#and also the more i work on the animation (which i started halfway through the writing) the less fic accurate it becomes

[ragnars-tooth]

Soooo finishing and editing this chapter is like walking into an electric fence BUT I am animating a clip from it also. Instead of finishing writing and using many many hours i could be working on the damn source material. Because I am insane.

[kcrossvine-art]

Hi fellow adventurers!! A few weeks ago i caught wind of "Delicious in Dungeon". I'm not really an anime person, but I am a TTRPG, CRPG, and cooking person- . And holy shit. It is so good i  convinced my partner to binge read the whole thing. I'm caught up on dungeon meshi, the anime, and just yesterday i also finished dungeon meshi, the manga.

Its rare to come across a serialized story that is so thematically cohesive and knows its characters so well. All of the bonus content like the artbooks and monster tidbits are just the icing on top.

So, inspired by Ryōko Kui's writing and illustration I'm going to attempt to create a recipe for every single Delicious in Dungeon recipe!-

Today that means Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom hotpot is on the menu!

(As always you can find the cooking instructions and full ingredient list under the break-)

MY NAMES CROSS NOW LETS COOK LIKE ANIMALS

SO, “what goes in to a Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom hotpot?” YOU MIGHT ASKThis is one of the pricier dishes until we get to the kelpies and dragons of the menu-

Rock lobster tail

Porcini mushrooms

Shiitake mushrooms

Snow fungus

Small potatos

Fensi (glass noodles)

Water

OPTIONAL: your choice of dipping sauces

There was a crossover/promotional event in Shibuya which featured various realworld dishes from the series. They had one for Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom, but they used prawns.  while those cook better in a hotpot, they also didn't look enough like the scorpion for me, they also used udon noodles for the slime and a seaweed/kale(?) mixture for the algae. If you're looking for substitutes due to price or availability i would start with those ingredients.

AND, “what does a Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom hotpot taste like?” YOU MIGHT ASKI hope Senshi would forgive me for technically cooking the lobster outside the pot, once he tastes it.

Okay im always partial to veggies but wowowowowowowoowowowow the snow fungus and the mushrooms tasted soooooooooooo good in the lobster stock

A nice delicate layering of different flavors

Try to get a bite with the lobster meat and shiitake together, dip in butter then chili- trust me

Its up to you what texture you prefer if you want to put the noodles in at the end or put them in halfway through the meal. Either way dont go for eating those first as theyre very filling

I think this would pair well with a citrus drink, something light and clarifying

This would also pair well with being extremely high and hungry (if you feel safe cooking while inebriated lol) very calorically dense

For the trial run I did one lobster tail in the pot with everything else, and one lobster tail off to the side to be picked apart. The former is more in spirit with a hotpot, but it got rubbery as the meal went on and lost its nice taste. The latter may be a bit more work but all you have to do still is boil it and set it aside. I found it held up much better. It was also easier to get inside the shell.

. If you have hardshell maine lobster available, i think it would be superior to rock lobster (keep in mind crustaceans will get rubbery if cooked too long in the pot) . Green onions and/or lotus root would make excellent additions

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

From getting the ingredients out to sitting down and eating, id say it took maybe 30 minutes max? It'd vary on how fast you can prep vegetables and get the various implements heated.

Hotpots are not something i do very often as i'm usually just feeding myself. I think thats why a hotpot makes perfect sense to start the series off. If you want to set the tone of "take care of yourself, eat food with others, and use what you have" (generally speaking) there is nothing more simplistic, flexible, and defeats-the-purpose-if-you-eat-it-alone than a hotpot. Gather around and let your friends bring ingredients to the pot if you want to fill your heart up extra full <3

I'm doing something different here because unlike previous recipes where i used a bunch of different sources and made my own recipe out of hodge-podging it, or just used another persons recipe entirely if they did it really well, i made this more whole-cloth based off of what i had available, what I could discover through research, and my existing knowledge. Instead of the recipe being 50/50 original, this one is more 20/80. So. I'll pass the final verdict off to you guys :D 

What would you rate this recipe out of 10? (with 1 being food that makes one physically sick and 10 being food that gives one a lust for life again.) Did you love it, did you hate it? What're your thoughts on what I could do different, and what would you have done instead?

🐁 ORIGINAL RESIPPY TEXT BELOW 🐁

Ingredients:

2 Rock lobster tails

3 Porcini mushrooms

2 Shiitake mushrooms

Snow fungus (a good handful, should rehydrate in the hotpot)

2 Small waxy potatos

Fensi (glass noodles)

Water/lobster stock

Method:

Lightly rinse all of your vegetables beforehand and let them dry.

Vertically slice the porcini mushrooms. Cut off and dice the stems of the shiitake mushrooms. You can slice the tops if youd like.

Peel and cube the potatoes, roughly an inch each.

For the lobster tails; Boil a pot of salted water. Keep the shell on. Weigh the largest tail and add 1 minute of cooking time for every ounce of weight.

When done, strain the lobster from the water. Pour the water into your hotpot as the base. Serve the lobster on the side so people can pick the meat out to dip into the hotpot.

Bring the hotpot to a simmer. Add the potato cubes, snow fungus, mushrooms, and noodles.

OPTIONAL: this wasnt in the show, but its fun having sauces on the side :) i had oyster sauce, dry seasoned chili dip, melted butter, and soy sauce available

[rascalentertainments]

Wish Granted Magic System ✨✨✨

Given that we're two chapters away from the halfway point of the story, its about to time I delve into the magic system of this AU.

So magic in this AU is powered through emotion. The more a person feels a certain emotion, the more it affects the magic they use daily. Let's start off with...

Magnifico and Amaya's Magic: 🐺🐍✨

Both of them have studied magic for years, together and apart. However, they still developed their own techniques to use it.

• Magnifico's magic is fueled by negativity and hate. (its a bit obvious, lol) He's been searching for a way to have ultimate power for years. And each time he's failed, that disappointment has fueled him. The angrier he is towards somebody or someone, the stronger it is. He learned to harness and control magic since his early 20's, and while it was substantial for the time, his desire to have more kept growing and growing until it became impossible to ignore. So much so that when he destroys his own home by accident, he's completely blind to his own destruction and blames the books for not giving him enough information. So he turns to dark magic.

•Dark magic gave Mags the boost he needed, but its still not enough. The more he becomes paranoid losing his power, and the more he gained power, he became more spiteful towards non-magic users. As Magnifico got older, his powers were solely used selfishly, under the guise of it helping others to get whatcha wants. Mags' magic is incredibly destructive when its not controlled, which is why Amaya keeps him in check. He could easily kill anyone with a snap of his fingers, or crushing a person's wish. He completely ignores the face that its slowly making him sick as well.

•Mags' magic specifically works well in deception, especially when it comes to stealing people's wishes, which is the polar opposite of Star's magic. And Star's magic terrifies him in a way. Mags uses magic on these performances during the Wish ceremonies to deceive people into thinking giving their wishes to him is a great thing. Its kind of like a parlor trick to hide the truth. However, mo matter how much he magic uses, its nothing compared to a star's. In fact, when Asha's father details his perceived connection to the stars, and how he feels they give him the power and inspiration to help others in his life, that's when the king got the idea to catch the magic of a star itself. He could finally achieve ultimate power! But he had to get rid of that damn philosopher first and make it look like an accident....

•Amaya's magic works with manipulation, both mental and physical. While she doesn't use her powers to the extent of her husband, she does aid him through the use of her potions. As a shout-out to Yzma, she keeps a collection of various potions in a large cabinet, and uses them when creating concoctions to give him the power boost to take a star from the skies. The other kinds deal with changing one living thing into another. Most of them were also animal experimentations, either to change unsavoury animals into ones she desired, or even changing their natural habits an entirely animal's, making said animal like other creatures.

• The Queen has always used her words of persuasion to get what she wanted. In most cases, she used her magic to make her words influence the minds of others. Amaya uses this to put the people at ease when they asked too many questions or started to worry about their wishes. She even used this on visiting royals from other countries, so that they didn't see or hear anything connected to the people's misfortune or rumors of the two being evil. This is why she was able to get into Star's head in chapter 6. She paid close attention to the pair's behavior around each other, and seeing part of herself and Magnifico in the two wanting to protect each other, she turned it against him. Adding a little bit of magic to it, he was completely influenced by her words.

•Amaya has used magic on Sabor, but not to harm him. (Sometimes she did heal him if he was sick or injured) Only so she could use him as a sort of watchdog, keeping an eye on any suspicious activity or possible traitors. (Which Sabor fully accepted) She created the "Sight Beyond Sight" type of spell so she could see what Sabor sees when he returns. This is how she trusted him to find the Hamlet without raising suspicion.

Star/Cosmo's magic 🌟😁

This fun ball of energy is indeed powerful, just as Magnifico feared, but he can't exactly do everything he wants. He has limits, which is mostly by his own imagination and a dash of classic Disney magic.

• Star's magic is fueled by all his emotions, but mostly joy. It can change depending on his emotions. When he's happy, all his magic reflects it. Joyful magic works on Disney classic energy, so talking animals, moving furniture, shape shifting into various creatures and even his human form are all homages to the past films. He can't turn into different people, so this form he usually is in is it. Mostly because he's had a wish to be a human on Earth for so long, he just took his astral look and applied human characteristics to it. Its also rear unusual for a star nomad to get attached to one place instead moving from place to place. As for other emotions, he feels them like the fairies from Peter Pan: one at a time. When he's sad, he's miserable. When he's angry, its absolute fury. But the longer he stays on Earth, they start to get more complex dealing with humans, since we can feel several emotions at once. Which is also why its a slow process for him to realize his love for Asha is different from his love for Earth.

•Like the rest of the star nomads, he has flight and its powered by thinking happy thoughts. That's incredibly easy for him, so it's why he can fly so high and quickly. However, he starts to slow down after Magnifico stabs him and takes a little of his power in chapter 7. He's only just a little faster than a human, and it kind of bothers him not being able to move as quickly. And he starts getting used to walking, which is unusual for a star nomad to do instead of flying.

• Star's shapeshifting can be done as long as he can clearly think of the animal he wants. He's seen animals from all over the world, but the catch is that he can't perfectly replicate one. He's always yellow with a white tuft of hair so he doesn't blend in with other animals. Plus Star can add or exaggerate different features as well. He can't turn into extinct animals like dinosaurs because he's never seen them.

There will be another post explaining more about the star nomads and how their different from "royal stars". It'll also come up later to explain why Star isn't a prince like most other Disney male leads. Its really the only insecurity he has.

And more art is coming, plus the Royal redesigns! Then I'll get started on chapter 9. 😉

Thanks for reading!

@oh-shtars @signed-sapphire @chillwildwave @your-ne1ghbor

@tumblingdownthefoxden @ishadow246 @annymation @kenihewa

@natsuki208 @uva124 @cocoapowderpictures @emptyblog7

@lazytitans-world

[hiskillingjar]

Tentacles (Ren/MC)

this blog is a gooner safe space. sorry for the late upload, i got home from work last night and immediately fell asleep ^_^

day 9: tentacles second person. cw for anime.

"What are you doing?"

Ren let out a barked yelp at the sudden sound of your voice, jolting out of his computer chair and pressing up against his desk, shielding his computer screen from you with his body.

“What are you doing, barging in like that?!” He demanded, his pointed ears raised high and his tail shooting straight and still, glaring at you, looming in the frame of his now open door, over his shoulder. “This is my room!"

"Can you blame me?” You shrugged, not caring about his cowering form as you entered the room, your arms crossed over your chest. “I'm stuck in one house, all hours of the day, I'm gonna get bored, like a…house cat or something." You huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of your face, before giving him a considered look, tilting your head. "So...what are you doing?"

“None of your business. It's private.” He retorted quickly and coldly, still trying to keep his screen covered, a deep, embarrassed red flushing across his face as he stubbornly kept staring at you, defiant. “You can see that, can’t you?"

"Mm, yeah, I figured as much." You replied, sucking your teeth, your lazy gaze lingering on his tight body (tight with nerves and defiance) before going back to his flushed face, not totally hating what you were seeing. "Can I see?"

With the way Ren’s tail bristled and puffed up, like that of a grumpy cat, you guessed that he was trying to appear angry, or at the very least, like he was something, someone you shouldn’t mess around with.

But you were pretty bored. And you liked messing around. 

“No. I told you, it’s private." He shot back in a hiss, ears lowering quickly. “Pervert."

You let out a scoffed laugh and rolled your eyes, nodding towards the screen which was still playing the video he was watching.

"I’m the pervert? You're the one watching hentai, aren’t you?” You said, your eyes narrowing slightly. “What, you’re really too embarrassed to show me?”

An intense, mortified flush immediately shot across his face at that correct accusation, his ears lowering sheepishly, and his tail drooping down into a sad, limp sway, as he keened back against his desk, trying to hide it even more.

“Th- That’s not-” He started to protest, trying to defend himself, but he quickly closed his mouth, realizing there was little he could say.

Oh no. You didn’t totally hate that at all.

You smirked lightly, stepping forward into the warmth and the soft glow of his bedroom.

"I'm not a prude, Ren,” You murmured quietly, trying to encourage him out of his shy posturing. “Even if you try and make me out as one. I have watched porn before, even some of the lame shit you’ve watched."

Ren’s ears perked up slightly, though his expression didn’t give away anything but persistent discomfort, watching you approach and encroach into his personal space. He made no effort to move away from the desk, either, just staring at you with a conflicted expression, like he was waiting to pounce or flee, if he had to.

"Why do I find that hard to believe..." He muttered through a slight sneer, his lip curling around his fangs..

"Because you're a close-minded prick?" You suggested, raising your brow. “Who thinks I can’t possibly also be a pervert because I’m not putting out to you, twenty-four-seven?”

Ren’s ears lowered again at the accusation, his lip jutting out in a pouted frown, staring at you with an expression that was halfway between shame and outrage.

"Come on, dude, just show me.” You said, giving him an exasperated, if fond smirk, taking one final step towards him, your hands positioning either side of his skinny hips, almost pinning him down to the desk. “What are you so shy for? As long as it's not anything gross or creepy, it'll just be funny."

"Funny.” Ren pouted slightly with another eye roll, though he didn’t seem to mind you being so close to him. Maybe he even liked it a little, something you sensed as his tail worked its way around your thigh, comfortable in molding to your body. “So, you're just gonna laugh at me, then."

"Probably.” You shrugged and nodded, your honesty making him scoff. “But you're a big boy, aren’t you? I think you can tolerate me teasing you a little..."

"Haha, that's very reassuring...” Ren huffed out sarcastically, before he let out another sigh, idly biting his lip for a moment, and sank back into the computer chair, letting you get a full look of what he was watching.

"...Jesus, dude."

The screen was filled with a mass of animated tentacles, pink and fleshy and phallic, wrapped around and invading a cast of anime girls in elaborate outfits, frames changing every few seconds to a new bulging body part, a new angle of invasion, or pornographic expression to keep things interesting for the viewer. 

It was absolutely repulsive and deeply hedonistic.

And while you felt next to nothing at the animated display (and you rarely ever did with porn anyway), Ren was sinking more and more into the computer chair, his face going a darker hue of red.

"Do not." He said firmly, even though he couldn't meet your gaze.

"I'm not!" You laughed, eyebrows shooting up as the screen showed off a heavily pixeated tentacle invading another girl (with the pixels hiding the deep invasion, too). You couldn't hear the audio playing on Ren's headphones around his neck, but you knew what that sounded like. "I sure hope those school girls are of age, Ren."

"Shut up, obviously they are." He snapped back, defensive and annoyed like a teenager, stubbornly crossing his arms over his chest. "Don't make it weird..." He then grimaced, his hands going up to hide his face.

"I'm not making it weird when it is weird," You chuckled, idly leaning against the arm of his computer chair, still watching the screen. "Own your weirdness, dude, it’ll make you way happier in the long run."

"Ugh, I hate you…" He whined under his breath.

"You were the one who kidnapped me," You reminded him with a roll of your eyes (not mentioning that you were the one who chose to stay when he offered you your freedom). "You're not even going to talk me through it? Not going to explain your sick and twisted perversions to me?"

“…Do I really have to?” He muttered, his face still hidden behind his hands. 

"Mm...I might make it worth your while if you do," You offered, moving to perch yourself on the computer chair with him, your hands sinking down to his lap. “You get what I mean?” Ren’s breath hitched slightly and his ears shot up at the touch, his body going tense. He slowly lowered his hands to look at you again, surprised, and his face an even brighter shade of red.

You were probably being pretty bold for someone who never put out. 

But…you were bored, and you wanted attention. And this was an easy way to get it.

"Tell me," You said encouragingly, your hands toying with the toggle of his jogging bottoms, feeling the bulging heat beneath it. "I'm...genuinely interested."

A noise somewhere between a gasp and a whine left his throat at your touch, his hips reflexively twitching forwads, his tail flicking against your back as his wide eyes looked forward to meet your gaze, his mind clearly struggling to process the situation and why you were doing any of this.

“About…what exactly?” He squeaked out, his voice cracking a little bit as his face went impossibly redder.

"About, uh," You turned towards the screen and squinted at the title of the video. "Magical Girl Group Destroyed by Tentacles. Obviously."

“Right….” Ren whimpered out through another grimace (embarrassed at the video’s title, maybe), his hips involuntarily bucking up against your hand as he looked at the screen, his hands gripping the arms of the computer chair so hard, his knuckles were white. “I- It’s just…” He started to explain hesitantly, his voice a little breathless and his expression hot and humiliated. "I...ah, I like cute girls...?"

"Yeah, I figured that much out," You mumbled in a sarcastic drawl, leaning in and bringing your mouth closer to his ear and prying down the front of his joggers where his uncovered cock was drooling pre already. "Don't like them enough to feel bad about them being destroyed though, huh?"

“I- It’s just…fantasy, ah,”  He said through a strangled moan, his head falling back as he let you work, your fist gripping his cock tightly and moving up and down, working him to full and painful harness. “I’d never…mm, I’d never actually do that to someone…” His own hands gripping the arms of the chair even tighter and his hips lifting slightly to allow you better access to work with him.

"Well, yeah, it's impossible." You said with a little snort, dragging your thumb over the beading slit of his cock. "But you'd like something in close approximation, wouldn't you?"

“I- I…ah…n- no.” Ren protested between breathless gasps, his body trembling slightly and his whole expression was one of flustered humiliation as you continued to work him over.

"Don't lieeee~" You cooed, your hand moving a little quicker, working the twitching length of his cock, all the way to his swelled knot and back up again. "You wouldn't like a cute girl, tied up and helpless and begging for you to be gentle with her while you invade every hole with whatever you’re able to?"

“Th- That doesn’t count…!" He protested feebly, his head falling back against the chair again as he squirmed and rocked his hips against your touch, his breath leaving him in quiet, shaky gasps. ”That’s…ah, totally normal…”

"No, it isn’t, you little creep," You murmured softly, nestling against the soft fluff of his ears and his hair, taking in his scent. “Most guys don’t want to torture a girl until she’s cumming her brains out…maybe you’re the only guy in the world who likes this shit, ever thought about that?

A full-body shiver ran up his spine, his tail curling up against your back as his grip on the arms of the chair grew even tighter, his whole body trembling now.

“Shut up, ah, god,” He huffed, barely getting the words out between quiet moans and shuddering breaths. “Why are you so fucking a-annoyinggguh… ” 

He was losing it. And that was incredibly hot.

"You gonna come, Ren?” You teased, giving his ear a little nip. “God, I barely touched you. Behaving like a real vigrin, huh?~" 

“Don’t mock me,” He whined (complaining, not pleading, giving no vulnerability away), his body trembling even more now as you held him tighter, his cheeks flushing dark in embarrassment, though he didn’t try to move away. “F- Faster…please..” he added, his voice a pitiful gasp.

You let out a soft 'tsk' with a smug giggle, but you did as he asked you.

“God, this is so not fair…” He mumbled, his body shaking with need, his eyes tightly shut and his legs spreading (your own thrown over his leg, to make the position comfortable). “Mmh, please, please, please don’t stop…”

"So needy," You remarked, pressing closer, your free arm sliding around his shoulders "Almost too needy...maybe you should stop rotting your brain with so much porn, hm?"

“Shut up, don’t talk about it-” He protested weakly, though he couldn’t conceal the desperate trembling and whining from his voice. “God, I hate you so much…”

"Hmph," You smirked, pressing your lips against his neck. "So, you're gonna let me go, then? Since you hate me sooo much..."

“Shut up!” He protested, his head rolling to the side to give you more space to kiss along his neck, his arms wrapping around your waist and pulling you closer. “I can still hate you and want you to stay!”

"I thought so," You murmured with a smile, giving his neck another kiss. "We're really gonna have to do something about all this porn, though...aren't we?"

“Hah…ah…I’m not promising anything…” He answered breathlessly, his ears laying back as he arched his back, pressing his neck more into your kisses. “Close, ngh don’t- don’t stop…”

"No more porn for a week, and I won't stop.” You offered in a low warning tone, stilling your movements for just a second. “Okay?"

“Ah- a whole week?” Ren whined, lifting his head to look at you, his eyes wide and pleading, his hips still bucking up against your touch despite your sudden stillness. “That’s way too long, come on, a weekend, a couple of days, please-”

"A week. Take it or leave it."

His trembling jaw tensed a little, as he assessed his options.

“God, you’re awful..” He muttered with a huff, his head falling back against the chair again, his legs shaking slightly underneath you. “…Fine, fine, a week…”

"Good boy!"

[ponett]

hello i am considering getting into transformers. however, aside from maybe a few episodes of the 2000s show i caught halfway through, a handful of toys i tried to rip the heads off of and i guess maybe the michael bay movies, i know Fuck All about those funny robots in disguise. what are your recommendations for entry points for someone who does not know an autorobot from a deceiptfulcon? i know you talk up the IDW comic series, is that a good place to start? what about cartoons/movies?

(yes i know i could google this but who am i gonna trust more, the transformers lorekeeper or some random screenrant article)

So I love a lot of the IDW comics, especially More Than Meets the Eye/Lost Light, but that continuity is massive and very dense. It's aimed more at adult readers, and in particular adult readers who are already familiar with Transformers. If you wanna just jump right into the deep end, it's a good option. I know a ton of people fell in love with Transformers through MTMTE and its gay robot melodrama with no prior experience. But it can still be daunting, especially if you try to read ALL of the IDW comics.

Right now, the main thing I would recommend is the currently ongoing Image comic series by Daniel Warren Johnson, just titled Transformers. It's the centerpiece of a new shared universe with an original sci-fi series called Void Rivals (which has a lot of Transformers cameos) and some GI Joe comics, but honestly you can just ignore all that stuff and read Transformers on its own. There are 11 issues out right now and they're all bangers. I think they convey the basics of Transformers really well, with incredibly fun action and great character writing to back it up. I'm not sure we've gotten such a succinct encapsulation of why Optimus Prime is such a great character in years.

In terms of cartoons, the main fan favorites are Transformers Animated and Transformers Prime. If you want a 2D animated version by a lot of the same people who worked on Teen Titans and Ben 10, go for Animated. If you want a 3D animated version that's a little more serious and a more conventional take on the story, go for Prime.

There's also, of course, the option to just go watch the original G1 cartoon, if you're a fan of that '80s toy commercial cartoon cheesiness. It's still a lot of campy fun, even if it's not going to be the most dramatically compelling version of the series or the easiest on the eyes. The 1986 animated movie in particular gets referenced, like, all the fucking time in everything else that's come since, so that's at least worth checking out on its own.

The Bumblebee movie is also cute as a little standalone story. That's the only one of the live action movies I would recommend as an entry point lmao

[fernsnailz]

take this ask as a free ticket to freely hate on elemental (WE SUPPORT THE HATER GRIND WOOO)

ok so to preface. i have only seen elemental once. it was in theaters. i did NOT pay money to see it (my friend worked at the theater and we got in for free). we also saw it in 3D (would not recommend). i chugged a canned margarita beforehand (WOULD NOT RECOMMEND). i sobered up halfway through the movie and had a terrible time. needless to say i am not a fan of elemental (2023)

below is an edited version of the review/rant i sent to the group chat afterwards. BE WARNED IT'S REALLY LONG.

much later edit: personally i think i did a very bad job of critiquing this movie in this ask, and some of the opinions i expressed below are some pretty bad faith takes. i still think this movie is worthy of criticism, but not in this form and not from a guy who chugged a margarita before seeing it.

ok so the big point of discussion with elemental i've seen is usually around the allegory it uses to portray its themes of race, immigration, and prejudice. generally speaking, it's my opinion that trying to portray concepts of this weight and depth with an allegory or metaphor is already a terrible idea*. this isn't stuff that you can make simpler to understand by portraying minorities as fire people or predator animals or whatever great new idea disney is cooking up next, because this isn't stuff that can just be MADE simpler. if anything, allegory makes discussion about race more complicated because you have to explore why racism and prejudice, an inherently illogical belief, exists within said allegorical world. usually said fictional explanation just seems to justify prejudice - for example, the allegory in zootopia is straight up DANGEROUS to compare to real world racism because predators, aka zootopia's minorities, literally used to hunt and eat prey animals (the majority). with this in mind, elemental is already off to a bad start since disney has a bad history with allegories of this kind.

(*EDIT: this is gonna eat me alive if i don't clarify this because i realized too late that i spoke WAY too generally here. to clarify, i'm mostly talking about creating an entire allegorical world that lacks humans here - allegory can be a very powerful way to portray a human experience, and i don't want it to seem like i'm arguing that allegory and metaphor can't be used at all to create a powerful story about race and prejudice. for example, here's a short film that i really like called OverWeight. it's about losing one's culture and identity, and that theme is explored entirely through a bag of luggage. and it's really good! just want to clarify that i'm not advocating for only extreme realism and a lack of magic here, but instead against using huge, non-human allegorical worlds that replace these human experiences. thx bye)

thankfully, elemental never got as bad a zootopia in its portrayal of prejudice (at least in my opinion), but that's not saying much. it mostly just feels kinda confused - as far as i know, fire people are supposed to serve as a sort of "immigrant everyman" allegory which is. not how that works. immigrants of different races and ethnicities are going to have different struggles and experiences, and trying to boil everything down into four different elements that fit every kind of person under an allegorical umbrella is over complicating everything again through a veil of simplicity. it's almost like all of this would be fixed if they just told a story about real human people instead of turning them into water and fire people but i mean WHAT DO I FUCKING KNOW!!!!

oh also the worldbuilding of elemental is. kinda ass. to further explain: fire people are the only immigrant characters really explored in depth, and a good amount of the worldbuilding around them is actually pretty interesting. they have their own language that the characters speak every now and then, they have their own foods, customs, and culture that you can definitely tell a decent amount of thought was put into. which i liked! and then you learn that the country they come from is literally called Fire Land. just Fire Land. i doubled over when they said that because compared to everything else, it’s so out of left field and just. GAHH. it really reeks of "exec in the disney board room wanted to make part of the movie about prejudice easier to understand for The Kiddies" and i hate it. god.

this is consistent throughout the film, a lot of genuinely interesting worldbuilding is intermingled with surface level, bottom of the barrel ideas that just feel. so confusing. like a big theme the movie centers around is gentrification and how the city (called “Element City,” by the way (SCREAMS)) is not built with fire people in mind. i like this concept a lot and they show this in some interesting ways! a main conflict centers about how water is flooding ember's home, and there are multiple moments where high-action scenes are revolved around ember just navigating the city and trying to avoid water, something that most of the city’s residents wouldn’t have issue with. i thought that was really good! it was something that, surprisingly, was very relatable! and then the movie goes full zootopia and just like. has one of the characters call the fire girl a slur (the slur was “fireball”) which, reasonably makes ember mad, but then the character that did the slurring faces NO narrative repercussions for her actions because. ???????????????? i don't know??? you would think that a movie that turns issues of class and race into a fun cutesy little allegory would at least take the time to go "hey kids! let's not call minorities slurs" but instead the Slur Woman ends up helping ember and wade on their shitty little romantic sidequest and never once seems to express any remorse. cool! great!!!! WHO'S IDEA WAS THIS???????

by the way who fucking wrote this who put all these element puns in here. there are so many element puns in the movie i want to eat the writers of elemental. i’m mostly made of carbon but i do not walk around like “wow what a long workday we have fellow coworkers, i guess we have to CARBON diem, amirite?” please kill me

the varying quality in the worldbuilding and allegory of elemental just goes to show that this movie would have likely worked better if it focused on humans on earth rather than elements residing in a confusing elemental world - previous pixar works like bao and turning red show that pixar movies that focus on real experiences told from a human perspective with a magical realism twist can work really well! the allegory of elemental makes its characters and experiences feel distant, i spent more time trying to understand the world of the movie than the characters and their struggle. that could be a me problem, but the world was so goddamn broken in the first place that i felt like i COULDN’T focus on anything else. idk can we just tell like actual stories about actual marginalized people without turning them into The Trope of the Week i’m so tired

and by the way. i do not like the character designs in this movie one bit. ember looks like if you asked a middle schooler to design a fire woman. "ohhhhh we're pixar and we have to give all of our woman characters a pencil thin waist and big feminine eyes and skinny little legs" i want to explode.

ok we're getting into just batshit insane rant territory here now. so with that in mind I FUCKING HATE WADE. from the moment he appeared on that screen i knew i had it out for that motherfucker. the first thing he does is start crying over a situation that HE CAN SOLVE. he’s a city inspector that gets caught in the flood overtaking ember’s home, and the FIRST thing he does is start writing up violations he sees in the basement of ember’s family home. and then. he has the audacity to CRY ABOUT IT because it’s sooooooo tragic that her dad’s shop is going to be shut down because of HIM. the movie frames the water people as overly emotional because they cry alot (because they’re made out of water, of course!!! isn't that so funny!!!!!!!), but wade’s actions make it clear that those tears are FAKE because he does NOTHING to help ember in the first scene they meet. then, only after ember explains to him that there’s LITERALLY NO OTHER WAY her family can survive if the shop is shut down, does wade agree to help her out. kill me

oh btw wade being very emotional and crying a lot is NOT a bad thing and imo most modern stories need more emotional male characters. but. elemental treats wade's crying mostly as a running gag more than anything. which just kinda doubles around to being misogynistic again

wade continues to be a fucking nuisance to my psyche, even after leaving that theater. i did not enjoy the romance between ember and wade because i hated 50% of that duo. ember was ok i liked her enough bUT I WANTED TO KILL WADE. they try to spin him like “ohhhhh hes a little bit clumsy and goofy and a little bit dorky ahah don’t you like him?” as if that doesn’t describe most of the male love interests in every movie released after 1990. the two sit on a beach where ember is on the verge of a meltdown because they haven’t been able to save her dad’s shop, and one of the things wade says to comfort her is “i think you’re beautiful like this tho uwu” HUH????????? who tf is trying to make moves while someone is having an anxiety attack i SWEAR to god. i want to use wade as bong water i hate him so much

and then. ember gives him some glass that she sculpted to look like a flower she likes. it’s a nice sculpture. later in the movie, wade is like “hey ember i have something for you” and then just. gives her the sculpture back. and they treat it like he gave her a gift of his own like bro SHE gave that to YOU WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????

the one act wade does for ember before the big climax revolves around taking her to see some underwater flowers - it’s a nice sequence, but it’s not a gift that’s exclusively from him. they have to get the cloud lady that called ember a slur to help make an underwater bubble to contain ember. fucking. come ONNNNN

wade dies in the climax of the movie. straight up he evaporates from heat and they’re like “awww he’s gone :(“ and they manage to bring him back but i really wish he stayed dead. would have been worth it if he died. but no. there's so. many weird little things in this movie that make my blood run a little too hot. can the genre of kindergarten racism movies please stop here. i am begging i can't do this again please

completely forgot to mention this at the beginning: my friends and i refer to elemental as "The Movie of All Time" because the concept of "element people" or general element-based characters is such a common story trope within young animators and storytellers (at least in our experiences). the number of pitches we've seen about "this character is made of water/has water abilities and this one's made of fire/has fire abilities and they need to find a way to work together/it's a love story!!!" is uncountable. we could not believe this movie was a real pixar production when it was first announced we thought it was a joke

in conclusion. i wish i had another canned margarita halfway through elemental. might have been bearable that way

[carrrrino]

HELLO I am very excited for this project! I wanted to express a concern though…it’s rather hard to find the any info on the project aside from what’s on the blog (which isn’t…very much information wise) I’m not sure if that’s an intentional decision…

I know when I first found the info I….kind of didn’t believe this?? That sounds odd. I suppose what I mean is, it didn’t seem the most legit. I did digging through the blog, read all the links, searched for a Twitter and YouTube accounts and had a hard time doing that as well…Simply because there is very little information on it. Which there’s nothing wrong with…I was wanting to suggest (as an outsider) that you and your team put more announcements/ marketing into this…?

I REALLY hope to see this project grow, it’s absolutely deserved, and very few people seem to know about it. I’d hate that to be something people miss out on. I don’t really expect an answer on this but I thought I should share the concern as an outside perspective. 💛

I really hope this project is going well for you and that it gets the deserved recognition as it’s coming out!!! So excited!!!

I'm so happy that people share the same excitement and concern for the series. Also, the fact that you guys think it's worthy of success Is truly inspiring! I think it's time I SAY something though about my current situation.

TL;DR - Our team basically went inactive after the summer; everyone returned to their lives and I'm the only one who can keep up with the project unconditionally. I didn't mean to dishearten you guys! It's a pain in the ass to work alone - excluding voice actors and SFX producers. The OUTBREAK blog will change entirely, it will be used for info and marketing. This blog will just be general art created by me (&no-namestuff). I will continue to work on the series independently, but I'll definitely give out more info as requested and make things more legit whenever I can!

Over the summer, a group of us began working on the project together, but as most of my friends returned to school and their regular lives, it became almost impossible to keep going. Currently, only a few are available to help, but they're too busy.

I didn't want to worry anyone by saying that it's basically just me working on the project; it's tough to balance animating, scripting, marketing, planning, publishing, AND funding by myself. Over time it (advertising and insightful communication) just became indifferent to me, I even considered going silent for a while until I had a mother-load of progress, but that's really not fair.

The project was a bit of a mess when we started. We didn't plan on making it a big deal, my animations were half-assed and incomprehensible; I barely knew how to work Adobe and could barely even pay it off, the sound was going to be recorded via iPhone, the script wasn't even halfway done, and voice actors weren't thought of until the Prologue. After more than six months of work, Verse 1-4 (or 6?) was deleted because of issues with the file.. this really drew the line for everyone.

So here I am, despite everything; I revised the script, which is barely halfway done, redesigned the characters, read more into the multiversal conundrums of AUs and UNDERTALE, built a portfolio, studied poses for the action scenes — and there’s still a lot that I have to learn. I'm working on Q&As, asks, and the teaser / test / project animations. I don't want people to be confused or hesitant, so I appreciate you a lot for reminding me of this. As requested, I will provide additional details about the project too :) !

No-Name's theme is in progress (thanks to Synth Mints), I've invested heavily in software for good quality animations, talented voice actors from this fandom (some you might even know) have agreed to voice for me - I'm extremely grateful for their help. Even if it takes years to release an episode or pilot, I'm still excited about the outcome. Who knows, I might even have a genuine team by then! :D

aw geez sorry for the whole bit-life story, I'm just trying to shed some light on the situation for you all. I do care, I want everyone to know that, it's just hard work.

Until the next teaser animation, please have these lil' pieces of teasers / lore as an apology!

SD by @/galacii ERROR by @/loverofpiggies / CrayonQueen

LASTLY today is my birthday yayyy 🥳🎂

[beyond-far-horizons]

Halfway impressions on Stormlight 5 Wind and Truth. Minor spoilers but no major giveways...

Jeez I read all the preview chapters before the release and have been reading like crazy and I'm still only halfway through. That's 656 pages, folks, this book is a BEAST!

Overall all really enjoying it. Pace is breakneck, revelations, especially cosmere ones, are coming thick and fast. Alot of Shardic action, just how I like it!

Pros

Kaladin and Szeth's extremely awkward to the point of hilariousness, occasionally heartbreaking buddy cop pilgrimage.

Dalinar and Navani uncovering major secrets...

Shallan also undercovering major secrets whilst attaining major growth, thirdwheeling the cosmere's cutest ship and yes I'm sorry I can't help myself shipping her with Mraize (and Kaladin and yes before you ask her actual husband).

Need a prequel for the Heralds because damn. Also Taln is not only nice to animals, but has balls of steel. I'm surprised Odium didn't let him out early just because he was a badass.

Every Interlude so far has been great, which is a first.

Shards!

I don't want to speak for these communities, but I feel Brando's rep for neurodiverse and lgbt+ folks has really increased. I'm proud of him considering he started from a very prejudiced place and has really worked to inform himself in recent years.

We got a sweet, teeny-weeny love scene that also wasn't explicit or cringe. Go you, Brandon!

Cons

The use of modern American slang seems to be increasing and it takes me completely out of story every time. I know people will say 'it's translated' and 'it makes the story accessible', but to me (IMO) it feels lazy and is inconsistent, therefore severely undermines his characterisation and worldbuilding when we also get made-up words and customs, suffixes and other registers to build verisimilitude. Eg: 'Dating' (when they used 'courting' before) 'rookie mistake', 'it is what it is', 'I'm game'. And don't get me started on the sudden use of swearing...

The silly humour is still there at times and it's still eyerolling. It's gotten a bit better, but mileage will vary. I did love a certain character's armour though (if you know, you know.)

I know he says his prose is workman-like and he doesn't want to fake it, but I'd love more description. Brandon can create some beautiful turns of phrases when he wants too, so I'd like to see a little more of that.

Pacing is full-on, but you'll often wish to stay with a particular POV and then you'll get a quick change. All adds to the Sanderlanche, but I haven't been able to stop myself flicking ahead occasionally to my peril!

No offense to the shippers, but I feel Brando is def pushing Kal towards a particular ship that makes me feel uncomfortable. Not Szeth, someone else (no spoilers).

Very excited to continue, but I know it's going to break my heart!

[one-strugling-bean]

Im halfway through TMA at this point - ive essenctially been binging nonstop since MAG 54, and I'm about to start MAG 103.

I stopped now so i could get a moment to properly process everything and like.........

How did we get here???

The first 50 or so episodes look so simple and straightforward now - Jon was a paranoid harumph harumph of a guy, Martin an awkward patootie, Tim the funny flirt that secretly held the braincell, Elias was shady and useless, Not!Sasha made me sad, the stories were spooky and inexplicable, and every time there was a live statement episode i did a little dance of excitement

Jon's character can be sumed up like this rn

Now suddenly Jon is an anime magical girl?? And a damsel in distress?? Except no one's coming to save him cause everyone lowkey/highkey hates him :T

(Martin excluding, of course)

And Martin and Tim..... God i feel for them so bad. Especially Tim. Hes so different from the 1st season. He sounds so dead inside and so upset. I want him to be able to leave so bad...

I adore the additions of Melanie, Basira and Daisy to the Archive, - i enjoy all of their voices so much, they sound so niiiice - but wow, talk about a status quo change, huh. Everything changed so damn quickly and surprisingly, it never felt forced

Elias is... honestly not a very threatning menace (though he's an asshole). Hes just kinda there. Spooky and menacing but also fairly chill unless provoked. He feels more like a neutral force with bad working methods, rly.

On a different note, though, we have Gertrude. Im kind of adoring finding out more stuff abt her. That lady..... Damn she was cool but so scary. Blowing up historical caves, understading so much abt the creepy creatures crawling the earth - i swear every time i hear more abt her she only gets scarier!

AAAAND i'm starting to take the statements less and less srsly :/ which is kinda sad. Think its because now I'm starting to recognize the creatures and the unknown element is slowly stripping away. Most of the statements that aren't directly involved with the bigger plot or dont particularly interest me, i just half listen to them in x2 speed (except for the endings, because they always have something)

One last thing: please don't kill any more assistants, podcast, I beg you... I have gotten to attached to all of them, and idk if jon could handle it (I wont either)

[herrscherofmagic]

i've spent nearly 47 hours over the last ten days drawing nothing but kiana (and hov)

yeah.

anyways, since I've had about enough of drawing Kiana for the rest of my life (/hj) I'm gonna put a pause on this project; but I'll turn it from a sprint into a marathon and try and work on it occasionally instead of all at once

I want to draw other things again x-x

Close-ups of the drawings below, as well as the reference image set, and some other misc. thoughts

.

Portraits drawn from imagination

Started the process by trying to draw Kiana's head from imagination; then after each drawing I'd pause, look at some references, see what mistakes I made, then put away the references and drew from imagination (and referring to previous drawings) again. I also took breaks at two points to practice drawing eyes & hair before going back to drawing Kiana

For the last 4 portraits, I'd draw a head from imagination as a warm-up to a drawing session, and then do another head much later on instead of doing it immediately. Around halfway through this "phase" I started the other phases at random points, and finished this portion of the process in the first ~10-15 hours of drawing time. The rest of the time was split across the other exercises

Also I gave her an angry expression because I felt it was the easiest for me to do from memory since I've drawn HoV more than just "Kiana" herself. I also used a boring level 3/4 view without much perspective because it forced me to really make sure I was doing everything accurately and with care.

Basically my thinking was that if I could make a boring level 3/4 portrait look good enough, then I'd have no trouble getting it to look good in other perspectives. That seemed to be true when I got to the stage where I was doing expression practice and had to deal with more head tilt and other perspectives, lol

.

Studies of still images from screenshots of gameplay, character art, and stills from animated shorts

Did rough sketches first, then drew with solid color over the sketches on a separate layer. not much else to say here, lol

.

Full-bodies

Started with an anatomy model loosely based on the proportions of Kiana's in-game model, and then two attempts at doing full-body drawings from imagination before realizing that it's bloody insane to try and do that much detail from imagination and I have much better things to do with my life than that x-x

.

Color studies

yaaaay color! yippee!

.

Action sketches/"gesture" drawings

"Gesture" is in quotes because I was way too slow with these for it to really count as proper gesture drawing, imo. But the intention was to start with gesture, and I got closer to that as I went on.

It's way too tempting to start adding detail so I had to metaphysically slap myself with a frying pan to keep myself from getting derailed by that >.>

To get references for this, I did screen recording of gameplay on the PC with OBS studios, then used DaVinci Resolve to play back the recordings.

On PC, when using the mouse controls you can hold the camera fairly still when doing an attack sequence, making it awesome for getting unique angles. For instance, when I recorded Void Drifter's attacks, I was able to get at least 4 different PoVs of her attacks: from the left, the right, behind & above, and in front & below.

Unfortunately, though, it was a bit of a hassle to get good recordings because I had to go into an actual combat stage to record it instead of being able to use an empty testing stage.

With DaVinci Resolve I could "split" clips to make cuts in the timeline that let me easily mark the spots where different attack sequences started, and I could also easily play it in .5x speed to help me figure out how the animations were going from one set of frames to another.

Plus if you close the program after saving, when you open it up again it remembers which frame you were last on and takes you straight there, making it easy to continue from one day to another.

I used White Comet, Herrscher of the Void, and Void Drifter attack animations here, but I also did recordings of Knight Moonbeam and Herrscher of Flamescion, and I might give those a try someday.

.

Facial expressions practice

Started with the set of rough sketches (first image), then did some expression practice from imagination (second and third images) to try and get used to how the proportions of the face change slightly with movement of the eyebrows/eyelids/jaw, since the shape of the eyes and mouth is especially important when doing stylized faces (like the anime style that HI3rd uses)

Then this morning I started working through the original rough sketches and developing them one-by-one, getting through 8 before I decided to call it quits and wrap up the project for now

So the facial expression practice pretty much the culmination of all my practice. All the practice with proportions, the contours & forms of the hair, monochromatic shading, line quality, shape design, etc.

This was also one of the few times I've ever taken stylized references and actually adapted them to some extent instead of directly copying them!

This is especially noticeable in the hair, where I used a more standard style for the hair, in contrast with the variety of hairstyles and shapes used in the various manga references (i.e. black-and-white Escape from Nagazora Kiana's messy hair vs the neat and solid hair in the colored Gratitude Arc, AE Invasion, and Moon Shadow Kiana)

.

Reference images

[damon-loves-pie]

Very First Date.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x female reader.

Word count: About 5.1k words. 

Warnings: 18+, Reader has a bad date with another guy who kept making sexual advances towards her.(Nothing detailed though.), Steve talks slightly about a fight with his father, reader mentions not having a good relationship with hers either for a moment. (Nothing really descriptive here either.) Other than that, its mostly a FLUFFYYYY PIECE. 

I DID IGNORE THE LAYOUT OF STEVE’S ROOF FOR THE ENDING BECAUSE I WANTED THEM TO LOOK AT STARS. 

Summary:  Steve and the reader are best friends after having worked at Scoops together. Reader went out on a date with a guy which ended horribly and found herself at Steve’s to tell him about it and complain about how she hadn’t had a good date in months. Steve takes matters into his own hands since he’s into the reader and takes her out for a night wanting to remind her how she should be treated by a guy. 

Author’s note: THIS IS MY FIRST STEVE HARRINGTON IMAGINE I HAVE FULLY FINISHED! Usually I would stop halfway through, worried they weren’t going to fit the image I had created in my head. I am feeling a lot better tonight, after having been in the ER the other night. And I’m surprised to be sharing something around 8pm instead of 2 am. 

I did proofread but I’m sorry if I missed something, this was overall just a fluffy imagine I did because I saw a great Steve edit on Tiktok. 

PLEASE CLICK ON MY ACCOUNT AND CHECKOUT MY OTHER WORK, I mostly write for Eddie and can’t add my writing masterlist because I’ve been having issues with being shadow banned. 

But enjoy! 

------

Steve was having a horrible night.

His first Friday off in three weeks and he was at home moping alone.

First off you were out on a date with another guy. Not like it actually matters that it bothered him, because you two were just friends and that was it.

But on top of that, Robin canceled on him because Vickie asked her if she was free.

Which don't get him wrong, he was happy for his friend. But fuck did he not want to be alone tonight.

He thought about calling up Linda or Heidi, in the end deciding against it. He was tired of flings that weren't going anywhere.

Little did Steve know though, you were having as bad of night.

The date you were on had to be one of the worst you have ever been on.

You didn't even last past thirty minutes into it.

You told the boy you were heading to the ladies' room and snuck off quickly paying for a meal that wasn't even out yet before leaving.

Driving towards the Harrington home, you were ready to complain to your friends about how horrible another date went.

You felt defeated, like you were done with men.

Partially because the fact most of them were animals, and also just because they weren't the one you wanted anyway.

You wanted the boy who you were heading towards, the boy who felt like home to you when you needed someone to make you feel better.

You wanted Steve Harrington.

But you knew your friendship meant too much to you to even think about ruining it over some stupid feelings you had, so you kept them buried.

Opening the unlocked door you yell out into the home, trying to pinpoint where the two were.

"Steve? Robin?" You ask, closing the door behind you quietly hoping to not scare either of them.

From the kitchen Steve heard your voice, confused as he spread the mayo over the bread of the sandwich he was making.

"(Y/N)?" He questions, because he thought you would be on your date right now.

Steve felt his heart start beating faster as he realized you were here and not on your date, mind racing with different answers to why that might be.

Taking off your shoes and bag you respond to the boy by answering a loud,

"Yes," before leaving your items by the door.

Steve hears your muffled voice through the wall, smiling to himself. He was happy to know maybe he wouldn't be alone tonight. Even if it was just a friend, who he wish would be more.

But it still felt like a win because you were here instead of with some other guy.

"Kitchen." Steve tells you, hearing your steps coming through the hallway into the big kitchen.

You walk in to see him making a single sandwich, not sandwiches, just a sandwich.

"Is that what you're having for dinner?" You laugh confused on how that was going to fill him up. Hopping your body up, you take a seat on the counter behind him.

Steve shrugs, a light blush creeping on his face because he really wasn't expecting to see anyone tonight.

He was down and wanted something simple that didn't take much effort.

"I don't feel like making anything else." Steve says, finishing his meal.  

You giggle lightly as the boy turns around, sandwich small in his big hands. His face still a little red as he took a bite.

"You're going to be hungry again in like an hour." You tell him playfully, watching his eyes twinkle when they meet yours.

Chewing, he took in your outfit.

You were wearing a light pink plaid skirt with a low cut black top.

You looked beautiful to him, the sound of your giggling through the air making him nervous.

Steve shakes the feeling off before shrugging.

"Then I'll order take out." He tells you, chucking slightly before taking another bite.

You nod, understanding. Your eyes roamed around the room to see if you could find any remnants of Robin around.

Not seeing anything you turn your stare back towards him.

"Where's Robin?" You ask him, frowning slightly because you thought they were both off tonight.

You see Steve's body soften a little bit at your question.

"She canceled on me, Vickie asked to see her. Which good for her actually, one of us deserved to have a fun night." Steve answers, taking the last bite of his sandwich.

Steve's heart pound as he brought his eyes back up to yours.

"Are you supposed to be on a date?" He asks you, praying it was canceled and you hadn't gone.

Your body tensed while a sigh slipped your lips, yours legs automatically kicking back and forth slightly.

"That's why I'm here. I wanted to tell both of you how horrible it was, and when I say horrible Steve, I mean horrible." You tell him, shivering at the thought of earlier.

Steve's head popped up a little bit as he tried to not look excited about the fact your date hadn't gone well.

While he was happy for that, he was also wondering what could of made it so bad.

He questioned if maybe he would have to go kick the guy's ass.

"I thought you were out with that one guy from science club? Um, Jackson or whatever." Steve says, smirking internally because he knew the guy's name. But didn't want to seem like he was that important to him.

It's not like he hadn't been questioning the last few days, multiple different times, what that guy had that he didn't.

Meeting your eyes with Steve's, you tap your fingers nervously on the counter.

"Jacob, his name was Jacob." You tell him, watching him nod.

"And I had gone on the date, but god I didn't expect it to go so bad so fast." You finish, cringing as you see Steve's brow crinkle.

"What do you mean?" Steve asks you, arms crossing his chest.

Your body langue continues to be anxious, your feet still swinging as you tilt your head back before taking a deep breath.

"I mean literally not even fifteen minutes into the date he was trying to feel up my skirt. Not to mention all the sexual advances he kept making and nasty things he was saying. The whole situation just made me uncomfortable." You tell him honestly, seeing Steve grimace.

He didn't want you to go out with anyone else, but you didn't deserve that to happen.

"He always seemed so um." Steve speaks, snapping his fingers for the word.

"Innocent?" You finish, watching him nod in agreement.

"That's the word." He says, pointing out a finger.

"That's why I agreed to go out with him, I thought maybe this one wouldn't be a pervert so fast in. Not that I'm even against sleeping with someone on the first date, but fuck at least let us get through dinner." You groan, eyes rolling.

"Did you get through dinner?" He asks while you shake your head.

"No, I told him I had to go to the bathroom then went to the register to pay, leaving to come here. Didn't touch my food or anything since it wasn't out yet." You say truthfully, you didn't want to risk waiting a second longer there.

Steve rolls his eyes playfully.

"You should of left him to pay for it." Steve chuckles, lifting his gaze to yours a smile on his mouth.

"I should of, but I just wanted out of there." You shake your your head, laughing lightly.

"I just want one good date, I legit haven't been a good first date in months." You sigh, looking down at your feet.

Steve sits there for a second staring at you, idea sparking in his head.

You were dressed for a date still, and he was dressed since he was originally supposed to hang out with Robin.

"Are you hungry?" He asks, raising an eyebrow, leaning his head back slightly.  

"What?" You ask him, bringing your gaze to his.

"Are you hungry? Because you're right that sandwich didn't do anything." Steve shrugs, trying to be nonchalant.

You purse yours lips together for a moment.

"I could eat." You nod, watching him lean off the counter.

Steve smiles, nodding.

"Then lets go." He motions, holding his hand out to you.

Raising an eyebrow you take his hand, getting off the counter.

"Go where?" You ask, fixing your skirt.

You were confused on what Steve was doing, we're you two going to go out to eat? Get take out and come back here? What was on his mind, you wondered.

"Let's go show you that there are still good first dates in the world." Steve says seriously, grabbing his keys off the counter.

He decided even if he couldn't officially take you out without admitting his feelings,  he could still show you what it's like. Friends show friends a good time right?

You freeze in place, wondering if you were dreaming.

"First date?" You squeak as he laughs, turning back towards you.

"Yes, date. Come on, friends can take each other out." He smiles at you.

"Now let me show you that even though you will have some bad dates, there will be good ones waiting for you." He finishes, motioning to the front door.

Standing there you see him standing tall, muscles sticking out of his blue stripped shirt while he held the door open for you.

It wouldn't hurt to let him show you a good time you thought.

After all friends can have friend dates, right?

"I guess I'm still dressed for it." You agree, following him as he goes to lock the front door behind you two.

Steve felt himself stumbling slightly to find the key before leading you to the car.

After all he had to make it seem like this wasn't as big of deal to him as it really was.

"Just sit back and enjoy the night because you're right, I have only heard you talk about how bad your dates have been lately. And you deserve a good one." Steve tells you, opening the passenger door for you to get in.

A blush comes across your cheeks while you take a seat.

"Already starting huh?" You tease, smile on your lips.

"Like I said, I'm going to show you a good first date." He smiles, closing the door behind you.

Steve starts driving, eventually pulling into a gas station down the road.

He didn't really need gas for what he had planned, but he needed an excuse to stop to get you something he would get you if he was taking you on a real first date.

"I need to get some gas before we go anywhere." Steve says, hopping out of the car leaving you to wait nervously.

You sat there, hand tapping on your thigh, wondering where tonight was going to take you two.

You've liked him for the past couple of years since working together at Scoops, not that you didn't think he was cute before that.

Just you guys never really spoke before in high school other than some small talk here and there.

You wondered if maybe you should stop this, not wanting to confuse yourself too much by not being able to keep a straight head after this.

You didn't want to lose him over a silly crush.

But you couldn't help but wonder if you should let it play through, because it could possibly be the closest thing you'll get to a real date with Steve Harrington.

Turning your head back towards the opening gas station door, out comes a smiling Steve with an arm behind his back.  

Still smiling he opens the car door, leaning in.

Steve watched your face turn awestruck as he brought his arm around, a single red rose for you in his hands.

He tucks a piece of his hair behind his ear nervously after you take the flower from his hand.

You fingers lightly running over the petals delicately.

"Normally I would of got you flowers before hand, but this date caught me off guard." Steve chuckles, seeing you smile softly.

"Steve, you didn't have t-" You start, getting cut off by the boy protesting you to let the night just happen.

"(Y/N), like I said just sit back and relax and just enjoy the night. That way you'll remember to not settle for anyone's shit during another date you'll have." He tells you, getting out to pump the gas he bought.

Twirling the flower in your hand, you were a giddy mess.

Not even into the actual so called date yet, and it was already one of the best dates you've had.

No one had ever given you flowers on a date.

You've gotten some for a few holidays, after begging for them of course. But you had never experienced anyone willingly wanting to give you something so simple but so special.

Shaking off the butterflies in your stomach, you turn towards Steve after he gets back into the car.

"Thank you for this Steve." You tell him honestly, seeing his eyes glimmer as he starts the car.

Steve's heart exploded at how happy you were about the flower.

He would buy you all the flowers in the world if it meant to see you with that look on your face the rest of his life.

He couldn't wait for the rest of the night, knowing if you enjoyed this then you were going to have a great time tonight.

"Just wait till you see the rest of the date." Steve winks teasingly through the rearview mirror, pulling out of the gas station.

The drive was quiet besides the light humming from Steve as he listened to the music playing through the radio.

Both of you were as nervous as the other, unknowingly of course.

Steve drove out into a small town, smaller than Hawkins, about 20 minutes out.

He pulled into a little ma and pa pizzeria, the red glowing lights shining in the night as you took in the little brick building.

Steve was a gentleman as always, demanding to open the car door for you, which you gladly accepted.

You decided you were going to let yourself enjoy every minute of this, because deep down you hoped maybe he would enjoy it as much as you.

He lead you inside, both of you picking a small little booth in the corner as you waited for a waitress to arrive.

The place was small but cute.

All of the booths were hardwood with white and black checkered floor tiles underneath.

The walls were hardwood as well, red checkered table cloths giving the place a much needed pop of color.

There was even cute hanging lights above each table, giving them all a personal romantic glow.

Bringing your eyes to Steve, you smile.

"How often do you come here?" You ask him softly.

Taken aback a bit, Steve feels nervous wondering if you meant if he brough other dates here.

He wouldn't ever dare to bring anyone else here, besides Robin maybe. But other than that, no one was important enough to bring here other than you.

"By myself? Probably once a week, with anyone else? Never." Steve says honestly, watching your eyes widen a bit.

"Really? How did you find this place then?" You ask him, leaning your chin onto your hand.

Steve nods, taking a look at his hands before picking his arm to rest it on the table.

"It happened a few weeks after graduation actually." He tells you, not wanting to make eye contact.

"I uh had got in a really bad fight with my father about my future, or well lack there of according to him. And I took one of his many checkbooks, thinking about signing me a fat check and just leaving. I started to drive, not really caring about anything just being fueled by anger and ended up stopping here to breathe. Now the rest is history, and I've been coming here ever since." Steve explains, playing with his hands nervously.

He had never told anyone about that night.

Your heart aches for him, not having a good relationship with your parents either.

Not always seeing eye to eye on your future as well.  

"Tell me you at least used his checkbook to buy your dinner that night?" You ask him, placing your hand on his.  

Steve chuckles, bringing his eyes to yours.

"No, but I should have. It would of been the least he could do." Steve smiles, while you give him a light squeeze.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about that?" You say quietly,  intertwining your hand with his.

"I think because until recently, I actually thought he was right." He says honestly, both of your hearts beating fast from the electricity running between your fingers.

You could swear if you let go then lightning would hit the lamp above you.

"Steve your father wasn't right at all, and I'm happy you didn't leave because if you would have then we wouldn't be here, and I can't stand the thought that you might not have came into my life." You tell him truthfully.

If he would of left, you would of been working at Scoops with who knows instead of Steve.

That summer set the path to where you two were today.

"Really?" He asks as you nod.

"Really." You smile, seeing your waitress approaching from the side.

Reviewing the menu took forever for both of you, Steve said everything he had tried previously had been great. And on top of that it was kind of late with it being about 7:30 when you arrived, and both of you not having really ate much earlier didn't help when deciding what to order.

But you two settled on a plate of mozzarella sticks to start with and a medium house special to share with extra green peppers.

The conversation over dinner was alive, no small talk having to happen at all since you two knew each other so well. There were no awkward pauses or laughs, it was fun and energetic.

It was a great change of pace for both of you, since both of you had been on dates that were more than less boring lately.

You two were laughing loudly as you walked out of the restaurant.

The leftover pizza box hugged against your chest while Steve opened your door for you again.

"Steve thank you for sharing this place with me and what it means to you. It was truly one of the better dates I've been on." You tell him as he takes a seat.

Mentally high-fiving himself, he was happy to know you enjoyed what he had planned so far.

But was lowkey hurt you thought that this was all to his date with you.

He looks over, pouting jokingly with a hand over his heart.

"Why are you talking like it's over? We still have more to do till it's done." Steve says, glimmer in his eyes.

"What do you mean there's more?" You ask him, hint of curiosity in your voice, watching the car back out of the parking lot.  

"I mean, I don't only come here for the pizza. There's also an awesome ice cream parlor down the road that has the best malts. Which I know you love right?" He asks, already knowing the answer because you go to the ice cream shop in town every payday of yours.

"You're right, I do love a good butterscotch malt." You laugh, seeing a smile form on his face.

"Yeah so just let me do my thing and make sure you have a fun night okay? I hate to say it but you will probably be getting home late tonight because it's already almost nine." He nods, finger pointing over to the clock on the dash.

"You trying to get me to the spend the night Harrington?"  You joke teasingly, turning your body so your crossed legs were facing him.

He was right, your mom locked the door at ten because she had to be up by four am and didn't want to be awakened by the door slamming.

If you weren't home by then it was up to you to find a place to stay, especially since you got your key privileges taken away years ago because you kept losing them.

Your mom is convinced someone who finds the silver key will somehow know it belonged to your front door.  

"Hey, then it was a good first date." He says playfully, pulling into the gravel drive of what you guessed to be the ice cream shop.

"But yes, more than likely by the time we get home your mom will have the door locked. So you will probably have to crash at mine." Steve tells you truthfully, opening the door to get out of the car.

After looking over the menu you ended up ordering what you and Steve already knew you were going to, a butterscotch malt.

The girl at the window handed you two your malts before you sat down at one of the tables outside.

"So did you find this place the night you found the pizzeria?" You ask him, bringing the straw to your mouth.  

"Uh no actually, I found this a few months later. I came out here to eat one night but decided I still didn't feel like going home so I went exploring the town a little more." He tells you, watching your eyes roll back as you taste the ice cream.

"You've been holding out on me Harrington, you've been coming here for a little over a year and didn't think to tell me their malts are better than ours?" You laugh, pointing your straw at him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He chuckles, hands and malt going to the air defensively.  

"So I am really the first girl you brought out here?" You ask teasingly, brow raised.

"You are." He nods, pulling his straw away from his lips.

"I didn't want to take you on any other date I would take anyone else. Especially since I do know you, and know what you like so it's a little easier for me to think of something you would enjoy." Steve says honestly, seeing you blush lightly.

"Steve that is honestly so sweet, and you really don't know how much that means to me." You tell him, watching him stand up.

"Which is why I have one more thing to share with you before the end of this date." He smiles, taking your hand into his to follow him.

"What is it?" You ask him, feeling your heart beat as you talk quietly towards his car.

The feeling of your fingers intertwined for the second time that night, making you want to pass out.

"I didn't tell you anything else we were doing, why do you think I'll tell you now?." Steve chuckles, lifting his face slightly as he bumps his shoulder with yours.

"You're right," you agree while he sets his malt on top of the car so he can open the door.

Both of your fingers lingering when it comes time to let go.

The car ride home felt heavy with tension while you two wondered if you were imagining the tension in the air.

Steve wanted so badly to rest his hand on your thigh, and have you place your hand on top of his to hold him while you two drove back home.

But he wasn't sure if he would be crossing a line.

So he just longed for the feeling of your skin pressed against his.

Driving through Hawkins you glanced over at Steve, confused when his house came into view.

"Just trust me." He tells you, parking the vehicle.

Steve walks past you when you're inside, placing the pizza box on the counter along with the empty malt cups before motioning for you to follow him up the stairs.

Walking up to the hallway of his bedroom, you felt yourself get shaky.

He wasn't trying to get you in bed right?

Not that you would hate to do that, you thought.

But just you thought he would put more effort into it if this was really his goal.

"Steve?" You ask him, slowing your movements behind him.

Steve turns halfway back to see you glancing between him and his bedroom.

"Oh, no no no. It's not like that (Y/N), just keep following me." He chuckles, shaking his head.

He stops at the hallway window, messing around with the screen before it pops off.

"Come on," Steve tells you, placing the screen against the wall before climbing through.

Peering out you felt your heart beat fast as you climbed out onto the flat park of the roof to see Steve leaning back on the tiled roof by the window. Taking a seat next to him you lay down, arms behind your head looking at the stars above.

You two were towards the back of the house, the trees and pool surrounding you.

The reflection of the moonlight bounced off the pool, it was all dark besides the dimmed lights under the water of the pool.

It was peaceful out here, breathing in the fresh air.

"I would come out here during high school to just think sometimes." Steve shares, glancing over.

"It's beautiful, I would of too." You nod, happy he shown you more about him today.

"Well you can come whenever you need, bad date? Come here. Bad day in general? Come here." He shrugs slightly, sighing to himself as he realized the date was soon coming to an end.

"I might take you up on it sometime." You tell him, sitting up to glance down at the pool.

"You know where the spare is, and that my door is always open to you." Steve chuckles, sitting up.

"Is this the last part of the date?" You ask him, bringing your gaze back up to meet his.

"Yeah." Steve nods.

"How about I add something and we go for a swim?" You suggest, tilting your head towards the pool, seeing him raise an eyebrow.

"Are you wanting to go for a swim?" He asks you.

"Yeah, why not? It's a nice night." You shrug, smirking slightly.

"You don't have a swimsuit." Steve reminds you.

"So what? Literally I feel like a bikini is the same thing as my bra and underwear, just different materials." You laugh, standing up to go inside down to the pool.

Pulling off your shirt, you glance down at him.

"You coming?" You ask, seeing him get flustered.

"Ye-yeah" Steve stutters, standing up.

You were right he thought, it wasn't much different besides the materials.

Both of you make it down to the pool, kicking off your shoes before you let your skirt and shirt fall onto the cement.

"Meet you in there Harrington?" You smile, running to jump into the pool.

The water surrounded you as you submerged beneath. Your fingers keeping the air trapped in your lungs while they plugged your nose.

A gasp escapes your lips when you come back to the surface.

Steve was standing there with his shoes and jeans off, nervous about getting it to the water.

"Come on take off your shirt Harrington and get in the water."  You call out teasingly.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." He laughs, reaching to pull the shirt off from behind his neck.

You start whistling and hollering as his torso becomes revealed, Steve's face turning red for the millionth time that night.

"You're been working out Steve." You tease, watching him jump into the water.

His tall frame disappearing into the water before coming back up.

"Is that way of you saying I look good?" Steve chuckles, shaking his hair like a dog, causing you to squeal from the water hitting you.

"Well duh, I have eyes. I'm not blind." You laugh watching him splash towards you.

Moving quickly, you scream at the cold water hitting your back.

"Hey, hey, hey. I said let's swim, not splash." You screech, trying to swim away.

"I think you're forgetting you're in the water with a guy who was on the swim team." He laughs, following while he splashes you more.

"Steve, stop." You laugh, turning back to splash him.  

The sounds of both of you laughing and the water moving echoes into the open air.

"Never." He jokes, going to grab your arm.

"Steve don't you dare dunk me." You scream, feeling him overpower you while he pulls you close.

The feeling of his strong arms wrapped around you distracted you as he pulls you down with him in the water before bringing both of you back to the surface.

"God I hate you Harrington." You laugh, wiping the chorine filled water off your eyes.

"No you don't." Steve smiles, arms still wrapped around you.

"Steve, don't please." You scream again, feeling him spin with you in temptation while your arms automatically wrapped around his neck in fear.

"Okay, I won't. But did you at least have fun tonight?" Steve smiles, arms still holding you as he moves in the water.

"I did. Actually, I think it was the best first date I've ever been on." You say honestly, looking up to his eyes. His wet hair framing his face as his grin widens.

"You really think so?" He asks, looking down at you.

"I do." You nod nervously, feeling your back hit the wall of the pool making you realize you were still really close together.

"I wish it could of been like an actual first date though." You laugh shyly,  one of your hands moving to rest on his chest while the other lingers on around his neck to play with his hair lightly between your fingers.

"Do you want to consider it an actual date?" Steve asks, chest moving harshly up and down under your finger tips.

"Would it be alright if I did?" You ask, biting your lip slightly.

"As long as you would let me take you out again," He smiles, his eyes twinkling while the water droplets rolled down his chest.

"On a date date right?" You ask, smirk forming.

"If I'm being honest, I was treating this as a date date." He tells you.  

"I've liked you for a while (Y/N), but I was nervous about asking you out so I thought this was the only way it would happen." Steve continues honestly, picking you up a little higher.

"I've liked you for a while too Harington, and actually thought the same thing about this date. When you offered I thought this may be my only chance to get taken out by you." You smile, wrapping your legs tighter around him.

"Well how about we make up for lost time starting tomorrow with breakfast?" He asks, bringing his face down closer to yours.

"That works for me." You tell him, grinning into the kiss as your lips connect with his.

----- 

Thank you for reading!  

[cease-your-release]

They're Lucky to Have You

While on your lunch break, you see a familiar face. Mark Hoffman is the detective responsible for solving the murders that, unbeknownst to him, you're the one doing. (810)

Hello! This is the first chapter in a series, but since I'm horrible at slow burn, we'll have a bit of buildup and then pretty much blast right into a relationship, then have more buildup to the next steps. I may go back and add more stuff in between chapters when it's done, but hopefully y'all are okay with a fast burn instead! Also, for future chapter reference, the reader is mostly gender neutral, but is described as having wider hips, wears a dress at one point, and there are a handful of mentions of dysphoria. I'll be honest and say this series is rather self-indulgent, so may not be for everyone.

Part 1 of "Conundrum of Carnage" Part 2

Also on A03!

You find yourself sitting on a short cement ledge outside of your usual coffee shop on break, halfway between full consciousness and spacing out while looking off into the distance. In your partially-aware state, you swear you notice an oddly familiar face standing just a few feet away, though you can’t place why. After a few seconds, you still haven’t realized that you’re staring at him.

The man looks at you through the corner of his eye a few times, and eventually turns to you with a raised eyebrow. His long black coat sways a little in the subtle breeze of New Jersey’s Autumnal streets. “... Did you need something?” 

You blink a few times in response to the sudden call out, then quickly avert your gaze back to whatever’s in front of you. “Nothing.” You say with a slight shrug, furrowing your brows. “I thought I might’ve seen you somewhere before, is all.”

He stares at you with some suspicion on his face for a few seconds, his eyes analyzing you before he speaks again.  “I don’t think we’ve met." He says as he steps closer, his gaze narrowed. You also seem familiar to him, some part of his mind far back getting a sense of déjà vu from the sight of your face, the sound of your voice.

“Obviously not..” You mutter, glancing at how he’s getting closer through the corner of your eye. There’s something about his walk, the sound of leather shoes on pavement…. Then, you turn to him.  “You’re with the police, aren’t you? You must’ve been at my work when all those cops showed up to ask about those… um, murders.”

“Oh, was that you? I think I remember now.” he says, stopping his approach just about a foot away from you. “You work at that vet clinic, right?” he says, his tone lowering slightly as he speaks the last few words.

You nod, the day flooding back at the confirmation. His name is Hoffman, if your memory serves you correctly. Mark Hoffman, right?  “I’m a tech there, yeah.” you answer, eyes then falling to look him up and down. “Still sorry we couldn’t be of any help. It’s a shame, all those poor animals left without an owner.." You say, which to any regular person would be a bit odd, to mention the pets but not the people.

Mark raises an eyebrow at the comment about the pets, his expression remaining stoic as he processes what you have just said. “Yeah, really is,” he says, with his usual blank expression and tone, “Say, how long have you worked there?”

“Oh, god, it must’ve been.. five years now?” You say thoughtfully, lifting your hand to rest on your cheek as you consider it. “And then those incidents started happening only earlier this year.. I damn near quit out of fear, I’ll tell you what.” You remark with a slight laugh at the end.

He listens intently to your reply, thinking over the information you’ve just given him.  “Why didn’t you?” His voice lowers as he speaks his next line, his stance shifting slightly, tilting his head while he eyes you.

“Well, you know how the job market is right now.” You relent with a sigh, shaking your head. “Besides, they gave everyone a pay raise when the news broke. I guess it was to try and stop people from leaving, and it worked for the most part.”

“So you stuck around for a raise? Sounds like you think the risk is worth the reward.” Hoffman lets out a dry laugh as he leans back on his heels, his eyes continuing to study you, like they’re searching for something. “Then again, why are you guys even still open at all?” he says, “I mean I would’ve never stepped foot in there again after something like that happened.”

You turn your gaze back up to him, your expression as genuine as your voice when you speak. “We’re the only veterinary office for miles, we can’t just close.” You respond, furrowing your brows a bit. “People, and their animals, need us. You of all people should know what that’s like. Right, detective?”

“Yes, I do.”  He nods, and the tense atmosphere that was filling the air dissipates slightly.  “You’re right. People need their vets, and if you are one who has devoted themselves to saving their pets then they’re lucky to have you.”  He replies, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well.. thank you.” You say in response, almost hesitant or unsure as you speak.  Just then, you get a text from your phone. He watches your expression change. “Ah, I have to get going. It was, um… nice talking to you?”

He shifts his weight, putting his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, you too,” Mark says, nodding once and giving a small, slightly forced smile, “Drive safe.”

[saccharinescorpion]

Oooh would love to hear more about the older shoujo works you've been reading lately! /gen

Princess Knight: finally finished the omnibus my boyfriend bought me ages ago. very neat to finish a Tezuka work and one of the grandmothers of the entire medium

The Poe Clan: bought the first volume, one of those aforementioned "omnibuses that could double as a weapon," i'm halfway through and really digging it so far, Moto Hagio's art is incredible

Fushigi Yuugi: a few chapters in, "original isekai" jokes aside this is probably the most "teen girl fantasy" of everything i've been reading recently, with the cute boys and "escaping my stressful life" situation. i like Miaka a lot and actually like her dynamic with Tamahome, and i'm really curious as to how Yui is going to factor into the story

Basara: i like Yumi Tamura's art a lot and i've read a bit of Don't Call It Mystery and have really wanted to read some more, and i think it's cool that she's done this kind of big dramatic post-apocalypse epic, but i'm a few chapters in and i dunno, it's probably not going to be for me, especially now that i reached the "hot springs" chapter and now know who the love interest is going to be lol. i've heard good things about 7 Seeds and going purely by the description i feel like i would be more interested in that

Neighborhood Story: i like Ai Yazawa's art but again i don't know if this one is going to be for me. i still want to give it a few more chapters

Phantom Thief Jeanne: i LOVE this setup and i enjoy the characters. i got the sense from other's comments that Chiaki was going to be a lot more unbearable but ehhhh he's not so bad really? conversely i feel like i should like Miyako and Maron's relationship more but somehow it feels like they kind of dropped the ball on establishing their friendship- AND SPEAKING OF DROPPING BALLS LMAO, this is so nitpicky but i don't like the running gag where Miyako constantly drops balls (??) on Maron when she's annoyed, a subgag of that thing where 80% of these manga has one character smacking another for the dumbest possible reasons. and before you say anythiiiiing i'm not saying it's problematicccccc it's mostly just dumb and annoying. also lmao at the fact that Miyako's dad is drawn as an ugly chibi in the manga but in the anime he's just a normal dude???? ok lol

Pretear: i'm reading one of those mid scanalations i mentioned earlier lol. i'm enjoying it but more than that i want to watch the anime specifically which seems like it kind of a more "complete" version of the story? also i'm happy to read this one because Pretear is one of the first magical girl animes i heard about other than Sailor Moon (in a now-defunct American anime magazine lol)

speaking of magical girls i so badly want to read Rayearth and Sugar Sugar Rune but i think i'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy physical copies, i tried a scan for SSR and the translation was annoyingly bad

haven't touched the manga yet but i've been loving the Dear Brother anime and recently started watching Glass Mask with my boyfriend too

this one is way too new but it's worth noting, Kageki Shoujo was basically what sparked this recent shoujo kick for me, damn what a good series (and is also very heavily inspired by older shoujo series so hey! full circle!)

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Elation

Today's an Andre episode, so get ready for a lot of shipping fuel that goes nowhere, kids.

Let's get into the ninth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Elation

We start off after an Akuma fight, where Ladybug attempts to make a move on Cat Noir... even though he's about to detransform and needs to hightail it out of there. Ladybug then tries to force a kiss on Cat Noir's cheek, but because she isn't Adrien, she's actually questioned for this violation of personal space. Cat Noir thinks it was all a test for the whole secret identity rule, so the two part ways. It's weird how Cat Noir is the more sensible one in this opening scene.

Back at Marinette's place, Alya is sleeping over while the two talk about the former's feelings for Cat Noir.

Marinette: What if Cat Noir’s declining all my invitations because... because he’s... no longer in love with me?

Alya: You mean, you as Ladybug? You said it yourself a hundred times: Cat Noir and Ladybug just can’t work. You’d end up blabbing your secret identities to each other, Monarch would find out and your Miraculous would go “bye-bye”.

Marinette: Just because you couldn’t keep your secret from Nino when you’re both superheroes doesn’t mean I can’t do it with Cat Noir!

Alya: Hey! Who gave us both a Miraculous at the same time? And if you love a superhero, you’re gonna want to know who's behind the mask. How else are you supposed to live a legit love story?

Hey, remember when Alya was actually able to admit her mistakes last season? Good times.

First of all, Alya clearly forgot to mention that Ladybug giving her and Nino their Miraculous at the same time was because it was an all hands on deck situation, what with Scarletmoth amassing an army of Akumas and all that. Alya was specifically told to keep her identity secret last season because her family was in danger, and she chose her relationship with her boyfriend over keeping her and her loved ones. Second, isn't this the exact opposite of what Alya said last episode? She tried to argue that superheroes shouldn't keep their personal lives involved when fighting crime, but now, she's saying that Marinette needs to know who Cat Noir is in order to “live a legit love story”. I get that they're at least trying to acknowledge the problems with the whole identity stuff, but it contradicts the stuff Alya told Marinette last episode.

Either way, it leads to the same conclusion: Alya's all like “You're still in love with Adrien!”, and Marinette's all like “No, I love Cat Noir now!”, and then Adrien's all like “Hey Marinette, I conveniently chose to talk to you so you have an excuse to be embarrassed.” It's the same stuff we've already seen so far this season, and we're not even halfway through yet.

But yeah, Adrien came over to talk with Marinette, but Marinette's insecurities cause her to tell her mother to tell Adrien that she's busy. Before Adrien can do anything else, he's harassed by some of his fans. It's a pretty amusing scene, as it calls back to an earlier bit where Cat Noir is harassed by some different fans, and it made me smirk a little. Adrien transforms into Cat Noir to get away, only to run into Marinette, attempting to get some privacy after an argument with Alya. The two talk, and their banter is... tolerable. There's some decent chemistry here, and for once, Marinette is talking to a love interest without stuttering. I hate that it took until Season 5 to get a scene like this, but hey, it's better than nothing. There's also a really interesting take on the whole “Marinette is caught in her pajamas” gag (which has nothing to do with the fact that it lets the animators reuse one of their models), in that Cat Noir reassures Marinette that he doesn't mind.

Meanwhile, Alya came to the realization that she shouldn't force Marinette to go after Adrien... a piece of character development that came almost halfway through Season 5... after four seasons of essentially nagging Marinette to keep going after Adrien. You know what? If it makes the episode end faster, I'll go with it. Alya and Tikki go to apologize to Marinette, only to see she left with Cat Noir.

Marinette and Cat Noir decide to go to Andre's for ice cream (because I guess there are no other ice cream shops in the entire city of Paris other than his little ice cream cart), where we see another one of Andre's rules that makes you wonder how the hell he stays in business.

Andre: Marinette and Cat Noir! What are you two doing here?

Cat Noir: We’re here for ice cream, of course! Unless you’re selling hotdogs now. (the two laugh)

Andre: That’s a good one, Cat Noir! But I make sweethearts’ ice cream, not “jokers’ and good friends’” ice cream. Look, who do you see there next to Jean and Serge? (points at one of the photos posted on his cart) Ladybug and Cat Noir! Their flavor is one of my classics! Love is not something you joke about. You, Cat Noir, are in love with Ladybug, and you, Marinette, are supposed to be in love with Adrien Agreste.

Oh, for the love of—GET A LIFE, YOU CREEP!

This is the exact same problem Andre has had in his last two appearances: His entitled belief that he has to be right about love all the time, and how his ships are absolute. This man is way too invested in making sure two teenagers hook up even when it seems like one of them has found someone to love. And just like his last two appearances, Andre gets all pissy because his ice cream is supposedly never wrong, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Thanks to Andre's rambling, Cat Noir learns that Marinette was in love with Adrien, and the two talk about it. They eventually start kissing, but Cat Noir backs out of it, pointing out that he's essentially taking advantage of Marinette thanks to her being a fan of his, as well as his secret identity complicating things. Marinette doesn't take it well.

Marinette: UGH! I AM SICK AND TIRED OF PTHER PEOPLE DECIDING WHAT'S GOOD FOR ME!

Cat Noir: I’m taking you home.

Marinette: SICK! I AM SICK OF IT! WHY CAN'T I BE HAPPY!? WHY CAN'T I LOVE WHOEVER I WANT TO LOVE!? (breaks down sobbing)

Cat Noir: You can. I can’t. Not like this.

Honestly, this is a really great scene. While I think Cristina Vee and Bryce Papenbrook have been kind of phoning in their performances lately, they both do a great job here, with Marinette's breakdown sounding believable, and Cat Noir's somber delivery playing off it well.

Of course, this attracts the attention of Monarch, who attempts to akumatize Marinette, and Marinette seems to give in. Of course, because Astruc himself said Marinette isn't allowed to get akumatized, this potentially interesting idea is shot down thanks to Cat Noir kissing Marinette. Somehow, it works, causing Marinette to reject the Akuma, though Cat Noir still apologizes afterwards.

Cat Noir: I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have kissed you again, but you weren’t listening to me, I was just trying to help you! To save you! That wasn’t a love kiss, it was... ugh, I’m just making it worse!

You know your kiss scene is confusing when one of your characters isn't sure what to make of it. If the moral of the story is that Marinette and Cat Noir can't be in love like this, why have Cat Noir save Marinette from getting akumatized by kissing her?

Of course, we still need an Akuma fight, so of course, Andre is akumatized into Glaciator again through his ice cream scoop. This time, he has the Tiger Miraculous' Clout, giving him the ability to fire bursts of energy in addition to his power to... be an ice cream golem.

Cat Noir gets Marinette to safety and tries to fight Glaciator, who sets his sights on Marinette for having the audacity to criticize his life's work. I wonder if one of the writers is projecting here. Of course, seeing how Glaciator is essentially Bomberman now, Cat Noir is overwhelmed by the sheer destructive power of the Akuma. Right when it seems like Glaciator is about to take his Miraculous, Alya stands up to him and tries to fight back, but is knocked away. Thankfully, Marinette had time to reunite with Tikki and transform into Ladybug. Ladybug meets up with Cat Noir, and after Glaciator temps the two to give up their Miraculous so they can be together without worrying about secret identities, the two refuse and reaffirm their friendship.

Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, a parasol, and comes up with a plan. While Cat Noir distracts Glaciator by pretending to struggle to get his Miraculous off (another admittedly funny joke), Ladybug throws the parasol through Glaciator's ice cream body, causing it to open up and blind him. Glaciator stumbles back and starts melting from being near one of the nearby fires, and once the ice cream body melts away to reveal Andre, Cat Noir uses his staff to break the scoop. Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, Andre apologizes for going on a homicidal rampage because his OTP didn't happen, Ladybug gives Andre another Magical Charm even though the last one didn't work at all, and uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage.

Meanwhile, Monarch transforms back into Gabriel, revealing that his Cataclysm wound is getting worse.

So remember when Gabriel started actually acting like a parent to Adrien in “Illusion”? It probably means he's only doing it because his days are numbered. Gabriel notes that now he knows that Cat Noir has feelings for Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and that he plans to exploit them.

Yeah, five bucks says he'll go back to ignoring her by the next episode. Marinette and Cat Noir share one last conversation about how it's easy for Marinette to mistake her feelings for Cat Noir for just being a fan (ironically, you could say the same thing about Marinette's feelings for Adrien too) before choosing to break things off, Marinette breaking down crying again as soon as Cat Noir leaves. The episode ends with Adrien realizing that there's a chance that Marinette could fall for him again.

Anyway, this episode was honestly pretty decent. Aside from a few things that have been par for the course this season, I really didn't have a lot of problems with the episode. Marinette and Cat Noir had some okay chemistry, and I liked how Cat Noir was able to acknowledge how he was abusing his status as a superhero by trying to start a relationship with Marinette, even if it never came up last season with Kagami. I also thought the animation was the best so far this season, with a lot of good shots at night and some decent action. Of course, it wasn't perfect. While it was nice to see some character development from Alya, it came across as an afterthought since most of it happened off-screen, and as always, Andre was a gigantic manchild.

While I am glad that there seemed to be some kind of progress being made for character development as evidenced with Cat Noir and Alya, it does feel long overdue. We're almost halfway through the show's fifth season, and only now are we getting stuff like Marinette and Cat Noir developing feelings for each other, Adrien learning that Marinette had feelings for her, and Alya learning to not focus so much on forcing her ships to happen. All of this should have happened a long time ago, but after almost four seasons of nothing but filler, only now are we getting some serious plot and character development. Considering the fact that this was originally planned to be the last season before the show got renewed, I'm worried that the writers are just going to cram a lot of plot progression and character development into the second half of the season without giving the audience time to process all of it, all while acting like we should be grateful because at least something's happening.

Overall, this was a decent episode, though part of me is worried how the rest of the season will handle the story if certain developments only came this late into the show's run.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... ANDRE

Yeah, this wasn't a surprise here. Just like the last two times he got akumatized, he threw a temper tantrum and tried to kill Marinette because one of his predictions based on his ice cream was wrong while ignoring the hundreds of other couples he's brought together as evidenced by “Wishmaker”, and needing to learn the same lesson he learned in “Glaciator 2”, in addition to turning down two paying customers because they're not Lucy and Ricky levels of being in love with each other. Hell, I'm pretty sure if Andre ever saw an asexual person, he'd have a heart attack trying to get them some ice cream.

[woojungz]

gamer bf yujun! 🎮🫧

❝ yujun x gn!reader

𓂃𓈒 something i thought of after watching yujun's daily_x vlog! word count: around 600(◜⁠‿⁠◝)♡ im also trying out the bullet list format in this one !

( likes and reblogs appreciated!♡ )

a thing i didn’t expect from yujun is for him to be a league player like…😭 anyway, i wonder if he also plays other fps games like valorant or whatever. and the biggest question is which character does he main?!

he also mentioned playing terraria and other ps5 games with jinsik

let’s say this whole situation started when you guys have that one hangout together as a couple where the both of you just do your own thing. maybe yujun invited you to his room, you’re just chilling on his bed while he tells you he’s gonna play some pc games.

at first it was completely peaceful, save for a few typing sounds of his keyboard and mouse clicking. your soul almost left your body when the silence was shattered by his sudden scream, snapping your head towards the back of his chair.

and when you go and approach him, he just gives you that cute eye smile of his.

“y/n! i just got a double kill!”

he really just dramatically startled you for that. when he saw you sigh before leaving him alone, he asks you if you wanna try playing together.

“you’ll get it if you try playing this game i promise!”

and that’s how he ended up convincing you to buy your own pc. you also have him to thank for the mess of pc parts scattered all over the floor. yujun wanted it to be a cute couple activity so he asked if you could build your pc together. you agreed, trusting that he knows how all this stuff works.

well, he never actually said he knows how… so he sheepishly smiles at you and rubs his neck shyly. he should be thankful he’s cute or you would’ve tackled him already. oh, and it absolutely did not help that yujun is probably the clumsiest person you know.

when you finally feel like building the pc is in smooth sailing, some random part you need would go missing. just to find out that yujun accidentally sat on it. it was far more stressful than it should be, but yujun was trying his best to cheer you up and remind you of all the games you could play with him once you guys get the thing done.

finally you get the thing built in a day, almost thinking you’re never gonna finish it with him around.

the first time you played fps games with him was such an experience. he lives for the way you panic sometimes that you just freeze on your position and ask him for help, yujun standing behind you as he comes closer and moves your mouse and keyboard by himself. you feel like you’re probably ruining his gaming sessions because everytime you come along, he loses more than he wins matches.

but he doesn’t care about victories in his games rn!! what he really enjoys is the time he’d spent with you, and he tells you he loves gaming more than ever because you’re playing with him!

sometimes the other members would tag along too when you guys play

oh, after school gaming sessions at pc cafes are becoming a frequent thing in your relationship!

and it’s also really really cute to witness yujun being all giggly and excited when starting a game, but then halfway through he’d get serious, brows knitted together and all. such an intense expression on his face, but would startle you sometimes when he cheers after getting a kill or whatever

if you're into chill games, he'd also have fun playing it with you! whether it be stardew valley, animal crossing, or minecraft.

accidentally lets a creeper into your minecraft base

he'd offer to rebuild your base for you but you stop him when you see the huge gap between the taste you have for your minecraft builds. you guys just have contrasting aesthetics when you build your minecraft base.

like you'd be making a cute house on the side while yujun builds his own with diamond blocks.

anyway!! i’d give gamer bf yujun a 10 outta 10, the cutest :(

[halfcarrotikemen]

So I finally found a way to watch tristamp in English dub (I only ever watched the series in Japanese). I haven’t done any deeper thoughts and analysis, and I’m only halfway through the series but here’s my impression so far:

- I love English dub Vash, especially his gibberish noises, such a chaotic dumbass (affectionate), and although some of his jokes and mannerism didn’t translate as well as I hoped, they did a very good job. They deserved two dozen donuts. (although if you hold me at gunpoint and ask me to choose English or Japanese Vash I will choose the Japanese version with a thin margin because I have personal bias towards Matsuoka Yoshitsugu [he’s from where I live lol, and I’m a big fan])

- I’m also in love with how they play Legato and Roberto, especially Legato, I was surprised by the lack of the feeling out of place (Is that the right word? sorry my brain suddenly stopped working in English) that you usually have when you hear a show dubbed in another language you’re not used to hearing. So smooth. And they nailed the drunkle speech with Roberto.

- I honestly was disappointed with the lack of accent in Wolfwood’s speech (maybe I just didn’t hear it correctly? Idk) because he speaks in heavy Kansai dialect in Japanese, even when he was a child (also casting Hosoya Yoshimasa really emphasized the accent). A huge missed opportunity on the English dub, in my opinion. I was expecting Wolfwood with a heavy Southern accent or something. And on that note they also missed the chance to add some dialect for the worm hunters on episode 4.

- English dub Meryl feels mature and a lot more pulled together to me compared to the Japanese version, which sounds very pristine and innocent until she starts learning about the world. It makes her a little… out of place for me who’s used to Meryl speaking in a very polite formal Japanese to everyone (even when she’s yelling in rage or when she’s cursing people). I think it suits Meryl from ‘98 anime more than tristamp Meryl. Probably because you can’t really translate her distinct way of speaking accurately, it’s not anyone’s fault, just a matter of different language. But I guess I like the Japanese version better for Meryl. I just love the way she speaks, shame there’s no English equivalent to her speech style.

- I don’t like English dub Nai. I’m 100% going with the Japanese version in this. Not the performance, though, I know translations are really hard and I do think the English VA did a great job, but as someone who’s used to how Nai speak in Japanese, the dub just… didn’t feel right. In Japanese Nai speaks in a relatively rougher manner compared to Vash (in how he chooses his words, also the subtle but different way he talks to humans and to Vash) and it didn’t show as much in the English dub. And his pretentious speech that sounds like some people from the church near my house doesn’t get carried to the English dub, I guess. In English he just sounds like a scary villain to me, while in Japanese I can feel his emotions and (warped) love towards Vash just from his words. I saw someone pointing out that Nai refers to the dependent plants with feminine pronouns, and it’s even more prominent and emphasized in the Japanese version. They’re not wrong. Maybe in English it can come across as a bit misogynistic(?), I don’t know, but I like how he does this in Japanese, because to me it feels like he’s always trying to refer to them as “persons” and not “things”, although his treatment towards them is contradictory.

This ended up longer than I expected but overall I enjoyed the English dub and I love analyzing different languages. I wanna know how it feels for people who know absolutely zero Japanese watching the series in English dub and in Japanese with English subtitles. I know that there were differences in the subtitles and the dub but for me I can’t compare English sub and dub because I’d just go with my Japanese interpretation if I watch the subbed version (or I’d rather just ditch the subtitle altogether because sometimes it’s making my brain confused when I speak both languages).

Also to people who write Trigun fanfics in English, where do you base the character speech from? I don’t know how to translate Japanese dialects, so Wolfwood, for example, is very difficult for me to write in English.