#and I don't know if I should pace myself by getting the manga from the library

[waitineedaname]

I've finally gotten caught up with the anime in my read of the manga, so now I have a question for you all who have read the mp100 manga: should I slow myself down by seeking out the physical volumes of the last arc, or should I keep reading it online?

[hinamie]

i normally don’t contribute much of my opinions on chapter content n themes bc a. i think my role in fandom spaces is that of a fanartist and I want to keep my art at the forefront, and b. I am Insecure about how little of the manga I have actually consumed and don’t think I have a solid foundation on which i can offer any coherent arguments or insight. generally I like to leave the long meta 2 people who have been genuinely invested in delving into the manga with the intent of analyzing it . y'all do gods work u are the reason i am not flying through this series completely blind

that being said, i am not here to give criticism on pacing or story cohesion bc quite simply, that is not my wheelhouse. i do, however, want to offer my 2 cents on the concept of choosing to live for others as someone who (like a lot of people is the vibe i’m getting) also struggles w depression and self-worth issues and sees aspects of themselves in megumi as a result. i want to reiterate tht this is not an analysis, these r just my gojo voice personal feelings n u r allowed 2 feel differently based on your own experience :)

let me just say first of all that I can 100% empathize with people wanting to see megumi choose to live fr himself after a lifetime spent in a system notorious fr stripping people of their agency and turning them into tools. i think in a perfect world he Does come to the realization that he’s worth living for. but i also think that him /not/ having crossed that bridge yet is also a very valid n realistic outcome. he's a kid, he's just had the worst experience of his life, he's traumatized and then some -- i only have a bachelor's in psychology and god knows i'm no doctor but personally i wouldn't call that a mental space where self-love is likely to stick

it’s hard to claw yourself out from rock bottom. to expect someone to immediately be able to make the transition from being in the worst mental state of their life to realizing that they are worthy as a person is a tall order that i honestly don't think many people wld b able to fulfil. /I/ certainly haven’t been, and living for others has honestly been what’s kept me going for a long fucking time. even when I’m not necessarily at a low point, I still rly struggle w liking myself n thinking i’m a good person, but what’s been a genuine lifeline fr me when i can't love myself is to direct that love Outwards. If nothing else I know that I have things I can create, and things I can offer others. I've spent countless hours forcing myself to acknowledge that, no matter how much i don’t believe them, if the people around me insist that they see something of value in me or in my work; something tht makes them love me Despite, then that alone is worth staying alive for.

i personally (although i can see how others wld disagree) don’t view the 'living for others' frame of mind as waiting for someone to save you, but rather as holding out hope that there is More out there than your own self-loathing will let you believe. For megumi, it wld seem that his something more was the people he cares about. Yuuji gave him the agency to choose whether or not to keep living, and megumi made that decision of his own accord, which fr someone at their absolute lowest is still a huge achievement! there was agency in that decision, there was selfishness--regardless of the underlying motivation it proved that he /wants/ to live. little side note but i think that megumi Making a selfish decision to live for others' sake should also give a bit of hope that he does have it in him to eventually be able to b equally selfish in the value he places on himself.

anyway that's what i got source: i'm depressed . n look i get that with so little of jjk left, it Is frustrating that we probably Won't see megumi come to the conclusion that he's worthy and that he should live for and love himself. but at the same time i don't think that his decision to keep living for others should b condemned either, bc as someone who has also yet to cross that bridge, sometimes that rly is the first step

[thankskenpenders]

And now for something new

So, here's something I was never planning on doing, but I just couldn't shake the idea... Thanks Ken Penders is gaining a sister blog featuring an entirely different comic franchise!

Introducing... Thanks Steve Ditko, a blog where I read the Earth-616 Spider-Man comics, starting all the way back in the '60s! It's gonna be much more casual and less thorough than how I run things here on TKP, though, which I'll explain in a sec.

If seeing me post weird bits from old Spider-Man comics sounds fun and you need no further info, then just head right on over to Thanks Steve Ditko. But for longtime TKP readers, I know you probably have questions...

Number one: Why?

Spider-Man's always been my favorite superhero, and with the Spider-Verse movies kicking ass and my excitement building for the new Insomniac game, I've been in a Spidey mood. Inevitably, a thought occurred to me: Maybe I should actually read the comics that everything else is built off of and see the wildly varying contributions of all the original creators, rather than filtering them through big budget adaptations. If I can power through One Piece and all these other manga with hundreds of chapters, it can't be that hard... right?

And, well, after a few issues I quickly realized that my options were to either clog up my other accounts with random Spider-Man panels for years, or to just make a side blog. And so the side blog was born.

Two: Will this blog replace Thanks Ken Penders?

NO!!!!!!!!!

Okay but prove it

To allow the two to exist side-by-side, Thanks Steve Ditko will have a different format than what Thanks Ken Penders developed. Rather than an in-depth guided tour that critically analyzes every story beat of every issue, TSD will just be a place for amusing panels and brief thoughts as I casually read the comics at my own pace.

If you've seen me make a few tweets about reading Spider-Man recently, I'm basically just moving that to a dedicated Tumblr. It's a place for me to dump these things so that it doesn't fill up my media tab on Twitter for the next decade. (You know, assuming Twitter is still around in a decade.) There will be many issues where I only post two panels that I thought were funny. There will be issues where I don't have anything to say at all. Maybe I'll reach a run that I just cannot get into, and I start skipping around more. Who knows!

This may sound similar to what I thought this blog would be before it blew up. Aside from the simple fact that there's already mountains of Spider-Man commentary out there and therefore less of a void for me to fill, one of the main steps I'll be taking to avoid repeating the past is not enabling an ask box on TSD. I do not need people to ask me to go into ten times more detail on everything. I do not need to write seven essay-length responses to questions about Spider-Man minutiae every day. I do not need a place for people to chide me for not covering certain scenes, issues, or ancillary series.

It also won't have any kind of update schedule. I'm trying to keep it very casual. I'm reading these comics at my own pace, and if I feel like sharing a moment or commenting on something while doing so? It goes there. That's it.

(On the subject of format changes, I'm also listing the issue, writer, and penciller in the body of every post. This is a thing I wish I'd done on TKP so that people didn't misattribute every weird Archie Sonic panel I post to Penders.)

Three: So when will TKP come back from hiatus? You said it'd come back after you finished SLARPG!

I don't know! Sorry. I have a couple things on the backburner right now for TKP, but I'm not sure when I'll get back to proper updates where I read more comics.

I wanted to bring TKP back this year, and that's still possible. The main hurdle is that I want to reread my own archive (again) as a refresher, which is, uh. A lot of posts. I've developed a high standard for myself on here, and I feel like I wouldn't be doing my job right if I forgot half the ongoing subplots and character arcs and didn't bring them up in my analysis. Especially when I'm discussing the work of an author as obsessed with continuity as Ian Flynn. Unfortunately, the nature of this blog means that every time I go on another long hiatus for Life Reasons I have even more comic continuity to catch up on than last time.

(This is a big part of why I'm making Thanks Steve Ditko an extremely casual blog instead of promising to become a Lore Expert on 60+ years of Marvel.)

Mostly I've just been very burnt out this year after having finally finished a video game that took almost eight years to make. I haven't really had the energy for any creative projects, including TKP. But I feel a little bit of a spark here with Spider-Man, so I'm chasing that feeling to try to get back into the swing of blogging about comics - no pun intended.

So, basically, bear with me on this as I start this low-energy side project. But hopefully folks will enjoy Thanks Steve Ditko as its own thing, too.

Look forward to goofy shit like this

[thepersonperson]

Ok so i kinda binge read all of your blogs in your pinned post and GODDAMN the gojo ones BROKE me it's not like i already didn't have a fair clue about the entire Gojo's loneliness and cruel treatment that's inflicted on him but going onto it in such deatail...oh my god... it's 2am here and i'm literally sobbing

i'm someone who's always been a part of either twitter or IG fandom and most of the times its either people (dudebros especially) are always completely mischaracterising Gojo, making him some kind of god who they can project themselves onto or either its just thrist posts or satosugu, female fans do have an emotional knowledge and understanding to it and it's no surprise how male fans perceive him but now when I think about it it's just so sad and unfair like even in real world people DO NOT see him for who he truly is (they just see him as the 'strongest' or 'nah i'd win' iykwim) and always ignore his vulnerability and emotions aspects of his character that makes him HUMAN oh my god it's making me sick. We don't deserve Gojo Satoru.

He is such a well written character, truly one of the best and Gege knew what he was doing when he made him such a prince charming, undeniably beautiful man to ecer exist and I think that just makes people completely ignore the core of his character.

I'm sorry if it ended up being a yapping session (you don't have to reply at all!! we cool)

I just couldn't help myself, your blogs seriously changed my life. If I loved Gojo before now I love him even more and most importantly I accept him for who he is, all these powerscalling seriously takes away so much of his character but sadly there's nothing we can do about it.

And let's not even start on the whole homosexuality romance stuff, there was no hope to begin with given the rise of dudebros in recent times.

brb gonna go cry more...

I love it when people yap at me don't worry about it.

Ok Anon. The timing of this ask is crazy because in the post you mention there was an interesting convo going on in the replies. I want to include them in my response to you.

Replies on the post mentioned by the anon from @userdemerda and @creatorizuru below the cut.

Thank you for the compliments.

Tag me in whatever fic you create userdemerda. (I actually went from an anime-only to a manga reader because I wanted to better understand Gojo to write a Gojo/Jogo fic. Part of the reason I started my yapfests was to write a Sukuna/Gojo fic. So I totally understand the obsession.)

This all is the power of Umineko. It's difficult piece of media to get through, but it very much encourages accepting people as their whole self rather than just the bits you enjoy. I really wanted to see all the love Gege put into the characters to better understand them.

On STSG...

Though the dudebros are less homophobic than they usually are with JJK, there are still some that can't fully embrace the queerness a part of Gojo's character. It's really important to knowing how he works. So even if you don't like the ship, you still should acknowledge that Geto is someone Gojo deeply loved.

As much as I like those two together, I would have loved to see Gojo move on in a way where he can carry the loss of Geto more like a charm than a curse. Everyone loves a good tragic first love, but second loves that acknowledge loss are quite rare.

On Gojo's end...

Gojo is one of the most traumatized characters in the series. And since JJK has otherwise done a good job showcasing how people cope with trauma, I can't accept the ending's pacing and tone as someone who has recently started recovering from my own. It's a slog, non-linear, and it takes a lot of time.

When I want Gojo to come back it's because I'm so sick and tired of extremely traumatized characters getting killed off because creators don't know how to handle or even want to depict their recovery process. It really mirrors how people irl will just give up and leave you to rot.

Yuji and Megumi were having a pretty good long-term display of the recovery process right up until the end. One of the things about trauma is you can't ever go back to the way things were. You can try, but it's always just kind of there. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Just a thing you accept. Sadly, JJK dropped the ball on that.

Especially with Sukuna. Acknowledging your trauma is the first step. You can't cast it aside and move onto the next life like that. I cannot vibe with one of the other most traumatized characters needing to die to get his recovery process started. He was in denial way more than Gojo. You can't just flip on a dime like that. I wish I could just flip on a dime like that.

And the last point from userdmerda:

"speaking as a person who lives with post-traumatic stress and has big problems healing from the past all i want is to move on and be mentally healthy and i wish so much that satoru could have had that"

That's why Gojo's death and the world moving on like he never existed feels really bad. I think it's because that's often how traumatized people like him get treated irl. You can see the negative response even in the Japanese fans. It's like your worst fears of no one ever really caring about you because your trauma makes you too difficult to be around being realized.

And I decided to discuss that more in depth in this sort of follow-up post. Hopefully you all get a kick out of it.

[absolutebl]

Industry question for you, please: Why is it that it seems that Thai BL in particular has some really systemic issues with writing endings? Screwed-up pacing/editing, out-of-character/illogical actions, not being very satisfying... it seems like a show avoiding that fate is more of an exception than the rule, unfortunately. Do a lot of them just... not write the ending ahead of time? 😅 That would make having these sort of wacked-up endings at least make some sense, but... really, it makes *no* sense to me that that would be the actual standard writing strategy-- I mean, for example, one of the best living novel authors I know of *always* has very satisfying endings, literally without fail (I have read everything he's written and been perfectly content with the ending of every one), and the reason for that is he purposefully always writes the endings of his books *first*, then works everything back up to that point. Similarly, some of the best TV shows I've seen (from any country-- and this does actually include some Thai ones, to be fair) were written either all in one go or at the *very* least with their endings obviously already very firmly in mind, regardless of if they were completely original or were adaptations of some other source material. So... why does this often seem to be such a difficulty for the writers of Thai BL? 😅 (Sorry if I sound a little salty here, but endings either make or break all fiction for me {novels, manga/manhwa, TV, movies, games, whatever}, and I've been getting burned what seems to be more and more often lately with shows being great for the vast majority of their runtime but then inexplicably totally botching the landing, seemingly out of nowhere-- so I'm a bit frustrated with that when it seems to be a really simply-solved problem {that, indeed, has already been solved by many others before}: JUST WRITE THE DAMN ENDING *FIRST* and then work up to it? 🙃😅)

Endings huh? You a romance reader by nature? (Wait, no, you said... HE. So... Sparks? Green?) Anygay, where was I?

But yeah, I get it. I've always fancied the dessert course the most, myself.

To answer your question, not sure. I'm assuming its a narrative expectation based in culture. Like Japan and their lanes, China and 6 act structure, or Korea's adoration of love triangles. And producing culture comes to film and storytelling with its own set narrative conceits, archetypes, and tropes and aren't proscriptive but are leaned on a lot. Much as they come to film with a certain style as well.

Think about the "look" of Korean BL compared to the "look" of Taiwanese BL, for example. They have an entirely different flavor to them. Korean stuff is usually all bright and airy, lots of distance shots, super clean and uncluttered, filtered and filmy and atmospheric. Taiwanese stuff is much closer, more grainy, more bold with it's color choices and contrasts, kind-up n your face and gritty, a bit messy sometimes.

It's jarring to go from one to the other.

After watching nothing but Asian dramas for so long, I always find it jarring to go back to American shit. It feels over-acted and unsubtle and kind of brash. Over all "loud" and in my face. Jarring.

So when first encountering 4 or 6 act structure most westerners feel a little unmoored, it doesn't feel comfortable until you sink into it and leave 3 & 5 behind.

I'm mean I'm so used to K-dramas with that arbitrary year or more separation in the final episode I;m now shocked when it's not there.

I guess what I'm saying is maybe it's just a thing with Thailand, not to put that much truck in endings. The way (especially) romances do in the western world. There's a very fixed idea of what an HEA should look like in the west. Thailand may not share that idea.

I've not read the source books of any of these BLs, so I don't know if this is just their narrative style or not.

I mean there are some Thai BLs with good (if not great) endings, and plenty of Korean BLs with terrible middles, and far too many Taiwanese BLs with bad beginnings.

Ya just kinda get used to it, I guess.

15 Thai BLs with Good Endings

A Tale of Thousand Stars

Bad Buddy

Lovely Writer

2gether

Be My Favorite

Dark Blue Kiss (possibly my favorite on this list)

Destiny Seeker

Make a Wish

Naughty Babe

SOTUS

[asirensrage]

The Road to Hell

Title: The Road to Hell Fandom: Tokyo Revengers Rating: Explicit Pairing: Sanzu Haruchiyo x Unnamed!Undescribed!FemaleOC Word count: 2306 Warnings: Dark!fic. Dub-con. Drug overdose. Non-con drug use. Obsession. Forced Relationship. Sex. Coercion. Forced Relationship. Unbeta'd. *warnings are not exhaustive* Summary: It's pure luck that she stumbles across him alone in the middle of an overdose. He thinks it's fate.

MANGA SPOILER WARNING! This fic mentions events in the manga that have not yet been shown in the anime. You have been warned.

Notes: okay, I don't completely love how this came out with the pov change, but I can't figure out how to improve it yet. If I do, I'll rewrite/repost it like I dd the Ran oneshot. It is a dark fic. Consider yourself warned. It was inspired by my mother talking about kids accidentally overdosing in parks and how I should pick up one of these kits. The POV change shifts in the middle and there's a bit of timeshifting in it, but I hope it makes sense. (please tell me if it doesn't so i can fix it. I've looked at it too much myself and I don't have a beta for my TR fics) I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know what you think.

“Ha–Haru–” she tries to say his name, unable to catch her breath from the way he’s thrusting into her. 

“Yeah, baby?” he asks, grinning down at her. 

Her arms are tied above her, making her arch her chest up towards him a little more. She’s so fucking pretty like this, tears in her eyes as she begs him for more. He leans down and kisses her, letting her taste the remnants of herself on his tongue. 

God, he wants more. 

He didn’t think there was ever a woman who would drive him to madness, but here he has her under him. His angel. His fucking saviour who’s too good for him but Sanzu doesn’t give a shit. Tasting her is better than any of the drugs he’s been on. She makes him fucking crazy.

“Come on, baby. Lemme see you come for me again.” 

She whines, shifting as though she can resist him. He knows better. He leans down, kissing her neck as he adjusts the angle of her hips. She feels so fucking good. If he hadn’t looked into her, researched everything about her, he’d think she was a virgin with the way she was squeezing him this tight. 

She cries out as he picks up his pace and it’s music to his ears. 

“Fuck!” he groans against her skin, kissing her hard again. “Gotta come for me, baby. Come with me. Show me how fucking pretty you look.”

Her eyes are closed, lost in the feeling of him. She’s fucking glowing with sweat from how long they’ve been fucking. “Open your eyes, baby. Look at me.” When she doesn’t move fast enough, lost in how good he’s making her feel, he grabs her neck forcing her attention back on his face. “Look at me.”

Her eyes open, glaring at him for the distraction. As if he’s going to deny her the pleasure only he can bring.

He grins at her. “There’s my angel.” 

🩹

Some time ago…

He doesn’t mean to do it. He doesn’t. It’s not like he takes more than he usually does. He’s slipped something by one of his usual suppliers but something is wrong. He knows something is wrong and he’s trying to get some air, shoving his way outside as he grabs his phone to call someone for help and he drops. The world is spinning around him and he laughs. He can’t move. 

“Hey, are you okay? Hey, look–” 

A face appears over him but he can’t make out the features. Things are blurring. They’re saying something else but he can’t make it out. He calls for Mikey, reaching for his phone but his vision goes black and he passes out. 

🩹

Being sober fucking sucks. 

It makes him more irritable than normal. He wants to succumb to the feeling of weightlessness, of drifting away from the world just enough that he can actually do his work. But since he was fucking poisoned and nearly died because of the pills, Mikey’s ordered him off of them. Even if he already killed the dealer who gave it to him. 

He’s fiddling with one of the pens that he stole from the purse of the girl who saved him. At least, that’s what he had been told. Whatever she gave him kept him alive long enough for the doctor they have on staff to drag him back from the edge. 

He doesn’t remember more than the sound of her panicked voice and the way the light in the alley acted like a halo framing her head. He’s seen her license, but photos never really do someone justice. He just wants to know…why did she save him?

He tries to shove it out of his mind. He doesn’t have time to wonder about a stranger, not when he has traitors to dig out and Mikey to protect. He’s number two, after all. He has work to do. 

🩹

He can’t stop fucking thinking about her. Why did she save him? Why him? Of all the people he could have stumbled across…it was the one woman probably in the whole country who didn’t fear him, who had something in her bag that kept him alive. 

He’s always felt justified in his choices, in his decisions to follow Mikey. He was certain he wouldn’t let that old timeline come to pass, he’d do what Shinchiro set out to do and keep Mikey alive. But her? She was like an angel in his time of need…the thought stops him. 

He didn’t believe in religious junk, but something brought Shinchiro back, something saved Mikey…and something sent this woman into his path. Maybe there was more to it than just saving him…maybe it was Shinchiro sending his thanks for looking after Mikey. He snorts at the idea but the more he ruminates on it, the more it makes sense. Clearly, she’s meant for him. Otherwise, why would she have saved him? Why would she have been there?

🩹 🩹 🩹

Honestly, it’s a lot of luck on his part that she happened to be walking by. She doesn’t usually like to get involved in the affairs of strangers, but it’s easy to see with one look at him that he’s blissed out. Until he falls and she can see the way his breathing catches, the way he’s struggling. 

When he drops, she’s moving without thinking. She kneels, praying he doesn’t throw up on her and calls out to him. 

“Hey! Are you okay? Hey! Look at me!” His eyes can’t focus, pupils nearly erasing the irises. 

“Mik–” his voice slurs and he passes out in front of her. At first, she’s just going to turn him over to make sure if he does throw up, he won’t choke. Then he fully stops breathing. 

He’s lucky because she’s trained in first aid. Because her mother had been watching the news about children accidentally overdosing on drugs somehow left on playgrounds and strongly recommended that she carry the drug meant to help keep someone alive if they overdose on her person. So she digs it out of her bag, yelling for help as she unzips the pack and shoves the first one into one of his nostrils and presses it. She calls 911 and puts it on speaker since no one is coming to help and starts CPR. 

She talks to the operator, trying to tell them where she is but she’s not from this district and she’s trying to get this man to start breathing. She pauses and instead of putting her mouth against his, she shoves the second dose of it into his other nostril and sprays it in. 

He coughs and throws up. She jolts back, turning him towards her so that he can get it out and not choke. The operator is asking her what’s happening but he’s finally breathing that it takes her attention until she has him in a recovery position. 

She grabs her phone but before she can actually confirm that he’s alive and ask where the ambulance is, someone knocks it out of her hand. She looks to get it but someone steps on it, fully shattering the screen and making it go black. 

“HEY!”

The click of a gun, the cool metal touching her temple stops her from reaming them out. 

“What the fuck did you do to him?”

“Saved his life!” she snaps back. “He needs a hospital and you just broke my call that the operator was probably tracking!” 

“What’s this shit?” another voice asks and she sees a foot kick the pack that the naloxone was in. 

“It’s Naloxone. When used fast enough, it can save someone from overdosing. Now instead of interrogating me, call an ambulance!”

They refuse, instead dragging the man off and leaving her in the alley, covered in his sick after they threaten her if she says anything to anyone. It’s not until she’s home and locked out that she realizes that they took her purse. 

It all goes to shit after that. 

🩹

It all goes to shit after that. 

Getting all of her IDs, cards and papers replaced takes longer than she wants. She does, however, tell her mother that she was right and she did help someone. Even if it wasn’t a child like her mother feared. Honestly, she didn’t know where her mother thought they lived but it was clearly somewhere more dangerous than they did. 

She expected that to be the worst of it. 

Until she runs into him by accident. 

She’s leaving a convenience store and putting her wallet away when she accidentally stumbles into him. He grabs her by the shoulders, steadying her. She looks up, an apology on her lips when she realizes who it is. 

“Oh my god, you’re alive!” 

He looks a little startled at her reaction before he smiles. “It’s you.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I didn’t think you made it,” she admits before remembering the rest of the night. “You stole my purse.” 

“Me? I was dying,” he says clearly. “I couldn’t have.” 

“Your friends then,” she replies. Now that he’s alive and seemingly healthy, she can finally stop thinking about the incident. 

“Let me make it up to you.” He stares down at her and she shifts under the sudden intensity of his gaze. His pink hair falls to his shoulders and his suit looks finely pressed. The scars on the edge of his mouth make him look intimidating. It’s a huge change from the last time she saw him. 

“You don’t need to,” she says. She doesn’t need to get involved with anyone who overdoses and has friends ready to murder her in retribution for causing his death. “I appreciate the offer but it’s fine. I’m just glad I could help.”

He steps forward. “You did. They said I wouldn’t have made it without you. Come on,” he grins at her. “I want to say thank you.”

“You just did,” she points out.

“Properly.”

🩹

She doesn’t think much of it at first. 

Sanzu Haruchiyo, as he properly introduced himself as, is persistent in his determination to say thank you. She expects dinner and refused, not wanting to get more involved with the man than she already was. 

He sends her flowers with a card that holds a number. When she doesn’t call it, choosing to dispose of it instead, her work receives an anonymous donation for upgrades and her class is the first chosen. She refuses the upgrades but then her vacation days are suddenly increased. He pays her rent for the next six months. 

It’s enough to make her track him down so she can get him to stop. She knows the feeling of a gun against her head because of him. She doesn’t want anything else. 

It’s not an easy thing, but she tracks him down to a club. In the process, she learns the name of the criminal organization he’s involved with: Bonten. It’s enough to make her second guess finding him, the criminals more serious than she ever anticipated. She watches the news. She knows the reports of just what they do and how often bodies are found with them as the main suspects. 

It makes her more determined to find him, to get him to stop. It leads to her eventually arguing with the bouncer of the VIP area of the club she waited in line for over an hour to get in. She just wants this to be over. 

She doesn’t know when he spots her, but he approaches with a grin, waving off the guard and leaning in towards her. His pink hair falls between them, brushing her bare shoulders. She’s forced herself into a borrowed skimpy dress to get into this club but she’s more uncomfortable now with him so close. 

“What have I done to earn seeing your face again, angel?”

He doesn’t look high but she doesn’t have enough experience with drugs to confirm it. 

“Why did you pay my rent? Or send that donation to my work. That was you, wasn’t it?” 

He reaches out, brushing her hair back out of her face. “You never called. Wouldn’t let me take you to dinner.”

“And that’s your response?” She stares at him incredulously. It was more than a little overkill. 

He grins at her. “Let me make it up to you?” he asks again, almost a parody of the last time. She stares at him for a long moment. If she says no, there’s no telling what else he’ll do. So she accepts.

🩹

Sanzu keeps her. 

It was an accident, pure chance that she saved him, and he has not let her forget it since. Her attempts to tell him no fail every time. He slowly takes over her life and any attempts to make him stop has him increasing his actions until there’s nothing left except him. 

She gave one small thing. He takes everything in return. 

Every attempt she makes at pulling away has him digging himself deeper under her skin. Before she knows it, there’s a bodyguard outside her work. He moves her into his apartment with claims that it’s safer for her. He breaks down every protest, every action, with cool logic, soft touches and warm promises. He distracts her with orgasms and pretty trinkets, burying her until the only things she has are reminders of him. 

And now they’re here.

🩹

He’s slipped her something. 

“Just to help you relax, baby. Let me lead you back to heaven,” he says, murmuring it into her skin. It makes her head spin. 

“Haru…” She breathes before he kisses her. It’s not the first time they’ve kissed, not the first time they’ve tasted each other, but it feels ten times more intense than before. 

“I got you.” 

He whispers promises into her skin. He brings her to her peak with ease, content in devouring her bit by bit until all she can say is his name. He’s breaking her apart every time she cums under his mouth or fingers or cock.

If she wasn’t bound, stars in her eyes and lost in the feelings he was creating, she’d kill him for this. He’d probably enjoy the attempt, tell her it’s more proof they’re meant to be. If she could feel anything except the constant ebb and flow of pleasure, lighting coursing down her spine, she’d–

“Come on, baby. Lemme see you come for me again.” 

She whines, trying to shift away because it’s too much. She’s overstimulated to the point she feels like crying. He kisses her neck, forcing another mark into her skin and adjusts them until she can barely speak from the way it feels. 

 He kisses her again and she can taste herself on his tongue. “Gotta come for me, baby. Come with me. Show me how fucking pretty you look.”

Her eyes are closed because she can barely keep them open, because she doesn’t want to look at the man who’s stolen her life. 

“Open your eyes, baby. Look at me.” She doesn’t want to, but his hand moves to her throat and she feels the pressure he puts as he forces her to face him. “Look at me.”

She glares at him, eyes brimming with tears and anger at the way he won’t let her escape even just as far as the distance of an eyelid. 

He grins at her. “There’s my angel.” 

She’ll give him this. Let him grow comfortable enough that she has space to make her move. She’ll be free of him. One way or another. 

taglist: @raith-way @zeleniafic @veetlegeuse @chickensarentcheap @residentdormouse @themaradwrites @kingsmakers @far-shores

[crystalelemental]

Crystal Reads PokeSpe - RBY Arc

I have now spent money on this, even if it was for my wife's sake, so it was inevitable that I'd pick this up. I am starting to read the Pokemon manga. As of today, I have finished the RBY arc. This is the only arc I know I read once before, via fan translation, ages ago. I did not care for it at the time. But, it's a different time, and maybe I'll be more into it now. Who knows.

The Red and Blue segment (ie, the first three books), are kinda...whatever. I admit, I still don't like Red, even after he starts talking. This iteration of Red is more clear, but I also feel like he's less interesting. He's as standard shonen protagonist as you can get. Blue doesn't get a whole lot either, given that he's barely around as the rival figure. Green is more fun, because I vibe with her general personality type, but that's about as much as I can say. She doesn't get that much going for her, in truth.

I think the biggest aspect that throws off the first three manga is the general pacing. They absolutely blitz through the locations in the game, taking very little time to actually do much of anything. There are a few chapters that are just showing off a Pokemon, similar in style to the filler episodes of the anime. But more than that, things go so quickly it feels hard to keep up with sometimes. I couldn't remember who had what Pokemon most of the time. I still don't think I could tell you Red's actual team. It's not until the champion match between Red and Blue that things start to slow down a bit and you can more easily follow the action.

Fortunately, by the time the Yellow arc begins, they've realized this. The rest of the fights are actually pretty well paced, and I found the Elite Four a much more salient threat than anything Team Rocket does. Especially because it...well, it's novel. Team Rocket in the manga, despite being a bit more brutal and having Gym Leaders under their command, are kinda the same as they've ever been. Giovanni gets to be a little interesting as someone who's more directly interacted with Red, and their experiments are more complex, but their motivations and actions aren't really that different. The Elite Four's actions are significantly more interesting, mostly because it's such a new approach compared to other media formats.

I also wound up liking Yellow a lot more than the others? Like okay, Green is still the favorite because personality type vibes more, but Yellow's really interesting as someone who's pure pacifism and aims to win without hurting her opponent. They don't play with it quite as much as I wish they did, but it's an interesting approach and I like her a lot.

By other characters, I really like what they did with Erika and Blaine. They're definitely the most interesting Gym Leaders. Erika being a sort of leader figure for the justice side, while Blaine's connection to Mewtwo is really neat. I kinda love that Agatha is just kinda Like That about how Oak left under what should have been otherwise amicable circumstances, she's just that bitter. And I like that Lorelei's like this because of her literally watching her Seel friends die due to human pollution. It's got a lot of impact.

The rest of the gym leaders are kinda whatever. They don't really exude much to me. Same with Bruno and Lance, I don't really think they're all that interesting. If anything, I'm a little salty about Lance being from Viridian Forest apparently, but that's likely due to the manga setting that up before GSC released to establish Blackthorn.

As for general stuff...okay, I'm trying to calm down about "Everything should operate on the game logic," and let myself be taken by creativity in the anime and now manga when they operate on physics rather than strict move definition and numbers. Like, it's actually kinda cool for Giovanni to show off his threat level as the top Gym Leader by trying to throw Red into a pit he made in the ground, and breaking the release mechanisms on his Pokeballs to prevent switching them in. The idea of breaking the ball or incapacitating the trainer makes it more dynamic, and kinda gives more reason to the usual "I must train myself as well as my Pokemon" approach so common in Fighting specialists.

Now, this has all been relatively comparative. How it appears in contrast to the games, and I guess the anime a little bit. But on its own merits...how is it?

Again, I think the first three volumes are a bit too chaotic and hard to follow. They offer a bit of a story arc, but it doesn't have that much going on, so I don't respect it. The Yellow arc is...hmm.

I assume this is very much "product of its time," but the pollution angle for the Elite Four's motivation of eliminating humans feels kinda stock-standard. It's relatively harmless, but it feels like a background note that has very little impact on anything? We get a couple very brief glimpses at "Oh, these Mankey are rampaging because there's little food," and Lorelei's backstory involving a dying Seel population, but it all feels very distant. There's nothing that actually connects to our heroes, because as Blue expresses, Pallet Town is the only "pure" place left. None of them really feel the effects on the larger world.

What's kind of a bother is that neither do their Pokemon. Not one seems to be impacted by this alleged super-serious pollution issue across the region. The only one with an emotional connection to the evil of the world is Red's Eevee, who can shift between its evolutions almost at will due to Team Rocket's experiments, but nothing that connects to this deeper aspect. So when Lance and Co start going on about all humans being a problem, and all humanity being a problem, and everywhere being so corrupted...well, it falls a little flat.

I can't even use the "kid's media" excuse here, because again, part of the "more serious" tone is stuff like Arbok getting cut in half, and people kinda dying. Which...was missing here. I mentioned reading this before? Some scenes I remember aren't in the official translation. I assume it's the old 90's style American Censorship stuff, removing Lance blowing up a boat and actually killing people, and Green getting attacked across the chest to reveal she was hiding Pokeballs there, so like. I guess they were trying to align this more to kids, expecting them to pick this up after the games.

On the whole, I think the manga turned out alright. I will say I had a decent time. I am looking forward to where it goes from here, because my wife absolutely gushes about the Hoenn books. But up next is my beloved Johto, where I'm expecting to have a great time.

[niinnyu]

A little rant about leaks because I'm lowkey dreading them. And I'd appreciate it if you'd read it (and if not... 👁👁).

I find the jjk fandom's (though it's true for others too) reliance on leaks very off-putting. I know people want to look forward to something in the middle of the week and talk about it, but this just feels disrespectful, while also being at the cost of other people getting to enjoy it as they want to whether you care about getting spoiled or not.

So many people just don't tag leaks and spoilers properly (forget places where tagging doesn't even make a difference). Seeing things trending with the context of previous chapters explains everything. Not to mention people mis-tagging spoilers and leaks interchangeably (you can remove leak tags after the chapter is officially published but not spoiler tags!!) And no, you're not subtle with your 'out of context spoilers' to someone who has all previous context.

But what boggles my mind is why would you want someone to shout the punchline of a joke in your face before any of the setup has been done. You'll have a bunch of deepfried 2 pixel screenshot of screenshot quality manga panels of crucial moments with none of the build up and pacing. Paired with the most lacklustre explainations of what's happening (the phrasing of which can be biased to the leaker's opinions). Translating isn't easy. To convey what exactly something means from one language to another in an effective and in the intended way isn't easy (shoutout to fan translators tho y'all are amazing thank you for your time and effort)

And whether you care about the story or not, heck even if you think the mangaka themself doesn't care about it, it is just so disrespectful to the content that you're consuming. Making comics and manga isn't easy (churning them weakly is insane imo esp when a lot of mangaka aren't even full time artists) so why wouldn't you allow yourself to consume their story the way they've themself laid it out. Where one panel comes after the other. Where one expression has context in the next page. Where a dialogue has weight only when placed with another dialogue. Give the creator(s) this little grace too, because whether you like a story or not, there is still a huge amount of effort and skill, by multiple people, going into it.

And I personally love interacting with the fandoms I'm in, literally sometimes the only source of joy I have (yes ik leave me alone) is interacting with other fans and having my mind blown over their art and writing and theories. And I'd rather not be spoiled unless I'm myself seeking them out or just reading the actual chapter. So this involves me either spoiling it for myself before someone else does it, or spoiler dodging for 5 OUT OF 7 DAYS A WEEK EVERY WEEK.

I'm not even saying you should only look for official sources or whatever because I know not everyone has access to legal places to read (tho the shounen jump app is there for those interested, but yeah i get it for other publications), but there are better ways to read/hate-readyour fav/least fav manga out there without ruining it for someone else. The wait is juuust a couple of days more. There is absolutely no dearth of fan made content that can't help you last another few days, maybe your new fav fan creator is right around a little wait (ahem check my bs out if you'd like ahem ahem).

I just want to be able to interact with the fandom for more than just 2 days a week, and I don't like my accounts dying because i dissapear 5 days either, and is that a such a bad thing? I come online to have fun, not run an obstacle race y'know?

[itsclydebitches]

We can agree that the tonal dissonance is the worst part yes because why did they come out of that good ass smoke confront yourself scene with Ruby making a hilarious meme face at us 😭 can they decide if they want serious or slapstick or at least make said slapstick feel more cruel/surreal, like go for a tone where the characters are suffering but the inherently ridiculous world is constantly fucking with them. I feel like that'd land better than 'hehe Weiss is going grrr and making anime bubbles! Ignore Ruby having a panic attack! This is irrelevant!'

Thanks for responding to the other thing as politely as you did and I hope it didn't come off as a personal attack. You do seem nice and you make a good point I just kind of feel bad for you slogging through this show you hate KSHSKSHS

Nah don't worry about it, anon. Idk how to really explain it, but for me a "bad" show isn't necessarily a "slog" show. I like waking up Saturday morning to watch RWBY, knowing I'll get to write a recap later, engage with other fans throughout the week, etc. It could feel overwhelming at times given the previous one day pace I had set, but not a slog (no matter how much it might sound that way in recaps because, as established, there's A Lot of problems to cover that obviously color my tone). But the moment this project actually becomes an uninspiring slog I'd just... drop it? I mean, no offense to anyone here who likes keeping up with these posts, but I'm not a Content Creator℠ in the sense of this being a job. Tumblr doesn't pay me lol. Whenever/if ever it's no longer enjoyable, it's no longer something I'll do. Simple as that.

Anyway, YEAH. Tone. I had the same sort of, "Wait, huh?" reaction to Ruby's exaggerated panic over losing the Cat (complete with more stylized, manga-esque animation cues) immediately after she's reminded that Salem is two steps away from destroying the whole world and they have no plan to stop her. It's truly jarring. You know what I was thinking about the other day though? How although it's obviously weird, frustrating, and sometimes dangerous, Ever After should also be beautiful. Creative. Inspiring. An astounding, impossible experience! We got a little bit of that with Ruby walking through the garden, but leaning into the girls' amazement could be a good way of lightening the otherwise dark Volume. I mean, they haven't just landed in a fairy tale, but a beloved childhood classic complete with favorite characters, gorgeous scenery, unlimited magic where before they've only seen bits in combat... Do you have any idea how fucking STOKED I would be if I suddenly found myself in Narnia? The Shire? Hogwarts? Or yeah, Wonderland? Even if I knew that there was danger here and even if I had something traumatically important to get back to in the real world, there would still be a part of myself simply giddy at the prospect of exploring my favorite story. If Blake spent more time gushing over meeting her favorite characters, if Weiss stood in awe at the architecture, if Yang was Ooo-ing over the cool creatures here, if Ruby took a breather to look at sentient toys and go, "That's awesome" we could add a lot of lightheartedness without interrupting the primary tone. Right now, the girls' attitude is primarily "Wow, this world is the worst" rather than "Wow, this world is a wonderland." And true, that is (mostly) accurate to Alice's experiences, but it's not helping me enjoy the setting when the girls so clearly hate being there.

[stars-tonight]

hi!! could i have a matchup? ur super cool for doing this, i know it means a lot to so many people. and i love ur writing too!

i want to be this emoji pls 🥭

long

romantic matchup pls

i use she/her pronouns and id like to be paired w a guy pls

my ideal partner is the perfect balance of serious and unserious, someone who’s quietly smart (like they don’t make it super known and won’t rub it in your face if you need help with something academic but also aren't like dense), and will indulge my odd interests and hyperfixations without judgement

i am 5’10” which is one of my favorite traits about myself

so i actually have no idea how to describe myself cause im scared of sounding vain but my friends have said: “witty, introspective, passionate, strategic” or “confident, loyal, hardworking” and idk which is more accurate to people around me, so im giving both

i’ve been playing field hockey and lacrosse since i was 11 as a defender for both. never had a knack for offense. wish I did though. (had a coach ruin lacrosse for me though so i’m going to quit though… love field hockey though)

i also love any form of media. classical lit, films (love psychological horror, letterboxd, and my amc subscription). anything i can find deeper philosophical meaning in is right up my alley. 

my love language for giving is physical touch. i love giving hugs, getting them is another story

receiving is definitely quality time and words of affirmation. i get a little nervous that people don’t actually like me so i really appreciate when people make time for me.

stargazing and a picnic. i study astrophysics in school and the amount of deep conversations i’ve gotten in while sitting with friends at night is astonishing. also will totally be judging to see if people let me rant about the constellations and philosophy of the universe.

here are my biggest pet peeves: slow walkers x1000, slow drivers, traffic, people who cancel plans last minute, really anything that wastes my time

you're so cool! thought u should know that in case you don't hear it enough <3 hugs

headcanons

🥛 i know we always focus on kuroo for that "docosahexaenoic acid" comment

🥛 but i believe in the manga yaku also made a chemistry comment

🥛 so he's definitely not dumb

🥛 and while kuroo would probably tease you first if you asked for help with homework or a project, yaku definitely wouldn't say anything

🥛 probably swears by flashcards as a study technique

🥛 hopefully you don't mind that he's shorter than you lol

🥛 he probably wouldn't mind since it's not like he's insecure about his height

🥛 but he WILL get made fun of

🥛 especially by kuroo

🥛 and especially if you wear heels

🥛 yaku would definitely be attracted to your confidence and work ethic

🥛 he's also very strategic and passionate (especially when it comes to volleyball) so you have that in common

🥛 he also strikes me as a bit of a media lover

🥛 so you'd definitely spend a lot of time watching movies or reading books

🥛 i don't think he's a horror or psychological guy though

🥛 more like . . . documentary

🥛 or science / historical fiction

🥛 also strikes me as the type of guy to lowkey get road rage

🥛 he feels very no-nonsense, especially post-timeskip, so he'd also hate people who waste time

🥛 man is loaded with money and is determined to keep making it

🥛 so he tends to live life at a fast pace and doesn't always make time for the small things

🥛 he'll definitely appreciate it if you hold a deep conversation with him or teach him a bit about astrology

🥛 he's never given much thought to the stars before but once he looks at them closer he realizes they're pretty cool

🥛 will definitely walk away from a stargazing date with a new worldview and a higher level of appreciation for you

🥛 even though yaku is very busy, you can tell he really appreciates you because he always makes time for you

🥛 he's definitely not clingy so it's perfectly fine if you don't want to be hugged or cuddled all the time!

🥛 however he'll never turn you down if you want to hug him

🥛 actually sees it as cute that you trust him enough to want to hug him

runner up for you was sugawara kōshi!

A/N: there you go 🥭anon, i hope you like it! and thank you for the compliment, you're so sweet!

[giuliadrawsstuff]

Hi! I love your art 💖 I was wondering what is your opinion about yesterday’s episode. Did you like it? :)

Awww hi! Thank you 💜💜

I loved it!!

I really don't get all the complains I'm seeing here and on Twitter.

Mappa did an astounding job portraying Hange's last moments, staying true to the manga and at the same time making it better and more cinematographic.

The frames are the same as the manga, it appears quicker because animation is always like that, you can't stay on it as long as you want like with a manga panel.

Plus the pace was already quick, they're running out of time, Hange has to buy them some last precious moments to fix the plane and flee. They can't dwell on the single frames too much. It's all part of the narrative.

"Dedicate your heart" is a Levihan scene ofc but it's first and foremost an Hange scene. It's their moment to shine, the big hero departure, the ultimate sacrifice to let the others leave and live.

That's also why I appreciated Mappa making their fight longer, we get to see Hange at their best, first humour (even in their last moments), then determination, then awe at the beauty of Titans and science, then badass fighting like we've never seen before culminating in the afterlife welcome from the other Vets.

I don't think they could have done it better.

As for Levihan itself, I saw complains about Levi not showing emotions or the "dedicate your heart" scene not being the love scene it should be.

Now, we can compare it with the Aruani moment. That has been changed, the wrist grab has become hand grab, they blush and they're embarrassed, they're teenagers.

Levihan are adults, Veterans trained for a long time to hide their emotions and feelings leaving space for duty and freedom.

You don't need a kiss or a hug to show they're in love (but I'll do it and add it anyway in my drawings 😂)

As much as I would have died to see it myself, we all know it wasn't going to happen. They don't have room for big manifestations of love. AOT is not like that.

And honestly, at least to me, Levihan is in the little things, little everyday gestures and moments that build and strengthen their relationship, the fact that Levi never said those words to anyone else, adding the use of the left hand (the hand of the heart not the hand of duty), speaks volumes about how he feels in my opinion.

Hange's surprise and smile are equally meaningful.

Same goes for Levi's tears. He doesn't need to cry to show his emotions. He's constipated and we know it, but you can see his pain in his posture, in how he's cradling his hands on his lap, in his lack of expressiveness, in the empty stare, in the determination he has to fight once more and not make Hange's sacrifice in vain.

It's not by chance that everyone is screaming and crying when Hange dies, huge tears rolling down their cheeks, faces disfigured while Levi's the only one who stays quiet and silent, almost spacing out. And I think this is very in character (no matter how much I make him cry in my stuff 😂).

It's not easy to adapt from comic to animation and I think Mappa really did their best keeping the line of the manga while improving it and making it better at the same time.

That being said I only have one last thing to say, LEVIHAN CANON 😌

Thank you for the ask and sorry for the pep talk 😂

[benkyoutobentou]

31 Days of Productivity Reading: Day twenty six

Before: I’m going to the bookstore today! The next volume of Guardian by Priest comes out in English today so I’ll be picking that up and using the opportunity to study some more. I should probably study Japanese today, though…

I don’t really have any other goals for today. Based on the amount of pages I have left in ベルばら, even if I only read for my minimum hour I should still have time to read some 憎らしい彼.

After: Second chamomile harvest of the season! My first harvest is still drying so I haven't had any tea from my garden yet, but I'm very excited for that day to come!

I also finally started a new anime today after feeling like there just wasn't anything I wanted to watch for quite some time. I'm watching 美少年探偵団 now! I read the book a few years back and it was honeslty a supremely bizarre experience. It was the first book I ever read in Japanese, it was extremely difficult to get through (and would probably still be hard for me, based on what others in the book club had said), and I think the majority of us in the book club, myself included, didn't realize going into it that it was a parody novel. I suddenly remembered that it had an anime adaptation, and absolutely had to watch it. Knowing the original, watching it is so much fun. It's supremely ridiculous in every single way and, personally, I find that to be a bonus, especially going in expecting it. And afterwards, I had a dog and a cat laying in my lap, so I couldn't just get up. Luckily I had planned to be trapped in my seat and wasn't caught without my book, so I also got some reading in.

I also had a bit too much success at the book store. In addition to my usual book store study time, I went for Guardian and ended up picking up A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock as well. I knew that there was a book I had looked up recently that was in stock at my store, but couldn't remember what it was. As soon as I saw this, though, I knew that that was the one for me. And while I'm thinking of it, I'm going to put some of my books on my tbr into the little free library near my house. There are a couple that I just don't see myself reading anymore, and I would rather free up that space to house books I actually want to read.

I finished ベルサイユのばら volume two today! I read 69 pages over an hour and one minute for an average reading pace of 1.1 pages per minute. So, I guess I was wrong about being able to finish the volume in under an hour, but I still have time in the day to get to more reading tonight. I think it's fair to say now that my average reading pace with this series is a page per minute, which is actually really nice in giving myself a close estimate as to how long a single volume is going to take me. Also, even with just two volumes under my belt, I'm noticing that I'm getting used to the style and vocabulary of the series. I'm looking up less words as I see the same ones appear and reappear.

I'm already thinking about what manga I want to read tomorrow, and I think I might jump ship to another series... This is why I read so many one shots and 2-3 volume series; I just can't stick to one thing long term unless I'm a little bit too obsessed. I'm a one volume at a time type of person.

Even though I didn't get a whole lot of time to read 憎らしい彼 today, I did read some! I read eight pages today over thirty eight minutes, for an average reading pace of 4.75 minutes per page. That's certainly not my best reading pace, but it id getting pretty late, so that might be slowing down my pace. My total reading time for the day was an hour and thirty nine minutes.

[jumpscaregoose]

What are your thoughts on the character writing in Shaman King? I think it's pretty interesting since it doesn't always spell out everything for the reader.

sorry for leaving this for like 87 years I was deliberating my opinions and then I forgot

pinkie promise to not ignore more asks for this long please give me more things to drabble on about

this triggered an unskippable cutscene so I'm adding a read more but if you don't wanna be here for years me complaining is still above the cut (though I recommend being a nerd with me I have a graph)

anyways I have a running bit with myself whenever I'm googling something mankin related (like when capitalism was invented or the average altitude in hokkaido or something about lsd for the fiftieth time) that I do more research than takei did originally writing the damn thing. the exact words I say are usually "I should stop expecting takei to be good at his job when I do this" because takei does suck at his job sometimes. directing you towards him using the entirety of pre-colonial mesoamerica as a grab bag of random traits that results in hell for me googling stuff because ohmygod

I think the character writing is where this happens the least (though there was one point during my flowers reread where I had to step away from my computer because I forgot he did a thing and it was the SINGLE WORST THING HE COULD HAVE WRITTEN for those characters with that plot element but I digress that is a whole other thing that I am not qualified for)

the writing of our main characters (specifically pacing) is funny though one second I have a graph

these lines display (roughly) the points in the story where we're introduced to our five main characters and also the points where we get full backstory reveals

as you can see

takei what the actual fuck why is it so imbalanced

I think it's a cool funny haha but sir did you forget that one of your most important characters didn't have a full backstory for like four years

not much else to say about pacing except the manga is already really zoomy and when you don't give them enough episodes to adapt it you get an any% speedrun wr 19 hours 50 minutes whateverI'mnotdoingmoremath seconds also look at this typo I made writing this it's very important

ok right where we we

actually answering the ask sounds like a good idea now

overall I really like the characters in the shaman king manga, reboot anime, and what I've seen of the 2001 anime. I've already written an entire post about how much I love yoh and hao's writing. hana and alumi are neat and red crimson is an excellent manga but we're no here for sequels

also it's important to note that I have been staring at shaman king for like two years straight, I have no sense of what's obvious knowledge and what's obscure nolifer wisdom ( no idea where I fall on that spectrum basically)

recently I've been in a real x laws appreciation phase, I think lyserg's arc specifically is a neat and complex take on justice and healing. it feels like something that could realistically happen to a person, minus all the supernatural stuff of course

ever since I first watched the 2021 anime the summer it started airing I've also really liked ren. he's got the zuko type redemption arc thing going on, and while that's an age old trope something about the way he was written always gets me. watching 2021 episode 27 for the first time the day it came out (as the first episode I watched weekly btw, rip osorezan arc you're beautiful but the first time I watched you I was so preoccupied) was one of the most memorable media experiences I've ever had. 😲 face the entire time

horo's another fave writing wise, again mostly because I think the ridiculous pacing of his arc is Hilarious, but if you interpret it as takei being good at his job (possible but unlikely) his introduction scene is fantastic at establishing a character without letting you know you're missing something. I for one didn't notice until the narrative pointed it out at which point I freaked out a bit because oh no I ignored my son by accident. the wisdom kings fight still makes me lose it every time I watch it scene of all time as well (voice performance has to be my favourite part of that I don't think it would go half as hard animated without that)

those three are my favourite characters writing wise. I also think jeanne is cool but her entire arc is very similar to both lyserg's and ren's so I shan't elaborate. I will however tell you about the time I was sitting in math class when my teacher mentioned joan d'arc, I had what can only be described as a eureka moment, and spent five minutes frantically googling things until I zoned back in to him talking about the time he almost drowned in quicksand on mont saint michel

there's also some neat stuff with plant and flower symbolism that I haven't looked into in months but is pretty neat (I like the part where weed shows up because I am so very mature)

don't even get me started on the musical leitmotifs and themes (no seriously don't I have no real musical knowledge and no one to fact check my bs) but I did write another post about some of it if you haven't read it

uh in conclusion I don't think takei knows what he's doing sometimes, character writing in shaman king pretty good sometimes me likey, I will make graphs on a whim for basically no reason

here have another one I did in two minutes to explain ren and jeanne's parallel character arcs once

giveb me more mankin asks if you have any I have so many OPINIONS and TANGENTS I wish to be PROMPTED

[kelmcdonald]

See You at VanCAF

This is copy pasted from my newletter. 

Hey all! My main thing is I'll be at VanCAF which is in Vancouver, British Columbia on May 20&21. They haven't posted con maps yet, so I don't know what my table number is. But I'll be there and it's free to get into. So stop by!

Like I said the big thing this month is going to VanCAF. The rest of the month is mostly keeping my nose to the grindstone. 

This month's full moon movie is The Wolfman again. This time the remake. While watching the original Wolf Man, myself and other folks in the discord talked about some of the stuff that was changed in the remake (stuff like the remake is twice as long.) So I figured doing a back to back would be kinda fun. So if you wanna join, we'll be watching it May 5th at 6pm PST. Join the discord if you want.

As always I'll be streaming art on Twitch. My schedule is currently the following:

Tuesday 8pm-10pm PST

Wednesday 8pm-10pm PST

Thursday 6pm-9pm PST (during the Iron Circus Geekshow)

I mentioned last month that I was redoing the live reading of Fame and Misfortune. My mic worked this time so I've saved it and posted it on my youtube. We go over through the whole story in about 30 mins. Then I answer some questions from fans.

I'll definitely doing something like this for The Better to Find You With. As I'll get to in the next section, I got a lot of stuff on my plate. It will probably be some time in the fall.

I spent a lot of April still playing catching up on things. I was really backed up on my work for Seven Seas. I think I got it handled now, but Blue Moon is still not done. I think that has to be my primary focus this month. I was hoping to get the current chapter of You are the Chosen One last month, but that didn't happen. It's penciled so for the next few Fridays I'll post the pencils of the rest of chapter.

By the time those go up, I'll hopefully be done with Blue Moon and can give You are the Chosen One more attention. I hate to do it, but I have to put something on hold. The City Between being free means it gets me more new readers/attention and You are the Chosen One takes longer. And after I write Blue Moon, I should probably make sure the next batch of You are the Chosen One script are ready for drawing. So here's my to do list/priority:

Write Blue Moon

Keep up with The City Between

Freelance thing that is NDA

Clean up Murky Water to make a book

Finish Chapter 3 of You are the Chosen One

Review next few chapters of You are the Chosen One

Anyway, that's quite a lot.  I barely had time to read or watch new stuff this month. So kinda a short list this month.

Darling by Olivia Stephens - Darling is a Western Horror about a black woman who's living as a werewolf to escape the racism of 1800s America. She meets a black man on the run and the two have an instant connection Olivia art is excellent and rendering makes every page look both beautiful and haunting. It's one of the best werewolf comics I've read. You should all go back it here.

Love is Hard for Otaku - This is one checked out because Mangasplaining did an episode on it. They had a kinda mixed opinion of it, but I was curious to look into it myself. It's about a gal who's a big nerd but is hiding it from her day job because her last boyfriend dumped her for being too nerdy. A nerdy guy friend proposes they date each other because since they are both nerds she won't have to worry about him dumping her for it. There is a manga and an anime. The manga is a little rough. The pacing seems to be kinda wonky. The anime does a better job landing the jokes, mostly because a lot of the jokes involved references to anime. So the joke works better when they can copy the scene from Evangelion shot for shot, rather than translation the animation into a comic. I don't 100% buy the characters as a couple so I'm on the fence about continuing to watch it. 

Nope - This was something that was on my I should get around to seeing this movie since it came out. It was streaming so I made a point to watch it. It's less than a year old so I won't go into details about the plot. But I really liked the point it makes about random chance and nature. I also really liked the relationship between the two main siblings. It was a good mix for conflict, frustration, and affection.

Anyway, thanks for sticking with me through the big workload that's going on. Please back my Patreon if you can. Every little bit helps!

[twistedfaych]

So I read a lot of manga over winter break and I want to share some thoughts bc if I don't I might explode; The list is roughly in the order I read them

Baki the Grappler: Fun, crazy and a bit stupid but in a good way, really enjoyable

New Grappler Baki: More of the same, still pretty exiting, its getting a bit more ridiculous

Hanma Baki: :( I really didn't like the pickle rick arc and its just ridiculous now and I think the series could have ended here

---- Baki Break ----

Claymore: Beserk but lesbian so automatic win, cried a lot at the end, awesome monster art if you are into that

Dorohedoro (I already read 2/3 before but decided to finish it): Amazing and weird, a great manga for people that root for the "bad" guys, really loved it

Spy X Family: its so popular that I rly don't now what to say here. Its fun

Monster: Amazing writing and pacing, stays exciting from chapter to chapter, was really hard to put down and also really hard hitting

RED: Living on the edge: an actual hidden gem, great characters and hard hitting themes mixed with the appropriate amount of funny, also great female characters. I'm almost sure Golden Kamui is inspired by this, so if you like GK, you will eat this up.

Fire Punch: jesus christ man; whats fujimotos thing with cannibalism??? Its good but man it hurts, but I guess thats the point

Gantz: uhh yeah that happened I guess. Engaging and strong start but then it just falls apart due to various literary devices and tropes used, the end is just whatever; got some AoT vibes, Mangaka is to horny on main for my taste; I feel like it wasted a lot of potential

Homunculus: Great premise and great execution. I clocked the egg on the first panel were only their hand is visible, I'm really proud of myself for that one. TW Rape if you want to read it yourself

Shamo: I'm really torn with this one,, The beginning is pretty hard to stomach and but it gets really good after that?? Its a manga were I actively disliked the main character the whole way through, which is an interesting experience. I would only recommend it if you like baki but thought what if Baki wasn't a nice guy but an enormous asshole and rapist and rape victim instead? A hard read for sure, also obv TW Rape and other acts of sexual violence and abuse.

Blaster Knuckle: I only read the first 3 volumes since I couldn't find scans of more. Really didn't like that the KKK are ACTUAL DEMONS instead of just horrible humans, kinda misplaces the agency. otherwise its fun, its a bit of a riff of beserk but as a western

Beastars: I guess everyone already knew this but it is AMAZING and I loved every second, I was constantly on the verge of tears in the Legosi/Haru parts, guess I'm a furry now :shrug:

---- End of Baki Break ----

Baki Dou: :( :( just,, don't,, idk just because you can write that doesn't mean you should!!

Baki Dou (2018): surprisingly I had fun with this again! its a bit back to the roots and actually interesting new characters for a change!

So yeah now you know what I did for the last month hahahaha I have a habit of binge reading,,,,

[lunarsilkscreen]

Somebody asked me how I write my stories...

Referencing my DeviantArt account.

Despite not a lot of engagement, I get a lot of compliments. Which is weird considering engagement helps accounts grow. But whatevs.

They've talked to me about several variations of writing process told in high school, college, and writers workshops, and despite seemingly good quality content (again, my engagement suggests otherwise) It appears as if I follow my own drum beat.

That's partially true. I started writing fiction in High School, and I've been to several writing classes, including Technical Writing courses (the kind of writing engineers and PhD students do)

And Ive had to write a lot of content in professional settings as well.

So I have a plethora of writing experience and training to pull from. I have a good idea of how to portray information to people in a quick and professional manner from writing Journal Entries and Documenting Mechanical fixes for aircraft, and being very detailed when needed, and less detailed when it isn't pertinent.

I have a vast knowledge of how books are written as well, from reading intensely during the Scholastic Scholarship programs grade schools offer in America, to being chronically online and reading everything Cracked.Com to Wikipedia rabbit holes, to tutorials for PhotoShop and VideoGame strategy guides, including Nintendo power, Game Informed, and more modern Discord Guides and even responsible for engaging in communities to write my own.

This is where most of my ability to write comes from, but I tend not to edit my stuff after writing them, which tends to lead to confusion... Usually because I'm not getting paid for it, so who cares really.

My process of writing tends to surprise myself with where it ends up. So while I have an idea of how my stories should end up; I tend to write them front to back, in order to avoid writing on plot holes or myself into a corner.

Because I don't have all the details of what should happen, just a general idea of where it's going this helps to maintain the illusion that I have an idea of what I'm writing.

So while I start with a kernel, including an idea of who I want characters to be, or how world building should be, or whatever; the characters and world takes on a mind of their own.

This, I think, is closer to how MangaKai (Japanese Comic Book Authors) tend to do their workflow. And why they're often quoted as saying "I actually have no idea where the story is heading".

And why most Manga tend to run long, because; similar to a sitcom; There isn't an intentionally ending until funding runs out.

And since I'm not being funded, I don't really have to worry about Sales or an audience, or a lot of the limitations other authors and artists might have.

The obvious drawback is that I also tend to work at my own pace, and seemingly aloof-ly with no goals except to write a well crafted story.

I'm writing with the long term goal that I make something that inspires people; and if I'm lucky, there will be a demand for my style of art later. Which I can afford right now thanks to disability.

I see it as a kind of investment.

Each page I'm increasing my skills while creating idea after idea that can be combined together like puzzle, or read in nearly any order.

I'm writing something I want to read. And so, I'm reading it as I write it. Which is kind of antithetical to the standardized practices. You know; that necessity to get paid and all.

Anyway; I'm just hoping it's a good investment.