#animal jargon is so funny to me if I think about it long enough

[the-adventures-of-dave]

I love how dog people talk about getting a new dog as “getting into” a breed. You don’t just adopt a Labrador, you “get into labs”. It’s not buying a border collie, but “getting into BCs”. Imagine if we did that with cats. I think I’ll be getting into orange tabbies next. Maybe dabble in calicos. Try out tortoiseshells.

[marciabrady]

i rewached the hunchback of notre dame on friday for the first time, in a long time, and i'm still in shock.

hond was a film that was around when i was a child, because it had just come out, and the merchandising was still prevalent. it was being pushed a lot, so to speak, and growing up in the era that i did, the kids on the playground or online were either belle, meg, or esmeralda girls- there wasn't room for anyone else. as a child that gravitated more toward the classic princesses and femininity, it was not a movie that spoke to me and the fact that i felt it was shoved down my throat turned me off of it for a time. too much happened, even in the first five minutes, and there was constantly a wild series of events that i would try to reel my head in from. it wasn't a universe i wished to inhabit and, frankly, i think the crux of the reason why i didn't like it was because esmeralda was really the only female character (aside from laverne) and there wasn't enough for me, as a child, outside of the violence and shouting men and misery showcased. i revisited the film when i was twelve and i loved it so, but i think parts of me valued it at even higher a premium because of how rare and forgotten it had been. i even wrote esmeralda for a time. needless to say, it didn't last, and until now i've kind of been undecided about it

but watching it on friday...wow. i'm filled with both wonderment and despair. after craving quality content from disney for so long and continually being disappointed with tangled and frozen and moana and brave and raya, and every other movie i've tried to watch, i was instantly transfixed by how adult hunchback was, from the opening frames. the epic scale of the art, how ambitious it seemed, how elevated the jargon was- but mostly, how raw and realistic the storyline was. this movie threw no punches- it contained swear words, topics relating to disabilities, religion, death, genocide, se*ual assault, you literally name it. it exposed an underbelly of society that could be flattering and unflattering. while parts didn't age well, i'm surprised at how nuanced the conversation was around certain topics- decades before me too and social activism became more commonplace. i couldn't believe how beautiful it was and how much guts it took for the artists and writers to really go there. i was in disbelief for how evolved their viewpoints seemed, and this was before the internet was commonplace and they could've gotten as many viewpoints as readily as we can get them now...but then it filled me with instant sorrow, because i know they all got so much pushback and this film was so discouraged, we never saw the likes of it again.

it's funny because this film came years after the little mermaid, and you can tell how much of a higher budget this crew had to work with. the film's crew had sharpened their abilities and skills from previous years and made astounding technical advancements. that, mixed with how varied and diverse their topics became really signaled them finding their footing- or trying to. can you imagine, if they didn't give up on these types of movies, where we'd be today? how many more diverse stories, in diverse settings, we would've gotten- all adult in nature? the beautiful 2d designs and animation mixed to heighten the effect and impact and how it would've rounded out walt's vision, of wanting these films to not only be kid's stuff but genuinely be able to compete as a film genre unto itself? how different this movie was from any other??? and compare that to now, where they're all the same. what's the difference between dreamsworks, pixar, and disney movies anymore? and the activism they push now is 20 years too late, nothing cutting edge, and it's all the same. this female character is this much more badass, our first (minor) gay character that actually has no weight, addressing x about generation trauma, etc. even the topics we address in films now have been so sanitized and vetted out for audience approval that there's no real risk or edge to anything anymore, it's all monolithic and as safe as you can get.

but that's the thing with how experimental these later movies were- pocahontas, hunchback, hercules, mulan...while certain elements aged better than others, these movies should've been the beginning of an entirely new genre, not the last of their kind? how disturbing and offputting is it that tangled and brave came out decades after these films? that we've replaced the 'hellfire' villain type song with 'shiny?' we really could've had so much and it's sad that everything collapsed out from under us in that last breath of disney creating true art

the only thing that gives me hope is that we, the generation that grew up on these films, are the marketplace now. perhaps that will make these films come back into vogue and disney start producing them once more? but can they ever pick back up after such a long hiatus, without the original creative teams? is it all just a lost art form? also disney is making more money than ever with their marketable, but soulless, movies that are coming out now...also if these movies are to be in the spotlight again, does that just mean they'll be primed for another unnecessary remake? don hahn recently said disney only did animation because they couldn't make the special effects look real, but now that there's cgi to achieve hyperrealism, there's no need for 2d anymore and that's so sad to me. just because photorealism is in (which looks dated by the minute) and 3d is what people prefer, does that mean 2d is banished forever? that's like saying the invention of photography justifies the banishment of art. idk i just hope our generation can get these renaissance style movies back and to stay

[kuboism]

Bleach Canon Vs. Studio Clown Episode 1

Intro to the series

WARNING: Long read but theres plenty of pictures

The first deviation we’re greeted with is what the anime presents as the arrival of hollows into the human world. With a likely artistic rendition of them forming from the shadows of Hueco Mundo and dripping/bleeding over into the human world like splotches of ink, after which they disappear - unable to be perceived by humans.

A/N: Which, kubos to the anime, is rather neat.

The anime also decided to incorporate the first volume poem which is the thematic beginning and a great establisher of the mood/themes of Bleach, which roughly translates to: 

我らは 姿無きが故に それを畏れ

“We fear that which cannot be seen”

And then they curiously add a line to this poem? 

姿無き故に敬う

”We revere that which cannot be seen"

A/N: Which, initially seems on brand with the spiritualism of that “which is not seen” - the shinigami, DEATH itself if you will. However, unlike the themes of “fear” and “fear of death/the unseen”, “reverence” is not really a theme prevalent or definitive for bleach. Reverence is not particularly reserved for death or death gods, but antagonists with themes of divinity/the Soul King himself, but I digress.

Next off the bully scene has a couple of missing/reworded lines, as well as some of the delivery changed, but overall it’s not significant enough to mention.

I also wish they’d kept Ichigo’s shit yourself scary face from this moment right here, since it really underlines how serious and personally invested Ichigo is in bringing small justice to the souls of the departed, but I can only pray a future remake does include it.

^ I am disappointed in y’all :/

vs.

v Karma delivery, bitch

Then for some reason the next scene is changed significantly:

In the manga, it builds up slowly to Ichigo’s reveal of supernatural abilities with the iconic TM character profile intros (which I can see why weren’t recreated in the anime, but I sure wish they put them in....)

with him spooking the bullies off with the ghost girl right behind him

Versus his scary face doing the job instead.....

It’s a small change, and I can see why it would be opted for - we don’t really know if they even saw the ghost in the first place (then again you could argue that would spook them anyway). There is a tonal difference in the long run though. The manga emphasizes once again *why* ichigo is scolding them in the first place - he sees the people disrespected by them knocking down the vase, he wants them to acknowledge their actions *because* in his mind, there are real victims he knows from it. While in the anime, since the ghost is not yet introduced, it feels more like “you are disrespectful to the dead” in a more generalized way vs. him actually being acquainted with the dead and treating them like the living. 

(Again, not sure why change it so much at all........the suspense and reveal are in the manga just the same.... but ok)

As well as cutting off this small moment where you can see Ichigo’s very human (and cute!) interactions with the ghosts. To him they’re just as real as the living, and he lends them a hand whenever they ask for help.

Also lmfao this 4kids level of censorship.....

It goes on rather faithfully for a while, no significant omissions, then Pierrot decides to randomly replace Yuzu’s lines with Karin??

Manga:

Anime: 

Which is an odd choice, given that not only does Yuzu sense ghosts just fine (albeit at a much lesser level than her family) and that later comes into play with Fishbone & Grandfisher, but Karin literally later admits that she doesn’t even want to acknowledge their presence, so why the change....?

They also cut short Karin’s little talk about Ichigo’s stats, which is a fair change for screentime’s sake, but mentioned for the record.

There’s a bit of a divergence with Yuzu lore, when the manga explicitly states she sees them, but not “clearly”, the anime focuses on her barely sensing them. I guess it doesn’t matter that much in the long run, since she is not that prevalent in the story, but it’s here for the record nonetheless.

Anime: 

vs. 

Manga:A

Also this next bit was removed, probably for the sake of pacing (which, totally fair!!), but it’s funny and I love the Kurosaki family so here it is:

It does make the flow a bit better in the manga, since this talk of selling his talents distracts Ichigo and creates an opening for his father to strike, in the anime, the same is done with Ichigo just randomly saying 

and thats where his father attacks him, which isnt really an issue, just kind of funny of how the manga is like:

Ichigo’s distracted by his sisters plotting to sell him out and hence Isshin has his chance to strike back

vs the anime being like:

Ichigo randomly thinks about dinner mid convo about ghosts and thats what distracts him from play-fighting with his dad 

gfdkhlgfdg okayyyy....moving on 

In the manga this scene is interspliced with Ichigo’s inner monologue about the nature of his powers (with hip jargon like “for real” courtesy of Viz ) 

(but my beef with Viz translations are for another day)

Also the line about “He told me more ghosts than ever have been haunting me” has been given to Karin for some reason, probably to make her feel more included in the scene/Ichigos life.

Notably, Isshin’s response is changed from “What?! He talks about stuff like that with you (Yuzu, singular)” to “What?! He talks about stuff like that with you guys?” as well, again probably to include Karin more into the dialogue. (Mmmm ok....)

Minor detail, but Karin’s lines has been changed to more “boyish” speech structure in the Japanese dub, which may seem insignificant, but ...... that is for later. 

.....

This little exchange

 is replaced with: 

Which, seems innocuous adaptation differences, but Yuzu’s lines keep decreasing and it’s a short enough moment to like....include and establish how motherly Yuzu is acting towards Ichigo.....but ok...huh. 

And now we get into the big boy changes.

So, probably for the sake of grounding the supernatural element of the series, the anime decided to skip time to the next morning and introduce the hollow attacks with a news report.

Which.....is an interesting choice. I am assuming this is addressing how the real world perceives the hollow attacks, which Bleach doesn’t put too much effort into addressing, but very soon after this we learn about stuff like memory replacement and other various technology to keep things under wraps so this is either redundant or implying that shinigamis have not been doing their job, which hm......

Next off is the bizarre choice to paint Isshin out of the picture for the night

Not sure why, but ok

Again, where’s the shinigami with their Kikanshinki (memory replacement devices)??? Pierrot where’s the lore coherence......

Anyway, Ichigo goes to replace the girl’s vase, but suprise-surprise she’s gone-zo. Wonder what happened to her.....

(And....again, people vehemently don’t want a reboot when the anime looks like this? )

So Ichigo hears a scream and a hollow scream and follows the sound (Ok?).

Totally random hollows attack. Which Ichigo somehow has never seen so far? Mind you, this isn’t like in the manga, where Fishbone was sent by Aizen specifically after Ichigo to make him aware of it. These are random-ass hollows attacking people, so how come Ichigo suddenly sees them. Ya coulda played it safe Pierrot, and stuck to the book, but we got plot inconsistencies episode one so let’s party.

The girl is, of course, not eaten and they run away.

She trips at the most inconvenient moment. (can ghosts trip? Ghost don’t even have legs in japanese lore and Kubo draws them floating around so okkkkkkkk)

(ok ok, im just being petty, bUT YKNOW)

(convenient tripping on deadass levelled ground is convenient)

(also God I really want that bag Ichigo’s got on his shoulder, it looks so nice)

Random-ass hollow closes in and 

BOOM

Rukia

(Now, if the rest of Bleach and the manga didn’t exist I would like this moment. We get a glimpse into Rukia’s abilities, into shinigami as a concept and we don’t really get to see her slice and dice hollows that much overall so the moment itself is rad in isolation.

Now, unfortunately for Pierrot’s screenwriters, Bleach manga exists and so does it’s lore, which again, would not be inconsistent with each other if the adapation was faithful. Now, Ichigo sees a shinigami, for some reason, for the first time in his 15 years of life. All of a sudden. 

You could argue, that much like in the manga, this is all part of Aizen’s plan TM, but like, she literally leaves right after leaving Ichigo gaping in awe ghfkjgdf. Why’d Aizen give him an appetizer, I really don’t understand how this change is benefitting the narrative in any way. It’s ....dare I say....generic.)

Rukia yeets the hollow

(why is this kid suddenly not wearing shoes?)

and goes off on her merry way, leaving Ichigo shooketh

ALSO RUKIA MA’AM THERES A FUCKING STRAY GHOST RIGHT AT YOUR RIGHT????? ISNT IT YOUR LIKE....JOB.......... TO HELP GHOSTS MOVE ON??? i know killing hollows is the fun part, but like ghjkfdlgfd ??? are you gonna ignore her???

( his fucking face ghfjdkgdlfgfd)

So after this wholeass pointless detour (you’ll see why it’s pointless in a moment)  we timeskip again (the filler is strong in this one. These 6 minutes were worth not coming up with something cohesive and removing scenes that actually make sense ah yes)

Ichigo is in deep thought TM about who tf is the stranger he’d just seen. Likely mulling over the monsters and how this person was able to slay said monsters. Probably thinking how unusual they are.

and as if on cue

the stranger makes their presence once more

(my God these faces gfhgkldfg)

....

Now let’s briefly address what happens in the manga instead.

Instead of the whole timeskip scene with the fight, Ichigo simply returns to his room on the same day, and oddly enough recognizes the species of the butterfly he sees? (nerdy boi! nerdy!! boi!)

rukia arrives much the same

(With the little text emphasizing how he’d never been aware of soul reapers, which is unsurprising given their secrecy, and makes sense in the long run since their first meeting is specifically orchestrated by Aizen. Two species that werent meant to interact brought together by his schemes.)

Back to the anime:

Ichigo pauses to ponder who tf they are and why the fuck they’re there.

and then the anime has the gall to suddenly revert to sticking to the manga, which like.... Ichigo kicks her for no reason? I guess because she isn’t answering? Even though Ichigo knows she has a sword and can wield it? Reckless boy.

Manga Ichigo thinks she’s a burglar, therefore, unsurprisingly, is comfortable kicking her outta his house. It’s a silly moment, but it also shows how accustomed or stupidly brave he is with the supernatural.

In the anime Ichigo asks her who she is instead of all that, and she responds pretty similarly to the manga

AND THE NEXT SCENE IS WHERE IT CLICKS WHY THEY WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY TO REMOVE ISSHIN FROM THE HOUSE.

(Ichigo and Rukia addressing the pointless filler, this leads nowhere)

Rukia check him out like she’s checking if the oranges on sale dont have mold on them 

slapstick ensues

and Rukia decides to answer his question.

Vs. the manga in which Isshin doesn’t leave his children home alone for some random conference and is actually used very efficient for two reasons:

1) building up on the burglar gag with actually funny slapstick that is based on a previously established joke

2) Instead of Rukia just saying “oh usually people can’t see me”, we get an actual demonstration of it, the reader gets to see “oh Isshin can’t see her - she must be a spiritual entity,” which further clicks with her surprised reaction at him being able to kick her in the first place.

The next scene is the classique Pierrot censorship.

Ghost girl runs away from what I’m assuming is Fishbone.

Aside from not showing her get eaten, the scene is pretty much delivering the same message, 

bUT

BECAUSE OF THE STUPID ASS FILLER WITH THEM MEETING RUKIA BEFORE THIS, I CAN ACCUSE RUKIA OF NEGLIGENCE.

UNLIKE THE MANGA, where Rukia arrives the night before and is specifically seeking Fishbone, therefore having no time to help this girl pass away, 

This vvvvvvv

could have been prevented if SOMEONE DID THEIR FUCKING JOB THE DAY BEFORE VVVVVVV

(I rest my case. Thank you Pierrot for making Rukia either negligent or an idiot. Awesome, And mind you, these changes were unnecessary. The manga’s pacing is fine. They could’ve extended scenes. But nope, had to go for making them meet beforehand.)

Anyway, we get to see some actual stakes in the manga

The next scene which is this in the manga 

has two changes to it. Firstly, obviously Isshin being consoled by Yuzu isn’t included since he isn’t home in the anime, and even if he were, I can see why that would be removed, cute as it may be.

And secondly, due to them having met prior Ichigo asks two additional questions:

And Rukia nods at both, which means she acknowledges that she had seen the girl the hollow was after and yet did nothing to help her pass on. 

(Reminder the Bleach anime was in production WAAAAY past the first 4 volumes, which gave a good general idea of the series, which y’know, was fine to adapt as is.

You’ll see these changes add up into becoming inconsistent with further Bleach lore. There’s a reason people call Bleach a hot mess, and I’m afraid Kubo ain’t really it.)

(Volume 14 Note from Kubo where he talks about the anime being announced)

Back to the series

Pet peeve time: Wish the anime was half as expressive as the manga

These scenes are supposed to represent

This panel:

(Nitpicking? Perhaps, but idc)

So uh, this scene is odd

Again, because of the addition of that filler with the hollow

Ichigo has seen her in action

And they even added Rukia trying to convince him 

even though, yknow???

LITerally the previous day???

Anyway  in the manga, where Ichigo has reason to be distrustful of her and her claims since y’know hes never seen her or a shinigami in action, but has enough proof that she’s a ghost bc his dad didn’t see her, he simply dismisses her before she can reply, and instead of just getting angry for being called a pipsqueak

she shows both Ichigo and the audience proof of her spiritual powers by binding Ichigo and forcing him to quietly listen to her explanations.

(To reiterate - Anime Rukia  has to verbally try to convince Ichigo WHO SAW HER FIGHT A HOLLOW THE OTHER DAY that shes no ordinary ghost. And because of that, she has no other reason to use Sai on him other than that shes mad she was called a pipsqueak bc she just tried to verbally convince him shei is a shinigami. When they could just adapt the manga and have her both demonstrate her powers and put him in his place at the same time. Wild.)

Also CRIMINALLY BORING SHOT, WITH CRIMINALLY BORING RUKIA

#NotMyRukia

LOOK AT THE MANGA

LOOK AT HER SMUGLY OWNING ICHIGO’S IGNORANT ASS #FuckYeahRukia

Also the subs may not show it if you’re watching it on Netflix, but anime Rukia says “I am not allowed to lay my hands on humans outside orders,” which like, you ARE LITERALLY DOING THAT. Manga Rukia is fine with bullying Ichigo, but she draws a line at killing him, but man Anime Rukia, you give no fucks about the laws huh.

why so cheerful?

(also Rukia be right tho)

(specifcally compared to hell you could say Soul society is a resftul place lmfao)

Also anime salary man gets to rest in peace, even like, pray and shit

Meanwhile the manga

YEET TO SOUL SOCIETY

(also notice how we’ve been robbed of ichigo’s silly socks

I swear the anime knows how to suck the soul out of the manga 

Get it? Soul! haha ....moving on.)

Really Rukia? One of your jobs?

GUESS YOU WERE OFF DUTY HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I’M SORRY BUT LIKE, SEE HOW POINTLESS THIS FILLER IS UGH!!!)

(Again pet peeve but look at how ugly this screen is COMPARED TO THE MANGA)

(What have they done to you, queen)

(also they never mention the name Konso ( or as Viz calls it here -”soul funeral”, thanks Viz)

Next on, not a pet peeve, but an observation:

Anime Rukia keeps her sketchbook in her kimono

Manga Rukia keeps it at the titty

Yep, which you neglected to do the day before,

she literally says “With the konso I did just a  moment ago” like she used the word before. Like you can contextually get it, but why cut that line out of the dialogue if you don’t change the next line it’s referenced in?

There’s also a dialogue change from the manga’s well, Viz uses “vaporize” which is not a bad choice given the specific wording Kubo uses, but the original says 

昇華 • 滅却

sublimate/convert • extinguish

which is a clever little nod/foreshadowing to the nature of souls in bleach and that they can be “converted” in and out of a hollowfied state. 

While the anime just says “to slay hollows”, and albeit it lacks the little nod the manga has to offer, I can’t see how they’d include it in the anime at that stage so I’m fine with them simplifying it to like, an exorcism.

A better question then Rukia - WHY DIDN’T YOU SEND OFF HER SOUL????

also WAIT THE GIRL IS STILL ALIVE?? she’s dead-dead by this point in the manga.

BULLSHIT !!!  YOU LITERALLY EXPLAIN LATER WHY!! ACTUALLY YOU EXPLAINED EARLIER WHY!!! YOU LITERALLY SAID THIS, 1 MINUTE AGO :

Anyway, Fishbone almost grants her the priviledge of escaping this God-awful anime, but is suddenly stopped?

AND CAN TALK??

wait WHY DOES FISHBONE TALK?? GHFJD isnt this supposed to be  a juicy reveal for later when Ichigo realizes “hey theyre not actual complete monsters - but used to be humans!” Hm, ok.

Also leaves her alone? Damn ok...

Reminder:

Moooving on...

Speaking of the manga, this little moment is missing:

Since there is no pointless filler that would make him ask about the ghost girl therefore exposing Rukia’s slacking off of her duty, Ichigo realizes that there must be a hollow nearby bc in the manga he actually has braincells to spare. 

Also wiping off the Baron’s moustache moment is gone 😢

Missing and dearly missed is also this moment, which consolidates how protective Ichigo is of his family. He only needs to hear Yuzu scream to click that the hollow is nearby and his family is in danger. I feel like anime Ichigo should be even more worried since his sisters are alone but ok??

Also foreshadows their dynamic of Rukia trying to stop his reckless attempts at pushing himself to protect his family, bc yknow....she has her own Kaien trauma to process.

Next off....

This is .... a choice....

They were very eager to give Yuzu’s lines to Karin just a couple of moments ago but now this whole exchange:

Where we see a very pragmatic yet soft side of Karin

She doesn’t know what is happening, and doesn’t expect her brother to fight it - he just wants him to be safe, because she loves her family. At least warn him before it gets to him and hurts him.

is replaced with this:

Yuzu, sweetie, what do you think he can do to achieve that.

I guess at least Anime Ichigo tries to get Rukia to do her job as she looks down on Yuzu in silence. 

But compare it to the manga:

#MyRukia stops by Karin to check for a pulse and reassures Ichigo that his sister is alive.

Manga Ichigo is NUMBER ONE oniichan in town and doesnt have time to call out to a stranger to save his family - HES BEYOND READY TO GO FIGHT, RECKLESS AS IT IS, EVEN THOUGH HIS OWN FAMILY BEGS HIM TO JUST RUN. because he cant let himself be unable to protect them. He cant live with himself if he doesnt try his darnest to protect them.

*elevator music playing as ichigo tries to get rukia’s attention but she fucks off downstairs, but instead of doing shit he just does the worm on the floor*

which I guess is more realistic for a teenage boy, but Ichigo is literally traumatized by being unable to protect a family member. Y’all think a ghost he’s never seen before is gonna stop him? 

Yooo, pathetic. #NotMyIchigo

[definitely-not-karen]

My unnecessary and irrelevant reviews about the transformers media I have consumed.

Please let me have this. I was doom scrolling and transformers is my comfort fandom.

G1: I have not watched all of it, I do plan on doing so but I did watch it when I was younger and does invoke nostolgia. I watched it on Teletoon Retro (does that even exist anymore?) ((just googled it, rip teletoon retro)). For some reason I really like the episode The Ultimate Weapon. I am a huge fan of First Aid and it was because of this episode and I have no idea why. Rodimus is the main character of that episode with First Aid just having a very prominent role in the side story of that episode. I really liked the Aerialbots and their storyline with the time traveling and the not knowing if they’re on the right side was really cool. Honestly the animation errors and weird inconsistent story are part of the charm I guess.

RID 2001: another show I’ve only seen tidbits of. I watched this one via random episodes illegally uploaded to YouTube in the early to mid 2010s and now all those videos are taken down. As a lover of camp, this is camp. I love it. Transformers as a concept is pretty camp (which is why I adore it) and I definitely will watch all of this one day. Though Sideburn is cool and all, I do wish he didn’t chase a red sports car every episode. Otherwise he’s one of my favourites cause himbo rights I guess.

Transformers IDW 2005: So... I read the entirety of the idw comics purely because I found out Thundercracker was a screenplay writer and I wanted to read the entire story so I got the complete context of his development from scary fighter jet to an Oscar winner. I was not disappointed, I was met with queer and trans representation of all sorts, a diverse storyline with action filled parts, comedy elements, slice of life, political drama, adventure, horror, and the best road trip through space. Honestly I was not expecting transformers of all things to have queerness represented so casually and quite well in my opinion (though technically they are guilty of bury your gays, I don’t count it cause there was a clear reason for that death) Thundercracker was marked as one of my favourites cause of this series. I did experience a wonderful story because I wanted to see how he got his happy ending. My biggest criticism of idw transformers is that I love their interpretations of characters and sadly I know I’ll probably never get to seen them like that again. But if I want to experience those characters like that, I’ll just re read it I guess.

Transformers Animated: I have watched the entirety of this great show twice and it still love it. Funny characters, a human character that has a purpose, and a fun change to the formula, Transformers Animated has one of my favourite Optimus and made a Bumblebee so lovably loud they had to take away his voice so he wouldn’t become too powerful. Loved all of the characters except the human villains, Headmaster did not age well and I wasn’t in love with Ratchet’s design but his personality more than made up for it. If you want more animated, I love Transformers ReAnimated the void is filled by that series and channel. While I wish it got another season, it’s ending was satisfying enough I guess.

Transformers Prime: Smokescreen is great and was underutilizes -100/10. Just kidding, kind of I really enjoyed Prime. I’ve only watched through it completely once cause when I was a child I did not like the designs since apparently as a child I was a G1 loyalist I guess. Though now Prime has one of my favourite styles that still holds up today. Dramatic story with actual character development, I can over look that the plots a tad slow. I wish Breakdown was utilized more and it also could have benefited from an extra season but the movie wrapped it up much better than animated’s ending. Knockout is an amazing character and I was spoiled while I was watching it that he turns Autobot though I didn’t realize that wasn’t until the literal end of the series. Would’ve like a completely fleshed out Breakdown and Knockout or at least Knockout redemption arc but there’s always fanfiction I guess.

Robots in Disguise 2015: I didn’t hate it? It definitely helped that I watched this before Prime for some reason. I liked the designs, Sideswipe... himbo rights. Biggest flaw is the lack of character growth. I just want nice things for Sideswipe, Strongarm and Fixit. Grimlock was fun, I like Bumblebee trying to be a good leader and Optimus should have stayed dead. The crossover and referenced to Rescue Bots was fun and Blurr and Sideswipe was the rivalry I didn’t know I needed. But the one I really needed was Smokescreen in there too. The ending arc was interesting though not executed the best and Steeljaw did a lot of the heavy lifting for the villain side to a point where they over utilized him and his character suffered as a result. Windblade was not as bad as people online said she was, splitting the group up into two was stupid cause I’m bitter and still don’t want Optimus there. Also long list of underutilization: Denny and Russel Clay, Jazz, all the characters from prime except Optimus and Bee, Jetfire and Jetstorm, More Rescue bots, and many more! Like that girl that’s Russel’s friend that I literally don’t remember because I’m pretty sure the writers forgot about her! Anyways, in retrospect the show probably wasn’t great but I liked it I guess.

Rescue Bots: This show is way better than it needed to be. I actually love the no Decelticons and war. I’m a sucker for slice of life and especially slice of life with a twist. Human villains that were actually interesting, actual character development, continuity (somewhat), great human characters all while being target for children. I’m so happy I watched this show while I was kind of the target age and rewatching it for the third time was great cause some of the science jargon actually made sense to me. Satisfying ending too and honestly it can just appeal to everyone. Love all four of the main rescue bots and constantly wish they made evergreen designs and toys for them so they could at least make cameos in other transformers media. Sometimes it’s nice to have transformers being wholesome I guess.

Rescue Bots Academy: ... I was not the age democratic for this show and I somehow still liked it? Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been gravitating to more wholesome content due to current events but it was actually good? Love all the students, I do miss the old crew and characters like Doc Green and Frankie are under utilized and the Burns family is almost nowhere to be found :(. Once again there’s some actual character development and Hot Shot’s mentor relationship with Heatwave is super sweet. Also actually having positive post war Decepticon and Autobot relationships in this children’s show? Woah. Biggest issue is like RID 2015; the lack of continuity and characters completely disappearing. Perceptor was fun and I was not expecting him to appear. And I love me some microscope dude. It was a good send off for the aligned continuity I guess.

Cyberverse: ending too soon. I was about to be upset that bumblebee didn’t have his voice but he had his voice in his head which was great. Episodes like the velocitron one was really good and it definitely got better with each season and peaked in the Quintesson arc and then rolled to the cancellation date. Thundercracker shouldn’t have been killed off but I’m very biased. Seeing the rebuilding of Cybertron was cool. Windblade and Bumblebee had a fun relationship. I really liked this iteration of Grimlock. Perceptor was super interesting but then they did nothing with him after the Quintesson arc which was a shame and I would have liked to see better relationships between the Autobots and Decepticons after the team up. Also wholesome Whirl was fun. Honestly this needed one more season so bad. I just think it could have been great if it got one. But it’s still good I guess.

War for Cybertron: ...let’s see how I feel after Kingdom comes out but right now, meh. For me my favourite transformers characters usually end up being side characters due to me wishing they had more screen time so in this case, Red Alert is great please show me more of Red Alert. I get what all the people are saying about the voice acting and whatever but I can look past it (though please give us Peter Cullen or let the current VC make his own Optimus voice). But one thing is that all the YouTube reviewers be saying that I completely agree with is that it’s dark. Like lighting wise. I occasionally had trouble making out what was happening because it was dark. Honestly my biggest issue isn’t a fault of the show. I like development of multiple characters to be shown so I can fall in love with a multitude of characters but due to short seasons, it makes sense to focus in completely on one character at a time. Siege in my opinion at least let me see more of the background characters rather than Earthrise but I’d probably like Earthwise more if I was a bigger fan of Optimus. I’m going to watch Kingdom but I’m not expecting to be wowed I guess.

In conclusion, I should watch Beast Wars, I’m going to re read the ending of Lost Light again and revel in the melancholic ending I adore and I really like Thundercracker and First Aid. One great thing about transformers and other franchises that have been around for awhile, if you don’t like the current thing, there’s plenty of last media and you probably won’t need to wait too long for the next piece of media you’ll hopefully like.

Please be good idw 2019, I’ve read a bit of you and I have a scrap of hope. Oh please please please be good. Give some characters the Thundercracker treatment.

[lilhemmo]

Can I uh get a "bookshop au" + "flirting under fire" au for sweet pea? your writing is so good and he's my baby please give me more

a/n: yes, friend, you can!!! i know this is.. old, but, hey, what can i say? i’m not apologizing!! 

ps, dear chels @the-gargoyle-queen i am so sorry for picking on your ghoulies but it’s just sO EASY

You’d inherited the book shop from your grandmother once she passed, but you never really had a hand in it until you heard about the state Riverdale was in. So, you packed your things and moved back into the loft upstairs, taking a much more direct approach with the store. 

You bought books online, through thrift stores - anything you could find to keep the shelves stocked. Eventually, your shop was a safe haven - a Switzerland, if you will. It was a place where anyone from any walk of life could take a seat and escape the world.

There were high schoolers who host homework and study sessions, middle aged moms who gather for book club, and even Southsiders who show up just to get away from the street’s carnage every once and a while.

The tattoo artist from the Pretty Poison Tattoo Parlor stops by once a week for a new book on nature and you’ve managed to have a short conversation with him each time.

You’ve learned his name - Sweet Pea - and that he gets the books to study for his tattoos. A lot of the people who come in are female bikers who want different flowers mixed with skulls and crossbones tattooed on them, so he has to be educated.

“Got another random tattoo booking later this week, gotta learn how to draw…” Sweet Pea shakes his head, holding out the book, “Whatever the hell these are.”

You’re laughing but then the whole room goes silent, cold. You look up just as a car steers off from the road and crashes into your glass windows. Sweet Pea wastes no time in hopping over the counter and grabbing you up, turning so his back is to the car and you’re caged under his arms.

“Shit,” he shakes his head, turning get a glance of the people in the car. “Fuckin’ Ghoulies.”

You blink slowly, your head spinning as your heart beats increasingly faster, “G-Ghoulies? Here?!”

Sweet Pea nods and for the first time you notice the serpent tattoo on his neck. You’ve only known him through the winter, and now that it’s spring, he’s no longer wearing turtle necks or thick jackets to cover his tattoo. You grip him by the flannel, staring up at him, “B-But this isn’t…this is supposed to be a safe space.”

“Seems like the Ghoulies don’t agree with you. Call 911, I’m gonna see if I can do anything.”

He’s gone before you can protest, and you swear you hear the zing of a knife in the air, but you disregard it. Grabbing up your phone, you call the police and shakily tell them all of the details. Luckily there are officers on foot who make it there before too much carnage breaks loose.

They have to grab up Sweet Pea and administer medical treatment and also question him regarding the knife wounds they found slashed into various Ghoulies, but he manages to describe it well enough as self-defense that they release him once they’re finished.

“H-How can I thank you?” you ask, wrapping yourself up in a blanket given to you by the police department.

Sweet Pea shrugs, “I like gettin’ to kick those jackasses around, so I don’t need a thank you.”

You’re smiling and he wants to ask why, but the sound of shattering glass makes him pause. Your frame is practically shaking, and he remembers a conversation where you told him you lived in the book shop, above the store in a one bedroom situation.

“Hey,” he nudges your calf with the toe of his boot, “do you need a place to stay?”

You swallow, blinking the tears away as you realize that your home has been crashed into, your livelihood ruined for an innumerable amount of time. You shake your head despite yourself, “No, I-I think the county is going to give me a bit of an allowance to stay at the motel up the street.”

“That place is infested with cockroaches,” Sweet Pea chuffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why don’t you come shack up with me and Toni at Poison? She’s hardly there anyway, now that she’s got that little Northsider girlfriend, so you can take her bed.”

The laugh that bubbles from your lips makes him look you over again - still in your resolve, head held high despite your home being destroyed and your heart and soul crashed by a set of pathetic Ghoulies trying to make a name for themselves.

“I don’t know that your roommate would like you giving up her bed,” you sigh, glancing up at him through thick, wet lashes. “Really, it’s okay.”

Sweet Pea shrugs, “Well, it’s always available, okay? We’ve got a pull out couch too, if you change your mind.”

-

Well, you do change your mind.

Sweet Pea is all but not surprised to see you on the doorstep of the Poison Parlor later that same night. 

“Cockroaches?”

“Cockroaches.”

He’s laughing as he lets you inside. There are a couple of late night customers and you can hear the buzzing of tattoo guns as Sweet Pea walks you through the parlor and up the stairs.

You’re making yourself comfortable on the pull out couch when he turns to go back downstairs, but you stop him, “H-Hey, Sweet Pea?”

“Hm?” he looks over his shoulder to acknowledge you.

Your whole face goes beet red, but you stand to your full height and say it anyway, “I-uh, I want you to teach me how to defend myself.”

There’s a silence that hangs in the room and you wonder for a moment if he thinks you’re crazy. Of course he wouldn’t train a weakling Northsider like you, even if your shop was Switzerland for his Southside buddies. What the Ghoulies had done, you couldn’t have stopped anyway.

“L-Listen, I just, I want to be able to stand up for myself. It’s not like I can stop a crashing car, but I can punch a guy in the gut or keep myself from getting snatched off the street,” you start rambling, using your hands as you talk, your voice growing in octaves the longer he lets you speak.

“Hey,” Sweet Pea grasps you by the wrist, “I get it.”

There’s a mutual understanding that passes between the two of you, quiet but determined. He releases you and walks back down to the parlor, leaving you to get settled in. 

And that’s how it starts.

When your bookstore is back up and running six weeks later, you’re practically a boxing prodigy. Sweet Pea has taught you the simplest of moves, and you can catch him off guard every once and a while. He has the crooked nose to prove it.

The tension between the two of you has grown as well. He’s given you a small tattoo that you’ve been dreaming about since high school, and you’ve taught him words and jargon that he never dreamed could be real. You spend almost every waking moment of the day together, between training to grow stronger and smarter, the both of you have developed a routine.

The next time you spot a band of Ghoulies, you and Sweet Pea are helping to close up the tattoo parlor. You’re taking the trash out in the back alley, and when a snap resounds against the brick walls, your heart drops into your stomach.

You swallow the lump in your throat, toss the garbage into the bin, and turn, fists held tight at your sides.

A taunt passes your lips and then the Ghoulie on the right jumps towards you with a knife held tight in his grip. You spot his weak form and step downward, using his weight to roll him over your shoulders and toss him against the dumpster.

“What?” you laugh, “Scared now?”

The other lets out a grunt before slashing at you with a makeshift shank. He looks like a feral animal - teeth bared and knuckles white as saliva gathers at the corners of his mouth. You can’t help but roll your eyes at the dramatic gang member, but when he tries to kick you in the face, you grab his ankle and twist, sending him soaring over your shoulder to lay unconscious with his Ghoulie counterpart.

There’s a loud noise from inside the parlor and your mind starts racing - Sweet Pea. Sure, he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but your heart still picks up the pace as you run toward the door.

He’s got two on either side of him, and another set of three in the back rummaging through the money drawer and supplies. You grab the nearest thing to you, a case of ink, and throw it against the back counter. It pegs one of the Ghoulies in the head, the other two turning their attention to you now.

“Th-They’re on something!” Sweet Pea shouts even though his throat is currently in the grasp of one of the brawnier Ghoulies. You laugh, shaking your head as the two from behind the counter charge at you, “You don’t say?”

Sweet Pea shoots you a glare and you barely have time to shrug before you’re back in attack mode - focused on the two grown men in front of you. Their weight and their obvious lack of focus is something you can prey on, just as you did the two in the alley.

“So, do I get a raise or something?” you call between punches, landing a kick into one of their chests. Sweet Pea now has one of them in a headlock, the other crumpled against the wall, twitching as he tries to stand back up.

“Funny, I didn’t know I paid you,” he grunts, dropping the bulky guy to the ground once he stops struggling.

You stumble backward, but he catches you, “You don’t.”

“Maybe I should start.”

The duality of the phrase makes your spine shiver, but you’re back to action before you can contemplate how much you want to kiss him. You get a good, solid punch into one of their faces, turning to hit the other in the sternum.

“Finally putting those lessons to good use!” Sweet Pea winks at you from across the room where he’s got the Ghoulie held up by the throat on the wall.

Him holding someone by the throat, blood on his nose and knuckles, should not turn you on the way that it does. Either way, it makes you smirk. Your attention falters just long enough for the smaller of the two Ghoulies to land a punch to your jaw.

You seethe in pain, gripping at your face as you stumble backward. All you can see now is red, blinding rage like a filter in your vision. You dig your fingernails into your fists so hard you think you’ve drawn blood, “Oh, that does it.”

They swing at you again, both moving sloppily as whatever drug that has tainted their system begins to wear off. You fight them both off until you hear Sweet Pea stalk across the room, his combat boots making noise as he stomps towards you.

“Did good,” he grunts, grabbing one of them by the arm to yank them away from you, dealing with him on his own. Sweet Pea struggles, taking a shot to the eye, but you make eye contact with him just as you say, “I had a good teacher.”

You swear you see a smile on his face, but you can’t pay him much mind as the Ghoulie tries to stab at you with the pocket knife they’re holding. You slam their wrist against the tattoo table, the knife clattering to the ground a few feet away.

Now both goons are crawling on the floor, and you take a step toward Sweet Pea with adrenaline pumping through your veins, “Do you want to kiss me as much as I want to kiss you?”

“Hell yeah,” he manages to get the words out before pulling you to him for a harsh kiss. His hands are on your waist and your palms find purchase against his flannel.

You feel a feeble arm wrap around your ankle and you snap your knee forward to kick him in the face, eliciting a moan from the perpetrator. Sweet Pea’s palm drifts to your jeans, tucking into your pocket to anchor you to him for just a moment longer.

“You call, I’ll tie,” he pants as he pulls away, the high wearing off as he looks into your eyes. “Sound good?”

You nod, releasing your death grip on his shirt, “There’s two more in the alley.”

The shining admiration in his eyes does little to quell the churning of your stomach and you find yourself wanting to tackle him right here and now. Instead, you turn and head towards the parlor phone, not missing the gentle tap he gives your backside as you walk away.

“Sheriff Jones? Yeah, it’s me again…”

-

a/n: i hope that was enough flirting under fire! 

taggin: @the-gargoyle-queen @theangriestpea @sweets-rivervixen @southsidearchive @cactiem 

[robot-unicorn-attack]

alicia’s plotting ideas/notes??

SNOW (MARIVANA)

ideas & stuff!! feel free to message me either here or on urstyle or wherever else u have me, or comment directly on this post, to plot! ill put finalized notes w/ rest of snow’s info once we have it down :)

Sky - so since seraphina’s a newer racer, she and marivana don’t know each other super well? but they’re almost complete opposites, in terms of like racing specialties, and marivana doesn’t feel threatened by seraphina in any way. she probably keeps her distance whenever they aren’t doing things their agency has sent them on? 

It would be kind of fun to say that maybe, as a publicity stunt, twilight’s official statement is that snow has been mentoring sky behind the scenes? 

and they have to pretend that’s true, even though it’s not lol

LOL but it would be funny if one day marivana showed up at the track while seraphina was doing stuff and was just like, “so twilight wants me to teach you something that makes it look like i’ve actually been helping u. u free atm?”

but overall I don’t think marivana has too many strong opinions about seraphina, unless we want to create some kind of drama?

Ice - premade; tbd

Supernova - Marivana is…pretty indifferent? when it comes to Supernova. She knows who she is and what she’s done, of course-who doesn’t?-but if you think that she’d be starstruck and/or falling over herself when Supernova’s around her…well, you’d be wrong. Marivana’s had multiple trusted parties tell her that she’s just as good as Supernova was, at her peak, so she knows that she’s not a threat-for now, at least. Marivana’s a bit wary of the other racer, but also a bit curious to see as to where this comeback will lead.

So, depending on how much of the wedding and divorce was public....Marivana def would remember 1) the wedding, and 2) not giving a shit about it

The 2 of them have raced together, right at the very beginning of Marivana’s career? like 10+ years ago? and if As even remembers all that girly snow princess stuff, she could be like “lmao so twilight really pulled a 180 on her”

AHHHH so I know I never made this explicitly clear because I suck as a human being but - the deal with unicorns is that agencies/manufacturers/etc say that they’re just robots? agencies probably actually believe it, but in terms of the manufacturers they might be vaguely aware of otherwise but also don’t want to jeopardize any profits so they keep that shit on the DL

but obviously for ppl like Mari/As who have been riding for p much their entire life, they can tell when horses are distressed, happy/content, etc?

and robot unicorns are basically horses in terms of how sentient they are? 

so i have no fucking idea when this would happen, but the 2 of them mutually acknowledging that RUR is pretty fucked up for the unicorns?

also like....IT WOULD BE SO CUTE if the two of them sort of rolled their eyes at the same time about some kind of story regarding another rando racer who quit maybe a lil after As did (so the newer racers aren’t familiar with her)? and then they realize that they both rolled their eyes at the same time LOL

honestly just being Tired Grandmas together

anyway. @interluxetumbra LMK what u think!!!

Sunbeam -  tbd

Flower - Marivana knows exactly what 𝑅 𝐼 𝒮 𝐸 is pulling with Flower (her own agency did the same thing to her, after all), and she is not fooled at all. She’s not stupid; in the robot unicorn racing industry, nobody is completely, utterly unknown when they debut unless they had no prior experience with robot horses/unicorns in the past. Marivana knows that Flower probably had to work her butt off to stay with 𝑅 𝐼 𝒮 𝐸, and she would bet her right hand that the image that Flower puts out to the public is just that - an image.

*chanting* AURIVANA AURIVANA AURIVANA

is the lil club plot we have how they meet/1st time they actually talk 2 ea other????

speaking of which - how do we want to write that? collab in a gdoc???

& then they just keep coincidentally running into ea other randomly????

aura saying something super Flower-esque and marivana just rolling her eyes and being like, “ok great now tell me what you really think about __” ??? lol

aura somehow discovering that marivana is into BOTANY, of all things????

maybe this is when she makes some sort of dry remark about the bio for Flower on the RISE website? “[Flower] grew up in a lush green meadow, hidden away from prying eyes by miles and miles of ice. How Flower managed to get the ice to melt for long enough to plant flowers and trees will always be a mystery.” and marivana’s like “lol magic my ass there’s literally no fucking way”

she explains it with a good amount of scientific jargon thrown in and aura’s just like watttttttttttttt :0000

literally hit me up ANYTIME i already adore them

also - their aesthetics as racers? put together? a+++++++++

OMG THIS IS LIKE WAY IN THE FUTURE BUT LIKE, we should say that their secret relationship somehow ends up going public for the ~drama~??? and instead of being super freaking pissed off, both of their agencies are just like “lmao okay ice queen x fairy princess? best ship” and use it for publicity?????

Flame - Marivana knows about 1) the image that she projects, and 2) that this image is pretty true to who Flame really is, for the most part. Her verdict? Flame could prove to be annoying, if she gets relevant while Marivana is still in the industry as a racer. Marivana doesn’t know what life not racing would be like, but she’s well-aware that she’s the oldest racer out there (well, besides Supernova, who doesn’t count. She’s making a comeback, after all), and that retirement is probably not too far out in her future. So, if Flame is still around within the next 5-10 years, then Marivana might start worrying about her. For now, she’s just the irritating racer with ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ who won’t ever stop causing a scene.

So they haven’t really interacted much yet, do we wanna say? 

they’re wary of each other because both their unicorns specialize in high power/strength so they’re like, more directly in competition?

are they going to engage in the RUA equivalent of a twitter fight??? in a publicity stunt that both of their agencies are putting on?

maybe snow has once insulted kehlani in an interview??? though it was fake/staged/scripted by her agency so she doesn’t actaully feel that way but ya know. doin it for the vine

and kehlani responds in kind, maybe at the behest of lazer, maybe not?. and it just keeps going???

but ya, marivana prob finds her personality kinda annoying so would generally avoid her unless kehlani approached first

Nyx - so like, snow probably thinks sol is way too flashy and all over the place, & does not engage her ever? she knows of the rumors of foul play, ofc, b/c who doesn’t, but she assumes that the rumors are super blown out of proportion (as rumors tend to be)?? and snow knows that if sol ever tries to target her/other ice world racers specifically, twilight will literally strong-arm lazer into dropping her. so she’s not that worried about that stuff????

definitely thinks her razor-sharp precision with U-800 is something to be admired, though, even if it’s not the flashiest skill like dressage or speed

OMG LOL spoiler alert but the 2nd event is a race on lava world, so they’re all on the main LW training/practice facilities in the days leading up to the race???? and we TOTALLY need to have them do that weirdly super aggressive staredown/pre-game smack talk sesh that they do in super extra sports anime LOL

Widowmaker - snow’s heard of her, knows of her, has competed against her, but since they both tend to keep to themselves they haven’t really talked? it could be potentially cool if eleni guessed about/found out about what actually happened with marivana’s 1st unicorn?? OMG DRAMA but what if she actually knew of the armed thief? who was on ice world for whatever reason lmfao we can hand-wave it. bonus points if she’s pissed that 1st unicorn killed the person?????????? lol

and it could be POTENTIALLY FUN to write a scene with them where eleni basically calls her out on the fact that, yeah marivana fucking hates twilight for deactivating the first unicorn so why tf does she still race for them/earn them so much money???

also marivana has literally no retirement plans atm so.....i have NO FREAKING IDEA if this would ever be possible or not, but if she somehow?? gets involved? with the people who wanna fuck up TEF govt for not giving a single shit about black hole ??? ? ??? ?? thru eleni????????//

idk dude feel free to just be like “lmao alicia that would never happen” if it feels too OOC!!! it’s also like 4 am & i’m only half coherent so ;D

but i literally have no idea in what context the calling out would be in!!! maybe if marivana saw some top sekrit info that eleni might have access to and was like “i won’t tell anyone at TWILIGHT if you tell me why you have this”? and eleni is like *eyeroll* “not like u have any reason to like ur agency”

Taglist: @ayzrules @bebemoon @jay-swagsby @filthysoulls @shiftyprincess @kzombi3 @now-on-elissastillstands

[dxmedstudent]

Dx’s Dating Tips #4... the blurb.

I never got around to finishing these posts, but since I’ve been talking to friends trying to get into online dating, I’ve gone back to ranting about how people can do online dating better. Your blurb is your personal statement for getting an ‘interview’ with a prospective partner, so treat it exactly like one.

Start with a good opener. Mine was probably something jaunty and fun about working in healthcare, but yours doesn’t have to be. It just has to catch people’s attention; if you can think of something witty or funny, this tends to be a good place to put it. A good start profile feels like you’re reading a fun anecdote on here, or an interesting article; it feels full of promise.

Punctuate and use a spell checker. This might be a personal prejudice of mine; I don’t care how tall a guy is or how much he weighs, but I do care that he writes legibly. If I’m potentially going to be spending weeks, months or even the rest of my life messaging a guy, his words had better not drive me to distraction. You’d think this is hyperbole, but having flicked through probably thousands of profiles, a surprising number are... really painful to read.  I wouldn’t recommend formulating your profile as bullet points. It’s great for sites where there isn’t much of a blurb allowed, but if you have space to write a decent paragraph, do it. Your personality shines much more through prose than through lists.

Take people through some of your hobbies; what do you do that makes you happy, and what do you enjoy about it? This doesn’t need to be detailed, but is probably the most useful part of your profile because your hobbies and interests are something people can really engage with, and forms part of why we might see ourselves dating someone. Everyone likes going out for dinner (but also nights in with a film), so try to think of something a little different. I wanted to focus on the things I enjoyed that are more uniquely me me- photography, art, cute animals, DnD, etc. If you have unusual hobbies, that’s a bonus. Well, it is to me, because I’m a nerd and like attracts like, and this is my advice. But really, it makes you stand out from all the people who list ‘eating out’ and ‘watching TV’ as hobbies, as if we don’t all do that. If you’re not comfortable talking about all your hobbies, that’s OK, but the more of yourself you share, the more likely to attract someone similar. I definitely wanted my hobbies to be part of my profile, because I wanted people who accept my interests, or even better: share them. Nobody wants to date someone who thinks their interests are uncool or annoying or something they have to put up with. It definitely made for interesting talking points, and attracting people with lots of stuff in common.

If I mention something, I use examples; something exciting about a book I enjoyed lately, But importantly, I also talked a little about what I find exciting about each of these things. That makes the blurb more than a list of things I do (which my profile already has), and says something about me as a person. It makes things a lot more dynamic than just lists of things that someone likes.  This also stops your profile from falling into  ‘same profile’ territory. 

Most profiles read very similarly, so try to avoid stock phrases and cliches. I can’t tell you how many men love travelling, value their family and friends,  want a “partner in crime” or a “soulmate” or “the one”. More than one wants their “lobster”. How many men “like to go out but also stay in with a takeaway and a film” and “no longer go out clubbing much any more”, and how many are “shy until you get to know me, so bear with me” but appreciate “good banter”. I just got so tired reading these phrases because profiles start to look alike when you leaf through lots of them. And don’t even think about ‘borrowing’ profiles you’ve found online.

This is also why you should keep the obvious to a minimum, because writing about things that apply to everyone absolutely doesn’t narrow things down at all. The people who are reading your blurb want to know what is different about you; whether your weirdness will fit with their weirdness. If your personality, sense of humor and way of life are compatible with theirs. I never explicitly mention I love my family and friends; because that’s widely expected. That’s not even including on all the people who only list their interests as ‘sometimes eating out, watching TV, going to the cinema and listening to music’. Which are all fine, but everyone loves doing those things, so on their own they do not make up a decent profile.

Do your best not to give readers dating profile fatigue. I might be labouring the point here, but when you look over many profiles, it quickly becomes maddeningly evident just how repetitive most of them are. This was one of the most frustrating parts of online dating; you want to flick through profiles until you find someone that fits your criteria (gender, age, etc), looks OK and whose blurb sparks your interest. And obviously, dating sites are an artificial creation; we never really evolved to have the choice out of thousands of people for potental mates. It’s a dizzying level of choice that our brains can struggle to comprehend. But when you’re looking for something; a spark of personality, a sign of common interests, or perhaps an unusual hobby that catches the eye and makes someone seem intriguing, it can be pretty disheartening when it feels like you’re reading the same few profiles over and over again.

Include ideas for how people can start a conversation with you; at various points of your profile blurb. I got this tip online, and honestly it’s probably the best tip out of all the ones that I found, because it definitely yielded results. It can be really intimidating to write to people, so it helps to make your profile a bit more approachable. For example, after talking about books I liked, I asked for book recommendations, or a good song, and after talking about unusual museums, I asked for recommendations a cool cafe or museum they think I might like. It was also great because I could tell that some guys had actually read my profile and engaged with it. When someone writes a long interesting well-thought out reply, it starts really interesting conversations, and is such a nice experience. I also got messaged by people who clearly hadn’t read my profile, had no idea what I was looking for or if we were compatible, and just messaged on a whim because (presumably) they thought I was hot. Though

Spend a bit of your profile describing what you love about your job; they don’t need to know the details, but it’s really attractive to see someone passionate about what they do. What job you do in exact terms is not important. It’s nice to put just enough detail so people get the flavour of what you do, because it makes conversation easier. But technical or jargon-filled descriptions are not interesting in a profile; otehr people aren’t going to understand the intricacies of your job, and explaining the highs and lwos tends to be much more entertaining when you do it in real life. 

Dating advice websites suggest that you should write about what you want in a person, but really, I don’t believe in writing a long list of attributes you want. The longer the list, the more demanding you’ll seem, and the more offputting it will be. People want to be able to imagine themselves with people whose profiles they are admiring, but it’s pretty hard to do that if they have to sit there and ponder if they meet your long list of criteria. People feel self-consious enough when online dating, they don’t want to feel like you are judging them before they’ve even messaged you. I wrote only a very simple one-sentence summary of what I wanted, and most of it was ‘tell me a bit about yourself so we can see if we’d have fun together’. I didn’t think writing a list of things I wanted would help at all; the kinds of men I don’t want wouldn’t read it, anyway.

On a related note, please don’t just list a bunch of things you don’t want in a person, it never reflects well on you, even if what you’re asking for is perfectly reasonable. Sometimes people list an entire bunch of negative attributes they don’t want a date to have, but I personally think that is an incrediblly negative way to go about selling yourself. When we read dating profiles, we want to focus on the fun and the excitement of meeting a potentially new person. I also wouldn’t list things that most people expect as standard. Sure, you don’t want bots, cheaters, people who steal or gold-diggers, but that holds true for most people. By mentioning things like that in your profile, you risk making it look like that’s all you attract, to the point that you have to make announcements about it on your profile. If people are dishonest, and want to scam you or cheat, they aren’t going to stop just because your profile says you don’t like that sort of thing, so it’s basically pointless. The only thing it’ll probably do is put off people who are nice but might wonder what kind of person has to waste half their profile telling all sorts of undesirables to stay away. It’s definitely the wrong focus to put on your profile. People aren’t on your profile to read about themselves, but to read about you and decide if they want to date you; it’s an advert for you. You get to decide if you like them when you read their profile.

Don’t dwell on things that might be seen as negatives or very private; be honest about divorces, kids, geographical distance, having a busy job because these are a big part of yor life, and potential dealbreakers for others. But be careful that they don’t dominate your blurb. If you dwell on heavy topics, it will be harder for people to see you as fun and positive. I say this as someone with their own struggles, and a busy job, who had to make these things clear early on when meeting people. On a dating site, people will first view you exactly as you present yourself; so use it wisely. I’ve read profiles that start with “I just got divorced, lost my job, I have three kids, lost my car, and I have mental health problems”. It’s important to be honest about all these things early on, but don’t lead with them, because that can give a pretty unbalanced view of who you are. Your job on a dating site isn’t to self-stigmatise by focusing on the things you are most insecure about, it’s to present your best side, but be honest about other aspects. Some information is useful early on, because it can be a dealbreaker for people early on (previous marriages, kids, etc), but it is important that your profile isn’t overcome with it. These things are just aspects of who you are.

Whilst we’re at it, don’t disparage online dating in your online dating profile. It isn’t clever, and it isn’t funny. No, I don’t “want to pretend we met at a library”; I’m happy to tell people I met the person I’m seeing online, because I’m a big girl who can go out there to look for something if I want it, and I’m not ashamed to admit that’s what I did. What’s shameful about that? I looked at probably thousands of profiles, engaged with some decent people and met someone I liked and had a lot in common with. How is that worse than hooking up whilst drunk at a bar? Or dating someone because they are one of the few single people you’ve met lately?  Why would I want to date someone who paints looking for someone as inherently shameful, or clearly finds the entire process distasteful? Or even worse, the people who just complain in their profile about online dating in general like “I hate dating sites”, “This never works for me” “Let’s see if this site is any different, I never have success on these things!”. People don’t join a dating site to talk to people who are convinced it won’t work and who spend more time complaining about online dating than trying to meet people. I get it, it can be a stressful experience; we all need to rant sometimes. But save the ranting for your friends and your tumblr, not for your dating CV!

I usually recommend honesty. But you absolutely don’t need to write about why you’ve started dating now in detail.  “I used to  be a party animal, but now my friends are all married/friends and family keep telling me to get married/I’m getting old/I can’t get laid any more so I decided the time is right to find someone” is not flattering for you to write about yourself. People want to believe you’re looking to find something special because you feel the time is right and because you desire intimacy, rather than that you’re settling for them out of convenience or because you’re being nagged into it. People want someone who is dating them to be enthusiastic about the idea. You shouldn’t sound like you’e dating out of a a grudging fear of being alone, your friends have all paired off so you have nothing else to do with your time, or because it’s harder to find casual sex now that you’re older. And yet, I’ve read quite a few profiles that unwittingly paint these kinds of images of their owner. It’s honest, but it might be a bit too raw for something that’s meant to be an advert for yourself.

I don’t believe in writing lots of sappy filler about how you want ‘true love’ or ‘a partner to spend forever with’ etc. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with wanting a life partner, or yearning for a deep, meaningful and fulfilling relationship. It’s that a good blurb keeps redundant waffle to a minimum. Your profile should absolutely list if you’re interested in a relationship, believe in marriage etc. So there’s no need to write entire paragraphs about how much you want true love. It risks giving the impression of being lonely and needy, but it also looks like you’re more worried about finding someone, anyone, than finding someone compatible.

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2019 Part 4: That’s all, folks.

Over already? This is a pretty thin season with not a lot of shows, so it’s not that surprising that there’s not many good ones either. Still, a weak showing. Oh well, let’s get it over with. There were a few decent ones in the last batch.

Circlet Princess

What: Dimwitted schoolgirl is good at some vaguely defined virtual fighting sport, changes school based on it, finds out relevant club has been abolished. Forecast says: 5 member plot incoming.

❌ I think it’s already clear this show isn’t very ambitious, and not very well written either. A game adaptation at its laziest.

❌❌ Man, this girl is STUPID. What the hell.

❌ The rest of the cast are less stupid (which isn’t hard), but that just means they’re so forgettable they might as well not exist.

❌❌ It looks cheap, and by that I mean really really cheap. The character design is ISO standard anime and it’s mostly on model, but that’s as good as it gets. The animation just sucks. That’s a death sentence for an action/sports show with terrible characters.

Bermuda Triangle - Colorful Pastrale

What: Japanese Spongebob, as in cute mermaids. Doing things optional.

❌ To make this quick, this is almost exactly Pastel Memories, only every problem is just a little less extreme. It has fewer characters, it’s looking slightly better, there’s a tiny bit more going on, the setting is mildly more interesting. That still means it is:

❌❌ 1. A boring mess in which a handful of samey girls do nothing of much interest in a location that should be unique, but isn’t.

❌❌ 2. Conspicuously cheap. It even has the same sightline problems.

❌❌ 3. Featuring a character model sheet that is “off” even under the best circumstances. This time due to the very offputting decision to give everyone blobby triangular irises.

❌❌ Unlike Pastel Memories (which was an ad for a mobile game) this is an anime original, so it really has no excuse being this lame.

♎ I find it amusing that Pastel Palettes are providing the OP for an anime, and it’s not the one currently airing that they’re actually characters in.

Endro~!

What: Kiraralike comedy thing in a generic JRPG setting.

♎ Namori character designs, so it’s like Spyce in that it just seems like the Yuru Yuri cast cosplaying a genre. But hey, Namori character designs do look good.

❌ I’m not as done with generic JRPG settings as with generic isekai settings, but it’s still a real problem since the former is now a subset of the latter. Mildly making fun of it does not improve things much either.

✅ The tone is cutesy and pleasant. I find this much preferable to something like Mahoujin Guru Guru, which is pretty much the same thing but with abrasive, high-intensity slapstick instead.

✅ It’s backing that up with generally high-quality, agreeable pastel looks.

❌ Not being annoying is a start, but beyond that this seems very middle of the road and predictable. I don’t get much out of the genre “parody” and simply being cute is still not an unique selling point in anime.

Grimms Notes The Animation

What: Did someone say JRPG? This is a mobile one, vaguely based on fairy tales as the title implies.

✅ This universe runs on the idea that every NPC’s fate is controlled by a preset story they’re aware of. You could make a good story about that if you took it seriously. It even does that somewhat, but only to the degree that you’d expect from a throwaway sidequest in a moderately well-written JRPG.

❌ And the reason for that is that it has to make room for being a JRPG, of course. Read: It’s irritatingly mechanics- and combat-focused. Stuff like the characters changing form when in fights just seems overly complicated and adds nothing.

❌ Said combat looks competent, but not good enough to make up for detracting from what could have been an interesting setting. Merc Storia did this aspect far better (by usually not doing it at all).

❌ So it ends up being better than expected, but then that only amounts to a disappointment.

Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai / Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

What: Kaguya and Miyuki are in the student council of a prestigious school and HATE HATE HATE each other. Specifically, they hate the part where the other one won’t just finally admit their love.

✅ The joke here is that it’s operating on full intensity at all times, over the most simple matters. It’s pretty much Kaiji, only about dating - complete with hammy narrator. This is another one of those shows where I can’t say with certainty that it’s solid, but I had a blast during the first episode.

✅ Regarding Quintuplets, I made it clear that I love me some sparks in my romantic comedies. It doesn’t get much more explosive than this.

✅ The characters are comparable to Quints too: Smart scheming upstart vs. rich scheming ojou, with a simpleminded girl in the middle that ends up winning more often than not simply by not overdoing it.

✅ The visuals are just as over the top as the proceedings depicted. Occasionally a filter massacre, but mostly cool.

♎ The long-term viability of this show depend entirely on whether they can consistently come up with scenarios that work, which isn’t a given. Also, this is so intense it might become tiresome - I already felt some fatigue towards the end of the first episode. We’ll see, I guess.

Kakegurui ××

What: Some weirdos think they can crash the party at Hyakkaou with an intent to scare the daylights out of Yumeko and Midari, of all people. Let’s just say they were not as prepared as they thought.

✅ As you might have guessed by me watching the sequel, I liked Kakegurui. It has its problems, but if you’re down for some crazypants madness, this show delivers.

✅ This is one of the better episodes of it too, because it gets right into it and the game they play is dead simple. Kakegurui was never about smart moves or strong characters, so not having anything detract from our girls deriving the entirely wrong sort of pleasure from danger is a plus.

♎ Sadly, the OP is a step down (though still great) and the ED is simply an inferior, overcomplicated version of the magnificent original one. They seem to know this too, because they play the OP cut of Deal with the Devil in its entirety for a montage. The rest of the production is on par with the original though, so it’s fiiiine. Oh well.

❌ It got Netflix’d again and the subs situation is dire. Since this is one I actually like, I might have to wait for the official release.

Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai / The Magnificent Kotobuki

What: Piston-engined fighter plane pornography.

✅ This delivers where Girly Air Force failed: Close to zero exposition, the majority of the episode is just planes dogfighting with barely any talking either. And that part is executed really well. I think the plane startup sequence alone is as long as the total of Girly’s airtime.

✅ Guess what, it’s Tsutomu Mizushima, previously known for unbridled panzer (und girls) pornography, and boy can you tell. However, this cuts out a lot of GuP’s bullshit: A plane doesn’t have the cast of K-ON in it, it’s not over-the-top zany, and whatever this universe is, it can’t be as insipid as GuP’s. The classy milwank exists you guys, we found it.

✅✅ The music really helps here, sky pirates vs zeppelins just wouldn’t work without some classic swashbuckling orchestra background. Fat sound mixing on the dakka too. It’s great.

♎ Can’t really say much about the narrative because we kinda skipped that in this episode aside from the obvious, but Mizushima’s Shirobako collaborator Michiko Yokote is writing it, and that’s a good sign.

❌ Now we’re getting to the elephant in the room though: There’s no way the planes wouldn’t be CG in 2019, but the characters are CG too, and their animation is mediocre. Also, they did the KADO thing where they 2D-animated the side characters that aren’t important enough to model. This has the funny side effect that you can tell who’s going to die real soon by them looking better. It’s far from great, but probably a worthy tradeoff if the mechanical side is this extensive and also delivers.

✅ This is definitely not for everyone, since you have to have more than a casual appreciation for those magnificent girls in their flying machines. I do, though.

revisions

What: A chunk of Shibuya gets teleported to the dystopian future, local doomsday prepper gets handed a large robot because he’s special.

❌ A Goro Taniguchi joint being a poorly conceived scifi mess? Say it ain’t so! I especially dig the tryhard English jargon (mecha: “String Puppet”, monsters faction: “Revisions”, particular monster, I think?: “Civilian”, tacticool operetah: “Balancer”).

❌ Works very hard to characterize the main character, to the detriment of everyone else. A for effort, but you made an unlikeable asshole though.

❌ This is another full CG show, with the quality of the animation being curiously variable. Sometimes it’s well above average and sometimes it’s painful. There doesn’t seem to be much method to it.

✅ Tries to establish stakes by being mondo edgy and graphically murderizing some poor bystanders. It’s adorable.

❌ If you’re really jonesing for some mecha, you can watch all of this on Netflix right now. It’s not like you have any alte- wait, Egao no Daika has mecha too. Well there you go then. That’s a better show.

[rosies-batim-blog]

Android Henry Chat

This is the chat that outlined most of the ideas for the Android Henry AU and while a number of little details have stayed the same, a lot of them have also been changed.

If you want to know what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, or want to see a particular scene/idea drawn up, let me know!!!

Rose-cut Strawberry: I know this channel was probably more for RP crossovers, and I don't know much about the game Connorbot came from, but this idea for an AU of some form is really appealing to me.

http://doberart.tumblr.com/post/176386160693/this-was-the-first-idea-that-came-to-mind-for-a

https://amazingaliah.tumblr.com/post/178072662434/just-a-little-batim-and-dbh-crossover

I really like the questioning of what makes someone "human" in stories with Cyborgs or Androids. Best examples, all Megaman comics/manga and the many versions of the Cyborg 009 series Even if we don't play with this as an RP, can we play with it as an AU?? Henry being and Android, but still being the Creator for the Toons?

Adopt-A-Fusion: that would be fun

Rose-cut Strawberry: Yeah, I want to talk more about this (and learn a bit more about the Detroit Androids in the process) so can we talk about it?

Adopt-A-Fusion: maybe after work or tomorrow, gotta lotta other stuff to juggle atm

Rose-cut Strawberry: kk @anyone I know Mango finds this idea interesting, anyone else?

❤'s The Heart: I like it!

Rose-cut Strawberry: I still wanna brainstorm this but I Mango isn't on yet and I don't know enough about Cyberlife Androids to start by myself.

❤'s The Heart: Yeah same ^^;

Rose-cut Strawberry: I read the wiki article for Cyberlife, but it mostly talked about the company. Holy shit, Conner can die a lot in his game. And for a lot of different reasons I have no words for that.

❤'s The Heart: Well then

Rose-cut Strawberry: I’m reading the wiki and holy shit can he die a lot. There are, like, four different ways he can die in just the first chapter

Adopt-A-Fusion: cyberlife androids are basically walking talking amazon alexas.  i recommend watching gameplay of the game to do research, jacksepticeye had a great run

❤'s The Heart: I keep meaning to ^^;

Rose-cut Strawberry: One thing I want to see is Henry completely missing the social/emotional cue for something and needing to have it explained to him.

❤'s The Heart: You just described me and that sounds adorable

Rose-cut Strawberry: For one idea for this; Henry being a Deviant and having to leave the country to escape being deactivated as why he left the studio. Like, possibly Joey hiring/commissioning him from Cyberlife as an extra animator.  Which is actually the starting point of the studio's financial problems, but Joey had thought the amount he could get Henry to work would make up for the amount of money spent to get him.

Adopt-A-Fusion: hhhhhyes

❤'s The Heart: PRECIOUS ROBOT MAN

Rose-cut Strawberry: But then he finds out Henry can actually be creative and decided he can exploit that since Henry can't actually be treated as a 'human' in terms of the legal jargon at the time.

❤'s The Heart: D: poor boy

Rose-cut Strawberry: But then Henry starts Deviating from his original programming limits (which made him 'friendly' but stunted in terms of interacting with his co-workers, good at running animation programs, and in possession of rather generic animation skills of his own) such as developing deeper connections with the humans in the studio, and even coming to understand that Joey is using him.  But, as an Android, there isn't really anything he can do.  Until he reaches the point where he does something that flys in the face of his programming.

❤'s The Heart: :0!! I LOVE THIS!!!

Rose-cut Strawberry: One of the things Androids aren't supposed to be able to do (generally) is fight or use weapons, so I want to say a fight of some kind happens and instead of sitting back and doing nothing, Henry ends up getting involved.

Adopt-A-Fusion: Henry being a custom made Android

❤'s The Heart: If conspiracy theorist Shawn was in this AU he would think Henry was human. He acts like everyone else is making crazy theories for once  What would that entail?

Rose-cut Strawberry: No, everyone is told from that start that Henry's an Android. The thing on his temple would make it kind of obvious. Shawn would be trying to figure out why Joey wanted and Android.

Adopt-A-Fusion: consider Henry being sort of a prototype for a speciality-type android, meaning a higher chance of programming errors and a greater chance of deviancy

Rose-cut Strawberry: Oooo~ I like that idea

❤'s The Heart: I still find the idea funny. Maybe Shawn was out sick on Henry's first day. He thinks Henry is just another employee

Rose-cut Strawberry: Then he spots the glowing circle on Henry's temple and is like "Holy shit"

Adopt-A-Fusion: and he's told "oh, we got a new Android" and he just starts theorizing that everyone but Henry is an android in disguise

Rose-cut Strawberry: pfft  Or "Drew is gonna replace us all with Androids!"

❤'s The Heart: Half of what's funny about him is he's oblivious as fuck. He doesn't notice for months  After ages of theorizing, he's talking to Henry about it and Henry points it out Shawn becoming really good friends with Henry while he thinks he's a human, or at least he considers them good friends, even if Henry's programming doesn't exactly allow him to make connections to the employees just yet

Rose-cut Strawberry: “What are you talking about Mr Flynn? I've always been an Android."

Adopt-A-Fusion: awwwwww yes

Rose-cut Strawberry: He's just "Is there anything else I can help you with Mr Flynn?"

❤'s The Heart: Shawn rambles at him all the time. He just thinks Henry is a good listener

Rose-cut Strawberry: Though, if we go with the "No one notices he's an Android" route, it could be that Shawn finds out Henry isn't getting paid and hunts down Grant to find out why their best animator isn't getting his damn checks. And then that's how everyone finds out.

❤'s The Heart: Shawn helps him escape when he has to leave the studio

Rose-cut Strawberry: YES  The fight, Henry gets involved when someone breaks into the studio while he and a few other employees are staying late.

❤'s The Heart: Where does Henry go when the studio is closed?

Rose-cut Strawberry: Oh, erm... Let's just go with Joey making a living space in the studio. (I don't think he'd pay to get Henry an apartment, and there was nothing in the Wiki's about Androids having their own places to live) anyways, someone breaks in and turns out to be pretty violent when he finds out he's not alone.

❤'s The Heart: :0

Rose-cut Strawberry: Henry gets dismissed because his uniform marks him as an android and therefore a non-threat, but Grant (the guy running financing and probably in possession of the keys to the safe), Shawn, and Norman are a very different story. So the fight breaks out, and the thief is armed which makes him dangerous

❤'s The Heart: Shawn gets hit pretty bad and something just snaps and Henry attacks the thief

Rose-cut Strawberry: Henry lashes out with a 2x4 and conks the guy upside the head. HARD

❤'s The Heart: Later Shawn jokes around saying how good a friend Henry is if he'd override his programming for him

Rose-cut Strawberry: Probably But, defence of another human or no, Henry still deviated from his programming and attacked a human. But it gets convoluted from there. On one hand; he saved someone's life On another; He attacked someone

❤'s The Heart: Poor guy :(

Rose-cut Strawberry: And he panics a little (again, not something an Android should be capable of) because Deviating can lead to Deactivation

❤'s The Heart: Save him

Rose-cut Strawberry: That's kind of what Shawn and the others end up doing. They help get things in order for Henry to leave the country for one with less stringent laws towards Androids.

❤'s The Heart: Comfort the robot

Rose-cut Strawberry: Joey only finds out what happened after the fact. By then Joey has noticed that Henry was becoming a Deviant but never did anything about it because he was getting even better work out of him. And he is not happy when he finds out Henry has left. But he would have been just as displeased if Cyberlife had Deactivated him. Joey gets curious about just how human Androids are becoming, and that leads into the magic stuff (but possibly more cyberpunk than in-game)

❤'s The Heart: Ooo

Rose-cut Strawberry: Henry flounders for a good long while, since he's so used to having orders and jobs, and isn't really sure of what to do with himself. I supposed this could be when Linda shows up for sure, who can be a graphic designer looking for help. She doesn't expect an Android to be one of her applicants but finds he's actually pretty good and gives him the job.

❤'s The Heart: Aww :)

Rose-cut Strawberry: Fast forward 20 to 30 years and Henry gets the Letter (and yes, it needs to be capitalized)

❤'s The Heart: Of course, it does!   It's important

Rose-cut Strawberry: Henry is feeling safe enough to come back (laws and policies have changed), so he decides he's overdue for a visit to his friends if they still live near the studio. The studio had closed down due to debt and "mysterious circumstances" but he thought that at least a few of his old coworkers probably still lived in the area.  He has no idea what he's walking into

❤'s The Heart: D’:

Rose-cut Strawberry: MANGO WHAT DO YOU THINK SO FAR?

❤'s The Heart: this is so goooood

Adopt-A-Fusion: I LOVE IT

Rose-cut Strawberry: YAY I fully admit that I picture the aesthetic being a lot like Doberart's Rise of Bendy AU f*ck, I don't know how to continue Seriously I don't know how to continue, someone give me an idea. Please

❤'s The Heart: Sorry ^^;

Rose-cut Strawberry: Here's a thought, how do the rest of the staff feel about their Android coworker? What do you guys think?

Adopt-A-Fusion: some people are probably indifferent, at least one person is a dick about it

Rose-cut Strawberry: Possibly two of them. I want Bertrum to be one, he just very set in treating Henry as a machine or an appliance. Wally kinda likes him, because if he asks Henry is willing to help him out with stuff.

❤'s The Heart: Ooo yes

Rose-cut Strawberry: What about others, we already decided Shawn likes him

❤'s The Heart: Sammy is indifferent

Rose-cut Strawberry: Yes, he doesn't mind the Android, but he doesn't hate him either. He just focusses on his work Pre-Deviant; there are a lot of coworkers who are indifferent because they find androids unsettling but have no real reason to hate them.

❤'s The Heart: Wally is one of those at first, but Henry grows on him

Rose-cut Strawberry: Like I said, he comes to like him because Henry is always willing to help when asked. What about Susie? Or Thomas? Or even Norman?

❤'s The Heart: Thomas is indifferent. He's indifferent about everyone Norman likes him

Rose-cut Strawberry: Any ideas for Susie?

Adopt-A-Fusion: I don’t know :(

Rose-cut Strawberry: Norman thinks he's a nice guy, even if he's an android. They chat with each other at times. Thomas sees him as a machine, but he generally likes machines, so he treats Henry about the same as he treats normal people. But he also makes sure the studio is stocked with stuff to help Henry if he gets injured or needs to refill his "blood" levels (they have a term for the special blue fluids used for android blood but I can't remember it right now) Susie... Let's go with her mostly avoiding Henry.

❤'s The Heart: She's a bit creeped out

Rose-cut Strawberry: Like the fact that he doesn't emote as much as a human bothers her, but she doesn't really hate him or be rude. So she tries to just avoid him. Which is fairly easy since they work in different sections of the studio. Grant has a stronger dislike of Henry, but it's not as much about him being an android and more because of how much Joey ended up using of the studio's budget to buy him. But the way he treats is more Begrudging then honestly hostile.  Eventually, he appreciates having Henry around when the android offers to help him with paperwork (computer brains are helpful for long and complicated math equations) Should Allison be working at the studio at this time? Not as Alice's Voice Actor but maybe just another female voice actor at the studio?

❤'s The Heart: Sure, why not I love the stuff with Grant

Rose-cut Strawberry: Allison is one of those people who finds androids fascinating. Like, with how close they can emulate humans She goes out of her way to talk to Henry, sometimes throwing out non-sequesters just to see how he'll respond. She supports the idea of Androids getting more rights but is quiet about it since it's not a very popular opinion.

❤'s The Heart: Shawn asks him questions all the time about being an android

Rose-cut Strawberry: A lot of them boil down to "I don't really know, that's just how I was programmed" or "You would have to check Cyberlife's policies for that." A lot of employees are of the opinion that Henry is a good robo-boy. A lot of them are mostly indifferent towards Android, but Henry's programming results in him growing on them after a while.

❤'s The Heart: More than half of the employees: PROTECC

Rose-cut Strawberry: I don't know about more than half, but definitely a good percentage of them don't want bad things to happen to their android

❤'s The Heart; A good percentage of the employees: PROTECC

Rose-cut Strawberry: I want to say Henry gets hurt at least once in the studio, enough to end up spooking the others pretty bad.

❤'s The Heart: YES

Rose-cut Strawberry: @Adopt-A-Fusion We need a scenario for an injured Android Animator, and ideas?

Adopt-A-Fusion: nope

Rose-cut Strawberry: drat.

❤'s The Heart: An accident of some sort

Rose-cut Strawberry: Yes, but the question is what? There's no ink machine at that time, otherwise, I'd say something involving the equipment for it.

❤'s The Heart: a pipe exploding maybe Not like an ink pipe, just a regular one

Rose-cut Strawberry: Or a falling project- no, tech's different the projectors would be too light to do any serious damage. Wait, Bertrum's here He uses major equipment for the theme park stuff. (he has too)

❤'s The Heart: Yes!

Rose-cut Strawberry: So maybe something comes loose when Henry is dragged off to help with something and hits him. It doesn't do enough to "kill" him, but it ends up doing some pretty heavy damage. Which takes another huge chunk from the Studio's finances, but everyone who actually likes Henry is too worried about the android's condition to be too bothered by it. Grant is worried too, but also rips into Bertrum because "What if that had been a human employee?! It would have killed them! Do you have any idea what a lawsuit would have done to us?!"

❤'s The Heart: Poor Hen needs repairs

Rose-cut Strawberry: That's where Lacie becomes really helpful (previously she treated Henry like he was a person who just had trouble connecting with people), she knows all the technical jargon to get the shit that’s needed to fix Henry and what to do to get him stable while they waited for it to be ready.

❤'s The Heart: :D

Rose-cut Strawberry: A lot of the employees tear into Bertrum, since the accident was due to him lapsing in safety protocols, which means anyone who had been at the sight had been at risk of being injured. And androids could take more damage then a human, so if Henry was that injured, it would have been outright lethal to a human. Can we talk more about the relationship between Joey and Android Hen

❤'s The Heart: YES PLEASE

Rose-cut Strawberry: I don't really know where to go with that, other than needing the relationship between the two to seem well enough (to Henry) to justify Joey writing "Your old pal" in the letter, while still leaving him scummy enough to justify disliking him. Henry didn't become a deviant because he was being abused by his... Owner (i guess), he became one because he was ready and willing to protect his coworkers who had (probably) been slowly affecting his programming by just treating him like a person and encouraging him to be more like them.

❤'s The Heart: :)

Rose-cut Strawberry: I need an idea for shit that would seem nice to an Android, but be seen as really deceitful/scummy to a human.

❤'s The Heart: I suppose being given a place to live, but it's just like a closet or something

Rose-cut Strawberry: A former storage room in the studio. (so literally never leaves the studio)

❤'s The Heart: Yep Poor guy :(

Rose-cut Strawberry: But he doesn't know any better, because he's an Android that's basically fresh out of the shop and Joey is the one who purchased him and is, therefore, his "owner" He's literally a "possession" in the eyes of the law. But Joey doesn't really treat him badly.  Like how people can get attached to their stuff (like Roombas) and treat them like little people while still seeing them as a possession. Henry gets treated fairly well, but not really as a person.

❤'s The Heart: More like a cute little pet, or a child

Rose-cut Strawberry: Pretty much, yeah.

❤'s The Heart: The fact that the employees treat him differently is a bit confusing to him

Rose-cut Strawberry: He is very confused by it. But does his best to keep working.

❤'s The Heart: Eventually, he starts to realize he likes how the employees treat him more

Rose-cut Strawberry: But just the fact that he was making those choices showed that he was starting to deviate. Android's aren't supposed to feel anything. 'Pain' was the only exception since it warned if something in their systems was damaged, but even then it only showed up if they actually were hurt.

❤'s The Heart: Hence why it takes him a while to start feeling that way To start feeling at all

Rose-cut Strawberry: It starts with him doing something because he wants to. A very minor thing that Joey never really noticed or paid attention to at the time. Like Ooo~ Like putting a Cutout in the corner he works in. He has no real reason for it. He just wants it there. Joey thinks he's using it as a spare reference, or to make his desk seem more comfortable to other workers. But no. It's there because he decided he wanted it there.

❤'s The Heart: PRECIOUS BOY

Rose-cut Strawberry: He amasses a collection of knickknacks from around the studio. A broken/improperly made clock he decided to fix

❤'s The Heart: A magpie robot

Rose-cut Strawberry: A plush toy that was accidentally made the wrong color (or a prototype/concept toy Shawn may have given him) Yes, he basically starts out as a Magpie Those are the signs of him becoming Deviant. But they're so... not noticeable

❤'s The Heart: Hhhh i need to watch this gaaame

Rose-cut Strawberry: No one even realizes it's happening

❤'s The Heart: Not even Henry

Rose-cut Strawberry: Henry has at least one toy of Bendy, Boris, and Alice; A trio of Butcher Gang toys (since Joey scrapped the idea of making official toys of them); a couple posters where the images and colors were offset during printing; the clock... OH, the others notice the slight magpie-ness, but they think it's something closer to "Make sure things are kept for the future" Shawn is the only one thinking he's becoming Deviant. It's the only time he's ever been right. He brings in a fold-up bookcase thingy so that Henry can display some of his knickknacks. Shawn gets it as a present during Christmas or something.

❤'s The Heart: Aww :') Consider: the employees treating Henry's first day as his birthday

Rose-cut Strawberry: No, they ask him what day he was actually activated and that becomes his birthday.

❤'s The Heart: Yes!! Presents for the boy!! Shawn is the first one to see him smile and he teases him about how cute it is for a week

Rose-cut Strawberry: No one who wants to get him a gift is sure what to give, and Shawn ends up 'leading the charge' so to speak. Henry just sort of blinks at the teasing at first because he doesn't really know what embarrassment is.

❤'s The Heart: He gets lots of little knickknacks

Rose-cut Strawberry: Weird thought for Shawn to ask when he sees Henry drinking Thirium (the blue stuff that's basically blood for androids) Shawn; "So... Do androids count as some kind of weird-arse techno vampires then? I mean, technically speaking, you're basically drinking your own blood." Henry; "I... Am not sure how to answer that. This is just how I top off the levels of Thirium in my body."

❤'s The Heart: Their friendship is the greatest it makes me so happy QuQ

Rose-cut Strawberry: It's kinda like Shawn and Toon!Wally's tbh Only without the psycho-vivisecting Joey.

❤'s The Heart: Yes!

Rose-cut Strawberry: Wally asks questions like to. Once he gets used to Henry, he's actually really curious about how he works. Wally; "So, since yer blood is blue, does that mean you if could blush, yer face would turn blue-tinted?" Henry; "Possibly. Though, as an Android, there really isn't anything in my systems that would cause an irregularity in my thirium levels that would equate to a 'blush', as you call it.." (Sorry androids seem to be science-sy and formal in their speech/answers so I keep having to take a moment to think about how, exactly, Henry would respond.) For the longest time, Henry doesn't understand sarcasm. He answers everything with complete seriousness.

❤'s The Heart: I love how he talks It's adorable

Rose-cut Strawberry: Ooo~ Idea He learns how to recognize and understand sarcasm from Sammy. Just by listening and watching him.

❤'s The Heart: Yes absolutely He never quite understands it entirely

Rose-cut Strawberry: Oh, there's an idea, Android Henry is one of those non-Cyberlife Androids. Which means he was/could have meant that he was more likely to deviate than any Cyberlife Androids.

❤'s The Heart: Oh neat Joey wanted an android, Grant said they couldn't afford it, their compromise was getting a knock-off

Rose-cut Strawberry: But it still took a big chunk out of their budget.

Goof Noir: I JUST READ THIS I LOVE IT SM

Rose-cut Strawberry: Thank you!

❤'s The Heart: :D :D

Rose-cut Strawberry: Deep breath  The more I think about it, the more the idea of Henry being an Android could actually fit the game. Like, in the game, Henry seems to always need to have a mission/task of some kind as he goes. And he keeps count of all the tasks given to him (like the gears and ink globs) And he has little notifications when he completes tasks, even without Alice talking to him. I know those are all just normal game mechanics, but they could be incorporated into an Android really easily.

❤'s The Heart: :0 I love it

Rose-cut Strawberry: And Henry being able to "see" missing machinery/piping/etc fits for that kind of 'construction" stuff appearing. Pre/Reconstruction. that's what I meant. More thoughts on Android Henry, it actually causes a certain amount of sense with Henry's "deaths" in game. All of the magic is built around humans, which he is not. So while he is affected by the ink it can't actually get hold over him like everyone else.

❤'s The Heart: Ooooo

Rose-cut Strawberry: The ink is like "What is this?? Is it person?? Is it thing?? Should I be trying to take this or should I be making shit like it???" (BC the ink seems to be able to actually create inanimate things/non-organic things just fine) Like the pipes and the radios and such. It only seems to have trouble making "living" things. And Android Henry, by the definition given by Joey, was not a "Living" thing.

❤'s The Heart: :0

Rose-cut Strawberry: Well, he's not made with flesh and blood; he doesn't have the organs found in humans and animals; he doesn't really need to sleep or eat (even if he goes into rest/sleep mode every once in a while to save power/kill time); he doesn't have any bone or cartilage in his make-up He's about as far from the make-up of his coworkers and the toons as one can get. Even if his appearance is hardly different from others. I kinda want to talk more about Android Henry, or even start writing for it, but I don't know what to talk about/start with...

❤'s The Heart: Same :( I wish I had ideas

Adopt-A-Fusion: id contribute but brain doesn’t want to dbh

Rose-cut Strawberry: It doesn't have to be strictly dbh, it could just be ideas for how the story would start out. I'd say the story would start after Henry got the actual letter, with the past stuff being done as flashbacks or stories. I feel like it would be best for Henry to have some kind of companion for this story... I would love to talk more about the Android Henry AU, but I have no idea what to do about it.

❤'s The Heart: Joey just... Shopping around for bootlegs is amazing

Rose-cut Strawberry: Hey guys, remember Android Henry? I DREW HIM

❤'s The Heart: I’VE MISSED HIM

Adopt-A-Fusion: Good boy

Rose-cut Strawberry: He's wearing his android jacket, but he ripped off/removed all the decals and such from it.

❤'s The Heart: I wish we could talk more about his au but I don't know much about dbh (other than apparently people hate it now??)  and I don't have any ideas

Rose-cut Strawberry: So? Who cares if we don't know shit about it, doesn't mean we can't play in the sandbox anyway. Besides, that's what reading Wikipedia synopsizes is for.

❤'s The Heart: Oh that's very true

Rose-cut Strawberry: Hnnnn... I ideas for stuff to draw for Android Henry, anyone have any? @here  Any have suggestions? I really want to make more art to show this AU off.

❤'s The Heart: I’m sorry I don't ^^; Sorry I meant to reply to this yesterday

Rose-cut Strawberry: Is okay. If something occurs to you, feel free to mention it.

[directionlessbuthappy]

Dawn of the Draugr: p1

In a pre-apocalyptic world, there is Elyse, a 21 year old woman who was going to community college in her small town in Northern California, working on biology and medicine courses. Doing what young adults are expected to do at her age. But her future spirals into uncertainty with a pandemic spreading across humanity. An illness which infects and shuts down the body, reanimating the brain and turning the person into something only seen in repetitive shitty movies and your nightmares. Being on her own, Elyse would have to lose her morality or sanity to survive. Maybe both. However, she may be able to keep them now that she’s found Alex Lothbrok and his brothers. Or, she may lose it even faster…

Modern AU: Alex H. Anderson x Reader 

Warnings: graphic violence, language, blood, death

Note: I kept the last name Lothbrok for the brothers to distinguish characters vs reality. I doubt they are anything like the characters (based on them for visual purposes) I’m writing, so I prefer to add an element of unrealism here to reiterate this as fiction. Cheers xo

Tagged: @missrobyn81

It wasn't a normal day.

Everyone likes to think when the world ends, it'll start out totally normal, and you'll have no idea what's happening or whats coming. You won't see it until its too late. People sell it that way for drama, for TV shows and the movies, but its not real. The truth is, you do see it. The warning signs are everywhere, but without someone telling you to run, you aren't sure if you should. People are like sheep; they don't know what to do without instruction. When the epidemic spread from South America and Asia, nobody here was worried. We had central America in our path, and a whole ocean separating us from Japan. It seemed like the black plague at first; killed massive amounts of people over the last two years. But since there were minimal cases of it here in the US, nobody was worried. 

For a while.

My family was split; my mom and I were alone most of my life. She married a man who already had two kids. I was an adult at that point, indifferent to the pairing but still living at home. Going to community college. Everything seemed normal despite everything we were seeing on the internet and on TV. Coverage of the epidemic was getting less and less clear as more people were panicking and packing up their things. Our whole neighborhood moved out in a week. Northern California felt safe enough, we hadn't had any sightings/cases of epidemic here. There was some in Texas, and Arizona...

One day after a phone call, my mom told me she was going with her husband to go get his kids. It was their week to visit us, and their mom wasn't comfortable driving on the roads with how crazy it was getting out there in Washington state, so my mom and her husband planned to go get them. I was in denial, in a way...not really considering how bad it was yet. it felt eerie, being home alone after that. Our little three bedroom, one story house on Sweedland Way felt like a mansion while I waited for my mom to come home. I'd stopped going to school; we'd got an email that class was out due to teacher shortages. Out, indefinitely. I remember when I got my first taste that it was all real, not some widespread panic about the cold.

I was sitting in the living room, checking through a few websites that hadn't posted in over a week. I was studying animal medicine in college (when I was still going) so I understood a lot of technical jargon when reading on the epidemic. All the articles and different notes on the contagion were unfinished; even Wikipedia was useless in explaining what it was. Most researchers first found it in South America, comparing the disease to a virus hiding behind the symptoms of bacterial infection...making it less concerning in its early stages. Researchers didn't catch on until about 6 months in, when more hospital staff were infected verses healthy. Infection was mostly caused by saliva, whether its ingested, gets in your eyes, or most commonly seen in the reports I found...you get bit. Like a rabies virus on cocaine, the disease ravages your system and fries pretty much everything...except your spinal cord and your motor function. The nervous system was preserved by the disease and regenerated itself; the body would be able to function, move, and respond to things like noise. But otherwise...

I didn't like to entertain the idea the dead could come back to life. That wasn't true, it was science fiction bullshit. Granted, I loved cheesy movies where the dead would rise, but that was all they were. Movies. If anything, these sick people were just very sick...maybe it was a new type of cancer, that was why it scared people so much.

I was wrong.

...

"See the sight lined up to the chest?"

"Yeah..."

"Shoot it."

"But I need to hit the head."

"I know Elyse. Take the shot."

I swallowed and pulled the trigger. The gun popped against my chest like a light bump, and the bullet went straight through the target's "neck." I was surprised.

"It aims high!"

"Bingo," Alex replied. "Its the only red sight we have. Jordan can't get the tilt quite right but it still works eh? Now aim at the neck."

I do so, trusting his word now more than before. I squeezed and the gun pops; the bullet hole in my target's head was clear. With a giddy squeal, I aimed to take another shot, but missed. Alex grinned from behind me, I knew this because when I turned he was already doing it. 

"Nice shot."

"Shut up," I replied, faintly hurt. He chuckled and outstretched his arm for the gun. I handed it over, safety on.

"Wanna try with the handguns?"

"Actually..." I whined. Holding my arm up to show off the bruise blooming on my tricep, Alex frowned slightly. "Can we take a break?"

"Sure punkin," he shrugged. I still took the time to roll my eyes at him before sitting down on a hay bail. Our little training field wasn't too far away from the house; Jordan and Marco could still see us from the second floor's porch. We were safe, mostly. The treeline that surrounded the house on the hill made me the most nervous, especially at night. Jordan called them "fight nights" for fun, but he was good at making others feel better. I could see right through it. Just like I could see them coming through the treeline every other night.

Sometimes it was just one, sometimes a pack of them. They traveled in groups pretty often. They're always so listless, walking like they were drunk and heavy and yet they weren't slow in their pace. They'd drag their feet, and although they were responsive to sound, it didn't seem like they understood anything. From the material I've read and studied in the last couple months the disease is as unpredictable as its victims. Sometimes you'd die in a week...sometimes it only took 24 hours. But if you got bit at all, you were fucked no matter how long it takes to die.

"Jordan's still not worried about the ammo?"

Alex shrugged, taking a mag and shoving it into the cartridge of his 47. "We have enough to get us through a month of assaults. You and Marco are the only ones worried."

"We have enough for a month of assaults with automatics, Alex. Our handguns are limited. They're attracted to noise, and we can't haul ass with ten pound metal death machines on our shoulders!"

"We'll be fine. If you're really that worried, go down the hunt shop on West 10th. They'll have something," he replied coily. I scowled at him.

"That's not funny."

"Was I laughing?"

"Alex!" I snarled. He had the sense to look a little upset, sighing once he realized he'd actually upset me.

"I'm kidding Lees," he muttered. "I'll go with you tomorrow. Would that make you happy?"

"Are you being sarcastic again?" I replied warily, buttoning my flannel up and down with the same button. Alex took a few shots, turning the head of one of our dummies into swiss cheese. He put so many holes in it the head actually fell off. It made us both chuckle.

"Do you want me to go on my own?"

"No!" I squeaked instantly. Alex grinned and turned his back to me, lining up the sight of his automatic again. The kid was growing on me...

[matewritesmusic]

Finalising my 2nd year: Statement

In my assignment submission for the 1st semester I hoped that I will acquire the following knowledge and skillsets:

Expanding my portfolio: I have created new contents of a music video, a tutorial video, a sound design showreel, and I am currently working on my electronic music album.

Becoming a better audio implementation programmer: during the making of the Unity + Wwise audio implementation video and the procedural audio module works, I have been using C# programming language and have learnt new techniques to implement audio in a game. I also successfully finished the Wwise middleware’s 101 and 201 courses which made me become a certified audio implementer. I also had the opportunity to work on the audio of a brand new e-comic book (as part of the dBs Productions team) where I was the lead audio implementer and assistant producer / sound designer. The developers of the e-comic book were very satisfied with my work and knowledge, and requested a ‘How could we improve our audio engine’ document from me, which I have gladly prepared for them. The company will probably get in touch for further works.

Improving my sound design skills by creating and releasing a modern avant-garde EP: unfortunately, I haven’t had time to finish this EP, however, I have finished two songs so far, and I am currently working on the rest of them. The building of these tracks seem to be a slower progress compared to my previous songs, as I am going in deep experimentations with modular and granular synthesis that needs more time to record, select, and arrange them. This EP creation idea was my plan B, for the case if my job applications fail to succeed.

Continuing to create more connections by going on events and participating on game jams, and start selling my music and sounds using online platforms: I attended on the global game jam in January, which was a bit risky because of my recent operation on my right ear. It turned out that I was just over-panicking the situation and I managed to write 5 songs (4 level and 1 menu music) within the first day. I spent the second day creating sound effects and implementing the sounds using Wwise. I have learnt very important communication skills on this game jam. I also approached the Publishing Director of BuildBox which is an aspiring game engine that doesn’t require programming knowledge, to find out more about their audio system.                    

I also posted an advertisement into multiple film and animation groups, offering my music composition on people’s video. I have been contacted by a 3rd year university student who needed music to her interrogation scene, which I finished on time and she was very happy with the result. There is also another video project in which I need to compose music for an office argument scene, which I’ve promised to do after the assignments.

I also found out how I can sell my sound effects and music on the Unity Asset store and Bandcamp, however, both websites need artwork for the uploaded music, and I found it difficult to find or create artworks that are free of copyrights, so I had to delay this step.                                I attended on the quarter Game Audio South West meetup, where I’ve met some new faces.                                I also attended on a Unity online meetup in April, where a funny new co-op game ‘PHOGS!’ was introduced. I asked audio related questions and made sure to make a memorable introduction to the participants, so hopefully next time when I appear on a Unity meeting they will remember me.                        

Working on getting my first paid (possibly game) audio job or internship: Although the e-comic job was unpaid as it was more of an ‘academic research’ project, given the fact that the developers were extremely satisfied with the results we provided and my relentless work for the tight deadline, I trust that they will be in touch as soon as they have a new comic book in the works, that they need music for. 

I am participating in another team, which is an Augmented Reality project for the Exeter Library. I am the audio implementer and I will use Wwise to implement sounds into the Unity AR project. This is a paid project.       

 Job and project description - i.e.: Illustrations of the kind of work carried out, analysis of what you learnt:

Rip-pair game: I have learnt that the stuff we discuss and agree in the beginning of a game jam, is very very important for everyone to follow and stick to.              If someone doesn’t do as it was agreed, it can ruin the whole game feel and aesthetics, as there is only 48 hours to get the game done, so there is no time for correction works and revisits. To ensure everyone is on the same page, small check points can be set up throughout the game creation, where everyone showcases the work they have done so far on the project. On these meetings (and generally on a game jam) using technical words and jargons are not recommended, as these can lead to misunderstandings/misinterpretations of the common goal.                          

Sound Design Showreel: I did not need to learn anything new to deliver the sound design video, although I did lots of preparation works before starting working on this video. The plenty pre-recorded sound libraries I made became very useful as there were only a few additional sounds that I needed to record to complete the work. However, after sending the video to a professional sound designer (who currently works on the new Halo game in Los Angeles, California) who very kindly reviewed my video and provided a long and detailed review, I have learnt a lot. He told me to be careful about using low frequencies for sound effects that can be triggered frequently. He raised my attention on using more cloth/leather/denim sounds especially for jumping and crouching movements.      He also pointed out the lack of footstep weighting, which needs to be considered depending on the character’s bodyweight and walking / running speed, and not just the floor surface. Sound effects in a fight scene can be overwhelming, thus the player is not expected to hear every sound in a fight. More focus needed on the sound when a combo kicks in, or when the character is famous of having that particular weapon, then the weapon is super important to have an amazing sound. (eg.: Kratos and his axe + shield in God of War). He suggested to take a step back and find the small but really important moments, and analyse them under a “magnifying glass”. Think of transients (how sharp a sound should be), frequency range, sound to be tight or loose, using single or double transient and materials/textures of a sound. Since he raised my attention to these details, I’ve been playing games on headphones and focused on the sound design very carefully. I strongly believe, that the more and different type of games I play, the more focused and analytical my hearing will become.

Sherlock Holmes e-comic book: My learning in this project was more about the experiencing of how does it feel to be in a team. I have learnt that it is extremely important to set out the job expectations and responsibilities prior the work has started, so one can avoid inconvenient situations, heavy workload and awkward meeting moments. I learnt that I have to be able to say stop for additional ‘favour’ work, and only do further work, for something in return. That doesn’t need to be money. I have also learnt that it is wise for the manager or leader of the team to have a short catch up session with the members of the team individually once the work is done, to find out how they felt, whether they have any feedback or issue they want to raise. This can help avoiding awkward meeting situations and is definitely helpful to keep the team members happy and informed.                        

Interrogation Scene project: I have learnt that people can deliberately provide you misleading information about their project, just to convince you to work on it. Especially, when you offer your services for free. The 3rd year uni student also asked me to write music for further scenes in her project, but I politely refused to do so, as it was not part of our initial agreement, and I can only do further works for an acceptable fee. This was the moment when I used the lesson I have learnt from a similar previous situation, to be able to say no for someone who (obviously) doesn’t appreciate my service enough to pay for it. I only spent about 6-7 hours composing the music for her interrogation scene, as it wasn’t in the dark-electronic style we agreed beforehand, and her careless attitude started to really annoy me. After sending her the finalised composition which she was extremely happy with, she asked me what kind of scene I was looking for, because she might be able to find something in her files. I politely closed the conversation, as my experience with her didn’t really go as planned, which led me not to trust in her anymore, as well as the quality of the video she provided wasn’t the type of video I was looking for to work on. In this project, I basically learned how to say no, and how to avoid unreliable people.

[b0rtney]

the shit is being painstakingly scraped out of the fan

so what you guys may know is that my updates to my fics went a little haywire last week and this week. what u may not know is why. here’s why. 

Last Friday, I spent most of the day doing orientation and schedule building for my fall semester transfer to University of Iowa (:D). It’s mandatory orientation, and it has a deadline, so I prioritized that over the update of the last chapter of my friday fic, “Eight Weeks with Eri” (sorry guys, i gotta value my education <3 i still love yall). I didn’t finish until late, I was trying to simultaneously take care of my 2 foster kittens and their momma, and I didn’t feel well regardless, so I posted a quick “sorry the update is late” on ao3 and went to bed.

On Saturday, I had full intentions to write up the chapter and post it, but I did need some things for the kittens pretty urgently (out of cat litter, for one thing). My guess at a day plan was: shower, go to target, tidy up after the kittens, write chapter, post. Nope! My mom tells me that one of her clients (she’s a real estate agent) left her cat at her old house, instead of bringing it with her in the move. So. New day plan. Pick up that lady’s cat, bring her home, go to target-- and all of that takes a while, so I don’t get home until 8 pm. I didn’t even get to shower. I felt a headache coming on, so I went to bed early. I felt awful about not updating, and was worried about my monday fic too, but I was just exhausted. (for anyone who’s curious, no. the client’s cat (Angel) and my foster momma (Nikki) did not get along. at all.) My brother instantly fell in love with Angel, set up a litter box and food/water area in his room, and said he would take care of her. We all kind of agreed that lady shouldn’t get her cat back (sorry, not sorry).

On Sunday, as one of my previous posts detailed, I got taken out at the knees by a migraine so bad I could feel it in my palms. I was shivering with cold, but couldn’t understand why my body was convulsing because I didn’t feel cold, I just felt pain. This is genuinely probably the worst migraine I’ve ever had. It lasted all day and nothing helped except unconsciousness-- but even that wasn’t an option because I had to take care of my foster kittens, baby Dre, baby Eminem (I called him “nemnem”) and momma Nikki. It was genuinely awful. I remember very little starting at the time it set in the night before until I woke up on Monday. (If any of the events here are out of order (for instance, I’m not sure whether I posted the temp chapter for “Eight Weeks” on Friday or Sunday, and all the days and times are pretty iffy for me) this migraine is very likely why. It made a small resurgence on Wednesday night/Thursday morning.)

Monday, I felt much better! I played with the kittens in the morning, and figured I had earned a little bit of a break after such a shitty few days. I would write the chapters after an early lunch and post them by that night. Right before I went to sit down and write, Eminem crawled (very insistently!) into my lap. I said alright, okay, you can sit with me while I write, and I settled him into my lap and got to work on the long-overdue final chapter of “Eight Weeks with Eri.” But when I looked down to pet him, his eyes and mouth were both open. He sometimes fell asleep like that, so I went to close them for him, but he wouldn’t respond. I got worried. I tried to shake him awake. Nothing worked. He wasn’t breathing. I picked him up in my hands and ran downstairs, yelling for my parents (my dad is a firefighter/emt, and has resuscitated kittens before), but he was gone. Just like that. No warning. He had been playing, totally normally, not 30 minutes before. Of course, I cried for a while before I could even move. When I went to check on Dre, he was suddenly walking funny. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, I texted the rescue org that connected me with these kittens, they sent me the phone #/address of a vet, and I drove him there (45 minutes both ways jfc). The doctor diagnosed Dre with a congenital heart murmur and some level of paralysis in 3/4 limbs, and his tail. They said the prognosis wasn’t great. A neurologist might be of some help, but it would be expensive, and life quality wouldn’t be great. The vet tech took me aside and just said to make him comfortable as he goes. I thought he was going to die that night, and I held him for hours. Every once in a while, he would stop breathing for a few seconds, until I rubbed his rib cage and he would wake up with a little start. I thought he was going to die. 

Tuesday morning I woke up on the floor (I slept next to baby Dre’s little bed on te floor, just in case), and immediately began researching online. I read vetrinary textbooks mostly (thank you, GoogleBooks). I would open a vet textbook and ctrl+f for Dre’s symptoms, and I kept going and going and checking, rechecking, double-triple-quadruple-checking, I cross-referenced. Literally it was a lot. But what I found was that Dre likely has feline arterial thromboembolism. Without the jargon I had to muddle through, that means a blood clot was blocking the flow to his limbs. The textbooks said the prognosis wasn’t great. I don’t remember everything, because this was a whole three days ago, but the condition (at whatever time the textbook was written) wasn’t common, so I had to cobble together a treatment plan based on similar diagnoses, symptoms, and whatever medications we had on-hand (the vet gave us none-- but we’ve had pets with medical issues before, so we have some options). I went to the store to pick up baby aspirin, because acetaminophen is toxic to cats and we needed aspirin doses small enough to give to a 400 gram kitten who’s barely weaned. At the Rite-Aid, I picked up what would be my best friend for the next two days: a sale-pack of 3-for-$3 Charleston Chews (two of the boxes were the only thing I ate or drank until Thursday). I gave Dre the baby aspirin at the recommended dose, and when his pain got a lot worse, I gave him the recommended dose of tramadol (we had some leftover from a previous pet injury/illness). He trembled with pain that night as he fell asleep, before the tramadol kicked in. I thought he was going to die again. I fell asleep on the floor again.  (at some point on this day, my brother managed to accidentally let Angel, my mom’s client’s cat, out of the house, and she ran off. We are still trying to find her.)

Wednesday, finally, some good news. Dre could use both of his front paws (one of which had been partially paralyzed), and he could flick his tail is he really, really wanted to! It was, literally, a miracle. He couldn’t get around on his own, including to eat, drink water, and use the bathroom, but with help he even accomplished these tasks with success! I continued to give him tramadol at the recommended doses every 12 hours (he hated the taste! icky!), but cats don’t metabolize aspirin fast, so that didn’t need to be taken today. He slept a lot. I was still guarded about hoping for him to make it, but there was hope! I finally wrote and updated both chapters of fics that I was late for (”Eight Weeks with Eri” and “Rest for the Wicked”), but between it all didn’t have the energy to post my wednesday fic, “their whole entire lives” (sorry yall) or respond to comments like I usually do. I finally took that shower I had planned on taking Saturday too (it was. so nice. it had been a while since I last went 5-6 days without showering (last time it was depression lmao)). 

thurs (dre starts to use back paws, front paw straightens)

Thursday marks the day I’m writing this from. I slept on the floor again, but finally got fed up with waking up every few hours because my back hurt, and moved to my bed at something like 6 am, and slept until 9 am. Dre now has almost complete use of his front paws and tail, and limited use of his back legs! He can’t get around fast, but he can get around! It looks like he’s gonna make it you guys! (I think he misses his brother now that he’s feeling better. He has picked a tiny stuffed animal that he plays with, grooms, and will not fall asleep without.) I posted a chapter of my wednesday fic, “their whole entire lives” too. My friends and I might go to our local protest tomorrow, but I’m not sure how long I can stay because I don’t want to leave Dre stranded if he needs my help. If nothing else, I’ll go donate some snacks, waters, and maybe even some signs to the protesters, if they want them, so I can contribute even if I can’t leave the house for long. It’s something like midnight now, so I’m going to schedule this to upload later and head to sleep (in my bed this time, not the floor). 

It’s been a rough week or so. I might take this friday (and maybe next friday) off to restock my prewritten stuff so I can give yall regular-length, on-time updates as we move forward. 

In the words of AJR: a hundred bad days make a hundred good stories

so, ya know, look out for kitten fostering gone sideways in some future fics or somn XD

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2017 Part 3: The one where I get lazy

It’s that time of the season where I didn’t get around to doing these posts for a couple of days, which at least gives me an excuse to go through a lot of shows very quickly. I’ll start with the especially worthless shorts.

Nyanko Days

Nyanko Days is 2 minutes of a friendless highschooler cat-lady-in-training hanging out with her moe archetype cats. Can’t say it isn’t cute, but... yeaaah.

One Room

It’s pretty incredible that One Room is apparently an original, since it’s essentially the final boss Dark Souls Male Gaze Simulator 2017 of VN adaptations: Four minutes of your moeblob neighbor asking the viewer to study with her, presented in first person. And man, that guy just can’t keep his eyes from wandering. I’m not going to lie, compared to the usual dumb comedy short this is at least something else, even though it’s obviously terrible. The funniest thing is that the already have Female Gaze Simulator 2017 lined up for next season.

Piace - Watashi no Italian

Back to things you’ve seen before, this is Working in an Italian restaurant. It being so short prevents any character stuff from occurring so it’s just manzai comedy, moeblobs and boobs with a slightly weird character design. Unlike the last few seasons bishoujo shows are not rare in this one, so I don’t see why you’d take this over any of the others.

Chiruran - Nibun no Ichi

I have no idea what this is supposed to be, since it’s apparently a spinoff of something else? In any case it’s some vaguely Touken Ranbu-ish thing where chibi boys with swords are cute. Whatever.

Kemono Friends

We’re done with the shorts now, but this is the one show that I can’t believe isn’t one. Not only is it classic short material (cheap and badly animated CG, gijinka hangout concept, based on a mobile game), it also has about enough content to fill 2 minutes. But it’s not two minutes. This isn’t the worst show I’ve watched this season, but it has to be the most boring: a girl who is a girl and a girl who is a serval walk around for 24 minutes and talk about... well, nothing, unless you count dropping properly capitalized jargon words like “Friend” a lot. Oh, and there’s a few instances of completely laughable “action”. Suffice it to say that the barebones personalities on display here can’t sustain this, and the only other Friend who shows up briefly is a hippo who doesn’t manage to add much variety. So it doesn’t even do a good job of showing off the game’s character designs, which was clearly the intention here. The studio must have been very surprised that Nexon paid for 12x24m of this, and their struggle to fill that may be amusing to think about but doesn’t make this any more watchable.

ACCA - 13-ku Kansatsu-ka

Someone sure likes their handsome guys in uniforms. ACCA is shameless styleservice: Apart from the pretty boys (and girls) in broad-shouldered suits and ties, this features great art direction, a very pretty setting and cool jazz music. It’s just that the content is almost gleefully anti-interesting: What we have here is basically Rolling Girls, but about a guy with bedroom eyes who travels around looking cool while smoking, eating cake and... auditing. Yes, looking at spreadsheets has never been this stylish. Somehow this entire thing seems like the result of a dare, but I can’t help being intrigued nonetheless. The style can carry it for a bit, and maybe the plot will pick up. And if it doesn’t, it’s still possible that I can get used to it being mainly about its own presentation - Non Non Biyori for hepcats and male tailoring afficionados, essentially. Gonna keep an eye on this.

Chain Chronicle - Haecceitas no Hikari

It turns out that Chain Chronicle had some movies previously, and while I can’t say if those help with understanding it, it’s never a good idea to drop the viewer right into a huge brawl involving about 30 characters with no introduction whatsoever. I get the appeal of opening your series with everyone getting spanked by the final boss right at the start, but come on. After that’s over, Chain Chronicle turns out to be, well.. a serious mobile fantasy game adaptation. Which means all your favorite rare cards show up for a second and then some generic plot about saving the world from the Dark Lord starts. It seems to have quite a bit of money behind it, but if it has any amount of originality or ambition, I'm not seeing it in the first episode and that’s where it needs to be for me to give this a second thought.

elDLIVE

eIDLIVE is a Weekly Shounen Jump manga by Akira Amano, whose main work is Hitman Reborn, but is mainly known to the more discerning crowd for the Psycho-Pass character designs; my first impression is that the main character looks a whole lot like Akane. But unlike Butcher-brand grimdarkness, eIDLIVE is a silly action comedy that seems to trend young even for the Jump crowd - read, it’s a bunch of random nonsense with outrageous faces. It splits the difference between juvenile humor ala Heybot and a standard shounen superhero plot, and that’s pretty painful both ways. The only thing it has going for it is that it has a colorful, stylized presentation, but looking like a more stylish HeroAca doesn’t sufficiently endear it to me either, especially since a Jump adaptation by Pierrot is likely to be rather... long, both in runtime and in slow plot bullshit.

Gabriel DropOut

Guess what, Dogakobo is adapting an ostensibly funny manga about cute girls again. And of course it looks pretty nice as usual; so let’s talk about the source material. Gabriel DropOut is about angels (and demons) that visit a regular high school for some reason. Its one joke is that the angels range from lazy slobs to outright rotten, and the demons range from responsible and nice to being too stupid to be evil. What a twist! The astute watcher may notice that this is essentially Sansha Sanyou with the conceit much more clearly pushed to the forefront, and this doesn’t even have the occasional crazy sakuga outbursts of Sansha Sanyou while not being any more interesting. In a season where this type of show is making a strong comeback, I see no reason to bother with it unless you need to watch all of the bishoujo anime.

Hand Shakers

If you told me that Hand Shakers is a subversive art piece from the fringes of the superflat movement, I would be inclined to believe you. Of course, that’s probably not the intention here: this is GoHands, and making eye-searingly ugly and garish anime is just what they do. And they’ve outdone themselves this time, their trademark Instagram color gradient filter is only the start here. An out-of-control camera that highlights the Google Sketchup-tier 3D backgrounds (with the added benefit of the 2D foregrounds often not quite matching up, to nauseating effect), the CG “special” effects that Gonzo did better in 2004, the outright use of photo cutouts for anything too complicated to model, the bizarre character work that resembles a cheap mid-2000s eroge, the random wandering highlights on shiny objects; if this was Takashi Murakami or Inu Curry, we’d all be scrambling to see the hidden meaning in this dumpster fire that could easily double as a scathing parody of KyoAni’s recent love of postprocessing. And ironically that meaning wouldn’t even be hard to find, since the story (as far as I was able to follow it, reading the subs is hard when your eyes are bleeding) could also double as a satire of shitty shounen plots: A guy gets superpowers by holding hands with his waifu and has to fight other pairs in ridiculous relationships; clearly someone thought this was very meaningful indeed, especially when the enemy pair is an asshole and his BDSM sub (incidentally a plot point last seen in none other than Valkyrie Drive). On top of this, the script does the impressive double whammy of only blatantly expositing via lots of jargon without actually explaining anything.

So yeah, Hand Shakers is absolutely, stupefyingly horrible, to the point where I’m totally down to watch it. It’s probably not meant to be a genre sendup like Mayoiga was, but with a bit of Death of the Author it can easily double as one. And hey, it’s still easier to digest than Occultic;Nine.

Idol Jihen

You know, an anime about a version of Japan where politics are run via idol competitions really has no business being this fucking boring. With that setup, you’d at least expect it to be a comedy (or better yet a satire - just read the above sentence again, it basically writes itself), but somehow it only manages to be a slightly above-average regular idol show, with as little as you can say about those as usual. Usual characters, usual music, usual ganbaru. Seriously, it’s pretty amazing how little the politics aspect ends up mattering, that must have taken some effort. I didn’t really feel Macross Delta, but that at least did a better job making its “idols where they don’t belong” subject matter work. It’s possible that this show discovers its potential somewhere along the way, but if the beginning was a fakeout intended to show that this is run-of-the-mill idol shenanigans, it may have done a little too well at that; my takeaway was mainly that silly universe aside, yes, I’ve seen this before, and no, I don’t need to see more of it.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon

So after years of “Dogakobo is the new KyoAni while KyoAni is off doing their own thing”, KyoAni is back in the game of adapting ostensibly funny manga about cute girls. I’m not shocked that the results are pretty much identical, this is what happens if you adapt 4koma humor in a flat, colorful style and put some effort in it. Maidragon (the manga) is, if nothing else, better than Gabriel DropOut, but not decidedly so. Production values aside (and while nice, Maidragon is no Nichijou and not even a Sansha Sanyou), it’s just the standard magical girlfriend shit of yore; that the main character lucking into a magical maid is female here makes very little difference in practice. Kobayashi as a character is at least a bigger draw than the usual nothings in something like this (and definitely bigger than zany boob dragon maid Tohru); she’s moody, somewhat acerbic and a maid fundamentalist - i.e., anti-fanservice/cosplay maids. If I’m going to watch one of these shows, it might as well be the one that has me as the main character... but it’s entirely possible that I get tired of this very quickly.

Kuzu no Honkai

Kuzu no Honkai (aka Scum’s Wish) is based on a hyped drama manga, so I expected to see the next 3-gatsu, and I’m still not convinced by 3-gatsu a whole season in. But where 3-gatsu is overall still mostly a warm iyashikei blanket where even Rei’s depression due to hilariously tragic backstory seems mostly intended to elicit wanting to give him a hug, Scum’s Wish is, for better or for worse, the real deal: A sexually charged story about awful, not even remotely likeable characters, most closely related to something like Aku no Hana. As of episode one it pulls no punches with the horny kisses and it’s noitaminA, so it’s a looker too - it’s cool how everything is in shoujo sparklevision except when it comes to the making out, which comes across as pretty grimy. In theory I’m all for something like this, but well... watching a girl fuck some other guy because she can’t fuck her brother, who is fucking some other girl, who is the one that the guy fucking the first girl can’t fuck, is just not what I’m into, especially if I’m not even supposed to like the characters. Pity Fuck: The Animation is something that I feel like I shouldn’t disregard on its first episode alone, but I felt the same way about Aku no Hana and didn’t end up finishing that either.

Little Witch Academia

So here we go, the other big name of the season. Unsurprisingly, the LWA TV reboot is still LWA, so it’s pretty good. The animation remains pleasantly cartoony and expressive and it’s generally made with a lot of care. I still can’t help feeling slightly let down by it though: The basic concept of LWA already got threadbare halfway through the second movie, and since this just starts from the beginning again, there definitely isn’t anything new. The best I can come up with is that it’s even more of a Harry Potter clone than it was before (yes, that is actually possible), but that’s not winning it any points. Another weird thing is that the action, while hard to criticize on a technical level, comes across as strangely unengaging - I usually blame the editing in these cases. In any case, LWA is entertaining to watch for now but it has to go somewhere with its story and characters really soon if it wants to fill 24 episodes of TV anime. I can only forgive it treading water again for so long, no matter how well it’s put together.

Marginal#4 - Kiss kara Tsukuru Big Bang

And finally, here’s the idol boyband anime of the season. The only one, if I’m counting correctly. We used to get more even half a year ago, and to be quite honest I can’t really tell the difference anymore. It’s like all of those with all the characters one of those always has and comes in the variety without the self-insert main girl, if you want the finer details ask your local UtaPri specialist. Really the only thing that raises an eyebrow is that this is about four guys who try to start a school club while already being in an idol group, which seems slightly backwards? Having your cake and eating it too, maybe? Apart from that incredible innovation, possibly the most forgettable show in a forgettable genre.