#another remake of an older set

[georgeromeros]

Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) dir. Alan Gibson

[disgustingtwitches]

MDNI

Working at a restaurant with 141 (pt. 4)

You thought it was a mistake when someone called in reserving a party of 14 for a birthday. The voice on the other line assures you it is not, and that they'll be arriving at 7pm. You inform everyone.

"Who wid want a birthday in this shithole?"

Johnny gaffaued, spraying down some dishes.

"Probably just a prank call."

Kyle replied, arms wrapped around your waist and head resting on your shoulders. But it wasn't a prank call. The first half of the party arrive and you and Gaz have to scramble to push tables together. It's overwhelming, everyone is talking all at once, demanding things left and right. Gaz swoops in to help deal with one half the table while you the other. The food comes out, leaving you to be able to sit in the back for a few minutes, talking to the guys about nothing. Walking back out, some older man was snapping his fingers at you, waving his arms as if they weren't the only fucking people in the joint.

"Steaks burnt to hell, remake it."

He slides the plate to you, making you catch it before it falls off the side of the table. You apologize profusely and send it back to the kitchen. Price raises an eyebrow,

"Looks fine to me."

He stares at the piece of charcoal on the plate.

"Fucks sake, lemme do it."

Simon grabs his shoulder and cooks another steak. You set it down infront of the old man, watching him take a bite. He throws his fork down,

"Still burnt. How hard is it to cook a fucking steak?"

You look at the plate, meats still pink in the middle. Apologize again and offer to remake it.

"No, don't bother. Jesus."

He stares daggers into you. You wring your hands nervously.

"Actually, everyone's food was shit. None of us should have to pay for this."

Your mouth goes dry. You look over your shoulder to meet eyes with Kyle at the bar. He immediately walks over.

"Everything alright?"

He puts on his nicest customer service voice and that charming smile that can melt anyone. Except this asshole apparently.

"No everything is not alright, this was the worst dining experience I've ever had! Everything came out wrong, and it all tastes like shit!"

Spit flies out from the mans mouth. Kyle stands between you and the customer, trying to diffuse the situation. And much to your horror, one by one, the table starts to leave. You try to say something but they ignore you.

"Go get Johnny."

You run back, trying to act casual in front of Simon and John while tugging Johnny by the sleeve. He looks down, concerned.

He's on the floor before you can finish telling him what happened,

"Ye'r gonnae have tae pay sir."

His tone is more firm than Gaz, arms crossed and looking down at the old man. You're almost in tears as you watch more of the table file out the door, you turn back to look at Gaz. He frowns, furious. There's a heated argument at the table, the old man is yelling now. Not at Kyle or Johnny, but the only person he wasn't afraid of; you. The commotion makes John and Simon step out. This idiot is gonna get himself killed. You can see the moment when the customer loses the fight in his eyes. Shuts right up as soon as Simon says,

"Problem?"

Like a fish out of water, all the old man does is open and close his mouth wordlessly.

"Grab the cheque."

You don't know who Simon said that to but you and Soap crash into each other turning around and walking to the POS system. Ghost gently grabs the bill from your shaky hands and shoves it into the customers chest,

"Cash only."

"I don't have cash."

"There's an ATM around the corner."

The old man nearly jumps out of his seat,

"Right. Be right back."

He rushes to the door, Kyle and John follow.

"Oh there's no need-"

"Making sure you don't get lost."

Kyle smiles, eyes dangerous. It's about five minutes when they're back, the old man placing some 20s down before complaining under his breath. Then he gets kicked out,

"I need my change!"

He looks over Johnny's shoulder, looking to you for help. You shrug, arms crossed. When the door closes you sigh, running fingers through your hair

"You alright, darling?"

Gaz asks, voice as sweet as ever, gentle hand on your face. You nod.

~

That evening was pleasant. More than that really. They pampered you, cooed and soothed you as you huffed and sniffled. Ran you a hot bath,

"Poor thing, dinnae deserve tha."

Johnny massaged shampoo into your hair.

"Won't let you stay around next time we deal with something like that again."

Kyle kneaded the tension out your shoulders. John sat you in his lap, brushing hair out of your face while saying sweet nothings. You really do enjoy milking this for all it's worth, sad eyes looking up and huffing like you didn't get over that bullshit as soon as that old man walked out the door.

"Pampered little princess, you know that?"

Simon's lips are pressed up to your neck, just under your ear. You just nod, his words rattling around your brain while you got fucked senseless. You're tired, but the boys promised to coax an orgasm out of you. From each one of them. Then another. Well, you're a trooper, so what's one more round? Showered with soft kisses and praise, a foolish smile is painted across your face in a pleasurable state of stupor; Gosh, aren't you just spoiled rotten?

**sorry if it's short! I am on holiday ( ╥ω╥ )**

[nucrests]

Comfy Collection Redux

Hi everyone! Back with another redux but this time a complete overhaul of my Ultimate Comfy Collection. This set includes 38 items for both feminine and masculine frame sims - 30 tops, 4 bottoms, and 4 overlay accessories. I hope you all enjoy and have fun! 💜

*Note: Since these are remakes of my previous set, these files will replace the old files. Please be sure to delete the older files first! Refer to the “Item Index” for more information~

📁: PATREON (ALWAYS FREE)| ITEM INDEX | TOU | KO-FI

[cenorii]

And here we are again… RE9 theory

It's time for another theory! I'll be writing these right up until the release of RE9, so apologies if you're tired of speculation. I had a theory about this Wesker concept once before, but it came out too vague + I tied the concept to RE4R, but it never made it into the game. So here's a new theory that has captured my brain.

What if, this concept never belonged to re4r? What if it showed up in early development of re9? Let me explain.

Imagine that Wesker is alive in re9. You can imagine the importance of keeping such a news secret, because it is quite a shocking information for fans. If this is the main intrigue in re9, the game would lose it if information about Wesker leaked to the public. If you were the designers and developers, you wouldn't let such news get out of the organization any way. So, put yourself in the shoes of a Capcom employee? Let's move on.

Suddenly such an important detail is leaked by Wesker's voice actor and your intrigue risks becoming public, the game will lose half of its interest without keeping Wesker a secret. You, as a developer\designer need to solve something, somehow fix the situation so that no one will know about the return of this character in the new game.

Then you make a GENIAL decision, setting your sights on re4r, which is in the middle of development. You decide to add this Wesker design to re4r to ward off all suspicion and get out of the disadvantage. Well done, you succeeded in fooling the fandom, now everyone is convinced that this concept was originally made for re4r.

It would seem that everything is fine, no one will know the truth until the re9 release happens, but… Wesker's concept never showed up in re4r. That image is not inside the game or in the concept book. We, the players, are left to assume that this concept was trivially not intended for re4r.

To confirm this theory, I'll ask you to pay attention to a few details - the face (1), the hair (2) and the hand (3). 1. The face, to be honest, could be anything on these concepts, because they are made sometimes before the studio finds the right actor to give the appearance to the character. But I'm left wondering if his face here is taken from re5 and yet looks much older. If this was for re4r, wouldn't Wesker look younger? 2. His hairstyle deviates a lot from the usual style that every game has. Capcom couldn't change Wesker's hairstyle for the REMAKE of the game, because it's an important part of it. Changing his hairstyle is tantamount to removing his sunglasses. But that kind of hair is acceptable for a new game. I assume this is how his new style was planned for the future in which he is alive (?). If you've ever seen the "early" versions of re4r, you probably know that in them Wesker has that exact weird hairstyle, which Leon also has in the "hero" skin. I believe that when Capcom added the "hero" hairstyle to Wesker, they were trying to make him look even more like the concept to minimize information leaks among the staff.

3. In none of the games did Wesker suffer an arm injury. In Code Veronica, his hand was set on fire, but the wound is not serious and Wesker is able to heal his wounds in SECONDS. It doesn't make sense to emphasize his wound for a Code Veronica concept. It also doesn't make sense to do a wound for re4r, because in the original Wesker never left his chair at all, and in the remake he didn't get into any serious fights. This wound is something new that hasn't happened yet, but one day will. In all the games, Wesker heals any injuries quickly, but at the end of re5 he took too much damage, so he probably lost some of his strength, causing him to keep his wounds for a long time.

That's the kind of thoughts that visit me when I see this image but don't see it inside re4r. If it's a "discarded" concept, it too should appear officially, like Ada's concept for re8 that was never added to the game.

Thanks for reading, really looking forward to re9 to see how far I was from the truth. (Help me. I'm going crazy.)

[hypogryffin]

ok but like so you know how portable had that one yukiko cameo. so like OBVI the remake is going to have p5 characters appear also <-straight copium. anyway here are my pitches

Image ID:

Three pages of rough sketches with colour blocks. Image 1 has Maruki (coloured blue) standing awkwardly with a seemingly nervous smile on his face, looking younger and wearing Gekkoukan High School's uniform. A smaller drawing next to him shows himself and Rumi (red) smiling and laughing together. The text next to them reads "If Maruki was school-age at the time of P3's story he'd be about 22-25 years old [during P5 canon]". The number 22 has an arrow pointing to it that reads "1st year HS", and 25 has another that says "3rd year HS". The text continues, "Since he's supposed to be older (I think), it wouldn't make sense for him to show up". A wailing emoji with its hands up in the air is added next to the block of text. From there, an arrow with the caption "But!" points to another sketch of Ichinose (green) in Gekkoukan's summer uniform. The message continues next to another drawing of Ichinose, this time in the regular/winter uniform, "I do think Ichinose is probably the right age for it! Definitely not because I've been wanting to draw her recently nope no siree". Further notes continue down, reading "One or two [ear] piercings, none on the face" with a drawing of an earlobe, "Shorter hair" with a dotted line and a sketch of scissors depicting that her hair is about shoulder-length, and finally, "She'd still be in her stoic era so no smiles here, LOL." Additionally, back near the drawings of Maruki, there is another sketch of Rumi in Gekkoukan's uniform, with a note that says, "Were Maruki and Rumi canonically high school sweethearts? Or did I just hallucinate that information"

Image 2: A drawing of Zenkichi (dark blue) in an unbuttoned suit. He has his hair in a ponytail, and his arms folded behind his back. The text next to him reads, "Zenkichi, approximately mid-to-late 30s. / He can't be aware of the Dark Hour for [the sake of] continuity in Strikers, obviously, but he could still be reasonably(?) involved? I.E. assisting Kurosawa with something? Maybe related to a request from Elizabeth, a social link story(???), or main story things like [A block that reads "Spoilers" in all capital letters]'s death or Fuuka's "disappearance". I don't know, man." There are a few asides written next to it, reading "Maybe [he and Kurosawa are] friends" and "Investigating Apathy Syndrome?" respectively. Then the text continues, "Could be [Public Security], or maybe a career police officer (as in pre-promotion or something, I don't know I'm not a pig, myself". An additional doodle has the information "Akane would be about 7 years old" alongside a drawing of Zenkichi blabbering senselessly about his daughter, showing off a set of pictures, to the Persona 3 Protagonist (light blue), who looks awkward and has "Go away" written behind him as his internal thoughts several times.

Also, there is a sketch of Mitsuru (red) in plainclothes, smiling as she holds up two tickets, saying "I have received tickets to a gallery by Madarame Ichiryuusai, I was wondering if you wanted to accompany me there." The next drawing is of Yukari (pink) smiling and looking up from the book she's reading, though visibly apprehensive. She says, "Uh, yeah, sure, that sounds fun!" While her inner monologue yells "That sounds so fucking boring holy shit". It then cuts to her gripping the protagonist's shoulders, saying, "I need you to come with me to this stupid ass art museum I can't say no to Mitsuru-senpai." The protagonist says, "I, like, could not want to do anything less-" but is interrupted by Yukari adding, "I'll buy you dinner after and you can bring Aegis." The protagonist says, "Deal."

Image 3: A drawing of the lobby of the dorms. The protagonist (blue) sits on one of the couches with Koromaru (grey) sleeping with his head in his lap. The TV is on, showing a picture of someone standing at a podium with microphones pointed at them, and blares "Diet member Shido Masayoshi makes bold new proposal on foreign policy..." The protagonist watches, seeming disinterested. The next drawing is of the Big Bang Burger logo, with someone saying, "'Big Bang Burger'?", getting the reply, "Yeah, they just opened a shop last week. Wild Duck's got competition now, I guess." The next panel is of Ryoji Mochizuki (teal) and the protagonist standing together, revealing Ryoji to have been the first one to speak, now continuing, "Eeh, wow, that name is so lame!" as he smiles genially. He then turns to the protagonist, pointing to himself as he says, "Hey, you wanna try it? I'll pay!" The protagonist shrugs and says, "Sure."

End ID.

[princesssarisa]

Like most people, I have misgivings about Disney's live-action Snow White remake.

But not because Rachel Zegler isn't white. Not because she never liked the original movie as a child because it was too scary. (Why did people attack her for that? It's perfectly normal to be scared by Snow White when you're little and not warm up to it until you're older! It is a scary movie!) Not because they're trying to "update" Snow White's character and make her more "feminist" – that's just to be expected. Not because her (presumed) love interest won't be a prince. Not even because the dwarfs will be CGI.

I do think the "anti-woke" attacks on this movie have been over-the-top, and full of barely-veiled racism and sexism.

My misgivings are about the whole vibe of "This version will be better than the original" that the cast and production team has tried to promote so far. Of course Disney has done exactly the same thing for most of their live action remakes. But it seems especially crass to do it for Snow White, when the original is the movie that made Disney what it is today!

Most of the Disney animated canon, even its best and most beloved films, aren't "classic movies," per se. They're not great artistic achievements in movie history, even if we do love them. They're part of Disney's chain of corporate products.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is different. It's a genuine, bonafide classic movie from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and a truly groundbreaking part of Hollywood history that changed family entertainment forever. It's not just another cog in Disney's machine, because its success built that machine! Is it a flawed masterpiece? Of course it is, nothing human-made is perfect, and it was a grand-scale experiment that took its artists far beyond their comfort zone. But trying to remake it and "improve" on it is like trying to remake Casablanca or The Godfather.

If the new movie were a fresh new version of the fairy tale, I would be all for it. If it were a reimagining in a different setting, like the cancelled Order of the Seven film from 2012, I would be all for it. But a literal remake of the 1937 classic, with the cast members talking in interviews about how the new version "improves" on the original? That's another thing.

And more than any of Disney's other live-action remakes, this one is most obviously a money-grab. With some of the others, it's easier to pretend they genuinely wanted to bring new artistry and improvements to the original. But remaking Snow White clearly serves no purpose except profit.

It might turn out to be a fantastic movie, for all I know. But these are my misgivings.

[starryalpacasstuff]

Indian BL? FROM 2017????

There's an Indian BL from 2017 that I just watched. And I have incoherent thoughts

Before I continue, massive thanks to my bestie @anixknowsnothin for telling me about this show and proofreading the post for me. You don't even watch bl so I have no idea how you found this, but I'm incredibly grateful nonetheless

Here's the link to where I watched the show from, there's a glitch in the first episode subs where the subs seem to be from another show entirely, but it's only for the first ep and about 50% of the dialogue is in English anyways, so it shouldn't be hard to follow.(My ask box is also always open if there's a specific dialogue/scene in Hindi that you want the translation of)

Edit: The link seems to be region locked, so to watch it you can use a vpn and set your region to India, otherwise the episodes are available on youtube, albeit without subs

Note:- this post is going to have a few mild spoilers throughout, but I'll flag major spoilers in red

It's no secret that India is fairly behind when it comes to queer love shows if we compare it to other Asian countries. While it has a handful of great queer shows and movies, it's still quite a small quantity. Additionally, before this, I'd never watched an Indian show that felt like I was watching a bl (if you have recs, please send them my way!!). I'm not going to get into the technicalities of what feels like a bl and doesn't, because honestly, I'm not completely sure myself. For now, I'm just going based off of vibes and feelings, and this show felt like a bl through and through.

Titled 'Romil and Jugal' after its main characters, the story is a modern, desi, bl remake of the classic story...

Romeo and Juliet

Well, Bad Buddy was the first Thai bl I ever watched, so Romil and Jugal being the first Indian BL I watched just feels right, no?

I didn't actually know that the story was based off of Romeo and Juliet till the second episode, because I didn't bother looking for a synopsis, and jumped right in. However, it's links to Romeo and Juliet quickly became apparent, around the same time I started to see similarities between this show and Bad Buddy. I also did not know that this show came out in 2017 before I googled it, having already watched the entire thing, which was a pretty huge shock, because this BL is progressive by 2024 India standards.

Alright, enough of my rambling. Here's a synopsis of the show in case you haven't heard of it. (I couldn't find an official one, so I did my best to write a spoiler free synopsis)

Ramya happens to start talking to a slightly older woman at an airport, who believes that there is no romance in the younger generation. To prove her wrong, Ramya decides to tell the older woman her brother's love story. The story from the past is shown to us as Ramya narrates it to the woman in the present. Jugal is a closeted 19-year-old who lives with his parents. One day, a family moves into the house next door, and Jugal immediately falls for the son, Romil. The two of them attend the same college, and eventually become friends. The two of them eventually get together, but have to face the challenges of a homophobic society and having parents that hate each other.

I was a little skeptical of the show going in, but the show surpassed all of my expectations in the best way possible. It's no masterpiece, and it has its flaws, but it was far better than what I expected. It had both comical elements and darker themes, and it did not shy away from exploring the darker themes at all. Oh, and it has a few musical numbers. What did you expect? This is India after all.

The show is 10 episodes long, with 20 minutes per episode, and so it does unfortunately fall into some of the pitfalls that shorter shows tend to fall into, namely underdeveloped relationships and rushed endings. I did end up feeling a little bit like it didn't make sense for the pair to sacrifice and suffer as much as they did because they hadn't known each other for very long, and I felt like they should have been given more time to fall in love with each other. But it also could be argued that the show stays true to the play, and Romil and Jugal are dumb teenagers who make mistakes and stick with each other through them. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.

One thing that I loved the show for was that it showed us that the relationship is not all sunshine and rainbows. They argue, they break up, they get back together, and they do argue even after that. But every time, they eventually work through the issue and reconcile. The show even depicts Romil dealing with internalized homophobia and struggling to reconcile with the fact that he will never be who his family wants him to be. Although I do wish they'd have had more time to explore this, I'd say it was decently depicted and handled. The show really delves into how children are forced to uphold their family's wishes and are constantly put under pressure to make them proud. Although it clearly affects both of them, it's more obvious with Romil, who is expected by his family to date and marry the daughter of his father's boss, whom they think he is dating. There's a metaphor along this theme too, where Romil pretends to like the mango shake that his mom has been making for him since he was a kid, even though he hates it, and when he tries to tell her, he has to act like it was a joke to spare her feelings. The show also goes into the communal mindset of basing your actions off "what will people think?", and you can see how a lot of the characters' actions throughout the show are haunted by this question. Some of Romil and Jugal's earlier disagreements are due to this very mindset.

The show also very candidly depicts the extreme homophobia of society in India. Romil and Jugal had to constantly hide who they were, always having to keep up a mask and I felt that reach somewhere deep inside me. When the pair come out, the show really shows how ugly homophobia can be in India. Their parents immediately disown them. They're mocked in college and wrongfully suspended for a fight that was provoked by other students. Very, very few people stand with them, and the pair very quickly realize that now that they are out, they simply cannot live in the city anymore. So with the help of Jugal's best friend and her mother, they flee to Mumbai, where they get jobs and live as paying guests with a friend of the aforementioned mother. But, even in Mumbai, the masks stay up. They have to act like cousins, for fear of being persecuted. The series depicted the worst-case scenario that so many of us live in fear of, so watching it was something of a cathartic experience for me.

Another thing that the show did quite well is showing how different people and their mindsets can be. Jugal's best friend, Ahalya, and her mom are very supportive, and they help the pair out quite a bit. Ahalya's mother provided a safe house for the pair and helped them find a fresh start. Meanwhile, Romil and Jugal's parents are incredibly homophobic. There was a scene that really stuck with me, (mild spoiler ahead, skip to the last sentence of the paragraph) where Ahalya's mother came across Jugal's mother, who prided herself on being educated and well-read, searching up how to cure homosexuality. Ahalya's mother then tells her off for calling herself educated yet believing that homosexuality is an illness. It is so important to me that the show depicted both the violent homophobia that permeates Indian society and the surprising, warm acceptance that one can find.

One final thing that I loved about this show so, so much is just how authentically Indian it feels. Asian cultures share a lot in common, but they also have their differences, so seeing a show where I can imagine encountering the characters in real life is really amazing. Rather than something big, it was little things sprinkled throughout the story that warmed my heart. The story felt like something I could hear the local aunties gossiping about. The way it depicts queerness in India hits incredibly close to home.

One thing I've learned watching Asian bls is that the ending of a show can make it or break it, but with this one, I'm stuck. The best way I can describe the ending is absolutely insane and incredibly Bollywood.

I believe this show was supposed to get a second season because the last two minutes of the show leave us with a massive cliffhanger. Now, it's been 7 years, so a second season is unlikely, so I'm simply pretending that the last two minutes of the show never happened. But the ending has so much more to it than just this (Major spoilers for the ending up ahead. I mean it when I say major, this is like going into Bad Buddy knowing that they're going to trick their parents in the end).

About halfway through the show, I remembered what play it was based upon and realized that there was a very real possibility that Romil and Jugal would die. The first half of the last episode leads up to this, telling us that they died when reconciling after an argument in the middle of the road when they were hit by a truck. We get a super emotional scene (yes, I cried) where the two families somewhat reconcile in their grief as they go to the police station to identify the bodies. Except... they're not dead, which is revealed when Romil's father hugs Romil's (not) dead body. They reveal that they planned this to show their family that they still loved their sons. I did say it was like PatPran tricking their parents in the end, didn't I? So the families reunite, Romil and Jugal get jobs in New Zealand and get married, and return to India for a wedding celebration (yes, I cried. again). The ending does feel slightly rushed, but if I'm being honest, it wasn't as terrible as it could have been. Believing that your child is dead for a bit is a somewhat justifiable reason for a sudden change of heart. There's a part where Romil and Jugal tell their parents that if they choose acceptance, they can reconcile, but if they choose to remain prejudiced, Romil and Jugal can simply get back on the stretchers, because they'll be as good as dead to their families anyways and it is *chef's kiss*.

All in all, the show was surprisingly heartfelt and poignant. It had me laughing, kicking my feet and even crying. There's a lot more about this show that I could talk about, but I'm going to stop here for now, and I'll try to write more on it later. This show really does deserve more recognition than it has, and I'm almost mad at myself for not knowing about it before. Am I being really biased when talking about this show? Absolutely. But I do think that this show is a worthwhile watch, and I'd really like to see what other people on here think of the show, especially because I'm aware that I am biased towards this show.

I'm tagging a few people who I know might be interested/have some thoughts about the show because this is a show that I really want to hear other people's opinions on and have conversations about, so I hope you guys don't mind!

@waitmyturtles @lurkingshan @bengiyo @neuroticbookworm

[araekniarchive]

i'm moving!

hi all :)) it's been a little while since i've been very active on this blog, and whilst a good chunk of that is chronic illness/job related, another big part is that i've been really struggling with my own tagging systems, to the point it feels like work just to reblog something properly. this is primarily because the theme tagging system for this blog evolved as i did, and a lot of the tags i used to use on her became superfluous, or repeated, and despite how many i have i still struggled to find stuff!

in addition to that, because of the way the tumblr editor used to work, the way i added images to posts would randomly add blank image descriptions to the pictures that just said 'image' and i couldn't change them, which made the webs look very ugly on mobile and also inaccessible to people using screenreaders or with sight issues on any browser, which is the opposite of what i wanted. thankfully, this has now been fixed for new webs, but is unfixable on the older webs which is a real bummer :(

so, a couple of weeks ago i randomly decided to do something about it. and i did! a few of you have noticed that a new blog, @otheraraekni, has been reblogging some of my webs and adding image descriptions in the reblogs, but i've also been remaking some webs as well with the alt text finally working as intended. i've made a new navigation page for my blog organisation, full of some tags i've kept, some i've slightly changed, and a whole new kind of tags for those i use most often. currently all the links on there will lead to this blog (so some of them will lead nowhere, as they may be new tags) but my intention is to switch urls.

so -- moving? in a day or so (once i've got the last kinks worked out) i will be turning my otheraraekni blog into araekni, and this blog into an archive. because araekni is a sideblog, i don't really have the option to just attach it to an old email and set it adrift, and i'm hoping not to have to get notifications from it forever, so in a month or so it will be deleted.

why a month? hopefully that will give everyone time to save any webs they like from this blog that i haven't decided to move over to what will be the new araekni! obviously, a good portion of the followers on this blog are from a couple of years ago when i was posting webs much more regularly, and i am not at all expecting the new blog to reach the same level of popularity as this one did, but if anybody would like to follow the new blog this is your chance :) i'll queue this post a couple dozen times so as many people as possible see it, but if you don't wish to follow me over there, please know how much i have loved keeping this blog over the years and how wonderful of an experience it has been <3

[xiakeponz]

for modern AU fics - what chinese media did diaspora consume?

making this post because some of us in the diaspora server were having a chat about what Chinese media "Diaspora Chinese" watched in the 90's - 2000's (and even sooner than that) while not having access to satellite chinese media or streaming services - this is in the context of writing modern AU fics based off Chinese media/novels (so your main character's grandpa or uncle is not, in fact, watching an episode of Friends or Shortland Street or something as flavour text because sorry what the hell-)

We generally watched a lot of stuff on VCDs, including bootlegged and non-bootlegged movies, shows, anime/donghua. My household had a whole VCD album of this, and a lot of VCDs (even if they were pirated editions) would have a fancy hardcover box with a magnetic clasp and some artwork representing the show on it.

All of this is Mandarin - so not TVB stuff, because I'm from Northern China and I don't know any cantonese - but Canto friends, please feel free to add to the list! This is mostly stuff my parents liked to watch, or I liked to watch with them, with the exception of a few which I mainly watched with friends/cousins when I was maybe (in most cases) eleven/twelve years old onwards. This is a pretty personal list, meant to give people general idea of a possible "ballpark" of sorts, and by no means exhaustive.

Now, for the list of shows which I can confirm I had or someone I know had on VCD or some kind of offline media format lol (I'll try add release year stamps and links to the EN wikipedia where possible):

Period dramas (mostly Qing Dynasty stuff):

Huan Zhu Gege 还珠格格 (1998, April-) This is a classic, so many memes come from this show; hugely popular series, basically cemented Zhang Tie Lin's face as the face of the Qing Emperor for about a decade. Tie Chi Tong Ya Ji Xiao Lan 铁齿铜牙纪晓岚 (2002-2010) - I loved this show as a kid and watched all four seasons on repeat with family... The "trio" in this show are well known and loved.

Amazing Detective Di Ren Jie / 神探狄仁杰 (2004) A very popular and addictive show. Ok now the Big Four:

Romance of 3 kingdoms 1994 / 三国演义 (1994) - a classic that has had many remakes, my older cousin would play this on repeat...

Hong Lou Meng/红楼梦 （1987） - another classic with many remakes, but I think the most recognised by the public one is the 1987 one.

Journey to the West / 西游记 live action (1986) - I think the 1986 version of the live action is the most recognised one. *Shui Hu Zhuan / 水浒传 (1998) - I am not too familliar with the live action of this one in my household tbh bc my mum doesn't like it lol (she keeps saying it's too depressing) but I'm sure it's up there with the rest of the big four, if anyone has an opinion on this one please let me know!

Modern setting shows:

My dad loved all the Sun Honglei (孙红雷 - actor name) stuff, iirc it was a lot of MinGuo period espionage stuff, your shanghai 1920's sxc aesthetic. This actor has been around since 1999? Qian Fu （潜伏）was very famous, and Ren Jian Zheng Dao Shi Cang Sang （人间正道是沧桑）。 These were around '08 and '09.

Chuang Guan Dong - 闯关东 (2008) (Baidu link, sorry - couldn't get an EN wikipedia one). This show was huge when it was airing, everyone was watching it. I was pretty young but even I watched it and got invested ... and I thought it was such an "old person" show at the time lmao. Xiao Bing Zhang Ga / 小兵张嘎 （2004） (sorry, again Baidu link) - yo, anti-japanese war movies set between 1937-1945 were crazy popular - this is one of them and was very popular):

Donghua/Anime (all the stuff kid me watched and some which I didn't but were popular):

喜羊羊与灰太狼 (2005-) Calabash Brothers / 葫芦兄弟 （1986-1987） Black Cat Detective / Hei Mao Jing Zhang 黑猫警长 （1984-2010） Lan Mao Tao Qi 3000 Wen 蓝蓝猫淘气3000问 AKA 蓝猫 (blue cat) (October 1999 - Present) Legend of Ne Zha 哪吒传奇 (2003) Journey to the West/Xi You Ji 西游记 This was truly the Donghua I grew up on from when I was a bb, the OP song and ED song are classic bangers all kids know. Slam Dunk/ 灌篮高手 - People truly watched a lot of anime that may or may not have been terribly dubbed into mando (possibly canto too). Late 80s and 90s kids were all over this, and Dragon Ball, Crayon Shinchan (labixiaoxin).

Taiwanese Dramas:

This is mid-late 2000's, I would be remiss to not talk about the Taiwanese dramas of this era. Mike He, Rainie Yang, Wu Zun (amongst many, many others) were huge. Stuff like Dou Niu Yao Bu Yao, it started with a kiss, Hua Yang Shao Nv (Taiwanese version of Hana Kimi) were all pretty popular. Not sure if these shows all hold up in 2023, but boy were they popular at the time.

Note about CNY:

For CNY, people would try to tune into 春节联欢晚会 (the CCTV official CNY show) at that One Friend Who Had China Satellite TV's house. Zhao Ben Shan / 赵本山 was a comedy staple, and the show would often feature people from the music industry to perform. Eventually these people became more and more relevant to my gen and Jay Chou etc started appearing.

Last but not least Xian Jiaaaan 仙剑:

In 2005 I was all over 仙剑奇侠传 (Chinese Paladin), based off the video game. This show was crazy popular and probably sent me and a whole lot of other kids into Xianxia / Wuxia hell (and Hu Ge hell, and later I came back to love Liu Yifei). Thank you. The OST is a true banger.

[viperrot]

⇁high school sweethearts | leon kennedy | pt. 5

resident evil 4 remake leon s. kennedy x fem!band-student!reader high school au

the kennedy girls are much sweeter than their older brother, who seems to have completely forgotten the midnight serenade he gave you the night before.

pt.1 pt.2 pt.3 pt.4

content contains: mild angst, is this even enemies to lovers? i dont know anymore., mean? leon, cliches, story is told in first person, reader is a bit shy and is an oboe and trumpet player!, leon and reader are in their juniour year, fictional town set around 1980!

not proofread i am sleepy

2689 words

song rec: "sketching on the boat" from when marnie was there

The school day was horrifically long, so much so that I found myself dozing off in my English class. The lectures given by the stocky old teachers made my head hurt as the events of last night replayed over and over in my mind, the image of Leon's crooked smile forever etched in my memory.

Despite what he did to me, I couldn't find the want to be angry at him in that moment.

The dreaded hour of chemistry rolled around, and I found myself sitting awkwardly in my not-assigned-assigned seat. Leon's presence to my right made the hairs on the back of neck raise. My fingers grip the wooden pencil tight, anxiously scribbling down notes about calorimetry in my composition book. As Mrs. Bradshaw droned on about our lab for next class and being safe, I took a peek to my right, stealing a glance at the blonde boy next to me.

His head is tilted down as he jots down notes, and I smile to myself when I remember how disgusting his handwriting was last night. His eyebrows knitted together as he quickly wrote, his ballpoint pen dragging against the college-ruled paper. Leon's hair jostled slightly as his wrist flicked quickly, and I grew to admire his attention to the lecture, but the thought leaves my mind quickly when I remember what had happened between us.

The memory of my oboe slamming into the ground made my gut turn, and I recall the smug smile Leon had when he saw the look of despair on my face.

How could he be so sweet to me despite all that happened?

I don't realize how intently I stared at him until his eyes lock onto my own, and I immediately feel my throat go dry. If my stomach wasn't hurting ten minutes ago, it's definitely hurting now. The pen in Leon's fingers spun between each digits, hypnotically looping. We exchange awkward looks, and his lips twitch and pucker slightly, as if searching for words to say to me, but he couldn't whisper anything due to Mrs. Bradshaw calling for him.

"Mr. Kennedy, you have time to ogle girls after class," she scowls from the front of the room, the think chalk in her hands still on the blackboard. The ace's attention snaps to the teacher, his mouth slightly agape as his eyes dart around in search of an excuse.

"Can't help it, ma'am," Leon says coolly, leaning back into his desk chair with a soft smirk.

"Right... Please don't let me catch you staring at Mrs. (L/n) again, Mr. Kennedy," the woman sighs, resuming her lesson. Leon throws another look my way, and I notice how his leg shakes as he continues to play with the pen in his hand. I flash him an awkward grin before turning my attention back to the notebook on my desk, wanting to focus on my notes again. The last stretch of class begins, and I find myself sneaking glances at Leon more than once.

I don't notice him returning the favour.

"Leon!" I grab the sleeve of his Carhartt jacket as we walk out of the lab, the thick fabric between my fingers as I pull him to the side. He shoots me a glare, eyebrows furrowed as he stares at me with his nose slightly turned up.

"Do you need something?" He sneers at me, eyes piercing and harsh. I swallow dryly as I recognize the hostility in his body language.

"Can we like... talk?" I press, my lips forming a tight frown.

"About what? Your stupid clarinet?" The blonde's eyebrow raises, and I cringe slightly at the sound of him calling my oboe a clarinet.

"Last night... Y'know, how you played the-"

"I have no clue what you're talking about," Leon's nose crinkles as he tugs his wrist out of my grip. I look at him confused, not understanding how he could forget such a moment between us.

"Wh- how could you forget? Remember how we-" Immediately, he grabs the strap of my bookbag and drags me to a less crowded part of the hallway, gently pushing me into a locker with his hands resting atop my shoulders.

"Listen, princess," he sighs. "I can't let people knowing I'm into shit like that, okay? I already get enough talk in this hellhole as it is," he explains to me, and I feel some form of guilt tug at my heart. Even then, I grew even more confused.

"I... but why?" I frown at the boy, feeling tense beneath his grip.

"Whaddya mean 'why'? I just... don't wanna come off as a nerd," Leon chuckles humorlessly. The look on my face deepens.

"Leon," I pull his hands away from my shoulders, holding his left with a gentle squeeze. "Music isn't something you should just... turn away from. Why not share it with your friends?" I see Leon scowl slightly as he tugs his hand out of my grip.

"It isn't that simple..." he sighs, shaking his head softly. Blonde hairs dance around his face, concealing his icy blue eyes from my gaze.

"But-"

"See you around, princess," Leon turns on his heel, readjusting his backpack as he walks away from me as if nothing happened. I feel a headache begin as I scold myself for not stopping him, for not forcing him to talk to me or even pay for the damage he did to my poor oboe. I huff, disappointed in myself as I begin to walk to the band room.

The journey isn't long, and I find myself slumped in my chair towards the back of the room as I set up my trumpet. As I checked the valves of the brass item, the mouthpiece was wedged underneath my thigh to get it warm--a habit I've had since sixth grade. The instrument was greased and oiled to my liking, the valves and slides moving without any problems.

I inserted the mouthpiece before playing a simple chorale, adjusting my lips against the instrument as I tune myself.

"Sweet pea," I hear someone call from my left, knowing immediately that it was just Samantha. I pull my trumpet away from my face, turning my body in the plastic chair to look over at my best friend.

"What's up?" I cock my head to the side, curious as to what she has to say. She's got this funny look on her face as she crouches down to my level.

"Someone told me that you're gunna be tutoring the Kennedy girls... Is it true?" The flutist whispers to me softly. I'm taken aback at this, my brows knitting together.

"Who told you that...?" I give her a concerned expression. She giggles softly.

"Sunday, after church, your mom told my mom about it. I didn't think it was true, so I wanted to confirm with you," Samantha explains, getting up from her hunched position. I roll my eyes.

"Of course she told them," I grumble, flipping the pages of my binder to find the list of pep-tunes being used for this football season. "Yeah, I am. Their dad wanted them to like... be prepared for high school or whatever," I explain, slightly embarrassed. Samantha laughs under her breath.

"I see! Well, if you ever need an extra hand, I'm a drive away," she pats my shoulder before heading to the front of the room, sitting in her chair just inches away from the podium before class began.

Trios.

Glasses of water, stands, and wooden chairs from the dining room sat in the center of my bedroom.

Anxiety filled my stomach as I sit in one of chairs, my leg bouncing up and down as I try to calm myself. The air felt extremely hot all of the sudden as I stare down the book in front of me, the inked staffs and eighth notes taunting me as I await the arrival of the Kennedy girls.

I learned that the youngest was named Sherry. She played the euphonium, and I heard she wasn't the best at it from her father the other day. The other girl, Christina, is a trumpet player. She's a year older than Sherry, and she will be enrolling into Everglade High School next year. Their father speaks pridefully about them, and I can't help but find it a bit cute.

Even so, my nerves never faltered. Especially not when the doorbell rang.

I hear my mother greet the two girls, giving them a warm welcome before stomping up the stairs and towards my room. My heart pounded as I hear a gentle knock on my bedroom door.

"(Y/n)? The girls are here," she states. I stumble out of the wooden chair over to the door, opening it wide to let them in with a sheepish smile.

"Hey! It's good to see you," I awkwardly greet them. They nod at me in a similar manner as they enter my room, their footsteps pit-patting against the floorboards as they carefully walk over to the circle of chairs in the center of my bedroom. I take a seat, which is closest to my bed with my trumpet resting close to the foot of the chair. I clear my throat, trying to ignore the awful tension in the pit of my stomach as I took in the sight of the young girls in front of me.

They sat in the dining chairs daintily, their instrument cases set against the wooden chairs as they settled down. Sherry was a frail thing with baby blue eyes and her blonde hair styled in a low pony with a sweet red ribbon tied on the crown of her head. Her baby-blue vest was checkered, worn over a white dress shirt with a blue tie just under her chin. She also wore baggy cornflower shorts that went down just a hair past her knees.

The other girl, Christina, had chocolate brown hair that flowed freely down her back in long tresses, a bit matted. Her attire consisted of a simple pastel pink sweater and blue jeans that fit her legs a bit loosely. Her eyes were the the same shade of light blue as the rest of her siblings along with their button noses and fair skin. It was easy to tell that they were all related—the Kennedy's had very prominent features, especially with those perfect eyes of theirs.

It was hard to believe these girls are going to start high school so soon with how little they look, but I choose not to comment about it, clearing my throat with a cough before speaking.

"So... let's get to know each other before we start anything...!"

Posture is everything, I've learned.

I spent a good half of the two-and-a-half-hours with the girls trying to figure out why they sounded so... stale before realizing that they were both slouching in their seats. Their backs were hunched over the slightest amount to make them sound so weak while playing, and I had noticed only thirty minutes before our session ended.

Sherry and Chris—I had learned that she preferred to be called Chris—sat straight in their respective dining chairs, shoulders back with their bums at the edges of their seats. The younger of the two looked so little with the big ole euphonium planted in their lap that I was worried Sherry couldn't reach the mouthpiece at one point. Despite our bumps throughout the lesson, I came to like the Kennedy Girls.

Sherry, despite looking as fragile as a porcelain doll, wasn't afraid to get dirty. She easily slicked her fingers up with slide grease when I asked her to check her instrument before we tuned together, and even threatened to bet with her older sister about drinking valve oil which I immediately broke up. Even so, she was soft spoken for the most part, only ever getting rowdy if she was talking to her sister.

Chris was naturally smart-mouthed—it reminded me so much of her dear old brother. The difference between her when we first began the lesson to the end was quite apparent, it was hard to believe she was shy at all. The brunette played the trumpet quite well for her age, and I found myself satisfied with how she and Sherry learned so quickly.

"I think that's a enough for today, yeah?" I rest my trumpet on my lap and give the girls a soft smile. They nod in agreement, and I watch their jaws wiggle back and worth uncomfortably. I chuckle softly. "Go ahead and pack up and then I'll walk you two home, okay?"

"Okay!" they hum in unison, immediately reaching for their soft cases beneath their chairs. I get up to set my own instrument on my bed before leaving my bedroom, walking towards the bathroom just down the hall. Halfway through the short distance, a fake cough snaps me out of my thoughts. To my right is Damien's room, the door wide open to show me his lazy self lounging on his messy bed. I raise an eyebrow at him, my arms crossing below my chest.

"What do you want, Dami?" I tap my foot against the ground expectantly. He sticks his tongue out with a blank expression, looking at me upside on his bed.

"You guys are super loud," the idiot comments. You click your tongue at this.

"We're playing brass instruments. Of course we're loud," I walk away from his door and continue towards the bathroom.

I ignore his quips as I wash my hands, making quick work to get back to the girls. When I walk back into my room, I see them close my window and lock it, and an uneasy feeling fills my stomach. The two children notice me with light blushes dusting their faces, and I cock my head to the side questioningly.

"Was I interrupting something...?" I ask hesitantly. They shake their heads as a no, hands behind their back like ducklings as they try to act innocent. I decide it's best to not pester and keep the questions to myself.

"Are you two ready to go home then? I'm sure your dad wants you home for dinner," I walk towards the door of my bedroom, motioning them to follow. I watch them pick up their instruments before waddling up to me.

We walk out to the lower story together, the two girls trailing behind me. I lead the out the door silently, bidding my parents goodbye as we stepped out onto the porch. The autumn sun began to set, painting the sky in perfect hues of gold, pink, and blue as us three walked across the street. The distance to their house was short and sweet, and we stood on the front doorstep in a matter of seconds. The Kennedy Girls turn to face me, crooked-toothed smiles on their faces.

"Thank you for the lesson today, Missus!" they beam, and I feel my heart squeeze. I ignore the fact that they called me "missus" and flash them a smile back.

"Of course. I'll see you girls tomorrow in the high school band room, okay?" I remind them. Sherry looks a bit confused, but Chris quickly nods before dragging her sister into the house. When the door opens, I spot Leon standing a few steps away in the hall, watching us with a glass of milky-pink liquid in his hand.

He looked so innocent and sweet, but I wouldn't be fooled.

The ace has a cold look in his eyes, the same eyes the Kennedy family seemed to all share. His peachy lips are pressed into a tight, thin line as he glares at me from his spot in the hall before he looks down at his sisters with a cheesy smile that reaches his ears. It was almost terrifying how quickly his demeaner changed.

The door shut close with a light slam a soft clicking sound, telling me that the girls locked it.

I hold my breath as I begin the journey back to my home, silently wishing that tonight I can hear the sweet strum of a guitar before I go to bed.

finally the fifth part UHHHH this one kinda sucked i dunno i am kinda just doing what i want but ermmm..,

stay tuned for a self indulgent side story soon,,,,.,.,.,,..?

also yay this is now officially cross-posted on my ao3 under the same username!!

taglist: @bonnibuckets @umooooo74 @kurawooooooo @ilovemen1242 @elliewilliamsno1simp @v1v1dst4rs @iyagikkun @ir3nic-sluvv

[freakartack]

I remember your older Ask where you explained why it might be a little weird for Waluigi to be in WarioWare, but why do you think Nintendo does absolutely nothing with him? Even Daisy is getting more attention now, and our purple beanpole is gathering ever more dust as he cries himself to sleep. :(

I can think of 2 reasons

The suits at nintendo did not personally create waluigi and so he is kind of a black sheep. He's weaseled his way into spinoffs pretty securely but that in itself is a huge feat - we've all heard by now about how wapeach was smothered in the crib, so I figure waluigi's debut was already pushing it. (For the record, I love waluigi but I'm glad they didn't beat the "wa" concept into the ground - the joke definitely would have gone stale by the time they rolled around to wababy rosalina.)

As far as I remember waluigi is WAY more popular in the states than in japan. I don't know if this still holds true today and it is possible that nintendo is catching onto waluigi's memetic fanbase but i wouldnt be surprised if there was still a disconnect between the acolytes and the purveyors of waluigi.

But i mean, two third-party (ish) rpgs just got remakes which i never thought would happen in a milliard years, so who knows what waluigi's future holds.

This would never happen but here is my pitch/fanfiction for a waluigi game: Double-O Γ, Secret Waagent

Waluigi is minding his own business when suddenly he accidentally gets roped into the MI6 (mushroom intelligence, section 6) and there is a massive conspiracy afoot. However the only other thread tethering this game to the mario series is toadsworth, who is waluigi's boss and assigns him missions (but he doesn't know that is waluigi because he is in disguise). However on his first spy mission waluigi accidentally strikes a deal with the enemy (NOT the koopas, it would be an original set of characters that never appear in another game and that spawn a bazillion gamefaqs threads called "when will they add the waluigi villains to mario tennis" and "i hate the waluigi villains"). Now waluigi is a DOUBLE agent and the objective of the game is to go back and forth between both sides and not get caught as a traitor. Unfortunately no matter what you do at the end of the game the jig is up and waluigi's identity is revealed to both sides, causing them to declare a temporary truce so they can unite and kick him out. This is the final boss. After this they will realize that they hate waluigi way more than they hate each other and peace will be restored solely due to waluigi's incompetence.

i don't know why birdo is there i think she just wanted to dress up. The end

[chrysoula]

The Pale Princess and the Six Pygmies

I've put a lot of thought into that bit of mysterious lore [a set of books, only one of which has been released in-game, while the others have lingered in the datamine for years]. It's sort of been a semiannual thing. And I've both encountered and developed a lot of different theories of my own. I've explored it from the "Tsarita and the Six Archons" angle; from the Primordial One angle, and, several times, from the Khaenri'ah angle. It's generally been near the top on my Probably Has An Allegorical Meaning booklist, especially given the mystery of its existence primarily within the datamine, with only a single volume forced on us in unusual circumstances early in the game (along with the game's general Gnosticism). One of the trickier parts of analyzing the allegory has always been the Six Pygmies. Six isn't nearly as popular a number in Genshin as Seven or Three. But on my most recent pass, back late last year, I felt more and more certain that the Pale Princess was Khaenri'ah; the Light Prince was the Abyss Sibling (or another Descender, potentially), and... the first pygmy, the rebel pygmy, the one who seemed to repent and go his own way.... was Dainsleif. Somehow. Even if the books seemed much older than five hundred years. My last notes on the matter suggest that perhaps the five other pygmies are "some random currently-unknown Khaenri'ahn advisors." So when I read the recent revelation of Dainsleif's personal connection to certain previously introduced Sinners, various ideas snapped magnetically together, like watching a Statue of the Seven rebuild itself. Oh, and when you look at the individual pygmies, you can mostly match them up to the Sinners by their epithets. "The Wise" Hroptatyr, "The Visionary" Vedrfolnir, "Gold" Rhinedottir, "The Foul" Surtalogi, and "Rächer of Solnari" Rerir. Deformed, especially pathetic and weak Pygmy: Dainsleif Blind Pygmy found on a ridge: The Visionary Foolish Pygmy found in the mud: The Wise Timid Pygmy in the cave: The Foul (based on Skirk, Childe) Shrunken Pygmy in quicksand: Gold (based on a desire to remake the world/create new life) Carefree Pygmy being eaten by mushrooms: Rächer of Solnari (by process of elimination and because Rächer means Avenger, which seems quite somber indeed.) (general source here; datamined content) It is my pet theory that Dainsleif is the one responsible for the book.

[kismetconstellations]

@sockdooe Are there legitimately, truly, and genuinely people who fight about that?

I'm pretty sure that the Black Lion, herself, definitively answered that question.

She came to Shiro's aid by awakening and allowing Keith to pilot her when Shiro was being attacked and on the verge of losing his life to those raptor creatures in the second season's opening episode.

She severed Zarkon's connection to her in favor of bolstering her bond with Shiro, because Shiro understood that the relationship between Lion and Paladin is "not about power. It's about earning each other's trust."

And, she cherished Shiro enough to hold onto his essence after his body was destroyed.

Shiro was the first to master seeing through his lion's eyes, all the way back in Season One.

He and Black had a deep enough desire and willingness to fully understand one another that she showed him her history and abilities that she and Shiro had yet to unlock together.

There's no debate to be had, here. Shiro is the ultimate Black Paladin, as determined by the Black Lion, herself.

I can only guess that there's an element of ageism, perhaps even ableism, and undoubtedly superficial vanity at play when it comes to the fandom's preference for Keith, Lance, and the pairing of the two of them that shall not be named. Keith and Lance are skinny, elfin-faced twinks with a cliche rivalry and certain vulnerabilities that appeal more to the younger demographic. Shiro is a square-jawed, six-foot-tall adult man with bulging biceps and abs of steel, and the sort of trauma that would take years to even begin processing, let alone healing from, who seems to be much more popular with the older, adult fans, and Eastern audiences. The younger, American fans took to calling Shiro a "dad", after all, despite him being twenty-five years-old; nowhere near old enough to be a father to any of the teenagers he finds himself put in charge of. I've also seen Keith/Lance shippers calling Shiro "Keith's dad", which feels vaguely racist, and arguing that Shiro "raised" Keith, which is ludicrous. It doesn't help at all that the show, itself, feeds into the ageism and ableism by sweeping Shiro's trauma under the rug, sidelining him when he's down an arm, and sequestering him and Coran off with the other adults while the teenaged- sans Keith, who was at least twenty-one throughout the latter half of the seventh and whole of the eighth season- Paladins go off on their adventures.

I know the intention was to kill Shiro off permanently before the producers vetoed it due to Shiro's popularity and status as the show's only (living, explicitly confirmed, and relevant) gay character. Perhaps because he has no one-to-one equivalent character in the original series this was a remake of, and Keith was the leader in that same original series, so he was destined to be the leader, here, as well. Or, because the VLD showrunners were under the- delusional- belief that they could have Keith redo what Shiro had already done, only better, somehow, because they prioritized spectacle over narrative substance. Regardless, it's apparent that Shiro is only still around out of obligation, come the eighth season, and there was no desire on the writers' parts to further explore or develop his character. Hence him having no family, and, by extension, no real support system, being largely isolated from everyone, only really getting to shine in an episode that's half filler and unintentionally perpetuates more ableism, and then being married off to a "character" who might as well be a glorified piece of set dressing for all of the personality and importance he's given.

It's absolutely mind-boggling to me that,

1. The majority, or at least the most vocal parts of the fanbase cared more about shipping and complaining about being "queerbaited" over Lance/Keith when Shiro is right there.

And, 2. It seems like Josh Keaton, Shiro's voice actor, was the only member of the crew who truly appreciated Shiro, enough to offer his personal headcanon about Shiro's family- that Shiro was raised by his grandfather- state that he intentionally gave the clone's voice a harder edge compared to Shiro's softer, gentler tones in order to distinguish between the two of them, showing his implicit understanding of Shiro's character, and even made a video tribute to Shiro after the show had ended.

Aww, thank you for enjoying my angry rant on Shiro's behalf. Believe me, it burns that Shiro is overlooked entirely as the stepping stone he was on the path toward gay representation in children's media, purely because this show's quality plummeted so hard, and the fandom earned itself a reputation as one of the worst in recorded history. He deserves to be honored and celebrated, as not only a proud gay man who told Pidge that "owning who you are is going to make you a better Paladin", but also as a trauma survivor who strove to remain gentle, patient, and kind, and devote his life to saving others.

And, yes, he also deserves the best therapist in the universe, and all of the cuddles. ❤

[inimoose]

what's the pili(?) stuff you keep reblogging?

as far as i see, it's a stop motion doll story, set in china(?)

and it kinda looks like the modao zushi my sister reads

霹雳 or Pili is a Taiwanese glove puppet drama that’s been airing since the 1980s and currently there are over a thousand episodes. The plot varies across its many seasons but it’s basically about martial arts, sword fighting and lots of drama between the many many characters of the show. (It's not stop-motion btw, it's filmed live with the puppets)

There’s always some bad guys or groups stirring up trouble. But bad or good the characters always look damn good I mean...

Beautiful :')

Anyway its been a special interest of mine since I was about 16 Cartoon Network aired a horribly edited dubbed version of it before quickly pulling the plug on it (Wulin Warriors… only look it up if you want to cringe)

As much as I love the series it's rather hard for people to get into if you don't know Chinese. BUT if you are interested you have some options!

Thunderbolt Fantasy:

It's not Pili but a new series, a collab between Pili, Nitroplus, and Good Smile. If you like anime you'll love this! There are 3 seasons, 2 movies, and season 4 is in production I believe. You can find it on crunchyroll or any site that uploads anime.

Pili Fantasy: War of Dragons:

A remake of an early Pili series made to appeal to a global audience. It was on netflix, which was a dream come true for me.

Literally.

But since all my dreams are meant to die, netflix removed after a couple years. There's no legal way to watch the subbed version, but there are other ways if you know what I mean 🏴‍☠️

There's another 2 seasons of Pili Fantasy but they are sadly not subbed.

Lastly Studio886 on youtube is currently posting subbed episodes of older Pili series. I will post them in chronological order

Pili Totem:

Pili Anomalous: The Dragon Domination:

Pili Sealed Spirits Island:

Pili Military Conflagration:

Even though these are older series they're still very good! I'm working my way through The Dragon Domination currently.

I know this is probably way more than you wanted to know but if even one person watches Pili because of it I will be happy. Thank you for the question!

[fantasygerard2000]

Tastes and Preferences Are Not Standards

There's this issue with fans of any media complain about the lack of original works over actually watching them.

So, recently, D23 announced a ton of upcoming projects for the parks, games, shows, etc with their movies being the one that got the most attention. Majority of them are sequels and live action remakes and per usual, people are outrage over the big D for prioritizing on nostalgia baiting than making new ideas.

Here's the thing tho, alongside the sequels and live action remakes, they also announced Hoppers, an upcoming original film by Pixar directed by the guy that made We Bare Bears, Daniel Chong. Response to Hoppers, was near nonexistent. Like, very little anticipation as in "it exists".

Not only that, another original film before Hoppers is currently to be released next year, Elio. Just like with Hoppers, Elio only seen as this movie that was originally supposed to be released this year before swapping places with Inside Out 2.

Now, the obvious answer to this is rage culture. Being angry over the current thing is an easy content mill. Mufasa is being blasted because it had the audacity to not be faithful to an obscure prequel book series and Snow White for even much more dumb reasons, mostly centering on the lead actress because, if that didn't work on Halle, might as well try again on Rachel.

And when other people addressed that Pixar and Disney did made original films with Elemental and Wish being their current examples, the response these grifters is "We want GOOD original ideas." Now that just shows that they genuinely don't actually care about wanting to watch original ideas, regardless of quality, and simply only using them as a point to why hollywood is dead, blah blah blah.

Original ideas take time to get people invested into watching them. People prefer to engage with media they are more familiar with over the new ones, hence why they are always needlessly comparing things.

Elemental was mocked for being a Zootopia clone but with living elements and themes of racism, but while Zootopia is about general prejudice, Elemental is about personal prejudice. It doesn't use allegories like Zootopia, it's straightforward about the characters being immigrants. Just like any other Pixar film, there's more to the story than the general concept. But that didn't stop people saying that the characters being living elements didn't contribute to the story. Just like with Turning Red, the creator chose so because he want to, as if kids totally wanna watch a movie about immigrants. It's his story, based on his own life experiences told through a lens so kids can enjoy it.

I already talked about Wish to death, but it is a major factor considering that it's an original story that is deliberately made to be an homage to classical and renaissance era Disney films. The comparisons of to to previous films like Disney's more well known works like Snow White are dubious because they're oddly biased and surface level when there's another Disney film that's even more comparable, The Princess and the Frog.

Princess and the Frog is a lot like Wish, black lead, classical villain, hand drawn animation (though Wish's is stylized) and themes about working hard to achieve your dreams. While Wish has problems about how "half cooked" it is, Princess and the Frog has more problems than Wish; Tiana, their first black princess being a frog for majority of the movie, the sugarcoating of a 1920's setting, the demonization of an active closed religion that people use as an aesthetic coughAlastorHazbincough and a complicated story about technicalities to break the spell and a forced moral about love and family, and not in a good way.

Despite these issues being present and are still discussed today, the fact that it's hand drawn animated and has a cool looking villain wallpapers all over this issues. This is also extends in a lot of Disney's other older films. The mess of a cultural mix setting that is in Aladdin and Raya, the racism in Peter Pan, the usage of g*psy in Hunchback, Pocahontas existing and characters of color being played by white actors that the same thing literally happened with Raya (SEAsian characters, not SEAsian actors). Even though these problems have always been present, people dismiss them with "It was fair for the day". They value their personal nostalgia over the issues other have during them.

Coming back on the topic of comparing films, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is often brought up to compare anything Disney and Pixar make. People had low expectations towards The Last Wish because it was a sequel to a spin off no one asked for and it succeeded their expectations. The reason why I brought up The Last Wish is because a minority of animation fandom use it as the standard for animated films. The comment saying "We want GOOD originals" is practically them moving up the goal post because to them, any original idea isn't good enough for their tastes. We can't have an original idea without someone bemoaning about how it's inferior to an already existing idea based on surface level comparisons.

Bringing back Wish because it's a good example, people wanted it be like the previous Disney films. However, being like them means loosing its own identity. Turning Star into a generic pretty boy for the girls to salivate over means losing what Star represents, the hope people have to keep on pursuing their ambitions.

An ironic thing is whenever they find a good idea they liked, they want more of it. Basically, wanting others to be just like it. What's the point of wanting an original when all you just want is the same old thing again?

[thegeneralreturns]

Thoughts on THE CROW (2024)

You know that TikTok of that emo kid, sitting in the front seat of his car, screaming "MY HEARRRRRRRT! IIIIII LOOOOOOVED HERRRRRR!"? Well, this new version of The Crow is that for two hours.

This is not a criticism. In fact, shock of shocks, I found myself kinda... sorta... loving this movie.

The path that the 1994 version of The Crow found toward its cult reverence is one steeped in tragedy. The untimely passing of its lead Brandon Lee during filming gave a tinge of romance and lost potential to what was, in essence, a big, dumb action movie. A big, dumb action movie that boasted a solid lead performance and the pinnacle of nineties set design and cinematography, but a big, dumb action movie nonetheless. No matter how good he was when the cameras were on him, Lee wasn't cast because he was a master thespian. He was cast because he was Bruce Lee's kid, and that might move a few tickets. The Crow was Bob and Harvey Weinstein's play to get Miramax in a position to compete with Warner Bros. and Batman, and one of the most infamous on-set accidents in film history led to a periphery demographic of Goth kids that are still cosplaying, buying the soundtrack, and lighting candles thirty years later.

The 2024 version of The Crow appears to be an effort to legitimately make the film that that periphery demographic seems to have been seeing in a mirage for the past thirty years, and on that score, I think it succeeds. It's open-wound sincere love story between two druggie kids, the tragedy that separates them, and the passion that brings one of them back in a rain of bullets and blood. I saw someone on Twitter call it "Twilight for scumbags," and that person deserves a Pulitzer Prize. It's pitched at that level, only instead of long, interminable stretches of the two leads staring at one another, it's broken up by bad guys getting shot in the face. There is a place for this.

FKA Twigs plays Shelly, and it's as though she sprang fully-formed out of Tim Burton's head with her compact, twee, English-accented Gothness. But I find Bill Skarsgard's Eric to be genuinely endearing. Whereas Brandon Lee's rendition of the character was an Alpha Chad who came out of the grave knowing combat tactics, the Skarsgard take is troubled, though well-meaning, and seemingly doesn't have a plan in his quest for revenge beyond "They can die and I can't." And the sight of this gaunt tree-branch taking shotgun blasts at point blank range sells the enormity of the odds against him.

The love story and character aspects of this movie are so persuasive that when the action does eventually get here, it can't help but suffer in comparison. Rupert Sanders is no Alex Proyas, and while he nails the impact of violence, the actual geography seems to give him trouble. Is it just me, or does the opera house in the climax appear to have too few floors than the sequence requires?

So which one is better? I don't know, and frankly I don't care. In a rational world, we could show appreciation that James O'Barr's source material was strong enough to facilitate two wildly different cinematic approaches. But we don't live in a rational world, and remaking a mid-nineties comic book movie is tantamount to blasphemy.

But what I do know is that we're gonna get older. New folks are gonna move in. And when you ask them which version is better, the answer won't be as one-sided as you think. Because if there's one thing that literally every version of The Crow has thought me, it is this:

Nothing this earnest stays dead for long.