the set of Glee. The Glee set was a hot mess -- not only were working conditions incredibly rough, but it was run by an egomaniac who didn't know how to handle a bunch of early 20-somethings and things got out of hand. Not to mention - there are three young deaths that tie into the show that does make it more complicated to talk about.

So, while I do think it's a disappointment that Kevin and Jenna are not more (maybe for a lack of better word) professional in how they're coming at this podcast -- I also don't fault them for having a hard time with things because I'm pretty sure there are a lot of hard memories that go along with it. (I'm still unsure, more so Jenna than Kevin, wanted to do the podcast -- but it is what it is I suppose.)

I think it is completely valid to have those frustrations -- especially when there isn't anywhere to direct it. Believe me - when they did Born This Way and did not even mention that Kurt sang As If We Never Said Goodbye -- his best solo and one of his climaxes of his Seasons 1 and 2 stories, it was incredibly frustrating.

But I think downward spiraling (as others have done) into conspiracies and accusations isn't the right way to go. Kevin and Jenna have heard us - and their response is to be mostly indifference about it. Unfortunately, I don't see them planning to change, so I feel like expectations should be adjusted accordingly.

Though - I do think there are polite ways to reach out. Sending an email to their podcast that is kind and explanatory is fine. Screaming that they hate Darren in their mentions is not.

***

I want to highlight one thing you said -- about their influence on things...

As I said before, it is unfortunate that anyone is using Kevin and Jenna's opinions to trash on other fans. That is not cool, and while I really hasn't seen much of it (that is directed from what they say on the podcast and not what people were doing in the first place) I think there's a difference between people being asshats and people being influenced to vote for a fav episode based on what Kevin thinks.

If being in fandom this long -- and if being in sales and selling things to people for so long -- one thing I've learned is that the power of suggestion is a real thing that happens. People are going to go, a lot of times, with group mentality. This person thinks its cool? Okay, I gotta think its cool, too.

I don't expect an audience -- especially the majority of people who are not like me and don't do media analysis on the show -- to really look at what is actually "good" or "bad" artistically (which is somewhat subjective anyway) and come to a "proper" conclusion. They're going to vote on -- oooh Santana sang a song I really like in this episode or -- oohh Klaine makes out whoo! -- or hey, Kevin really likes this episode it must be good. That's just kinda how people are.

These polls really shouldn't invalidate your own feelings on things.

Nor should they give anyone reason to feel they're superior.

They're opinions, and we're all only human. So, in general, let's all not be asshats on the internet. ;)

***

As for Santana -- you know, I was thinking about it as I got up this morning -- I think I want to do a character study on her. Just to kind of explore what I think about the character.

But yes - maybe something that is forgotten a little bit, especially in the tragedy of Naya's passing - is that Santana was originally coded as a villain. And villains don't do very nice things. I mean, she herself said the only straight she is is straight up bitch.

But also -- there is a difference between saying - hey, this character is not doing nice things and -- hey you suck for liking this character. I wish the nature of fandom wasn't this way. You don't have to trash one thing to like another. And you can even say you don't like the thing - that's fine. But attacking people personally is never okay. And as long as I've been in fandoms, it's always been a problem.

Be better guys. And keep on keeping on.

<3 <3 <3

[twinkle-art]

now that you're done endwalker, could you talk a little bit more about andromeda? im curious about what she got up to/how she grew in all that time

YES I’D LOVE TO endwalker was BRUTAL to her. and yet she still pulled through with the indomitable human spirit

Previously On Final Fantasy XIV (Andromeda Elo Version) style recap:

as you can imagine, her obsessive belief that killing zenos would instantly reinstate her as a perfect hero circa. stormblood went… poorly. the brief period when people thought she killed him and not that he killed himself in front of her did make her feel a little crazy

and then she went to the first and that kind of put things in perspective. or more accurately, gave her a fresh new slate for her hero image and an excuse to ignore her previous flop era

there was her whole thing with emet-selch. anyways

on that note, the only real canon deviation i made to shb was that when she’s dying of light poisoning she does, in fact, run off to the tempest by herself with the intention of killing them both. this doesn’t pan out and instead she spends about a week hallucinating in emet-selch’s torment nexus until some very upset scions come get her. i’ve drawn a lot about this. i will likely continue to draw a lot about this

due to a cocktail of deep rooted mental issues and also the fact that he was truly just so miserable, andromeda doesn’t feel… great about putting emet-selch down. but instead of articulating this, because she’s convinced it’s not the “right” reaction, she bottles it up for about 3 patches

…until elidibus plays on her guilt and she receives azem’s crystal as a 1-2 punch. when y’shtola asks the wol after the fact if they’re okay i decided that she immediately bursts into tears

so now we arrive at the end times

there’s really no delicate way to say it but the garlemald arc was probably the worst thing she ever experienced. which is impressive, given her spring break amaurot excursion just happened. 

(i loved it though it might genuinely have my favorite writing in this whole game)

as i’m sure i don’t have to spell out, being treated as a foreign invader in the place she grew up was kind of a lot. she’s incredibly sentimental about her homeland- for as much as she hates it for how it rejected her (and the atrocities) and as much as she never for a second regretted her defection, her feelings towards garlemald are not dissimilar from the way someone might crave the recognition of a family that has only treated them poorly. 

in fact, her traitor’s title of viator was never actually official- zenos referred to her as such, but never made his knowledge of her garlean citizenship public because he dgaf. and yet, despite continuing to exclusively go by elo and hide her origins, she privately referred to herself as viator caecus without much thought, in an act of blinding self-unawareness. (but as her god i know the reason, and it’s that on some level she likes that being branded a Significant Traitor still means being recognized by her former home as Significant)

anyways, speaking of her family: they sure did live in the capital! andromeda is trying really, really hard to be brave and pragmatically carry out her duty as Eorzea’s Champion but like…her mommy lives here :(

in the first of many acts that mean the jig of her supposed eorzean origins is pretty much up, she starts asking everyone they encounter if they’re aware of the whereabouts of a woman named lucretia eir caecus (for ilsabard contingent business, obviously. not because she’s terrified her mom is dead.) without much luck. the twins simply do not have the heart to tell her that this is a hell of a long shot. 

(ONE person doesn’t know where she could be, but they do know of her and muse that the rumors must be true then- that this minor city bureaucrat really did have populares sympathies, if she’s a contact for the eorzeans. this comes as total news to andromeda.)

(also eventually, inevitably this get back around to their intelligence and thancred pulls her aside and grills her until he realizes what’s going on and pivots to Oh My God it’s fine that you miss your mom?! you should have come to us helping you look for her is the least we can do after everything. this is the second time a scion makes her burst into tears.)

putting a pin in that for now. in from the cold was . a lot. i don’t have much to say other than that it felt especially cruel to make her drag herself through the ruins of the city she was raised in while wearing the body of the kind of person who made her life hell. also in general that zenos knew what he was doing when he razed her hometown to the ground to get her attention. fucked up duty btw. her desire to kill him with a rock is back.

after tower of babil/the moon/zodiark i deviate from canon a little bit again- she lets the scions do their mare lamentorum side thing while she goes back to garlemald to see what’s going on. not feeling great about maybe causing the final days.

and then she reunites with her mom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (<- part of her narrative that i had planned out as early as heavensward)

i want to draw this scene out in glorious detail but the long and short of it is that lucretia- who lest we forget, knows her way around a gunblade despite living as some military man’s obedient little wife for 25 years- had actually started trailing the ilsabard contingent from a distance once rumors spread that the wol was with them.

see, despite this not being officially public knowledge, she figured out that this “andromeda elo” was her daughter a long, long time ago, and it kind of snapped her out of the two-decade defeatist trance she put herself in for survival. (which is when she got involved in all manner of clandestine anti-state activities- she was rather dangerously close to getting in extremely serious trouble when civil war broke out and everyone kind of stopped caring) 

so she followed them from a distance, falsely assuming that the daughter who ran away wouldn’t want to see her until finally getting caught and dragged in there

also she killed her husband in self-defense. allegedly. he was totally tempered i promise. he had it coming tho.

ANYWAYSSS that’s the chunk of edw i have the most detailed thoughts on. elpis was also incredibly harrowing due to um. her Whole Thing with emet-selch but tbh i haven’t fully digested the back half of the expansion yet because it is DENSE

(i do love it when two characters get one single transcendent moment when they're finally able to both understand each other though it makes me crazy)

two final beats that i think illustrate her mental state going into the finale:

when the final days descended, the number one thing that kept her from falling into despair was her reunion with her mother- while their relationship is far from magically fixed, the simple fact that she regained something she lost after realizing how precious it really was to her made her all the more ferocious about ensuring that she will never, ever give that up again

when zenos makes his final assertion that the two of them are the same, she rejects him- but this is because while it was once true, she has since outgrown that. she has outgrown him. and that’s why he loses.

...also she fucked drusilla at some point while learning reaper

[gatoraid]

Year in Fandom 2023

Seeing people posting their recaps made me look back a little on my own year too. 

2023 marked the year I came back to tumblr with full force after leaving my account mostly unused for abt five years. Twitter was my fandom home for a long time (and for jp language stuff it still is to some extent), but it has become such an awful place I really wanted to have an alternative.

This year I also resumed a lot of fandom activities like writing and reading fanfic, from which I had unintentionally taken an almost three year break from. Finding the joy in writing and sharing it with others after a long time has been really nice, especially since a big part of this year has otherwise felt like a struggle. There were a lot of times when I needed escape or comfort and found that in fiction, fandom or writing.

I also made a conscious effort to lurk less and let artists and creators know how much joy they have brought me. Messaging the translators and authors of my fave stories, reaching out to artists via asks or making the conscious effort to comment on fanfics a lot more than I used to have all made me happier in the process too, so I really want to keep doing that in the new year too.

My biggest fandom obsession in 2023 was definitely The Radiant Emperor book series by Shelley Parker-Chan. Out of the five fics I published this year, three were for this fandom so I think that alone says a lot. I read She Who Became the Sun in March, and when He Who Drowned the World came out in August, I was ready to be blown away and haven’t recovered since. It’s still hard to articulate all the reasons why these books spoke to me so deeply, but I’ll just accept that this is my life now. 

I think I’ve been almost equally blown away by how much fun I’ve had in the Radiant Emperor fandom. It’s been so inspiring to see all the beautiful fanworks and reactions to them from the small but dedicated crowd, and to be able to discuss and build upon each others’ meta and headcanons. Whether we’re mutuals or have exchanged thoughts via comments, tags or dm’s, I really look forward to obsessing over these books and characters together in 2024 too!

Shoutout to the other fandom-related things that also kept me sane in 2023: Loumand Paris romance, all the fics I read about Lee Yut-Lung, and playing and analyzing Love Shore.

[measureyourlifeincake]

Malevolent E9 (not specifically about that ep but yknow. i havent listened past it so if anything i say is contradicted by anything in later eps, that's why): Been thinking about how Malevolent's story is so defined by the constraints of its creation and the problem-solving used to get around that (I mean, I suppose the same can be said to some degree for nearly any piece of art, but it really jumps out for me here).

The first and most obvious example is Arthur's blindness, with John "acting as his eyes" by describing their surroundings for him (and the audience)—it's (to me at least) clearly contrived as a way to get around the "This Gun In My Right Hand Is Loaded" problem, but it also is kind of the main conceit of the plot, and immediately defines John and Arthur's relationship—Arthur has to rely upon John from the jump, even though he has no real proof of his intentions or trustworthiness. "I have your eyes," John says, a threat as much as it is a fact. All John has to do to harm Arthur is stop talking and watch him blunder around without his help (which he does do eventually, but the threat hanging over his head is, at least initially, enough to convince Arthur to cooperate with him). It's an interesting tool for the audience to understand what is going on at any given point of the story, but also, it has real actual consequences in the story that reverberate through the narrative.

(putting the rest under the cut bc this got Long)

There's also the fact that John and Arthur are constantly recapping what has happened and laying out what all their options and potential consequences of said options are going forward. To me, this (as well as the above) feels like the author's main goal is to make sure the audience is clear on Exactly what is going on At All Times. The episodes only come out once a month, after all, and it could be hard to remember what happened in the last episode if you haven't revisited it since then (also I am just now realizing that this is sort of paralleled with Arthur's month-long coma). There's also the thing about how apparently Patreon supporters can influence where the story goes, and I'm not entirely sure how that works, but it gives Guthrie another incentive to make sure the audience has all the possible options laid out for them.

But, while I do think this is done mainly for the audience's benefit, it does also tell us a lot about Arthur and John's characters/relationship. It says that, despite any differences of opinion or questions of trust they may have—they do view whatever they have together (which I have been told... changes over time, but for right now I'm just talking about their relationship up until where I've listened) as an actual partnership—they want to make sure they are on the same page, or at least understand what the other is thinking. They may disagree on the correct course of action, but Arthur pretty much always tells John what he's doing instead of trying to get one over on him. Also, since they do try to reason out everything they do, and Arthur keeps charging into risky situations ass-first anyway, it tells us that Arthur sees himself as a very intelligent and rational man, when really he just seems to be very good at justifying whatever stupid decisions he might make in the pursuit of Knowledge.

And then there's uh. Women. (I sorta mentioned this in a different post but I can't stop turning it around in my brain)

So it seems that Harlan Guthrie a) has decided to not hire any voice actors and just voice every character himself, and b) doesn't seem to believe himself capable of convincingly voicing a female character (or just doesn't want to. idk).

This doesn't mean that there aren't any women or girls in Malevolent—on the contrary, the podcast is full of them. They are all either old crones or daughters—crazy old women and wraiths and babies and missing girls and missing girls and dead missing girls. They cry, they wheeze, they laugh, they write letters to close friends (but of course, their friends are not there to read the letters), but they can never speak for themselves, in their own voices. They must be dead, or wordless, or both.

They haunt the narrative, and haunt the narrative, and haunt the narrative. They are metaphysically incapable of doing anything else. They can save Arthur's life, help guide his way, but they can never have a simple conversation with him. Obviously Arthur had to be in a coma for just long enough that Amanda/Sarah died before he could talk to her. It couldn't ever have gone any other way—the world doesn't work like that.

And then there's Arthur's daughter. She's dead. It hasn't been explicitly stated yet at the point I'm at (she's mentioned for the first time at the end of E9), but it's pretty obvious. Not only did he mention her name first when he was literally dying, but just. Of course she is. There's no chance she isn't, that maybe Arthur thinks she's dead but really something else has happened to her—all daughters are dead. That's just how it works. (except for that one baby, I suppose. The baby is interesting—I notice they explicitly refer to her as female when I don't think they had a way to know that*. She just Is a girl, she has to be. She needs protecting, therefore she is a Daughter, plain and simple).

And learning that Arthur has (had) a daughter has caused me to look at the rest of the girls in this podcast differently (and is honestly a big reason why I wanted to write this post in the first place.) Those missing-turned-dead girls, the baby, all those young girls haunting the narrative—they're all his daughter, naturally. (not literally but y'know, meta-narratively or whatever) They're not just haunting the narrative, but haunting him specifically.

Anyway, girls haunting horror stories and fridged women and whatever other tropes that keep women from fully participating in stories are nothing new, obviously (and I imagine that Guthrie is very intentional when he invokes those tropes—this whole thing is a big ol' nod to Lovecraft, there's no way this guy is doing horror tropes by accident), but the fact that it seems to be like that mostly because Guthrie just Didn't Want to Hire An Actor makes it way more interesting to me.

I'm sure most (if not all) of this has been discussed in the fandom already, but I haven't read any meta or anything yet and I just wanted to get my thoughts down. Honestly, part of why I made this post is that I feel like I can clearly see what Guthrie was going for in how he built this story (/is building this story) and how it works within the world of the characters, but I'm still trying to puzzle out how I personally feel about the choices he made. (ex: do I appreciate how clear he makes things for the listener or do i feel like my hand is being held to much and i'm not being trusted to understand what's going on? if the latter, is it integrated into the story well enough for me to forgive it?) Writing this has... not actually helped much. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

*Okay I went back to the transcript, and it seems they start using she/her pronouns for the baby as soon as the old woman gives her to them. I assumed that the baby was wearing clothes or swaddled in a blanket the whole time, but I don't think this is ever explicitly stated, so it's possible it could've been clear once John was able to get a close enough look at her. Still, this is very much glossed over. Which, granted, it would be weird if they took a moment in the text to like, look at the baby's genitals, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ribbonverse]

Chapter 1

Notes on chapter 1, as well as some ranting about Bleach.

I thought it would be pretty natural to start with Ichigo, though I'm not sure I actually wrote any of the stuff in this chapter first.

In hindsight, I feel like it might be a bit long-winded or info-dumpy, but I really can't be asked to change it now. I've always disliked the "recap" chapters at the beginning of books that are part of a series, but here I am writing one myself.

It's basically a bunch of thoughts of Ichigo's I wrote down and later expanded upon. I thought it was pretty interesting to see the events in Soul Society from Ichigo's perspective. It's not really something a reader/viewer gets a chance to do during the actual process of reading/watching Bleach, and there's especially no time for any of that in canon, which just launches into throwing more bad guys at him instantly without giving him or the viewer time to think.

In a very real way, Ichigo failed to save Rukia in the end. He did help with stopping the official execution, but when Aizen had extracted the One Ring from Rukia after Urahara used her as a magical Tupperware container and Gin was going to finish her off, it was Byakuya who saved Rukia in the end. A very impactful moment for the audience, but where was Ichigo while all this was going down? That's right, helplessly lying on the ground after Aizen almost cut him in half. feelsbadman.jpg

After all that, he wouldn't be feeling all that powerful, I think.

Looking at the whole Soul Society arc in hindsight, it was basically a suicide mission as far as Ichigo is concerned. He never really had much of a chance to save Rukia by himself or with the help of the small group of people who accompanied him. It took a combination of people from Soul Society independently working towards saving Rukia to actually make it a realistic possibility, and none of that was collectively planned or known about by Ichigo beforehand. He just had to go with it.

So in the end, Ichigo almost got killed multiple times, went through training hell, and corrupted his soul in order to save Rukia, and he didn't make as much of a difference as he'd probably hoped. Even in his fight with Byakuya, had Ichigo only relied on his own (and Zangetsu's) power, he would've died.

Not a great place to leave off for Ichigo. Even though Rukia still lives, he still lost her in a way. And for Plot Reasons, he's basically not a Shinigami anymore, giving him time to think. Probably too much time.

I basically began by writing down things Ichigo would be thinking after not seeing Rukia for a long time. They spent two months together, but neither of them were in a particularly good place for most of that time, and it's hard taking an interest when you're stressed and overworked. Not to mention the awkward living arrangements.

I thought the part about the Hollow was genius, but as per usual, right after writing it I realized I just stole the idea from Order of the Phoenix.

I did want Ichigo's Hollow problem to be solved though, or at least out of the way, and I thought this was a nice method of doing it that also encapsulated a lot of Ichigo's character as I would have wanted him to develop post-Soul Society.

The Hollow could've been an interesting part of canon in Bleach, but instead it was completely wasted. Remember how Ichigo defeats it in canonically? Instead of the power of love, it's literally about finding his instinct to fight people and to murder the fuck out of them using his power. A power he originally acquired in order to save someone very dear to him.

Ichigo's family runs a clinic btw. How very in-character of him to do a complete 180 from a deeply humane person who only fights to protect the people he cares about into someone who actively seeks out battle.

Thanks, inner hallucination of Kenpachi. Now we have a budget version of you running around as the main character.

This actually encapsulates the dramatic shift in tone post-Soul Society. You can almost see the author wagging his finger at the characters. "No thinky-thinky, no lovey-lovey. Only fighty-fighty."

I think that was ultimately the downfall of Bleach. It became a series purely about fighting. In such a universe, love can't be allowed to exist, it must be stamped out so that fighting can happen.

It's a sad inversion of what the series was prior to the end of the Soul Society arc, in which Ichigo sacrificing so much to save Rukia communicated his feelings much more effectively than words ever could.

I never liked the canon continuity where fear basically became Ichigo's permanent emotional state and everyone's running around with Halloween masks on and pulling powers out of their asses, thinking they're hot shit. It had this air of "the author thinks this is cool, so instead of convincing you by developing the world and the characters and actually building towards impactful moments, you must accept without question that this is cool."

You know what I see in my mind whenever I look at one of those supposedly cool Hollow masks on a Bleach character? A fat otaku/Redditor guy with a fedora and a katana. That's what post-Soul Society Bleach feels like for me.

teleports behind you "Nothing personnel, kid"

It became kinda like bad fanfiction, except that it's the actual canon. A very sad state of affairs, and a waste of so many interesting and beloved characters.

I mean for God's sake, Ichigo went to the literal afterlife and basically fought deities one-on-one in order to save someone very dear to him. Even the ancient Greeks knew you only something like that when it's about love. Ichigo is basically Orpheus saving Eurydice, even the part about the girl staying in the afterlife after the mission was over is the same. The parallells are significant.

Even though the mission wasn't strictly speaking a success (since Ichigo and the others were just inconveniences in someone's suspiciously well-laid plans), you'd think that would give a guy some self-confidence or allow him to grow as a person. But we can't have that happen in canon, because fighting must continue immediately no matter the cost. Get in the arena, you have people to entertain!

A lot of things were left by the wayside in canon, such as the fact that in the very first chapter/episode, Ichigo is trying to help spirits move on, even though he doesn't have the power or know-how to do it successfully. There's something very sad about bringing flowers to a dead girl being the only thing he can really do, when what's actually needed is a Shinigami.

That and his family running a clinic speaks of a deep humanism within Ichigo that was never really in focus after the first story arc. From this perspective, how Rukia changed his life would've been even more fundamental and meaningful to him than what was explicitly communicated in canon.

In terms of the timeline, of course the canon characters don't get to develop in any meaningful way. They never get a moment to think or live a somewhat normal life. This "war" with Aizen begins just two weeks after he got his hands on the One Ring the MacGuffin that's supposed to make him a literal god. That was convenient, wasn't it? Just in time to stop our characters from growing as people.

If the series had kept with the Ye Olde Japan theme of Soul Society, a proper mobilization of forces and fighting an entire war would've taken a long time, with a lot of planning required. This part was very consciously inspired by The Belgariad.

I don't really have an interest in trying to make that a central point or something that even needs to be resolved, but I think a slow preparation for a conflict makes for a much more interesting environment to set things in than trying to shoehorn stuff within the actual canon. And while Aizen's reveal as the villain was a bit much too mustache-twirling-villain-esque to me, his Shikai is extremely intimidating, both on a personal and societal level.

I originally intended to use Soul Society having to deal with the consequences of Aizen's power as a backdrop, but it never came to be. Soul Society systematically going through its history looking for anything suspicious, like drastically conflicting reports of the same event, and digging into it to see if Aizen had hypnotized someone would've been interesting.

Come to think of it, Aizen not even dying after all the shit he pulled was the ultimate cockblock. Just goes to show how things can never be resolved in Bleach, because The Fighting Must Continue and Aizen will get out prison eventually. Imagine if Harry Potter had ended with Voldermort being escorted to Wizard Jail after being sentenced to five million years of imprisonment. Just thinking about that makes me laugh out loud. But in Bleach it actually happened.

A word on the Spirit suppressors, or "Reiatsuppressors" as I dubbed them in my own notes. For a plot point that I decided not to go with in the end, I needed an excuse for the sensing of Spiritual power not be a thing in Karakura Town. The Suppressors ended up serving a somewhat similar purpose, and their in-universe justification ended up remaining the same.

For anyone curious, the plot point that never came to be was Rukia coming to visit Karakura Town but being too afraid to visit Ichigo. Having mastered the technique of visualizing Spiritual energy as Spirit Ribbons, she decides to make sure that at least his Spiritual power is there. The idea was that an advanced technique like Spirit Ribbons was able to bypass the interference from Reiatsuppressors.

The thing that was going to urge Rukia to go to Ichigo was her noticing that his Spirit Ribbon was a different color than a Shinigami's should be and not knowing why. The color of Spirit Ribbons was going to be significant in that the color of the Ribbon of someone who is Very Special to you was going to be the color you think is most beautiful. Your favorite color, basically. Probably subconsciously inspired by the scent of a love potion in Harry Potter, as I once again only realized after writing down the idea.

That ended up not being a thing, but maybe I can use that somewhere else. Or someone else can take the idea.

Something was also planted at the very beginning of the chapter. I've always wanted to "plant" something that comes up later, so here was my chance.

[citrusbusiness]

HEY! For no reason at all, due to no post at all, completely unrelated to anything at all ever. Tell me about Space.

Ah yes absolutely no reason at all I'm sure. Not a single one.

I will preface this first by saying that I'm not actually an official expert on the subject, i’m just a little guy and I think space is cool. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun writing this little rant so thank you so much I love you. Second, looking at this this is a rant about a very specific thing that space does (redshift) and likely not what you were expecting, but I'm happy to provide a more... standard space rant if it is desired!

Obligatory long, post warning!

We know the universe is really big, and we know it’s getting bigger. In it we have the Local Group, which is the group of galaxies which are gravitationally bound to ours. That means they’re close enough to us that the gravity attracting them to us is stronger than the force expanding the universe. But other than those guys, all of the galaxies in the universe are moving away from us.

One of the really cool things that happens because of that is redshift, where the light waves of far away objects get stretched out and appear more red. (The opposite of this also happens its called blueshift) To recap how the light spectrum works, to our eyes, longer, lower energy waves appear redder and shorter ones more purple. Eventually the waves get so small or so big that they don’t appear as visible colors anymore, and then you get things like ultraviolet and x-ray or infrared and radio waves.

There was a while where I knew redshift was a thing but didn’t really understand why it happened. I think that was because I was thinking of the light as a wave when in reality, light has properties of both waves and particles because its weird like that, and particles make more sense in this scenario. Now I like to think about it like this:

Imagine there’s a machine that drops marbles down a ramp at a steady rate, like one per second or something. The marbles all travel at the same speed in the same direction, a certain distance apart. But if that machine starts going in the opposite direction, then the distance between marbles is the distance created by them rolling for 1 second, plus the distance the machine travels in the other direction in that second. There is more space between each marble.

We now translate this logic into electromagnetic wave land, thinking of the path of the marbles as a wave rather than a straight line and adding a lot more marbles. If we look at the individual particles then the points would make a more stretched out wave pattern because the distance between them is bigger.

That was a huge explanation that might not actually make sense to anyone but me but in summary, when something moves away from us, the light gets more red. This is one reason why it’s so hard for us to see far away objects. Their light has gotten stretched out all the way into infrared, which we can’t see. This is why the James Webb Space Telescope has been so useful; its a very powerful telescope that specializes in infrared. With that power it’s discovered some of the farthest objects we’ve ever seen.

Thank you to you, yes you, for reading my silly rant and double thanks if you user is mickemz01 for sending me this ask!

[beancansmovieblog]

April Fools' Special: The Professor Layton Franchise

Ok, it's definitely not April Fools' Day anymore, but it's the general sentiment that matters, right? Yep! I decided it would be funny if every April, I reviewed something that isn't necessarily a movie (although there is one in there- that was going to be March's review, but the first draft was pretty bad and I never got around to rewriting it).

So, yeah, pretty much everyone within the expected reach of this post already knows what the Professor Layton Franchise is and enjoys it, which is another really funny reason to do this specifically as my very first April Fools' special. I don't even have any particularly original opinions about it (except that I may have influenced the surge in popularity of a certain ship, but I'm not clear on that actually being the case. I just like to bring up that it *may* have happened, and not elaborate, because that's funny). People who love these games love to think and talk about them, for good reason! Although, complaining about it can be fun too.

So: quick and poorly referenced recap. The Professor Layton Franchise was created under the premise of "what if we made a DS game for people who only bought the DS because it's trendy?", which, as a person who has never once been able to afford a game console within the trendiness window, is a sentiment I find kind of daunting. That can only be like, 20 people, right? (Well, I guess that's technically how I ended up with a DSi, since it was a Christmas gift from my grandpapa. I don't think I even fully understood what video games were at the time.) I guess it worked out, but it does make me kind of sad that games for non-gamers generally don't have the same quality as they used to.

Anyway, the result was a trilogy of beautiful mystery visual novels with a large collection of puzzles strewn about like, um, something that's typically scattered irregularly in large quantities. These were so successful that there are now either seven or nine games depending on who you ask. I quite like this formula, but it does get really funny to think about sometimes. Like, the pacing of the games' stories are dependent on the fact that you're probably going to spend at least a couple hours thinking really hard about math or moving blocks around between story beats. This is fine, since I definitely prefer puzzle games that have a lot of puzzles in them, but it creates this effect where the games' endings seem disproportionately weird (or, I guess, weirder than they already would be) because you're generally not thinking about the story as you're playing. On a first run, anyway.

This might seem like a huge complaint, but the real meat and potatoes of the series' writing is its characters. It's no big deal that the plot doesn't make a lot of sense, since you're probably more interested in all of the funny things the Professor and Luke do and say about it. This was intentional; they were literally designed to be instantly likeable (implicit biases in the idea of designing an instantly likeable person aside, if I were a character designer and my boss told me to do that, I would have quit on the spot). This emphasis on characters is another reason why randomly throwing puzzles at you works in this case- this is a world where everyone likes puzzles enough to carry them around in their back pocket, and a new currency has been developed for the express purpose of buying hints, but the Professor still likes puzzles more than the average person. People joke about it, but if he wasn't like that, finding puzzles in totally random places would be way weirder.

There are some more serious issues with the way the series tends to be written- its general treatment of its female characters is well known to be somewhat lackluster - but it's *mostly* a good time. I recommend it wholeheartedly if you enjoy puzzle games or strange middle-aged men. Just, like, be prepared to get really confused about the repeated insistence that magic isn't real.