#and every single time it feels like the people responsible for a given project did not give a single fuck about ethics

[justoceanmyth]

anyway, somewhat related to my last post-- why is it that every time I see something about an AI related project, my first thought is “do they have an ethics board?”

[inphront]

y’know i’m writing this fic and it’s making me think that maybe we don’t recognize enough as a fandom that a lot of harrow’s guilt and shame, which make her light years more sympathetic as a character, are a.) not actually that moral, b.) directly caused by the ninth, and c.) probably shared with her parents, the only characters in the whole series that i’ve never seen a single post trying to humanize/analyze as complex. like. harrow hates herself for what her parents did and honestly? the most likely reason for this is just that kids subconsciously recognize themselves as extensions of their parents, and *her parents probably hated themselves for what they did.* regularly explaining your crimes against humanity to your five-year-old but only being willing to discuss it in the terms of it being a horrible sin and having to take a ritual cleansing bath every single time is the action of a very guilty person. i have to imagine that those saltwater baths probably included some really intense self-flagellation on the part of harrow’s parents that she internalized. i’d venture so far as to say that their suicides were motivated by guilt over the massacre just as much as by shame over the opening of the tomb.

harrow’s sense of constant guilt is so often seen as proof of her having overcome the imperial morality pushed by the houses, and that makes sense given the fact that she *has* taken a viewpoint by the end of the series that opposes imperial morality, but also, guilt is like the main export of the ninth house. harrow’s relationship to it, even once it stops being something she projects onto gideon or otherwise externalizes, is fundamentally ninth and ties her to what she herself acknowledges as “the worst flaws of her house.” ultimately it is something she inherited just as much as the 200, which to me provokes a lot of questions about how her parents actually coped with the consequences of their own fucked-up actions. gideon experienced that coping as just straight cruelty, but we know that harrow got a much more complex window into their feelings and behaviors, and my guess is those behaviors bore distinct resemblance to hers.

i have to wonder what sorts of systemic pressures were falling on them and their house that led to them killing off a whole generation, and what sort of transformations they underwent. how *do* you live with yourself knowing that the blood of so many innocent people, people you were responsible for *protecting,* is on your hands? how could you possibly raise a well-adjusted child when she’s basically a mirror into an atrocity you could’ve hardly fathomed up till the day you committed it? do you think they tried to? i think they probably tried to, but ultimately being a good parent doesn’t change being a mass murderer, and it’s impossible to pull off at all when the mass murder is so directly tied to your hopes for your child. the ninth’s entire purpose within the empire is to carry the weight and memory of one of the most horrible things john ever did, to *inherit the mass death and necromantic subjugation of the earth.* in this capacity, harrow’s parents are *victims* of the empire and its doctrine around death who proceeded to perpetuate both the mass death and necromantic subjugation AND the task of bearing the burden of shame onto their next generation. i don’t really know where i’m going with this aside from “the ninth’s cycle of violence is based in shame and is an extension of john’s disbelief in forgiveness, which means harrow can’t break it without forgiving something unforgivable; it’ll be interesting to see how she manages such a difficult task,” and “i think we oughtta talk about the politics of guilt as it applies to the entire reverend family dynamic”

[the-uninformed-zennial]

So, uh, Fable ended.

And now I’m gonna be sappy on main.

I started watching Fable about half a year before I started being active in the fandom, around the time I started falling in love with my partner @hoardingpuffin . Watching Rae and Caspian’s relationship develop was actually part of what helped me realize that the things I was feeling for them were romantic and not just platonic. Surprisingly enough, that’s just the beginning of the profound effect Fable had on me.

I had never really interacted with fandom spaces before Fable. But when I caught up with lore sometime in November 2022, I decided to join the discord. It was a crazy place. Being someone who’d never really been in a server before I was completely overwhelmed and nervous, so I didn’t interact much for the first month or so.

Then I discovered that, despite the incredible love for the project, no one had made a “which character are you?” Quiz yet, so, I decided to fuck it and make one myself. The response I got to that was unlike any I had seen before. I was getting pinged weeks afterwards with people’s results and it made me really happy to see how much my work was appreciated by everyone in the community. It got me thinking about other ways I might be able to give back.

Then, as you all know, the stream “Call” and it’s partner “Response” came out on Ghosty and HeyHay’s channels. I’d been feeling so similarly to the two characters, dealing with my long distance relationship with Puffin. So, I took those feelings and the words Heyhay and Ghosty had used to convey them for their characters and put them into a song.

And then something insane happened.

Everyone liked it. Like, everyone liked it. This crappy recording I made at 2 AM suddenly got hundreds and then thousands of views when I put it on SoundCloud and YouTube. It was insane. I had written some songs before, but they’d always been ridiculed, so having a large group of people like the fable community enjoy something that I wrote was absolutely insane to me, and it encouraged me to make more.

I found myself being inspired by the characters in fable, connecting with different storylines or sentences said on streams. I found myself writing songs, one after another after another.  At one point I was writing a song a week for a period of about three months. I had never experienced this amount of raw creativity before, but every time I put a new song out, I only got encouraged to make more.

And then people started to ask me when I was going to put them on Spotify. And that was another moment that everything changed. I realized if I was gonna put these out there in such an official way I didn’t want it to just be a bunch of crappy recorded singles. So I needed to make an album.

That was something I had never considered doing before. I knew nothing about music editing or sound mixing. Up until that point all of my songs had been made on GarageBand at 2 AM with very little editing or mixing going into them. So, I started saving for a real music editing program and within a few months I got there.

Then came the actual making of the album. I took a few months off in the summer and just dove headfirst into it. Every spare moment I wasn’t modding for the Sherbathon, or the discord, or streaming my own lore, was spent working on those songs. And while looking back now I wish I knew what I know now about music editing, I’m so glad I did what I did. Putting that album out, seeing how you all responded to it… it made me realize that this is something I love, something that I don’t have to wait for someone else’s permission or teaching to do.

This fandom is the reason I’m a musical artist and that is something I don’t think I will ever be able to express the importance of enough.



As much as I could talk about the unending support and encouragement I received from the wonderful cast members throughout my experience making the album, or how being given the role of mod on the fandom discord taught me so much about how to be a creator in my own right, or even the amazing experience I had being able to make songs for the lore. When it comes right down to it, it was the community, cast and all, that impacted my life in the profound way it has been. So thank you, each and every one of you, whether you are a cast member, a fan, a fellow mod, or even just someone who streamed a song you didn’t have any context for. Thank you for changing my life, for giving me the encouragement to pursue my dreams.

Thank you Fable SMP cast, crew, and community ����

[ledbytheunknown]

Pro Memoria

Summary: Crosshair alone in his cell on Mount Tantiss reflects on his life, his choices and all that brought him to that point.

Word count: 1590

Warnings: There is talk of pain, angst, medical issues and contemplation of death. Thoughts or regret and sadness

A/N: Written for @swprequels-big-bang The art is amazing and I just know you will al love it as much as I do when you see it.

it can be found here

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

" Don't you forget about dying

Don't you forget about your friend death

Don't you forget that you will die "

Crosshair sat alone in the cell on Mount Tantiss, no natural light reached this far in. The garish industrial lights often hurt his eyes, making his head fill with the pain of a migraine. He’d lost count of the days, everyone being the same monotonous routine. Wake a morning serving of sustenance that made the old republic rations look like a gourmet meal on Canto Bight. Guards moving him to a lab samples taken from his right hand, the repeated jabs left his hand feeling weak and at times it had a tremor. 

In the beginning he would be taken to a chamber much like the one Rampart and Tarkin used on him back on Kamino and his mind was probed and shocked as Hemlock tried to twist him and it to make him a perfect super soldier.

The gas Hemlock had used on him when he had tried to get a message to his brothers to protect Omega left his throat damaged and his voice even more gravely than before. It had all been for nothing. Omega was still found and brought here.

She visited almost everyday. Talked about planning and getting out. Crosshair fully believed that she should try, but that she should go alone. Leave him to his karma, his punishment, his prison.

He was not innocent. He blindly followed all the orders he was given by the empire for a long time. There were times when he closed his eyes he could see the faces of every single person he killed for the empire. He could also see the faces of those he knew die around him.

The rebels on Onderon, they honestly did not know where Saw Gerrera was, majority on that transport were civilians and Crosshair had led his squad in opening fire on them and cut them all down. Man woman and child. 

Tightness grew in his chest as the many memories flooded in. Shortly after Onderon there was a mission to Naboo to bring in again so-called insurgents who were not separatists but members of the galactic republic who were resisting the Empire's new rule.  The whole settlement was wiped out again man woman or child it didn’t matter they were gone in under a half hour and their bodies disintegrated leaving no trace. It was like that for a long time and Crosshair could always shut out what he did. Block his mind from remembering.  But now their faces were all he could see. Hundreds and hundreds of people who he was directly responsible for their deaths. Either by giving orders to the troops or by his own hand.

His hand, the right one, had started to tremble shortly after his attempt at contacting his brothers to tell them to keep Omega safe.  The tremors now were more frequent. Any time he thought about what he had done it started to shake. He reached across and held it steady with his left hand taking a deep breath and it started to settle.

Crosshair looked through the bars of his cell down into the stark utilitarian prison corridors that went in every direction. Almost every stall was occupied by former clone troopers, all ones who refused to serve the empire, all were tested and some experimented on but for what purpose He did not know. He often saw Nala Se in the halls and lab. She was his creator, not just in that he was a clone but it was her project that gave him and his brothers of Clone Force 99 their desired mutations. He saw sadness in her eyes when she looked at him and disappointment. It hurt him as he didn’t know if that was disappointment in his situation or in him and his actions.

He put his head back against the wall on his cell and closed his eyes again, this time his mind took him to Bracca, the place he almost burned to death in the fire of an ion engine. That was the start of his downfall, where his troops in the elite squad questioned his actions. It got worse on Ryloth.

Ryloth, it was all a flawed plan by Rampart to fully take over. To frame the hero of Ryloth Cham Syndulla of the murder of Twi'lek senator Orn Free Taa, but it didn’t go as planned and Cross hair was forced to arrest many clone troopers. Some fought back and for that they were killed.

But he survived. He survived the fall of Kamino and spent thirty-two rotations stranded there alone. He chose to stay, he could have left with the others on the Marauder but he chose to stay. But he questioned himself if he did it because he believed the Empire would find him or if he did it to die, to atone for all he did.  The Empire did find him and after making a full recovery it was back to fighting back to killing, though he didn’t do much of the latter on the first mission with Cody. Commander Cody, where was he now? Was he safe? They said he left, that he defected, but in the Empire that could mean anything, that he went to the budding rebellion or that he disappeared to live in peace or that he had been killed. Maybe he was here in the halls in one of the many cells. 

He sighed thinking of how badly he hurt his brothers, not just his batch mates but the clone troopers as a whole. Those who had stood against the empire how he treated them. Capturing them like he had Howzer and his troops or killing some of the 981st that had defected in the time between Ryloth and Daro. 

How he had hunted Tech, Wrecker, Echo, and Hunter. He had been so close to them and now they only seemed like distant memories.

One of the times Hemlock and Nala Se worked on their experiments Hemlock informed him of Tech’s fall and subsequent death. It made Crosshair’s stomach and chest ache. They had been trying to find him, they had been trying to rescue him and now Tech was dead, and it was all Crosshair's fault.  Just as Mayday’s death was on him as well.

He should have been able to save Mayday. He should have been able to get him back to base sooner so that there would be a chance of survival instead of dying in agony on the ground just beyond the walls of the base. He should have taken out more than just the lieutenant; he should have gunned down that whole base. But he was too weak.

Always now too weak to be of use, with a trembling shooting hand and headaches that would come and go but when they came they would stay, it would linger and pulse and beat away at his head, his brain throbbing as if trying to escape his skull. 

He grabbed his head in his hands as he felt another of the headaches coming on he could feel the tremor of his hand against his head. This would be a fitting way to go, he had survived practically being incinerated, and being left to fend for himself on a dead planet but to have that pain in his head kill him make him atone for all he had done that would be perfect. 

He tried to pry his eyes open to survey his surroundings one last time. In the hall beyond the ray shielded door of his cell he could see them. It was scary, bittersweet and calming all in one as his brothers lined the halls, Tech closest then MAyday and so many others, there were non-clone faces there as well, faces he recognized all too clearly as his victims. But they did not look mad, they looked sad or was that more looks of empathy, of pity? They were waiting for him. To escort him to hell no doubt it is what he deserved.

" We focus on your death,

We focus on your death.

You share not the blood of ours,

thus we focus on your death "

The words echoed through his head so many voices in unison. Calling him to his end. So he had taken their lives or failed to prevent their deaths, it was only fitting they beckoned him to his own.

The intensity of the pain grew, his eyes squeezing shut as if to try and stop the growing throb and the searing burning pain that filled his skull. He felt his breath catch in his lungs. Then calm, darkness and silence. 

.

.

.

Beep……..Beep………Beep

Crosshair felt his consciousness leaving the void. The soft sounds around him, this was not hell, it was too calm, and smelled too clean. Way to clean.

“Ah I see you are finally waking up” a familiar voice said from a distance away.

Footsteps came closer

“We almost lost you there CT-9904, that would be unfortunate as you still have so much to give in our experiments”

Crosshair opened his eyes. He was alive but he had been wrong; he was in hell. The living hell of Mount Tantiss, and staring down at him as he was strapped to the medical table, the devil incarnate. Dr. Royce Hemlock. Crosshair looked around the room, the voices were gone as were the apparitions. So once again he would be left alone with his thoughts and his guilt. 

[brucebocchi]

Ranking every new anime I watched in 2023, Pt. 4: #5-1

hey, i just started a ko-fi for my writing and possible other creative outlets. this post will also be available there, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i'm currently between jobs. the tumblr version of part 1 can be found here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.

The list is complete! This took a lot of work but I'm over the moon to get this out there. Please consider leaving a tip if you've enjoyed reading.

Here goes, my top five anime of 2023:

5. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead

Zom 100’s debut hit like a freight train, especially coming from a brand new studio. It had everything: Visceral satire of Japanese work culture, incredible animation, vibrant colors in unexpected places, clever cinematography, wish fulfillment for everyone who’s ever wanted to Stone Cold their boss, and most importantly: Zombie titties.

The premise is magnetic: When your job makes you feel like a zombie, an actual zombie apocalypse means certain freedom from the grind. Akira Tendo realizes that he can finally use the vacation time he amassed while being exploited and overworked at a legally dodgy black company, so he writes a bucket list of everything he’s ever wanted to do, with all intention of checking off every single line item before succumbing to a zombie bite. He manages to rescue his hunky fuckboy bestie from college, and they embark on a road trip across Japan to finish out the list, along with a beautiful, risk-averse tsundere and a big-tiddy German weeb. 

It's a perfectly fine elevator pitch, and a welcome break from the guns-and-grit quagmire the zombie genre has been stuck in for the past two decades, but what makes any good zombie-flecked media resonate is the human element, which Zom 100 delivers expertly. You’re quickly given reason to care for all the characters, their motivations are clear and relatable, and you want to see them survive and live out their dreams. But more importantly, you just want to hang out with them through their hijinks. It even delves into more serious matters, like what we owe our parents as adults, the ways isolation and bitterness can drive people to act out in their worst moments, and even the factors that push abuse victims to stay with and even return to their abusers. 

Above all, though, it’s a powerful (if extreme) story of finding joy in the direst circumstances. Akira, Kencho, and Shizuka are all kindhearted, well-meaning people whose situations kept them from what they truly wanted to do with their lives, and there’s something kinda beautiful to be found in them finding a new opportunity during the possible end of the world (Beatrix is a sweetie too, but aside from the whole zombie thing, she’s already exactly where she wants to be). The final arc of the season, in particular, looks you dead in the eye and asks you: If you were suddenly faced with the ultimate freedom, would you use the opportunity to better yourself, improve the lives of others, or do whatever the fuck you want at everyone else’s expense? You may not like the answer at first if you’re honest with yourself, and that’s okay. The world isn’t over, and there’s still time for you to be your best self.

Zom 100, unfortunately, fell prey to a cruel irony in the form of production issues. Bug Films is a new studio made up of a former team from OLM that was responsible for similarly gorgeous projects such as Komi Can’t Communicate and Summer Time Rendering. They clearly saw so much of themselves in Akira's workplace exploitation that they had to swing for the fences here. The firm he works for is named “ZLM” in this adaptation, for fuck’s sake, and he fully destroys his zombie boss in the first episode. But new studio or old, the anime industry is a grind, and Bug had trouble keeping up; animation quality did take a bit of a dip after the stunning first episode, and episodes were frequently delayed as the summer broadcast season wore on and ended without the entire seasonal run making airwaves. Hell, it was impossible to watch the final three episodes until just a few days before I could write this sentence.

For what Bug were able to pull off, though, Zom 100 is outstanding. The paintball-colored blood splatters everywhere are an instantly-iconic look that strike the balance between horror and spectacle. Everything and everyone looks gorgeously faithful to Kotaro Takata’s art, and delivers an appropriately cinematic look that the manga always deserved. I almost don’t know what else to tell you but that this show is a fucking blast.

There’s also a zombie shark. What more could you want?

4. Oshi no Ko

I spent a good chunk of 2023 just assuming Oshi no Ko was going to be a layup for anime of the year. Shortly after moving on from Kaguya-sama, I rushed to binge Aka Akasaka's subsequent manga in time for the anime's feature-length debut. I was taken in by OnK's bonkers premise and sudden dark turn and quickly fell in love with the characters, and my anticipation only grew. I had high expectations for the screen adaptation, but nothing could have prepared me for just how lovingly it all came together. This is as close to a perfect adaptation as you can find, and the same can be said about both the preceding and following entries on this list.

Oshi no Ko is an audiovisual feast. Doga Kobo cleaned up Mengo Yokoyari’s character designs just a smidge, but put just the right flourishes on them to make every single cast member instantly iconic. One look at Kana Arima’s eyes will tell you everything you need to know about the level of care put into the visual design of this anime. The performances are on point as well; though many of the main cast members are relative newcomers to the world of seiyuu, you can tell they truly came to understand the characters before they even recorded one line. I’ve already gushed about Rie Takahashi in earlier entries, but her turn as Ai Hoshino is easily one of the best voice performances all year. Takahashi makes a meal out of every single second Ai spends on screen and gives you every reason to care about her as a character.

Showbiz manga in general is obviously missing an audio element, and when an adaptation can expand on that aspect well, it can help turn even middling source material into something transcendent (see also: Rock!, Bocchi the). Music is central to Oshi no Ko, and the OP/ED combination is already iconic; YOASOBI’s “Idol” has had the best worldwide chart performance of any Japanese song ever, and the prolonged intro to Queen Bee’s “Mephisto” became a meme in Japan in the same vein as JJBA’s iconic use of “Roundabout.” Rather than taking manga characters’ word for it that someone is a terrible actor, we actually get to cringe along to an amateur actor’s hammy emoting. We get to see and hear what turned a fictional idol group into a national phenomenon rather than just see cute girls posing on the page. All of this is to say that while Oshi no Ko is an excellent manga, it needed a screen adaptation, and especially one of this quality.

Oshi no Ko deserves every shred of its success. I've never seen an anime make a splash this enormous with just its debut episode, even if it’s kind of cheating to say so because the first episode is almost literally a movie, and if I were to give an award for the best single episode of anime this year, it would be that one, hands down. Adapting the entire first volume into a feature-length debut was the correct move (mostly because it’s a tonal rollercoaster, and the Big Event that defines the entire story wouldn’t have happened until the fourth episode otherwise), and the investment paid dividends. The hype naturally died down a bit as the season wore on and settled into a more consistent tone and rhythm, but it remains an essential anime to 2023.

You may have noticed that I have said very little of what this show is actually about, and that’s by design: If you still don’t know the plot of Oshi no Ko’s first episode by now, I refuse to tell you: you need to go in blind. All I will say is that it is an idol anime that glorifies nothing. If you've read this far and still trust what I have to say about anime, I beg you to just take my word for it. It's an incredibly rewarding experience.

3. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

There's just something so wonderful about taking in an adaptation of a work you’re already familiar with and knowing, almost instantaneously, that every single person working on it genuinely loved the source material and relished the opportunity to bring it to life. Nearly every single member of the original cast is in the dub (including the ones who went on to be MCU mainstays), Edgar Wright is back on as executive producer, Anamanaguchi reprise their soundtracking duties from the video game, and even Bryan Lee O’Malley himself helped co-write everything.

That last detail is probably the most important thing about this entire production: It’s not exactly a secret that the original Scott Pilgrim comics are very imperfect portrayals of a very imperfect young man. I knew reading them at the time that the comic did not have a great grasp on relationships and the dynamics between men and women, and that was at a time in my life when I myself was pretty terrible with and to women. O'Malley has said that he would only revisit Scott Pilgrim if it was “the right thing” and that he was leery of a straight retelling of a work he has since outgrown.

So instead, we have the Rebuild of Scott Pilgrim, to put it simply. Takes Off is a completely new story that reexamines the Scott Pilgrim comics, movie, and even game without undermining what came before it. This series is not a repudiation of Scott Pilgrim (the character or the franchise)’s flaws, nor is it purely fanservice; it splits the difference perfectly. It’s both more mature and completely self-indulgent. This show so easily could’ve marched to the familiar discourse drumbeat of “Scott isn’t the hero here” or “he’s actually not a good dude,” but it instead focuses on what should always be the second half of that sentence: “But Ramona still sees something in him.”

Yes, Ramona Flowers is effectively the protagonist of a new work that doesn’t even have her name on it, and it tackles some surprisingly necessary questions: What was her responsibility in creating seven evil exes in the first place? What made them evil? Are they even that evil? This series opens up entire worlds of possibilities within the extended cast and gleefully dives into them. Though Takes Off may not flesh out every single character, it does take its time with several of the ones who really did need a little more meat on their narrative bones, and even gives some characters new roles just because it would be fun to see them in new situations.

I still cannot believe they got Science Saru to make this show. “They made a Scott Pilgrim anime” and “They brought back the movie cast” are already good enough fodder for that Vince McMahon meme, but “It’s produced by the motherfuckers who made Devilman Crybaby” had me falling out of my chair. The animation maintains O'Malley's chunky, cartoony character designs and works wonders with line weights and simulated camera effects to give everything a tactile, weighty feel, like it’s somehow (and very appropriately) splitting the difference between a comic, a film, and even a video game. There’s a wide array of visual effects that helps to place all of Scott Pilgrim’s influences further on its sleeve: Dynamic action scenes, camera depth and chromatic aberration, and our beloved pixel art inserts. It looks like every Scott Pilgrim, everywhere, all at once.

The live action film’s cast did a (mostly) great job reprising their roles for animation, and there are some wildly unexpected cameos in there. Voice acting is not quite the same as stage or film acting, but everyone pulls their weight, and dialogue feels far more naturalistic than your average anime dub. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong and, surprisingly, Chris Evans are outstanding in their respective roles. I’m gonna have to watch this again in Japanese, though. Fairouz Ai as Ramona, Aoi Koga as Knives, and Yuichi Nakamura as Lucas Lee? Sign me the fuck up.

This is not an apology or revision of Scott Pilgrim the character or work, it is a celebration that still acknowledges and improves on the flaws. If you’re a Scott Pilgrim fan who’d been clamoring for a proper cartoon adaptation, Takes Off may not exactly be what you’ve wanted, but it may be what you needed.  Chances are pretty good that you’ve grown since the first time since you read, watched, or even played something with Scott Pilgrim’s name on it, and it’s a blessing to say that while the character may not have grown, Scott Pilgrim the franchise finally has. 

2. Jujutsu Kaisen, season 2

I’m so glad I picked up JJK this year, if only because I would’ve otherwise been caught in a mudslide of memes I didn’t understand.

Season 2 follows in lockstep with the manga from where season 1 left off, beginning in extended flashback with the Hidden Inventory/Premature Death arc, covering Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto’s high school life and the events that would eventually create the rift between them that came to shape Jujutsu Kaisen’s story. We see very different versions of Gojo and Geto here, much younger and more naive, but only marginally less powerful as they’re sent on an escort mission with the future of the jujutsu world in the balance. Because this is Jujutsu Kaisen, and because Jujutsu Kaisen is for masochists, nothing happens as planned.

We unfortunately do not get the precious slice-of-life hijinks the OP suggests, but if you watched season 1, you should know better by now than to trust an OP. While the initial arc does have its quieter and goofier moments (and some delicious homoerotic subtext), it wastes little time in declaring that this is a new version of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime: Lines are thinner, character models are looser, and action is buckwild. Two of the best fakeouts in the series happen in the span of five minutes. Those unfamiliar with the source material may have wondered for a bit why there needed to be a five-episode prequel arc to start the season, but the pieces would soon fall into place.

And then came Shibuya.

The Shibuya Incident arc was what made Jujutsu Kaisen a must-read in every new issue of Shonen Jump. It reset the status quo for the story and shaped it into something far beyond another “teenagers with special powers go to a school for teenagers with special powers” battle shonen. Needless to say, the hype for its anime adaptation was astronomical.

The Shibuya arc sets the stakes early: Nobody is safe and there may be no happy ending. Triumph is short-lived, and every threat is existential. Everyone who has been in the series up to this point plays a role, and you’re not going to like a lot of what’s needed of them. This arc punches you in the gut, repeatedly, and in between each blow is some of the most intense and innovative action you’ve ever seen. It will hurt, and you will beg for more.

I liked this arc a good amount in the manga, but by the end I was ready for it to be over. I didn’t get the hype around Toji, thought the deaths were cheap, and was so. FUCKING. sick of Mahito. Seeing it in fluid motion onscreen, though, everything just clicked for me and I couldn’t get enough. I fully get now why the girlies have been wetting themselves over Toji; the character modelers were HORNY horny this season. I see now how even the most unceremonious deaths fit into the narrative, or at least one will make perfect sense to me once Gege Akutami and I have a little chat :). And holy hell do I understand now that Mahito is one of the best shonen villains in the history of the medium, that sick bastard. Season 2 was my Rosetta stone for Jujutsu Kaisen; I see it all now. My sixth eye has been opened. Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am the literate one.

JJK’s second season has a markedly different feel from the first from a presentation standpoint, and I feel it’s for the better. Every aspect of the presentation is on point, and I want to call attention to the audio element: The production music, with a heavy focus on jazz piano, is wonderfully unique for the genre, and the voice acting remains top notch. These are banner performances from the likes of Yuichi Nakamura, Kenjiro Tsuda, Takahiro Sakurai, Asami Seto, and Nobunaga Shimazaki, but the performance that defines the Shibuya arc (and by extension the entire season) is Junya Enoki as Yuji Itadori. 

Enoki’s been great this year in lead roles in goofy works like KamiKatsu and Girlfriend Girlfriend (not to mention minor roles in Skip and Loafer and the vending machine isekai), so it’s no surprise that he continues to crush it as JJK’s protagonist; Yuji Itadori is a goofy dude. But the Shibuya arc, for as much ground and as many characters as it covers, is ultimately Yuji’s story as he is forced, time and again, to endure the cycle of the “suffering builds character” meme. His peers and mentors in the first season told him repeatedly that the life of a jujutsu sorcerer is a short and unhappy one, and he now has to shoulder that burden for everyone. Enoki nails every single part of a wide spectrum of emotions Yuji is forced to endure over the course of the Shibuya arc, be it determination, naive confusion, or just pure unbridled trauma. If this isn’t the best voice performance of the year, it’s top five at worst.

Like every major battle shonen release in the age of social media, this season has had its detractors. Reviewers at Anime News Network kinda hated the story, but that’s something you take up with Gege Akutami (and get in line behind the manga readers). I've seen people complain about the animation. Which, like. If you don’t like the new visual style, sure, fine, that’s up to personal taste. But if you think this season isn’t well-animated, you just plain don’t know ball. It may not have a cohesive look, but that was the draw for me: Season 1 was good, but at times I felt like it looked a little too rigid, a little too shiny, a little too samey. Season 2, especially the Shibuya arc, looks like everything. Sometimes it looks like an action film, sometimes it looks like Mob Psycho 100, and at points it looks, most crucially, like Akutami’s most iconic panels brought to life, stroke for stroke.

The varying styles weren’t an accident: Nearly each episode had its own director, and those resumes cover top-tier animations like Mob Psycho, Devilman Crybaby, Kill la Kill, Heavenly Delusion, Oshi no Ko, FLCL, even Akira and goddamn Golden Boy. While the episodes don’t look entirely consistent from one to the next, the variance is less jarring and more “holy fuck, what am I going to see next?”. The looser style of animation is what Jujutsu Kaisen always needed; Akutami’s art is very loose and dynamic, and his action panels are borderline inscrutable at times. Season 2 nails the feel of JJK to a degree that its adaptation always needed and lets its directors, storyboarders, and animators run wild. At times, characters will look like they leapt right off the page; others, they will look like something you have never seen before in your life.

It is unfortunately impossible to talk about this season without also bringing up MAPPA’s working conditions, and how animators were frequently overworked against nigh-impossible deadlines. It was an open secret last year as Chainsaw Man aired that MAPPA’s animation schedule was a meat grinder, but that came bubbling to the surface quickly as JJK’s second season aired. Word got out midseason that MAPPA had its animators sign NDAs about their work conditions, but complaints still broke containment and several staffers took to social media to apologize for their work looking incomplete, and some even publicly announced that they are leaving the studio. It is stunning that the finished product looks the way it does under such conditions, and I respect the animators for putting in such incredible work, but something has to give. Several major series suffered from major delays this year, some of which I gave significant praise, but MAPPA is lucky that all of JJK came out on time. I wish I knew what could push them to treat their workers with the dignity and respect (and pay) they deserve, but that’s a conversation that covers much wider ground than just anime.

MAPPA has already announced that the series will continue through the next major arc. While there is quite a bit of it that I would love to see on screen, I can only hope that the animators get to rest. For now, though, we can be proud of what they made under duress, even if some will forever wonder what it would look like if the staff were treated like something a notch above cattle.

1. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Fucking hell. This is why I watch anime.

I was curious about this one because a couple major anitubers I watch had reviewed the manga and were effusive in their praise. I knew the anime adaptation was on the way, so I decided to hold off on reading and see what the anime would be like, and with Keiichiro Saito (director of Bocchi the Rock! and key animator for Oshi no Ko’s instantly-iconic OP) at the helm, my excitement was piqued. That guy turned a B-minus 4-koma into an innovative hit comedy, so what can he do with a beloved source material and the backing of a legacy studio like Madhouse?

I've had so much to say about Frieren since the premiere, and I still have so much to say now, but to talk about what I love about this show is to talk about everything about this show. When the first four episodes dropped, I described it as “Mushoku Tensei without the baggage,” and I stand by that. There were multiple points throughout Frieren’s first cour where I'd nearly forgotten that I wasn't watching Mushoku Tensei. Every single element is on point: The animation is fluid and expressive, backdrops are consistently gorgeous, voice performances are quickly memorable, and the music is evocative and instantly iconic. This is, plainly, one of the most beautiful pieces of television I have ever seen on nearly every level, be it visually, sonically, or thematically.

The initial four-episode debut was a masterclass in establishing the setting, building emotional investment into the characters, and slowly but deliberately laying out the premise of the season to come. The titular Frieren is an elf mage who, for a very brief decade of her millennium-long life, lent her skills to an adventuring party to slay the Demon King. Though she helped save the world, she was never one for stuff like adulation or socializing, so she breaks away from the group to continue her hobby of collecting various spells and arcana. She regroups with them after 50 years, having kept in contact with none of them, only to find them older and frailer. The party’s leader, the hero Himmel, passes away shortly thereafter, and Frieren breaks down at his funeral, having realized exactly too late how important he was to her and that she’d never really bothered to get to know him as a person.

Some time later, she’s called by the surviving human member of the party, Heiter, under the guise of translating an old text, but soon realizes that he duped her into helping train the young orphan girl he adopted, Fern, as a mage. Upon Heiter’s death, Frieren and Fern head out together, carrying out odd jobs and retracing Frieren’s steps from the journey that changed her more than she realized. They soon learn from the other surviving member of the party, Eisen, that (ooh) heaven is, in fact, a place on earth, and that Frieren may be able to properly pay Himmel his final respects in person. In order to do so, they must make a trip to the north, past the Demon King’s castle. The story of Beyond Journey’s End is, quite literally, a nostalgia trip.

Frieren's story is one of grief and regret, but also how we can use those emotions as a way of moving forward rather than looking backward. Her history is a long one and her memories seemingly everlasting, but she uses them to pave the road ahead of her rather than let them shackle her to the past. This is best exemplified by Fern herself, as well as the other companion they pick up along the way in Eisen’s former trainee, Stark. Frieren can carry on the legacies of Heiter and Eisen by helping their young wards grow into the capable young adults they’re meant to be, while Himmel’s legacy lives on in the memories of the towns and villages he helped save along Frieren’s new path, and most importantly, in Frieren herself.

The degree to which Himmel truly mattered to Frieren becomes more apparent to her as the story goes on, and it becomes more evident in her actions. Himmel was a gentle, selfless (if self-aggrandizing) man who was every last bit the hero the modern world believes him to be. With every statue of him she cleans, every flower she plants in his name, every core memory that returns to her, we are watching Frieren become more and more like him in real time. You would expect a thousand-year-old woman to be pretty set in her ways, but we see her holding off on old, bad behaviors because of how Himmel would react to them back then. As Fern and Stark grow into young adults, we see her beginning to treat them the same way Himmel treated her. Frieren doesn’t realize it until later in the season, but it’s apparent to us early on that Himmel well and truly loved her, and I feel that it’s dawning on her that she loved him too and didn’t recognize it. That is tragic in and of itself (this show absolutely is a tearjerker at times and I will cop to getting misty-eyed as I write this), but there is something beautiful, well beyond my grasp, in being able to honor the memory and carry out the legacy of a loved one in how you treat those around you. I don’t think anything could have made Himmel prouder.

Frieren herself is a really goddamn good character too (and expertly voiced by Atsumi Tanezaki, best known for voicing Anya Forger in Spy x Family). Though she is portrayed as quiet and uncaring for the early part of the story, it’s been really delightful to watch her open up, and above all, inadvertently reveal that she’s actually just Really Fucking Weird. For as self-assured and put together as she always seems on the surface, it was great to learn that she’s just an enormous slob (she just like me fr), and any outward expressions of smugness or her offbeat sense of humor are always a joy. “Deeply weird person trying to act normal” is always fun, and there’s just something so consistently delightful about seeing someone so typically calm and intelligent get caught in a mimic chest every single time.

I still can’t get over how fucking good this show looks. Beyond Journey’s End features some of the most intricate, loving animation I’ve seen for stuff as simple as someone putting on a jacket. Action scenes are few and far between, but not a single frame is wasted when shit pops off. Not everyone is as detailed as possible at all times, and they don’t need to be, but everyone looks incredible when they do need to. It’s well above my pay grade to accurately say so, but this show could be a lesson in proper animation budgeting. I could go on and on and on, but I’ve written nearly eighteen thousand words about anime, so I’ll wrap it up. 

The debut season of Frieren will continue into 2024, and if the quality remains a constant, it could very well be one of the best anime of next year too. It has remained as MyAnimeList’s top-rated anime ever for its entire run, warding off the legion of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood fans. Frieren deserves it. I say with no hyperbole that this is one of the most perfectly realized things I’ve ever seen on television. This is an essential watch for anyone who likes fantasy anime, anime in general, or fantasy in general.

[mvltisstuff]

i got you babe - j.h.k

summary: y/n worked the hardest she ever has on this new project, and she thinks jonah can’t make it to her premiere.

jonah hauer king x reader

a/n: I DID IT GUYS TAKE IT AND GO.

this movie had been the best, and also the most exhausting film y/n has ever acted in. she was working with one of the most important directors in a thriller movie. she knew the filming would take a toll, it required her to almost turn into her character, also carrying disturbing plot moments. she also knew this movie was the movie for her. the promotion was booming across the countries for her and it would likely be nominated for several awards due to the script and production.

she had invited everyone to the premiere. her best friends, her family, her boyfriends family, even her boyfriends cast mates. jonah was the most important person in her life. his career was finally starting to skyrocket. he filmed the little mermaid while y/n was also filming, and both of them were at a complete peak in their career. jonah had held her hand at every red carpet, and she held jonah’s on his. everything the other one did was only brought up with praise from the other.

the couple was laying in their bed on their sides, their legs tangled together as they admired the others features. y/n ran her hand through jonah’s soft hair, and his finger was gliding across her cheekbones. “you feeling ok about the premiere tomorrow?”

“i’m just gonna get it over with. i really wish you could be there,” y/n speaks softly in response.

“i know, darling,” he replies, sadly. “i would give anything to be there with you. you put blood, sweat, and tears into this movie and i so badly want to be there holding your hand. i’m so, so sorry love.”

“it’s alright, jonah,” y/n smiles to hopefully release some of his pity. “when it’s over, i’m coming right back home to you.”

she leaves a quick kiss on his lips, and jonah is unsatisfied. so, he leans in, deepening the kiss and rolling her on top of him. “i like the sound of that,” he says, his sweet accent swimming through his words.

y/n stepped onto the red carpet and was confronted with camera flashes and yells for her name. she could barely see a foot in front of her, immediately getting overwhelmed by the bright white lights poisoning her eyes. the release of the movie had already been stressful enough, she didn’t need more people screaming to get her attention.

the only person she wanted was jonah. he knew every single way to calm her down and whatever she needed to feel better. she knew the same for him, and she just wished he was here to help her. she just wants to feel his presence, his touch. however, jonah wasn’t there this time, and she had to help herself. so, she forced herself through to the end of the carpet, showing off her dress and putting on a fake beam for the photos that she’d probably see on twitter later.

she hid behind the large wall that concealed her from the photographers. she ran her hand over her hair, trying not to mess it up but desperately needing some pressure off of her. she figured she could have at least a minute alone with her thoughts, but her assistant had walked over to her again. “y/n! there’s someone here to see you, they’re being sent in now. they’ve requested for you.”

y/n sighs. it’s just more press or another interviewer to ask the same questions. she doesn’t want to sound ungrateful. the life she’s been given is beyond fulfilling, and she would never want to take it for granted. but right now, she just wants the arms of her boyfriend to hold her.

she walks around the carpet with blurry vision, trying to contain her tears to maintain her perfect makeup. she fans her eyes, dropping the fake smile and following her assistant to the person who suggested a meeting with her. the second she sees the tall man in front of her, she just wants to fly into his arms. so, she walks over to jonah faster and he starts walking too. he meets her halfway, letting her lean into him and allowing him to take some of the pressure.

“it’s ok, you’re alright,” he reassures, placing his hand on the back of her head as her face is buried into his chest. “i’m here, love.”

“how did you get here?” y/n asks, confused but relieved.

“i managed to move some things around. the producer told me you weren’t yourself, so i knew i had to be here. you’re forever my priority, y/n.”

“i love you so much,” she speaks, pulling away from him and kissing his cheek. “thank you, truly.”

“i wouldn’t chose to be anywhere but with you.”

“y/n!” the voice of her manager rolled in. “let’s start getting back out there.”

“can you come with me?” y/n asks, hoping jonah can hold her hand on the carpet.

“of course, darling,” he says, and they walk out together as y/n’s worries start to disintegrate with his touch.

[beautifulbuckys]

The Fire and the Flame [1/8]- George Weasley x Reader

“Impossible is in, I don’t know if you know that.”

“You’re impossible, did you know that?” George laughed, standing up and pushing himself out of the ancient wooden chair. As he stood, the chair creaked, even louder when he relieved the back of the wood from his heavy book bag. 

Summary: As Quidditch season starts, your schedule gets flooded with Quidditch players who are too busy with their schoolwork. What happens when your newest pupil isn’t what you thought he was?

A/N: Hi! This is my small dabble back into writing, I really missed it <3

Quidditch season was fun, sure.

The thrill of typically innocent house-to-house competition was thrilling. Everyone rooted for their team, sports lover or not. Some muggleborns compared it to muggle ‘futball’.  The constant woosh that Quidditch players made from feet above you, balancing beautifully on their thin broomsticks. 

What wasn’t fun? The influx of students needing to be tutored. Sure, you loved tutoring those in need. Though typically, the students you tutored were having genuine struggles. It was a different kind of magic to watch a subject click for someone struggling. During Quidditch season, it was a different story. Nobody was struggling because they didn’t understand why you needed a frog eye for the midnight projection potion. They weren’t struggling because they couldn’t grasp the certain hand flicks needed for more advanced charms. People were now struggling simply because they were falling behind. This especially happened to the Quidditch players themselves. You honestly can’t blame them. They’re amazing at a celebrated sport and they’re committed to something grand! However, it’s frustrating when you’re mandated to tutor them and they act like you’re a burden for being required to. Every single time you’ve tried to tutor the star chaser, they’ve given you a sour attitude and made you feel small. 

Amd now? You’re stuck in the library waiting for your newest Quidditch star pupil to arrive.

It was almost curfew, but tutors get an excuse as we’re hand selected by the heads of our houses. Pupils gain that advantage too, if they select the late time slot. Although it’s judging a book by its cover, many Quidditch players suspiciously chose this time slot. 

Quietly, you assemble your Wizardry Poetry textbooks that you’ve been studying for the year. Wizardry Poetry is a small, less popular elective. Many people that take the class take it to get out of Snape’s detentions, as he seems to have a small space in his miniscule heart for her. Nobody calls him out for it, they just quietly take advantage of the crush. Although it’s not the most popular, it’s exciting. In your opinion, poetry is a light shone into a dark corner nobody wants to explore. Poetry is raw emotion, something people typically cower away from at the opportunity. That’s what makes wizard poetry so exciting. Many pieces written by the famous wizard poets highlight the balance between dark magic and light. It’s a weapon used by those already wielding a powerful tool. 

“Erm,” A deep voice suddenly broke the calming silence of the Hogwarts library. “Are you my poetry tutor?”

You picked your head up from your bookbag, noticing the tall Gryffindor beater standing sadly behind the seat across from you. “Oh yes! Hi. Feel free to take a seat,” You cringed at the formalities. The pupils you’re used to aren’t shy about loudly announcing their presence and obnoxiously filling the small table space. This was new. “George, right?”

He nodded, “How’d you know?”

You chuckled quietly. “You’re the quieter of the two.” The boy said nothing in response to this, seemingly validating your point. Although you’re not particularly friends with the 2 boys, you knew them. You were in the same year and had a few classes with the twins. This is how you knew the difference. Both George and Fred were in your potions class. They sat next to each other, to nobody’s surprise. Fred, who always sat on the left, had a knack for clanging glasses together and making unnecessary comments. Although they were together in that class, you could just tell George was more reserved than his brother. They both laughed together and made jokes, but it was obvious. George was in your Wizardry Poetry class. When it’s just him, his reserved nature becomes a lot more apparent. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly are you struggling with?”

You knew him in class. He definitely wasn’t struggling. He grasped the subject pretty strongly whenever he was called upon to read or make a comment. To an outsider, he might’ve been a poet already. 

“Well, honestly, I’m just more busy than anything else. Quidditch is just getting to the exciting part of the season and I have sunrise practices every morning. The team’s practice schedule is no joke,” he laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “And honestly? I think poetry is kind of stupid,”

Stupid?

“Poetry isn’t stupid.”

“Sure it is,” George said. “It’s boring and tries to be all deep and stuff. Maybe if it took itself a little less seriously I’d feel the opposite,”

You shouldn’t be as offended as you are. You strongly disagreed with him. Poetry was a gorgeous example of literary art. Sure, it can be difficult to scan for meaning and purpose. However, you feel that the payoff of understanding the raw emotion written by an artist. “Whatever you say George, I’m not here to change your mind, just change your grade. Have you started the assignment she gave us on Tuesday?”

Our poetry teacher assigned us an arguably simple project due at the end of the semester. We were expected to craft a page long piece of poetry about our experiences with magic. She said we had full creative capabilities with our projects, and she wasn’t going to judge or grade our topic chosen. She was mostly looking for our understanding of poetry and is expecting us to pull ideas from previous wizard poets. 

George gently shook his head, the shoulder-length red hair he grew out dancing on his shoulders. “Nope,” He popped the ‘P’ in nope, flashing a cheeky smile.

This was going to be a long few weeks. 

As George and I reviewed his work and created an academic plan to ensure he doesn’t fall behind, it became painfully obvious why George was failing. He grasped the subject with the grip of a giant. It’s not that he didn’t understand stanzas and line numbers. George just didn’t have a reason to care. He had no aspiration of ever becoming a poet, and it became noticeable that George only joined the class to get out of Snape’s detentions. It didn’t make sense though. How could he understand so much and just not care? Did he not have a personal connection to the class?

Maybe all he needed was a lifeline. 

“I think this session was really helpful to you George. Please remember, we’re meeting Thursday at the same time,”

George raised his eyebrows at you, awkwardly grinning. “I might have a surprise Quidditch practice,”

“Why would you know about it if it was a secret, George?” Was he seriously trying to skip out on our session? You found that the session was something that could strengthen George’s academic record. It also helps that he was someone actually enjoyable to talk to. Who knows, maybe you could even teach him the real magic of poetry while you were at it.

“You’re impossible, did you know that?” George laughed, standing up and pushing himself out of the ancient wooden chair. As he stood, the chair creaked, even louder when he relieved the back of the wood from his heavy book bag. 

[hsvh-hp]

Hi! Thanks for all the responses -- I hadn't realized how many chapters I'd gotten through since your last round until I saw the emails lmao

I was wondering, in regards to this:

And omg, I totally feel you on being a trans person in the HP fandom. It's very weird how my tumblr dash is set up. I have mutuals still from old fandoms who are queer, and I feel so ostracized from them at times when they toe the line of 'anybody in the HP fandom supports JKR, you're a bad person if you're still engaging with it'. I'll spare you the essay on why I disagree with that, but oddly the safest place I feel on the internet as a trans person is in the HP fandom. Which is weird at face value, I suppose, given what JKR is doing, but we really are separate from her. I've yet to see substantial evidence that fandom, which is infamous for generating zero revenue, is floating trans peoples' demise. It's just a thought crime, I guess.

if you would, perhaps, not spare me the essay? lol

I feel the same sort of ostracization which is especially frustrating when I am in such "thought crimes are fake!" circles, and I'm interested in your perspective, if you want to give it!

Sure, I’ll offer my perspective on it! This is probably best broken down into bullet points:

1. JKR was already a billionaire before she came out as a TERF.

There is nothing in the world that will change this status. Even if every single person currently engaging with her various IPs immediately dropped them, JKR would still have a billion plus dollars to drop on anti-trans movements and whatever. A billion dollars is immensely difficult to picture. The easiest way is to think like this: if you make $50,000 a year, the equivalent of her dropping $75,000 the other day is you spending $3.75. How often do you spend 0.0075% of your income and give it any thought? JKR’s wealth is not directly tied to ‘levels of fandom engagement’.

Which leads to…

2. Boycotts don’t work.

Sorry. They don’t. Not against someone this politically powerful. If they did, the flood of people out of the HP fandom in 2020 would have had a measurable effect. What did have a measurable effect? People not going to watch the Fantastic Beast movies (because they were hot trash lmao). Not giving JKR any more money works in the sense that it cripples her future projects, but it has zero effect on what’s already in her purse.

Also, think of boycotts this way: wasn’t it hilarious watching conservatives try to boycott the Barbie movie, Nike, Bud Light, and whatever else they’ve systematically locked on to? But so then why do progressives/the left/whoever think it’s going to work the other way? Like with Hogwarts Legacy? Just don’t interact with the media, dude. And if you do, pirate it.

3. Fandom is not mainstream. I have never seen any data to substantiate that participating in a fandom directly correlates to dollars for the IP. Copyright literally prevents that from happening. To bring up to popular saying, “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism”, fandom exists outside of capitalism—for me, at least, as a fan fiction writer. This is a hobby to me. I have never seen a red cent for any of the hours of work I’ve put into my fics.

And I can probably guarantee that no one has stumbled upon Harry Potter through me, lol. They didn’t read one of my fics and go, ‘you know, I should check out what source material this is coming from’. Harry Potter is so well-known that there’s no way they came in blind.

Also, the TERF discourse is very much an online thing. I work retail irl and I’ve had conversations with customers who’ll say “you know, I really don’t get all this hubbub against trans people” but are too boomer to be anything more than tangentially aware that Harry Potter is a Thing. Like, ‘oh yeah, my kids read those books when they were coming out, but I never bothered’. One of my employees bought a set of the HP books because they were on a wicked deal at Costco, and when we were discussing it I told her that while I still enjoyed HP, I wasn’t comfortable giving JKR more money because she’s extremely transphobic and donates a lot of money to anti-trans causes. My employee was horrified and said that had she known that, she wouldn’t have bought the books. Lots of people just don’t know!

Which takes me to…

4. This type of online activism isn’t effective.

I’m talking specifically about being anti-Harry Potter or anti-JKR. Falling into those two categories does not automatically make you pro-trans. This was pretty blatantly obvious back when the books were being burned for promoting witchcraft. As far as fighting for trans peoples’ rights, screaming until you’re blue in the face about how anybody who engages with Harry Potter is a traitor and JKR BAD is wasting time better spent doing something productive - something that could actually benefit trans people rather than…I don’t know…virtue signalling that their blog or twitter account is a safe space?

5. I personally do not feel welcomed or vouched for by these people.

Listen, I’m going to break myself down into all my stupid little categories. I��m trans. Autistic. Intersex. Aromantic. Asexual. Basically, all the things that people love to try and cast out of the queer community, whether that means they’re trying to split LGBTQIA+ at the T or Q.

The anti-Harry Potter stuff, as far as attacking the fandom, feels like the latest strain of purity politics to me. As I’ve laid out above, abandoning HP will not right the wrongs of JKR in any measurable or tangible way. Boycotts don’t work. Fandom does not feed JKR’s coffers, and destroying the fandom will not cripple her. There are trans people inside the HP fandom, and what of us? Are we traitors? Are we not ‘really’ trans, because obviously we don’t care about the current political climate? Are we just confused and need to be enlightened as to what harm we’re doing? Where have I heard this rhetoric before?

One small thing, tangentially related:

6. I don’t care what JKR says about how engaging with Harry Potter tells her about who her ‘supporters’ are.

Seriously? She’s a lying dirtbag, and I’m just supposed to take her word on this? This is the one thing she just so happens to be right about?

When she started spouting TERF shit, I was really saddened by the writers who, upon leaving the fandom, also deleted their works in protest. Seeing as the majority of the HP fandom is queer, I’m sure that JKR was very pleased with the amount of queer media erasure that occurred. Why did we do that for her?

7. I believe JKR actually seethes and malds over the prospect of her fandom being queer and producing queer content.

As a writer, there’s a special kind of pain that comes from someone not quite interpreting your work the way you would have wanted them to. What do you think JKR’s first reaction was when she first learned about the Harry/Draco ship? The Draco/Hermione ship? If she didn’t live in a stone castle, I bet she would’ve punched a hole in the wall.

So, yeah. Transing and gaying all of her characters is a pretty nice way to get to her in a way that she can’t legally or financially retaliate. Every time she screams ‘WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?!’ at the queer people in her fandom, a trans person’s crops are watered.

8. The HP setting is very welcoming to trans people.

Potions exist that can change your body. Enough said.

That the Harry Potter books never really says anything specifically about trans people (NOTE: obviously JKR’s prejudices even back then showed through, but this isn’t about that) leaves the question on the table. Obviously trans people exist in the Harry Potter setting, because they exist everywhere. So, how did they never get any page time?

Well, who says they didn’t? In a setting where potions exist to change your body, trans people are just…people. I don’t even think that they would have a marginalized identity because gender dysphoria would be something very easily treated. Think of it like someone who takes medication for blood pressure. They need the medication, it’s life-saving, and while there isn’t a magical pill to ‘cure’ high blood pressure, it can be managed. The magical world revels in being strange. Why would being trans, while being considered strange here in the ‘Muggle’ world, be anything other than normal there? Why can’t it be?

And then there are Metamorphmagi. People who can literally change themselves at will! If that isn’t a trans person’s dream, I don’t know what is. I would personally love the option of being the biggest, hairiest dude with a dick so big an erection would make me black out, and then ultra femme and delicate the next.

Last on this point, Harry never notes anyone specifically trans in the text (NOTE: touching on things like the physical descriptions of Rita Skeeter and Marge Dursley, JKR tends to do the ugly=bad person thing. Although she describes Rita and Marge as mannish in appearance, they aren’t trans characters. They’re women that JKR wants to frame as bad people. Like I said above, this is JKR’s prejudice showing through). If Harry never notes anyone as specifically trans, that probably means that it’s impossible to tell at face value. The same as blood pressure medication, to return to that analogy. How do you know someone is on them? They tell you. You see the pill bottle and happen to know what that medication is for. They complain about side effects. They complain about the symptoms that led them going to the doctor in the first place.

9. Queer HP fandom content can potentially be how a Harry Potter fan realizes that they’re queer (or that queer people are just regular folks).

Hey, the first one happened to me!

If someone comes into the Harry Potter fandom unaware of JKR’s politics - maybe they were gifted the books for their birthday or happened to catch the movies on TV - it’s good actually that this person doesn’t fall right into an echo chamber of JKR’s politics. I’ll be happily here to correct her record in a way that isn’t shaming or policing them.

Anyway, I think that’s everything lol. To summarize:

- The HP Fandom is a neutral setting. Engaging with it doesn’t help JKR, and not engaging with it doesn’t help trans people. Just don’t spend money on official HP merch.

- If you want to be a pro-trans activist or trans political ally, please just ignore JKR and put all your focus on the real world.

- There are trans people in the HP fandom who are left feeling awkward and uncomfortable due to virtue signalling.

- Generating queer HP content is good, actually.

[from-memphis-with-love]

Synopsis: It's 1966. Elvis and Frannie are laying in bed and he pours his heart out to her about his mismanaged movie career. She comforts and encourages him. This will be incorporated into a later chapter of my fic, Gambling on Your Love. Enjoy!

“Wait, you’re serious? Parker takes fifty percent of everything you earn?”

Elvis is silent, but his nod speaks louder than words. 

“Elvis, that’s robbery. Nobody’s manager takes fifty percent. He’s robbing you blind!” Frannie sits up in bed, covering herself with the blanket. “And he’s got you tied to a picture contract four years in advance? And you can’t give final say for scripts or storyline or anything else? If my manager did that to me, I’d kick him right in the ass and send him packing!” She is practically beside herself now, her arms crossed in indignation at the thought of him being exploited. 

Elvis slinks lower into the blankets. “Yes,” he responds faintly as a whisper. “That’s how it is.” He takes a deep breath, “Y’know, there are some things I really wanna do. I want to be in a serious film. I want to make a classic film that people will remember. Sometimes I get violently ill thinking about the things they got me doin’. People don’t think I care, but I do. I care. I care,” he winces.

“So do it.”

The advice couldn’t have been simpler. Just do it.

Deep down, Elvis knows he’s a cash cow for so many that he can hardly think about himself, even to his detriment. As a good Southern boy, he never ever allowed himself to, not even back in 1954 when his star was starting to rise. Elvis has always put the others around him first. 

I’ve got responsibilities, he tells himself. I’ve got people—hell, family—on payroll. Is it any wonder then, that he swallows his pride and lowers himself time and time again for the bottom-of-the-barrel projects Parker scrounges up? The kinds of things that not even a lesser star, let alone Elvis Presley should be doing?

He wishes with every fiber of his being that he could just fire the leech. But Parker, for all his carny faults, was there when Elvis was just a pup. He'd guided him, molded him, made him into the man he is today, including all of his riches and privileges. A man made of far sterner stuff, Parker took care of Elvis when his own blasted father couldn't. Elvis feels loyal to Parker and has given him his word, even though he sees more than anyone else that Parker's choices are tanking his career. This puts Elvis in an untenable position, for being at heart just a poor kid from Mississippi, loyalty is everything. And God, he's afraid. He's terrified that if he doesn't keep working somehow, all of it will disappear. He'll have to go back to driving a truck and everyone in his orbit will be destitute. The stress is unbearable.

"I have obligations and upkeep and maintenance, and everyone turns to me with their goddamn mouths open and hands out and eyes expectant," he growls.

Everybody except Frannie.

Elvis looks at her and his expression immediately softens for a moment. She has her own money and career and she's never asked a single thing of him except his love. And for that, he is eternally grateful.

In her bitingly direct New York way, Francesca Ferrara was the first person ever to give him the permission to be selfish. Now, her stark advice cuts through his fog like a knife and he sits up next to her, practically rumbling as his anger returns. 

“I’ve had enough of these bullshit movies. If it’s got me singing in it, I don’t wanna do it anymore. I’m not who Hollywood thinks I am!” Elvis’ voice grows bolder. And Frannie knows it’s true. Her Elvis is an introspective person… soul-searching, even. A man who is surprisingly deep, thoughtful, and intelligent beyond his high school education. Frannie knows him to be gentle and kind and curious about the world. She smiles at the thought of the man she loves one day showing the world who he really is, testing his mettle with a meaty script or even playing to crowds abroad.  

Elvis’ hands ball into fists of rage. “A-a-and I wanna go back to touring, especially outside the country. I miss going out and seeing the people. I miss making music I care about. I miss being on stage and connecting and moving and doing what I want to do. I’m sick of singing to turtles. Man, that shit is beneath me!”

Frannie can see the excitement building in his eyes, the hope flashing through them. It exhilarates her to see him this way, seeing him take front seat in his career for the first time in years, knowing that she's not the only one who believes in him—that he's finally starting to believe in himself, too.

“It is,” she adds, her voice a calming presence as she gently touches his arm. The thought of the world wearing him down makes her heart ache. She wants to care for him so badly. To just miniaturize him and carry him around with her all day to shield him from all harm and hurt.

“Elvis, you have the talent to do whatever you set your mind to,” she cards her fingers through his tousled hair, “So why don’t you go out and do it?”

[selenhere]

Heyy y'all.

so I finally finished Step by Step yesterday. I have to say that the last two episodes felt a bit rushed. Like for a minute they were finally together and then suddenly came the troubles and issues with the project and the company. I felt that it would have been better if we had a few more episodes. Then the show would have been perfect. So moving on

Plot : The series did a good job in showcasing the development of feelings between the leads. One thing that I really liked a lot was how they didn't sugarcoat a single situation in the series.

(Spoiler alert - Like when the relationship between the leads became a hot topic in the office and how the series showed the cruel part of coming out such as Pat getting weird looks and criticism for wooing his senior in work. Even though he got the Fjord deal due to his capability, he was still blamed for making his way up by seducing his boss. This right here is the reality. People don't always support your office romance. Most of the time, it is plain criticism.)

Characters : I personally was slightly irritated by Pat's character. He was kind of immature which irritated me further. As for Jeng, he really needs to trust Pat with his responsibility. Supervising each and every responsibility given to Pat was kind of disrespect to Pat.

I also loved how each and every character was allowed to shine and were given enough screentime to get their stories known to us viewers. Normally, the side characters don't really get enough screentime and somehow their storyline also fades away during the series. But this was not the case for Step By Step. I loved the way they showed Put trying to rectify his mistakes but realising it's too late for that. I totally loved the ChotKrit storyline. Bruce did such an amazing job. Honestly I could not believe that he was the same villain era Bruce from Lovely Writer.

JaabJen storyline was slightly confusing and also it did not have any ending. So it was kind of a waste. Lets hope that they create a special episode for these two.

Apart from these, all the romantic scenes were too good. The subtle tension and hunger for each other were expressed in an excellent manner. All (ep 10, 12) kisses were done very nicely. Both the characters were equally eager for each other. Not the typical stuff where one lays like a statue while the other awkwardly touches the lips.

So overall, I would give Step by Step 8.5/10.

[talenlee]

Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Critique

I did a podcast with Fox where we looked at every Disney Animated Canon movie and got to consider what I, a millenial adult with a lifetime of brain worms from an oppressive cult thought of the Disney Animated movies that define Disney Adults and Disney Magic and the Cultural Zeitgeist and if you’re not familiar with my opinion of these, almost all these movies are terrible. I dislike them often in terms of their ideologies, their moral and ethical positions – like, not just the invisible ink elements, but often, a lot of the things in them that they very clearly, explicitly want to be true.

The big one is The Lion King.

In the podcast, I describe that my hate of the Lion King is unique in that I think it’s the first Disney movie I hate because of things it advocates for. Like it’s one thing to hate how Cinderella thinks the most fantastic thing you can do with magic is have a single nice party night, and that’s not a responsible use of power. Like, that’s a thoughtless implication of the greater project, the way it chooses to focus its attention. It’s another thing to hate The Lion King because it’s a movie that wants to talk about how some people are born to rule and everyone else exists to be eaten; you see, when we die, our bodies trickle down and become the grass, etcetera.

This is an instance of a rare time in the podcast where what I considered was intrinsic critique; within the context of the text, the text is presenting something that I think sucks and I don’t like.

Later in the same series, when talking about The Black Cauldron, a much less enjoyable movie with more stilted bits and worse songs and characters, I was a lot more fond of it, because to me, the things that stood out was stuff the movie tried to do, and failed at, and part of how it failed were things that Disney did to actually damage the movie, like, cutting chunks out of it. That’s what I think of as extrinsic critique – not looking at the text but the circumstances of how it was made and the things that it might have been doing or trying to do before the final product existed.

My other normal examples of criticism is Avatar : The Last Airbender, versus The Legend of Korra. And perhaps it’s just the smoking crater in the shape of James Somerton’s entire Youtubing career that put me in mind of it, but The Legend Of Korra is on my mind as a series that wound up queer, and which comes up at convention tables. There’s this thing that happens for me, where people will see that we’re selling bookmarks showing Korra and Asami, and someone will volunteer how much they like it, but then they’ll criticise it for not being as good at the first.

Thing is, I have critiques of Avatar: The Last Airbender. There’s stuff about it that I don’t like. Most of them are pretty unimportant, in the whole scale of the thing. The show is tons of fun, I like watching it, and I think it’s probably one of the best series of its type that exists. But there are things about the story I dislike, like I said. In the finale of The Last Airbender the story chooses to build to a point where it puts a character in the position of choosing between murdering a fascist commiting genocide, or maiming him and permanently imprisoning him, with one of these choices seen as being spiritually superior to the other. I don’t find that a powerful message at the end, but like, I don’t find spirituality a powerful motivator for characters. Also, I recognise that the alternative is setting up a story where a twelve year old has to kill a villain, which is a choice the series set up over multiple series.

I didn’t like it, I feel it rings hollow to force the choice, and then create a tension around it.

On the other hand, I have problems with The Legend of Korra, which are that the people making the story weren’t given time and money enough to do a better job of it. I know they can do a great job, they made Avatar: the Last Airbender with all these pieces, and I like these pieces more.

And like, neither of these are better or worse than one another, no matter what I may imagine myself saying when I describe them. These two pieces of media are great, and one of them has a lot more problems with pacing and structure but I don’t hold those problems of pacing and structure the same way. It feels like whatever messages the story was aiming for, whatever it wanted to do, it was going to struggle to do, it was going to fail to execute, and that means that all the ways it’s bad or even communicated similar ideas to the other series, it’s hard to say it was intentional.

I know that The Legend of Korra has a queer relationship that grew out of the natural growth of the characters and the story as they shaped it. That was something that the show didn’t start to do, and therefore, whatever plan there was, it changed over the course of time. I know that The Legend of Korra was not a perfectly structured, completely whole, idealistically structured point and a lot of problems in the story are a result of these problems with its making. That is, whatever failings the series has seem to me to be extrinsic. They could make something better, if they had the tools to.

And this is largely a meaningless criticism! After all I’m basically saying Avatar: The Last Airbender was so good I didn’t think there was anyone to blame for what they made, and The Legend of Korra’s problems can be blamed on people upstream who didn’t give them enough money. And while both of those things are true they aren’t necessarily useful in opposition to one another.

In a lot of ways queer media gets crushed in between these things, too; there are extrinsic factors fighting for queer media’s right to get to exist. The Owl House is a series I love and I feel at times very ‘no notes’ about, even though the final season and specials are absolutely rushed. But that extrinsic criticism (I wish there was more of it) isn’t the same thing as intrinsic criticism, even if it informs it. The Owl House isn’t made worse because of the ways it got screwed.

I don’t actually have much of a feeling about extrinsic praise either; I know that She Ra and the Princess of Power and Steven Universe had a big story in the back-stages about getting those series made the way their creators envisioned them, but also, I just don’t find those stories are particularly interesting to look at the media themselves. They’re great stories, the stories of these storytellers telling the stories they told, they’re stories in their own right, but they don’t change anything about the media they made, for me.

These are just different ways to see problems in a story, and neither of them forgives the other. Korra is a rushed story with a recap episode that has to repeat a plot arc of Korra Learning Humility and not enough Korra Kicking Ass, and Aang’s story doesn’t culminate with him shooting fire hitler in the head because he’s fucking twelve and the story is for little kids! Both of those things make complete sense. They are both tools for examining them, where I think it’s boring to discuss the making-of of Avatar: The Last Airbender and I also think it’s boring to discuss the choppy bad structure of what The Legend of Korra wound up being after what The Legend of Korra structured itself to be.

I think it’s useful to remember what the tools are for, and what you want to talk about. There’s more to a show than just what gets put on the screen.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[13beachesxx]

starting to wonder whether i was neglected between the ages of 12-18 and had to parent myself through it. never thought it was possible since there was always somebody in the house, but none of those people took an active parent role in my life so...what did that leave? mom was gone for the majority of that time, dad was also gone. aunt was there but her day to day responsibilities towards me and my sister were making sure we got our dinner after school. we were left entirely to our own devices after that. i can't remember a single time anybody ever helped me with homework or schoolwork, sure i was always an independent creature when it came to that stuff and maybe if offered, i would have turned it down, but nobody was even checking or keeping track of a single thing i was doing. the only time i remember mom & dad joint parenting was when i got suspended for that card thing when i was 9/10, and then they were gone again. maybe in the same way that her projects are her distractions now, she sought other countries and programs and studies as a means of escape from here, which is not really impossible to imagine given everything that was happening in our home and the kinds of toxicity people unleashed on each other. but why didn't they take us with? why didn't me and my sister get the luxury of also moving to france, to los angeles, while she studied and worked and found herself? it hardly seems fair in retrospect, not for the nice luxury life that would have afforded but for the escape from the crazy abusive person it would have afforded. maybe i wouldn't have taken on so much damage if they had done that. maybe i wouldn't have sunk into the depths of anorexia and all the other darkness. maybe, maybe. it's all speculation and What If's but i'm realizing a lot of major things in this moment.

it feels crazy to say i was neglected because i felt the opposite of that, but maybe i'm only thinking of material issues where i was clothed and fed and in that sense, i never had to worry. but anything above that, emotional and developmental issues, i guess, i was on my own. i figured it all out on my own. i always used to be surprised myself at my independent streak, going off to live alone at 15 in a different country for a summer and not suffering in the slightest for it, not missing home or family. quite the opposite, i felt like i was thriving. maybe that's because i've always been parenting and looking after myself since i could remember, or at least since the age of 7/8 when we left moscow and that close, real family unit i had felt so solidly for a couple of years instantly dissolved. when we were in moscow we were a family unit, the four of us, and even that is crystallized in my mind as the Best Part. whenever anyone else got added into the mix, shit started going sideways. i do believe my parents would've grown apart regardless of all the outside insanity and forces pushing on them, but maybe they would've lasted longer together. maybe even up to my graduation. we could never be a solid unit in that home where She resided, and it's crazy i'm realizing this now and none of the adults could back then. They should've seen the problem clear as day and then moved us out. i would have rather lived in a smaller apartment and do with less than have to share with her (and grandma, love you grandma but you too were perpetuating that bs).

it's taken this video to make me realize all of this, but wow, way too many of these apply to me and even that too is somehow me bearing witness to myself that i did, indeed, experience childhood trauma. even now i'm so reticent to call it that because some Part inside of me is like "you ungateful shit, what about X and Y, and Z". as if abusive dynamics can't exist in families that are well off, in children that are spoiled, that have their every whim fulfilled and then some. as if abuse can't happen to any person in any home regardless of these circumstances and you have to have lived some kind of Tiny Tim upbringing in a house like the Cratchits to have Really Been Neglected.

none of my friends grew up like this, we all had some level of privilege or wealth that afforded us, in the first place, the education it did, and everything else after. But every other person who was in my friend circle did fine, and did not suffer the way I did because their family was not toxic and twisted at its core. maybe A*****'s, but her toxic mother was out of the picture long before she moved here and her dad had seemingly taken on two of his stepchildren with a kind of love and care that would otherwise not be seen in someone not biologically related to their kids. though irony of ironies, that applied to me too. Ana's parents up and left for italy and she too, i'm sure, felt a hole inside and a great neglect because I remember her tears, missing her mother, the diary entries, all of that. In a way we were similar in that regard, except I don't ever remember crying because I missed my mother. Pretty sure i was already shut down and emotionless by then and feeling nothing about it all. it was just the way things were, and i did not mind. maybe everyone just dealt with their shit and stiff upper lipped it, and i'm the big baby who couldn't handle it all. it's either that or what happened to me was Much Worse than what happened to my friends or even to my sister, it can't be any other thing. and i can't work out which it was, as if it even makes a difference, because the damage was done and my body went into dissociation mode and my mind left its home and neither quite fully returned for a good 12 years. i'm still working to put myself back in my body and mind fully, even now. which is crazy. maybe by 40 i'll have gotten there. i hope so. i need to learn to be present once and for all and to do it before i die. it's not my fault in fight or flight mode i took permanent flight, bu it sure is my responsibility and even duty now to restore myself back in order. i'm tired of feeling incapable of doing things and want to feel capable of everything instead.

[themusiichouse]

@dragonskxn

Ah, medieval Europe (or at least what looked like it). A great place to be walking around totally lost in 21st-century garb with a really obvious Mage Vibe™ about you. No, really! It's not like you'll get stared at weirdly or anything! Well...

"You know, I really think we shouldn't have walked into this city without casting some sort of illusion on ourselves," Fanny says, gazing uneasily around her at all the strange looks the party was getting.

"I should have thought of that myself, honestly," Franzi replies, in her workout outfit that was clearly showing her well-toned arms and midriff. "I have the distinct feeling that it's not entirely appropriate here to be out in the world showing more than your ankles. Or to be a woman wearing pants."

"You tell me. I fucking hate being stared at," Minona mutters. "I can feel the white people judgment pouring off these fuckers. Like they just know that their counterparts in our world flip their shit at seeing a Black person in a hoodie…"

"For once I'm glad not to be in my kitsune form," Wolfie muses.

"It's not as though any of us could have guessed we'd end up in a place like this," Felix muses. "Or predicted in advance what kind of clothing we'd have to wear."

"Well, I know one person who could have predicted it," Fanny grumbles. "Wilhelm von Blumenthal! You do seiðr, don't you? Can't you predict the future with that? Couldn't you have given us a heads up about--"

She pauses, not hearing a response.

"Hey--where is that little brat anyway?"

----------

The little brat seemed to have other plans. Grinning broadly, he'd slowed so that the group could travel a short distance ahead of him, then ducked into an adjoining road and weaved his way through the little town until he could reach the central square. He didn't care for the townspeoples' suspicious looks, or their superstitious whispers. He wanted to know one thing and one thing alone: Whether the whole "music from the future could kill a medieval peasant" meme was true.

He got up on the central platform from which the town crier presumably announced his messages, and, pressing a finger to his throat in a bit of projection magic to boost his voice even further, called out, "Hear ye! Hear ye!"

The townspeople milling about whipped around, startled. That certainly wasn't their town crier's voice. Before them appeared a man (or was he a boy?) that looked no older than twenty--perhaps younger, even, judging by his short height and that impossibly fresh-looking face. And what on earth was he dressed as? What material were those blue pants of his made of, and why did the kneecaps look frayed? The shape of the letters on his short-sleeved shirt were familiar, but none were literate enough (or well-versed in foreign languages enough) to understand that it read, "WODAN WAS A FEMBOY." They did, however, note that it featured an old bearded guy in makeup and a dress. And immediately, every single one of their hackles went up.

"Citizens of this quaint little town," Wilhelm says, willing his voice to speak in Allspeak that would allow them to understand what he wished to communicate. "As humble as you are, you no doubt have been exposed to the beauty that music can offer you. Where I come from, I have heard the splendid tunes of traditional bards of my day, such as 'Gangsta's Paradise' and 'Pumped Up Kicks.'" He's referring to bardcore, of course. "But today, I will introduce you to a new kind of music. A transcendent experience unlike any you have ever heard before. One that will lift each and every one of you from your well-despised serfdom, and in exultation make you kings and queens. Listen well, for if you do not take the lessons of this new form of song to heart, you may never hear it again. Now is the time! Hear the music of the future! Hear the music of the REVOLUTION!"

A baton materialized in his hand. And as it did, the sound of Ride of the Valkyries poured forth into the air.

----------

"Hello! Bonjour!" Franzi calls to a shopkeeper along the path, waving with a cheery smile. Maybe if they were simply pleasant to these people, they'd excuse their strange appearances. "You wouldn't happen to know where to find--"

But the shopkeeper merely glared at her and turned away, pretending to busy herself with reorganizing her stock.

"You try, Fanny," Franzi sighs. "At least you've got a dress that covers your ankles--"

But it's not long before a sudden burst of music floods the town--Ride of the Valkyries, pouring out from its center. With such dramatically stirring opening notes, no one could miss it--least of all the rest of the Classica family. Fanny jumps as soon as she hears the noise--for that is what Wilhelm's music is to her, noise--and balls a fist.

"Oh, there he is, that insufferable--" Fanny doesn't even finish her insult before tearing off in the direction of the sound.

"What the fuck does he think he's doing?" Johannes cries as he hurries after her. "Do the words 'keep a low profile' not mean anything to him?"

"I probably shouldn't refer to my own grandson as an attention whore," Minona says, "and yet--"

"We can complain about it later," Franzi says, hurrying ahead of Fanny. "We have to grab him and get out of here. Now!"

----------

Wilhelm grins as he let the music flow through the open space, letting the magic overwhelm the senses of all those in front of him. Gone are the town's buildings around him, swept away by a grand illusion of a towering Norse hall soaring through the clouds, guarded by illusory Valkyries that took the form of his most beloved opera singers. A young dark-skinned woman with long hair soars forward, raising her spear to deliver the opening bars of the song;

"Hojotoho! Hojotoho! Heiaha! Heiaha!"

The voice bursts out in what could either be seen as an angelic resonance piercing the heavens or an all-out assault on the eardrums. The peasantry of this small medieval-looking town seems to have taken it as the latter. The townspeople scream at the intensity of the music-magic being hurled at them, hands planted on their ears as the force makes them collapse on the ground. That's to say nothing of the unfamiliarity of it all. What are these instruments, so ferocious and harsh? There is singing, but why is it like that? The sound of the strings arcs and swoops through the air like a lance intent on piercing them, while the brass pummels them without mercy. Some have literally fainted at the shock of the sight and sound; some manage to stand up, and hurry off to God knows where. Franzi sees them leave out of the corner of her eye; it can't be anything good.

"Wilhelm! What do you think you're doing? Get down from there!" Franzi calls, barely audible above the sound.

"Why?" he yells back. "I'm just seeing whether that meme about modern things killing medieval peasants is actually true. And I think it's working!"

"Fucking hell, Wilhelm!" his brother Johannes cries out. "We were literally just asking for directions!"

"We need to go now, before we get into any trouble," Franzi says, ascending the platform and grabbing Wil by the wrist.

"But the fun was just beginning…" Wilhelm pouts.

Well, the fun would come to an end just as soon as it began. Below, a large crowd had gathered, torches and pitchforks in hand, one person even with a long rope fit for tying someone to a stake.

"We were literally just asking for directions," Johannes repeats, as Franzi slings Wil over her shoulder and the group hurries off.

----------

"Put me down! Holy shit! Mom! Put me the fuck down!"

But it's no use simply to scream about it, or to beat her back with his tiny fists. The entire group has roped him up with their magic as Franzi hauls him out of the city, sparkling lines like music staves wrapping around him to bind him to her back. Each one of them alone, he can comfortably take, but when they all worked together, it's a different story…

"We can't stay here anymore. Good job," Fanny grumbles. "Now we're going to have to find another town, and God knows where that would be--"

"Of course we can stay here! There's nothing these simple townsfolk can do against the might of all our magic combined. And what makes you think we can't survive on our own until we get back home, anyhow--"

"It's not about magic, Wil! Not everything is about strength of magic! How would you like to be in a space where you can only force everybody to tolerate you?" Fanny cries. "Well, I mean, you probably already know what that's like, because that's basically the state of your fandom…"

"HEY!" Wil shouts.

"You know, I thought it was funny," Wolfie says cheerfully. "I wonder how they would have responded to my Cupcakke remixes--"

"Don't enable him!" Fanny thwacks Wolfie on the shoulder with the back of her hand.

"Hey, guys," Felix pipes up, "there's a--"

"Come on, loosen up," Wil says, grinning. "Of course it was funny! These people have never heard anything more than some bards tinkling away on a mandolin. Didn't you see? Ride of the Valkyries was literally blowing them away!"

"Well, the fact remains, you basically ruined our reputation in this town before we even had a chance to ask anyone for help," Fanny says.

"Guys, there's a--" Felix tries to interject again, but again his friends keep fighting.

"Yeah, and?" Wil challenges. "It's not like these people have Internet or anything. We can just find another town!"

"Word still gets around!" Fanny says. "It might be slower than in the modern day, but you know people still talk. How many times was your soulbound life caught causing trouble because people kept catching up to you?"

"That was the 19th century! This is a bumfuck century! Big difference!"

"Guys," Felix says, finally being heard, "there is a lady with blue hair following us."

"Huh?" Fanny turns around.

The whole group does, in fact. And there, in the trees, is a lovely young woman with strikingly fluffy blue hair and strangely pointed ears, staring at the party like they'd just come from another universe (which, of course, they did). They knew at once what she was, like what many of the townsfolk suspected: nonhuman. Perhaps that might make her a better ally here than most.

"Hello," Fanny says, stepping through the group to see her better. "What's your name?"

[redmeet]

IBLBM, Chapter 4 live slug (me) reaction

idk how you did it, but you've so easy for me to relate to jake, it's insane

"it's not a french press morning" lmaooo

jake. baby. love of my life. of all the bradley memories you have to choose from, you chose THAT ONE to remember in the middle of your medical???

"you don't need it" AH WTF WTF WTF

why mango though, is it bc he's hot?

willingness to leave people behind.. DUDE. they way i projected

okay brief but relevant parenthesis: i think it's amazing the way you've built jake from the scraps that the movie gave us on him. the material is close to nothing AND YET, you've managed to perfectly encapsulate jake's barely-there essence and make it something real and palpable and layered. also i think what's truly remarkable is that every single thing he says or does or thinks, feels in sync with movie!jake. there is not one thing i've read where i say "hmm not sure jake seresin would say that", quite the contrary, really

ngl i feel kinda weird that he didn't sit with fanboy and payback right away, BUT i'll attribute this to this widely-accepted fanon's idea that somehow all the daggers became like siblings in 2 weeks (which btw reminds me of the dark times in the mcu fandom when all fics post-avengers (2012) took place in the stark tower with them living together) lmaooo

fanboy my love i want a hug from you

oh man. my boy is down bad

i'll be a good former catholic and keep to myself my thoughts while readings jake's thoughts on bradley's body

ANOTHER RELEVANT PARENTHESIS: i also love the way you've built bradley. obviously the movie gave us a lot more material than with jake, but still, it feels (read: i feel) like you might've taken some of miles' personality (or at least what he and kaleigh let us on) and attached it to the character? am i correct? did you intend to? in any case, let me tell you this: YOUR BRADLEY IS AMAZING. he is, in my very not-so-humble opinion, The Perfect Man (haha i just remembered jake says this in Like What Up) because, again, he feels very real and in character with what the movie presented us with

you really should get an award for you E scenes

PHOENIX MY LOVE

god the pet names

THE PHILLIES. I KNEW IT. miles' traits bleeding into bradley YESSS GIMME MORE

ah this progressive camaraderie between everyone does feel natural!

OH MY GOD. OH GODDD. I'M-

teagan, you'll be hearing from my lawyer AND my therapist

no, for real, i LOVE angst, i love complicated and kinda self-sabotaging characters so that last part with jake and what we get to see of his past and the way he reacts to everyone, but particularly bradley is just *chef's kiss*. everything felt like a natural progression. it hurts in the best way

i've said this before but it bears repeating: you are an incredibly talented writer and i cannot wait to see where this goes <3

the way I love you!!!!!!! a live slug reaction so epic deserves it's own appropriate under the cut (with spoilers) response:

yes thinking of THAT while in medical... well it wasn't Jake's best plan was it

honestly any callsign I give a student I can guarantee I've given zero thought to 😂 it's usually the first word that comes into my head. you are absolutely welcome to picture mango as being hot <3 (if you're even referring to his callsign)

your first parentheses has me like 😭 thank you!!!!!! Jake is so precious to me and I try so hard to both keep my version of him true to the movie while also adding depth where I can... ah. thank you <3

re Jake not sitting with Payback and Fanboy straight away... yeah. I don't really believe that they'd go from the open animosity at the beginning of the movie to Super Besties by the end of it/after the mission, personally! gotta build that friendship first imo

re your second parentheses... thank you ahhh!!! I haven't necessarily consciously taken aspects of Miles' personality and applied it to Bradley! I just think that outside of a high stakes, stressful mission he'd be very confident and cool and collected and cocky because in their line of work you sort of have to be, I feel?

'you really should get an award for you E scenes' hehehehe 😈

'ah this progressive camaraderie between everyone does feel natural!' I'm so glad!!!

'teagan, you'll be hearing from my lawyer AND my therapist' I tried to warn people!!!!!! good to know that the angst lands well 🫣

'i've said this before but it bears repeating: you are an incredibly talented writer and i cannot wait to see where this goes <3' we are holding hands right now 🫶🏻

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EXCLUSIVE: Nehha Pendse on May I Come In Madam? going off air, “Don’t know what went wrong” 

Nehha Pendse also spoke about her stint in the Marathi film June as an actress and producer and her career, which includes her work as a child artiste in shows like Hasratein.

EXCLUSIVE: Nehha Pendse on May I Come In Madam? going off air, “Don’t know what went wrong”

You recently had the second season of May I Come In Madam

We recently went off air. And the response was good in all honesty. I don’t know exactly what went wrong because the channel was also happy with the second season. But I guess they just have certain policies and things and we had to go off air. But it happened in a very friendly and amicable manner. I, obviously, felt bad that we went off air but then, that’s life.

You have done movies as well as television. Which medium are you more comfortable with?

I am comfortable in both the mediums. But obviously, when you are doing television, you have to let go of a lot of nuances. It’s like a mill and you just have to keep on delivering. That’s not the case with films. Films are a short-term commitment. There is a lot more nuance; performances and everything is nuanced. So that all you miss out when you are doing television but that’s the nature of the medium and you have to respect it.

You started off as a child artiste. I remember seeing you in the popular TV serial Hasratein in the 1990s. What do you feel when you think of those days?

It was a different era altogether, if I have to be honest with you. I think that was an era where a lot of importance was given to the nuances of the medium because we were not telecasting daily. We were telecasting weekly. The makers had all the time in the world to give quality content. But ever since the trend changed and we came down to daily consumption, all that went out of the window.

Now the consumer pattern is such that they don’t mind a compromised content which they want to see every day. So ultimately, we deliver what the consumer wants. They don’t want to wait for an entire week to see what happens in their favourite show. I think the nature now is more addictive where every single day at a single point and time they want to sit in front of the television and watch the show. So, that has its own ups and downs. It gives you a great power. I think television actors are now more powerful in terms of their popularity, which was not the case before. But the content has really taken a hit.

Your Marathi film June has been appreciated a lot. It also won you a Filmfare Award and the Best Actress award at the Pune International Film Festival (PIFF)

I have done a lot of commercial work in my life. I have a lot of work in my life as an actor. But I have received very few projects where I can prove the power of my craft. So, commercial projects don’t give you the opportunity to showcase your craft. June gave me the opportunity to showcase my talent as an actor and for people to see me in a different light. And it was my first film that got me a Filmfare (Award). It’s not easy to win a Filmfare. In that sense, that film did put me on the mark.

You also turned producer with June. Producing can be different challenge altogether. How was your experience as a producer?

Producing is a different ball game altogether. I feel an actor’s job is the easiest job in the field of entertainment because you are absolutely at the fag end of responsibility. You are only responsible for your performance. Everything is very centralized. When you are producing, you are a part of the project from day 1 to taking care of 10 departments at one time. It’s a very taxing and difficult responsibility, but I had collaborated with very some really great people, who made my journey extremely simple as a producer.

What is your take on the current situation of the Marathi film industry?

We have had some really successful films in Marathi. Things are looking very good. We had Jhimma 1 and 2. We have few more films that did very well. Things are looking very bright. 2022 was a very dull year for Marathi industry while 2023 was very good for Marathi and Hindi cinema. We had some really good blockbusters. Of course, ups and downs happen in every industry.

[eves-swe]

CS373 Fall 2022: Evelyn Vo: Final Entry

How well do you think the course conveyed those takeaways? I think the takeaways were conveyed well when they were being taught but I honestly don't think I retained them that well.

Were there any other particular takeaways for you? Most of my takeaways are technical skills I learned while working on the IDB project, especially with React. I had no experience in React beforehand and most of my work for IDB was on the back end but I had groupmates that were already experienced in React and wrote good code that I could just pick up where they left off and contribute well.

How did you feel about cold calling? Cold calling did and still makes me nervous. I don't really like answering questions about myself. I felt that the question about people's internship experience over the summer could be alienating to those who were not able to intern or who worked for lesser known companies and that it could create an elitist environment. Maybe avoid asking this kind of question in the future.

How did you feel about specifications grading? It didn't change my approach to the assignments in this class compared to any other CS course. I always just tried to get every requirement down possible. Sometimes my group would get a 2/3 unexpectedly on an assignment where we knew we were missing some key components so maybe spec grading is more forgiving than we thought but I never tried to calculate my actual grade.

How did you feel about help sessions and office hours? I didn't go to any help sessions or office hours.

How did you feel about the support from the TAs? I liked working with Canyon who was in charge of checking in with our group. Canyon offered us help whenever we were stuck with something and provided us with some great resources during the project development.

You should have read five papers that describe SOLID design: Single Responsibility, Open-Closed Principle, Liskov Substitution, Interface Segregation, and Dependency Inversion. What insights have they given you? I vaguely learned most of these principles on the job during my internship this past summer, so these papers gave me better insight into the reasoning behind the design principles.

You should have read two papers that advised minimizing getters and setters. What insights have they given you? Sometimes I would write getters and setters just because I had always done them for every other class definition I was writing. These papers taught me that if it isn't necessary, don't do it.

What required tool did you not know and now find very useful? AWS. Although it was very difficult to set up, I think it was an important tool to learn and I'm glad I got to experience creating a fully functioning website with it.

What's the most helpful Web dev tool your group used that was not required? The mui/material library. This library has many pre-made UI components for input data that were easily customizable. I think this library provides a lot of React components that will save time during front end development in future projects.

How did you feel about your group having to self-teach many technologies? I didn't really like it. Although the experience was useful and would provide me with material for future interviews, it made signing up and coming to this class very pointless. The lectures about python and relational algebra were the most useful to me but they felt irrelevant to the IDB project. I think if I had the motivation and idea, I could have done this project and self teach myself all the tools I needed to and take a different CS course instead (or do it all in an internship and get paid to do it). I think if the teaching staff had a hand in teaching or at least introducing us to the tools necessary for the projects, it would have felt more worthwhile coming to class. If you teach/introduce any tool in this class, I think it should definitely be how to set up the AWS instance considering how so many teams struggled to stay within Amazon's free tiers. The added stress of being billed $200+ and trying to get that money back along with working on the project and no accountability by the teaching team seems like it could all be avoided with a little guidance on how to set the free tier limits. I remember trying to set up our team's API endpoint and had no idea where to start. I didn't know what I had to google to even start and don't think I would have ever figured out that I had to set up an Elastic Beanstalk instance along with an API Gateway without my roommate who had already learned these things from working at Amazon.

In the end, how much did you learn relative to other UT CS classes? I learned more technical skills in development technologies than in other classes which I liked, but it felt like I was thrown into the deep end of the pool. I would have preferred a more guided learning experience.

In addition to the questions above, I wanted to mention that my roommate had a female friend take this class and felt discriminated by her group mates. She had gone to the teaching staff about this problem and received no support. We recently read a paper about sexism in the software industry and had a guest speaker bring awareness to this issue for our class. I find it hypocritical that we're told how important it is to support women in this industry yet women don't seem to get that support from the teaching staff. Being so mistreated before our early career even starts contributes to less and less women staying or moving up in the tech industry and if the teaching staff cares about this issue, they should provide better ways to empower their female students.