#basically I need more horror focused adaptations

[brucebocchi]

Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 2: #40-31

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here. thanks!

Alright, on we go to the list proper. The first post was probably whiplash-inducing, going from a bunch of shorter stuff I loved to whole seasons I hated, but we can only go up from here. I watched a lot of anime this year, as the numbers indicate, so there's a little positivity to be found even in the lower rankings.

As always, OPs are linked in the series titles. Watch them, they're almost all great.

40. Metallic Rouge

One of the biggest disappointments of the year, one which I didn’t think could be outdone (and I’ll get to that one shortly). Metallic Rouge had so much going for it as a Studio Bones original for its anniversary, and managed to fumble all of its promise and goodwill in slow, agonizing fashion. 

It’s a shame, too. Metallic Rouge still looks awesome; the character and mech designs are excellent, the space-cyberpunk aesthetic is undeniable, and the animation can be terrific when it counts. The story, on the other hand, is so completely asinine that I was sick of this show before it ended. I’ve mostly forgotten what even happens, partly because it was that infuriating to keep up with, and partly because I feel like the writers forgot too; the bulk of any actual story felt backloaded into the last two or three episodes because they focused too hard on vibes for a while. I think they were trying to go for some “G-Witch by way of Detroit: Become Human” something or other, but all of it rang hollow. I’m still not sure whether it needed more runtime or better writers. Probably both.

Not worth your time. Just watch the OP and imagine a better show than what we got.

39. Mysterious Disappearances

I’ve thought so little about this show since it went off the air that I don’t really have anything new to say. Looks pretty lousy most of the time, not that interesting, oddly horny, and the plot structure gets kind of cloying after a while.

I know I harped on that last point when I reviewed it at the end of the spring season, but something funny happened after I did. Back in July, I mentioned that I took issue with the formula of “we encounter a paranormal anomaly, it’s identified as a yokai or urban legend, we learn its tragic backstory, our protagonists give it closure, and we move on” because it felt manipulative after I realized that it happened with every arc, and then I went ahead and read DanDaDan, which basically does exactly the same thing but a hell of a lot better. Comparing a middling work like this to DanDaDan of all things feels unfair, but they cover pretty similar ground. Maybe it’s sharper writing, or maybe it’s just a more engaging work. Who’s to say?

I’d also said in my review that Mysterious Disappearances unintentionally gives off the vibe of a poorly-archived mid-2000s series, but I hadn’t realized just how right I was: It turns out that studio Zero-G just went ahead and made up its own ending even though the source material is still ongoing. Better shows did the same this year, but the studio and I seem to have the same level of faith that this anime’s ever coming back.

38. My Deer Friend Nokotan

Honestly? Fuck this show.

I’ve already gone into what I did and didn’t like about Nokotan after it went off air a few months ago and I don’t care to revisit that while it’s still relatively fresh. Not nearly as funny as it pretended to be, yet still not even confident in its own sense of humor. The OP's still a bop (calling it "Shikairo Days" was a genuinely great joke), and a small handful of gags do land, but not enough to prevent this from being a massive disappointment.  At the same time, Nokotan was still somehow not the biggest letdown of the year.

37. Uzumaki

This was the biggest letdown of the year.

When an anime adaptation of the legendary Junji Ito horror manga was first announced in 2019, it was hard not to get excited. Even when I’d mostly fallen out of anime fandom, I knew damn well who Junji Ito was and I knew Uzumaki. Adult Swim was funding the project, a prestige studio in Production I.G. was handling the animation, and they even nabbed Hereditary composer Colin Stetson for the score. Ito’s manga is famously very difficult to adapt well, and it looked like we finally had a project being taken seriously. Delays and radio silence in the ensuing years were disappointing, but I was willing to be patient if it meant everything was being handled right. When the trailer dropped this summer, it looked like it would be worth the wait.

And for one glorious episode, it seemed like everyone’s patience paid off. Uzumaki’s debut episode was one of the most visually arresting pieces of animation I’ve ever seen: The entire look and feel was faithful to Ito’s inimitable style, from the meticulously detailed linework to the stark black-and-white color grading of his manga’s pages. On top of that, the animation itself was absurdly good; the process of rotoscoping 3D motion capture seemed arduous, but the end result was beautifully lifelike for a story where that quality could only serve to instill further terror. Several of the most iconic images from the early chapters looked incredible in hi-def motion. Sure, the pacing was a little fast, but this was a four-episode miniseries. We could deal. This was just too good.

And then came the second episode.

I’m not going to over-elaborate or relitigate every single thing that went wrong here, because it’s a lot. Uzumaki was in development for a long time, and that five year gap between announcement and release included several detriments to the production process, not the least of which being COVID, animation production changing hands between several studios, and new leadership for Adult Swim’s parent company that now favors profit over product, especially when it comes to animation that doesn’t involve DC characters. Plenty of us figured that all of these delays and a run of only four episodes meant that they had the time to hammer out all the issues and give us the best possible product. That, unfortunately, was not the case.

Responding to complaints about the decline in animation in the second episode, executive producer Jason DeMarco (who, to be blunt, has overseen several mediocre-to-awful anime products released under the Adult Swim brand, including my bottom-ranked anime of 2023) claimed in a quickly-deleted Bluesky thread that there is indeed a higher-up to blame and that they were left with an ultimatum to either drop Uzumaki after just one episode, let it go the way of so many other Warner Bros non-releases under David Zaslav’s disastrous leadership, or release the whole miniseries in its half-baked state. They went with the third.

So, what we got was an uneven, often sloppy work; another mediocrity to throw on the pile of failed Junji Ito adaptations. All goodwill established in the first episode is soon undone by wonky character models, uncanny walk cycles, and movement that looks like PNGs being dragged across a background at the most inopportune times. Plenty of viewers, myself included, were willing to overlook the accelerated pacing after the first episode, but that issue was thrown into stark relief by the second when entire chapters of the manga began playing out simultaneously, and one was even reduced to an afterthought for a cheap “scare” at the end of episode three. 

Not that I thought Uzumaki necessarily needed a full 12-episode season for a proper adaptation or anything; Ito’s output can often be light on story, and dragging it out too far risks losing interest. What makes Ito’s stories actually work, though, is a proper sense of setting and space to let tensions rise. That didn’t entirely happen here; while the atmosphere of Kurozu-cho does plenty resemble what we’ve seen from Ito’s pages, and Stetson’s atonal saxophone does a lot of work to raise the level of unease, things just kind of happen. Few things really get the chance to land as intended, in part due to the production quality cheaping out at climactic moments.

This was the last anime I finished this year even though I’d watched the first two episodes after they aired and it went off the air in October. I was looking forward to the last two episodes that little. There are still bits and pieces of great animation and faithful adaptation here and there, but not enough to regain any goodwill from the second episode’s wheels visibly falling off. Maybe it’s finally time to declare Junji Ito’s works unadaptable once and for all. 

Definitely watch that first episode, though. At this point I kind of wish that’s all we’d gotten.

36. Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!

Straitlaced Nice Guy moves to a new town, laid-back gyaru from his class immediately takes a liking to him, a couple other girls enter the picture, shenanigans ensue, and a slow-burn romance begins in parallel. Nothing special on paper and nothing much more special than that in execution. The setting is lovely, though, and it really made me want to visit Hokkaido one day. Nicely done, tourism board.

If you watched this and were put off by it, I don’t blame you; I probably would’ve been too if I hadn’t decided to read ahead in the manga. I will say this, though: If you liked Hokkaido Gals even a little, read the manga. It’s a minor investment, but if you can get over the halfway mark, it gets surprisingly good and has a really lovely ending. 

The anime, on the other hand? Meh. Doesn’t look super great and didn’t have enough time in 12 episodes to overcome most of the issues the source material had to move past to get to what made it worthwhile. It would take another season or two to get there, and that probably isn’t gonna happen. Great OP, though (I'm starting to repeat myself, I know). Just read the manga.

35. No Longer Allowed in Another World

Boasting one of the most audacious premises for an isekai I’ve ever seen, No Longer Allowed in Another World doesn’t shy away from the implications of an Osamu Dazai isekai, has the dark humor to match, and provides some fascinating commentary on the type of person who tends to consume wish-fulfillment isekai. Unfortunately, the presentation was a little lacking and threatened to lose my attention several times. I think the idea is much better on paper, to the point where I might test that theory and go read the manga.

34. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

The next dozen or so anime in the rankings fall into a category of either “well-made anime that I found kind of frustrating” or “middling anime that I kind of enjoyed.” The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic is very much the latter. It’s a standard isekai on paper; demon king, special powers, what have you, but it has a likable cast and laid-back vibe for much of its runtime that made it pleasant enough to watch.

As I said after the winter season, I really liked that Wrong Way spends a lot of its early story ensuring that the protagonist expends the time and effort necessary for him to become the hero he’s meant to be instead of the narrative just handing it to him from the start, which instantly sets it apart from most other wish-fulfillment isekai. It’s far from the best-looking anime I watched this year, but it has a mid-00s throwback look and feel to it that works more to its benefit than in Mysterious Disappearances. Nothing groundbreaking and a little too backloaded, but an enjoyable enough experience and one I’m looking forward to seeing come back. 

The only really upsetting thing about this show is that Atsuko Tanaka (Major Kusanagi, Bayonetta, Kainé), who was tremendous as the intimidating Captain Rose, is no longer with us. She was an exceptional talent with an iconic voice who will be sorely missed, and future seasons of this show won’t be the same without her.

33. Go! Go! Loser Ranger

Though not a bad anime by most metrics, I still consider Loser Ranger a minor disappointment. It mostly looks great, and “what if The Boys was a sentai series” is a killer premise, but the story so far is extremely frontloaded. Almost too much happens in the first four episodes, and then the bulk of the last arc of the season takes place in a goddamn parking garage. I’m still annoyed by that. Still looking forward to season 2, but I wish the debut season had been 24 episodes to avoid the sour taste in my mouth.

Did you hear that echo? Yep, that's me telling you to watch yet another OP. Easily the best part of the show and one of the best of the year. Tatsuya Kitani can't keep getting away with it.

32. Astro Note

2024 turned out to be a banner year for Rumiko Takahashi’s older works making their way back to modern screens, and one of those entries wasn’t even hers.

Astro Note is an overt homage to Takahashi’s less-famous romcom Maison Ikkoku, which ran parallel to Urusei Yatsura for most of the latter’s run. Like Ikkoku, Astro Note follows a down-on-his-luck young man living in a boarding house full of bizarre miscreants who only stays because the manager is super pretty. Unlike Ikkoku, and unbeknownst to our protagonist, said manager is actually an alien who is practically turning the house over to find a secret alien MacGuffin.

This show looks lovely and has a delightful cast and some surprisingly moving subplots, but it’s nothing too special otherwise. There are some fun creative flourishes here and there, like the alien stuff shown in flashback being made to look like an older space opera anime, but aside from a very fun turn near the end of the season, Astro Note rarely rises above the level of simply “pleasant.” And that’s fine, but it doesn’t quite live up to the material it’s aping, and what we’ve ended up with is just a nice distraction. 

I’m so glad I finally decided to read Maison Ikkoku though.

31. Shangri-La Frontier, second cour

It’s been a running joke for me that the more I watch Shangri-La Frontier, the less I’m sure whether I like it or not, and now with 25 episodes in the tank, I’m less sure than ever. The back half of the debut season improved on a few of the things that annoyed me about its first cour by focusing more on the high-quality action and introducing minor stakes to the proceedings, and then everything else surrounding it made it feel no less like I’m just watching a guy playing a goddamn video game, and the stakes still mostly seem to amount to "he wants to be good at it."

You may notice that I didn’t include the second season in this review, and that’s because I flat-out didn’t care to pick it back up. I’d been busy during the fall season and continuing a show I didn’t enjoy that much just wasn’t a high priority. It’s continuing into January, so there’s time to catch it while it airs, but I’m still not in any hurry.

[cosinelanguage]

Double Overtime -- extended author's notes

as with the last long fic I wrote, I have some extended author's notes on the fic haha. posting them to Tumblr was fun the last time, so without further ado:

Hockey Details

I went into this set up being like ‘i know a reverse sweep isn’t likely but it IS dramatic so i’ll do it’ and then i watched in awe/horror as the Panther’s 3-0 lead shrunk down to 3-3 and the oilers were set to pull of a reverse sweep (and spoil the end of my fanfic.). The oilers ALMOST did it but whiffed it at the end. Still, wild timing for me. We’re living in one of Connor McDavid’s failed timeloops. 

I have a like, novice level understanding of hockey but a huge amount of enthusiasm. A time loop was the best plot to get around that– i only have to focus on one hockey match rather than the logistics of an entire season or more. There’s still a lot more i could do if i understood the game more, but hey, i was here for the fights and i provided for myself. 

The Baratie Steelheads and the Syrup Village Sockeyes aren’t the most fitting names for the both (types of salmon), but they are names that were on the Seattle Kraken’s original team name shortlist, so it was an easter egg for myself.

Sanji’s entire contract thing is definitely over the top plot contrivance, but there’s a certain amount of over the top required when adapting his backstory. The Steelheads leaving Baratie is inspired by the poor Arizona Coyotes being relocated. RIP to the Coyotes, coolest jerseys in the league squandered by poor management

Most the fights were actually based on hockey clips from twitter lol. thanks for the insp hockey

Character Details

I didn’t include all the character details for the strawhats, primarily because it’s Sanji’s POV and he’s mostly focused on zoro. But, for the list, with more details about characters with less screentime lol:

Luffy: Captain, Center. I think he’s pretty versatile and also sometimes plays LW/RW, but he’s primarily the Strawhats center and captain, with a huge near-elastic reach

Zoro: Defenseman, though a particularly offensive d-man and an enforcer. Roughly, this is basically an unofficial role for the guy who starts fights with people who make dirty plays. 

Nami: Technically the social media manager of the team, acts more like the team’s overall manager. Team manager kind of seems like a lazy spot to put her in, but i like to think she’s a travel enthusiast and expenses it all on the company card lol

Usopp: LW/RW, and one of the top scorers when he’s backed up properly. Pretty underrated when initially being recruited, but shines under the Pirates’ strategy

Sanji: LW, and a pest. Basically he annoys people into fighting him HAHA. the perfect role for him. I wanted him to be LW primarily for the whole pirate king’s wings energy

Vivi: owner of the alabasta ducks! And a former olympic figure skater. Her and nami have a complicated on again / off again relationship, which mostly comes up whenever there’s a Ducks vs Pirates game (and they either get together / break up)

Chopper: ok, chopper was a complicated decision. I was caught between him being a gentle giant of a defenseman VS him being team doctor, but in the end decided that doctor required less justification

Robin: Robin was difficult to fit in. I ended up deciding on her being the Pirates local commentator. Commentator is fun at the least because there’s a lot of context/history/etc of the players on the ice you need to know to be good at the job, and i think she’d be HILARIOUS

Franky: Goalie! Franky fits well as goalie, first of all because of how beefy goalie equipment is, and second of all because a goalie with a big personality is quite fun. There’s something extremely fitting about him doing the ‘super’ move with leg guards

Brook is the Pirates DJ! What Else. i think he picks great songs for the stadium. zoro tells him to use mamma mia as sanji’s song and sanji nearly sends him into an early grave.

Jinbe: coach He was initially the goalie in a very early draft, but coach makes sense in terms of how he’d be able to support the team and his general level headedness. There’s a lot of clips of Paul Maurice, the Panther’s current coach, having this absolutely chill energy about him that’d work so well

Plotting/Planning Thoughts

I decided on ‘Double Overtime’ as the title pretty quickly, just because it’s (a) a hockey term and (b) a fun way to describe two people (double) caught in a time loop (overtime). The emphasis on double overtime as a win condition came after the title

I decided on ‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Waterloo’ as the main song insp for these early on. Mamma Mia itself is this good mix of an upbeat song that’s just a bit sad and just a bit ominous, and the lyrics can be fun for a time loop (‘here I go again’). Waterloo was always the credits song (‘i feel like i win when I lose’ come on now)

I decided that I’d post in early June like the actual Stanley Cups, and 6/6 was decided on as the in-date and IRL start of the time loop because it’s Germa Day (66): something kind of poetic about Germa fucking up their perfect win on Germa day 

Time Loop Win Condition

The time loop win condition! Zoro was always going to win and Sanji was always going to lose, but the details took a bit to figure out. I knew it was going to incorporate (a) him trusting Zoro and reaching out for help (impossible task for him), (b) him wanting to play hockey on a team that doesn’t hate him, (c) remix of Sanji’s Baratie arc, and (d) the concept of double overtime. 

There was a lot of changing around on what exactly Sanji would be able to do; initial drafts actually had him coming out pretty clean from the double overtime deal (saving the Baratie) but that didn’t feel earned, I liked the kind of bittersweet selfish sacrifice of letting the team go, otherwise it’d feel a bit too contrived. this is already a late reveal loophole— it wouldn’t feel earned without that tinge of regret 

In the end i liked what I went with, though I think I could’ve built up a little bit more before hand, and had a bit more emotional consequence to Baratie’s relocation. But ive written like, FIVE separate sad zeff phone calls in the last few months, i decided i had Enough. I had to Limit Myself. Only one sad zeff phone call this time for me ok

things to do differently

Look at me!!! Finishing a fic before i post!!! This was good actually, and meant the pacing was better than what i did with my last long fic lmao. Still had some issues imo, but considerably stronger on keeping scenes regularly paced. I should always do this.

IMO after reread (after it being finished for weeks) i think one of the weaker points is just really sanji’s apology– zoro figures out the duel time loop deal fairly fast (benefit of relying on other people) and folds pretty easily. I mean he’s unfortunately smitten but it doesn’t change the fact that he was hurt. There’s a specific degree of pulled punches I do sometimes with emotional moments that I’d like to get better at, but live and learn lol

Intermission 

Hey i had a lot of notes on zoro’s POV the entire time loop. and also a lot of thoughts on the fade to black scene of my T rated fanfic. There were three main points I wanted to explore with Zoro’s POV

First: there’s a fun contrast with Zoro (VS Sanji) both feeling utterly alone as the lone person in the time loop and having an actual support network. Sanji talks to basically Iva, Zoro, and Reiju only during his loop, and all of them he keeps at arm’s length, but Zoro is both deadset on winning for his team, and lets his team helps him. Sanji is meanwhile stewing in his own anger alone, despite knowing he’s not the only person stuck there

Second: Zoro is way more of a time loop speedrunner. He has the timeline down pat. He thinks about the details of the game. He’s shaving off minutes of conversations. Sanji doesn’t plan as much, primarily because Zoro’s an unknown that shakes up the loop too much. 

Third: the hookup lol. i liked the idea of their hookup being good but limited emotionally due to how closed off and testy sanji still is about the time loop– in the end an extension of him refusing to show zoro his own injuries. There is that enticing flash of vulnerability at the end, but then Zoro’s back to square one. 

One of the first times i’ve written not like, funny porn for Z/S (which is my default), so look at me. Varying the porn i guess. congrats

epilogue

I have a lot of thoughts on an extended epilogue HAHA. i felt bad adding a secret sad smut chapter but not having the chance to do the opposite; i had one going but i spent like 4k on a luffy recruitment scene and decided… another time…

Zoro is smug about the whole ‘you only get to touch the stanley cup if you WIN!!!’ thing and uses it as an excuse to be the one to touch sanji in the pwp, since he never got the chance in the loop.

I also think luffy takes the stanley cup into the middle of the ocean, gives the one piece speech as usopp livestreams, and tosses it into the sea. Zoro and sanji have to save it (this is how it’s revealed sanji is somehow being traded to the pirates)

[pixeldotgamer]

✨All My WIP Projects✨

Since the results of that Twitter poll I did show people REALLY wanna know what I'm working on, I figured I'd just announce/summarize most of the things I have in development right now!

This will be pretty long so it's getting tucked under a read more!

Don't Tell My Wife / DTMW (Game, Horror VN) Status: Active Development

DTMW is my entry for SuNoFes2024 on Itchio! Folks may actually recognize this one as I streamed some concept art a while back, and even posted some as well!

This game focuses on a Husband and Wife in the woods. Specifically, the Husband and something he's been trying to plan for a while. Now there's only one week left and his Wife has taken notice.

"You have one week to get your plans sorted. You thought you had more time than this. Don't let her find out."

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Treacherous Flesh (Game, RPGMaker Horror) Status: Research & Writing

TF follows the story of Ila, a woman who contracts a deadly illness and must wait 8 months for treatment. The game follows her over that time as her symptoms worsen, and her body turns against her.

Like many of my projects, TF pulls from a personal feeling. This game is an outlet for my own ongoing health problems. I started working on this game after being told I had to wait 8 months for an ultrasound I need for diagnosis. It's month 4 of 8 now.

Probably the most outright depressing thing I'm working on, this game actually means a lot to me. This is an outlet, but I'm also hoping it resonates with people who may be going through what I am.

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Dead Girl's Club (Game, VN) Status: Research & Writing

DGC follows a girl from a religious cult town tracking down the male "murderers" of girls from said town. The game is a very blatant look at the transmasc experience tackling themes of family, community, passing, more.

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Computer Angel (Game, Point & Click/Interactive Fiction, Horror) Status: Concept Development

Computer Angel comes from my own fascination with the concept of "angels speaking to you through your screens" and such, whether for horror or comfort.

In CA, your aunt has just passed away suddenly and you end up with her computer. As you investigate the machine to use for yourself, you realize there's something in the computer. Something that would very much like to make your acquaintance.

With 3 narrative paths depending on your choices, I want CA to be a spooky and surreal little game! While the concept has been fleshed out, this one is on the back burner until I dedicate myself to learning GameMaker which is the engine I want to use.

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Pop-Rock & Curly (Game, Point & Click) Status: Research & Writing

A brainchild of mine from 2019, where I said to myself "What if I made a detective/robber OCs but they're lesbians?" and then PR & C just. existed in my brain?

After just having them rattling around in my brain but never drawing them more than once, I decided to adapt them into a game! I've always had a love of P&C games, so it only makes sense I take a stab at one (Art from 2019)

The game follows detective Pop-Rock, who is personally requested by Curly to help as she rats out her no good boyfriend who has stolen a big flashy item. Using this as a chance to improve her reputation, PR ventures into the cities criminal underworld.

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Juno Law (Game, VN) Status: Pre-Dev Done, Art Concepts Started

Juno is what I'd call my first "modern" game idea, the first game idea I can pinpoint where looking at it I could go "Wait this could actually be a game!" Basically a "what if I made an PWAA game" type deal

We got lawyers, punny names, gimmicky designs, and more! While not what I would call a fangame, Juno is meant to be my love letter to Ace Attorney that I started cooking up after playing the main 6 games. I actually was pursuing this as my first game!

Juno is a LARGE game. The biggest of anything even on this list in scale. Because of that, I've had it on the back burner since I finished the full game notes back a few years ago. The game is completely outlined! All characters, trials, plot lines, all of it!

I'm really passionate about Juno, but I knew I had to be honest with myself; This is just too much for my first game! My weakest skill, in my opinion, is my writing. So, starting out with massive narrative VN? Maybe not, haha. Someday though, I want to make it.

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7. Cleopocha (Game, ???) Status: Concept Development

Cleopocha is about an android idol named Chapel, who starts dreaming of their past personas. It's a game largely about identity and asking what do we own those who came before us, especially when we don't remember them?

My current sticking point with Cleopocha is actually genre! The story I want to tell needs breathing room in a way a VN can't provide, but I'm unsure if an RPGMaker type game is quite right. What should the gameplay even be? Those kinda questions 🤔

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A2amB (Podcast, Liminal Space Horror) Status: Research & Writing

I've had this fascination with doing some kind of story based podcast as far back as 2019, where the title A2amB comes from! The name is a placeholder from the idea I had way back then. (Art from 2019)

The story now is WAY different than the first concept. Salvaging characters and concepts from a MOTW campaign I was running, the podcast is now about a liminal space mall and the people stuck within it. (Art from Aug 2023)

Casey Day, local computer repairmen and burnout, gets dragged into the liminal mall and is stuck fumbling around trying to get out again. Besides twisting halls, a mannequin cult, and unpleasant personalities - Casey will also be haunted by his own issues.

I've been on a steady dev pace with A2amB, but I'm still figuring out what I want from the story, as well as how I want to deliver it. So currently I'm just locking down the pacing and themes in a way I find satisfying. I'll probably have to trim a lot of ideas..

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And there's the bulk of what I'm working on! I need to refine my pitch process a bit, but I honestly just love gabbing about ideas!! I have no set release dates for these projects, they'll happen when they happen! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

[sillycyan]

40 41 42 43 FOR FUN FACTSS

HELLLOOOO WHATSUPP HELOOWAHTSUPP I only had one prewritten so I had to write those reall quick.. OKAY WELL WRITING THIS PART NOW I FINISH AND DAMNN HOLYY YAPPATRONIII THIS IS GETTING THAT LINE THING FOR SUREE- but thank you for more numbers I'm really trying to get these out!&(!&!!!

40. Donis used to live in “model apartments” so he didn’t take up his aunts space. He now has compensated for the lack of space and privacy by owning a huge condo.

Donis grew up in North Prale, in a wealthy neighborhood, living with his aunt. As a teenager, he started hearing stories from other young models about their experiences living in "model apartments", small, cramped spaces shared with other aspiring models. These stories usually came from those whose families weren’t as well off, with some even being kicked out of their homes to make more room. These stories stuck with Donis, making him question if he was taking up too much space in his aunt's life, maybe even holding her back in some way. He was very determined to give his aunt more space and gain some independence for himself, Donis made the decision, not even asking for a second opinion, but a decision to move out and live in model apartments. His aunt was baffled, stunned even, by his choice and tried to talk him out of it, not wanting him to leave. But Donis was adamant, seeing it as a good opportunity to gain life experience and humble himself, something people said he needed. However, life in the model apartments was far from what Donis expected. The apartments, located in Manviet, were small and uncomfortable, 90% of the time having him to share a room with multiple other models who were constantly being rotated in and out. It was intense and overwhelming for him, as everyone was desperate to keep their jobs and would do anything maintain their appearance. It was a new environment, and Donis struggled to adapt. Though he had enough money to stay for a while, the experience opened his eyes to the darker, more niche parts of model culture. Eventually, Donis had enough. He decided to leave the model apartments behind and get his own place. He bought a huge condo in Manviet, a city he had grown to like despite everything he experienced in it. He 100% has some horror stories he’s been keeping down for years..

41. Nori and Donis fake dated.

It all started with a fan posting that they'd pay a lot of money to see Nori and Donis on a specific gameshow, one that typically was meant for couples. The idea quickly gained traction, and many others joined in to agree. Nori saw the post first and suggested it to Donis, thinking it would be a fun way to hang out and an excuse for her to fly back into the country. Donis started off confused, but he wasn't against it. They went to Reign, who managed both of their things (Nori is basically in Reign's care while she is the country), and, even with his attempts to talk them out of it, he eventually helped them in coming up with a safe plan. The plan was simple: they would pretend to date for a while, appear on the game show as "new lovers," and then stage a public "breakup" making it clear they were still friends. Everything went as planned. They started posting photos together, Nori "moved in" with Donis for a short time, and they were seen doing couple-like activities in public. Getting on the game show was simple, they answered a few questions, won, and created some merch that sold out quickly. Despite it being an act, it’s easy to think that if they had kept it up any longer, they might have developed real feelings for each other. However, they were both focused on the money and the fan praise, which stopped them from recognizing what was going on between them. A few weeks after the "breakup," some people began to wonder if it had all been a hoax, and why they would go to such lengths to fake date. They were just chasing that bag..

42. Donis is actually very self conscious about how others think of him.

On the surface, Donis shows up to be confident, carefree, and always does what he wants without any hesitation. But beneath that exterior, he is highly conscious of how others perceive him. He often thinks about what others say about him, both online and in person, and sometimes even second-guesses compliments. This concern he had with how others see him is a big reason why he works so hard to stay on top of trends and keep up with his appearance. He shares a moment with Meil while working on a commercial that intended to challenge gender stereotypes. Donis was comfortable wearing a skirt, dress, and even more feminine, bright makeup for the shoot, but he was concerned that people would perceive him differently as almost a type of consequence. He was concerned that they would think he was doing it for the money, rather than genuinely caring about the issue. Donis talked with Meil about these feelings, unsure of why he felt that way. Although Meil had some trouble completely regaining Donis's confidence back, it was comforting for him to hear that he did not view him negatively.

43. Reign secretly keeps close contact with Ameriel for the sake of Meil.

Since the "Three Day Incident" (I have yet to explain that sorry) that landed Meil in the hospital, Reign has kept in close contact with Ameriel, Meil's doctor. This setup most likely violates some sort of rule, but Ameriel wanted to keep a close eye on Meil in case something similar happened again or if she couldn't reach him directly. Reign agreed, and the two have remained in touch ever since.

[keanbeanproduction]

My sci fi horror monster story with romance!

OK here we are again giving a short summary to a story I’m working on right now. it like 80 pages into this one that’s 80 pages unedited and not put into actual book. Formatting. By the way thought I should’ve pointed out. I think I’m gonna take a pause on the fantasy story and just work on the one that I could possibly finish within the next month or so then get someone to help me edit it and add more in to help it flow better, because I really have a problem with flow I can definitely get a story written fast I just need help getting all the ideas together and fixing spelling since I use a speech to text program since I actually can’t physically type that fast or I get stuck.

Oh, anyways, I’m just gonna tell the first part of the story the not the rest. Basically it starts out with this officer, a security guard Carla, working at this facility of a company called mother goose, and they recently at this facility have gotten a new subject something that’s been in containment for 20 years, but now is finally waking up or is going to wake up and she happens to see it and they call it a bother because all their experiments are named after Mother Goose nursery rhymes, and/or stories and of course it’s Baaba black sheep for this one and baba, it’s like this weird hybrid dinosaur thing that constantly can evolve itself to any situation but it’s extremely painful for it cause it’s own skin falls off as if it was shitting, forcing itself to shed with us so we can just adapter situations which includes radiation and search doesn’t mean it can’t be killed like if he could be damaged before I can adapt to things like if you’re coming to like doomsday from DC Like Bubba can definitely be beaten to death by another experiment and actually die from that and not come back, so kind of not like doomsday except he just has adaptability like SCP 682, but not to the point where a different dimensional versions gonna pop up. Anyways, Carla is able to save Baba‘s life because he almost dies immediately when coming out of the Beasley artificial womb, he’s been living in for 22 years able to Use his own psychic abilities that he got from the DNA of his actual human mother the rest of the DNA is literally just a mash up of prehistoric animals, and what other animals they could put together and fit into him and the rest is him just adapting to the world around him Which includes them as he grows starting out from like this weird like slimy creature into like the actual like weird dinosaur thing he is into having tattoos on his body that won’t go away now because they were testing if they would stay in his body actually feeds the ink and the tattoos so they don’t go away now as well as each of his claws, having him a different purpose one being like almost hook like for climbing, but they also just can go away. Even his tongue is like a chameleons, but also like a tentacle completely maneuverable with almost a hand like appendage that he can use to open everything. So anyways, Bubba does end up, escaping in the facility and the rest of the book focuses on Carla, trying to unearthed things about the Mother Goose organization with the help of a nurse that worked there along with the daughter of one of the scientists whilst Baba is out, exploring her surroundings, which if I’m getting this correct the story takes place in basically Finland and so it’s currently in that time of year where it’s like dark for 3 to 2 months straight and Bob is just exploring including encountering a mutated polar bear, which actually was created by his brother who is watching him and there’s references to his siblings later in the story, even the fact that he can remember them because the psychic link they had allowed him to feel them when they actually were still together before they were separated, which he is, the only one still contain his siblings were able to escape a long time ago and so now he’s trying to find a way to get far away from the facility but as well, dealing with his feelings towards Carla, as well as Carla, having feelings towards him, because Barbara himself is still very much human despite looking like a complete monster, and something big is revealed later in the plot when Carlos steals his x-rays, as well as what Bubba‘s hiding form looks like which father does show different forms which he can shed he has no singular form except the one he currently just has which has for but it’s a possibility. If he moves to warmer climate, the fur will go away but mostly, he looks like the weird dinosaur thing that I described in one of the chapters. actually one of his forms is nicknamed the nun or the worshiper it is like this weird humanoid basically humanoid demented looking nun thing that uses basically what octopus have.

[hoarah-babylon]

I fear I am a doomer about this. I don't see any way this turns out well tbh. ER is such a complicated story with so many intricacies to its lore, there's no way for them to depict any of it without pissing someone off. They will inevitably change something (because when has a movie adaptation ever been totally faithful to the source material?) which will in turn mess up some other parts of the story because basically all the lore is connected or interacts in some way. I don't trust them to respect the original story and I care about it and the characters too much. Literally no one asked for this which makes me worry even more, it makes me think it'll most likely be marketed mainly to the general public, and it's not like they care about the original story.

The ONLY way I see it POSSIBLY working is if it maybe focuses on a couple characters pre-shattering? Like Rykard/Tanith or something? But I don't know if I believe that tbh that's me trying to be generous, I'd rather they just left it alone. Personally, I know too much to ever be able to enjoy a movie that will inevitably tweak and/or change things about this story!! I'm cursed with knowledge!!!! I saw some people hoping for GEQ expansions but I think I prefer some mystery in these stories honestly. Not everything needs an explanation. I feel how I felt after I finished SoTE - sometimes you should just... leave things alone...

Also the thought of them making cast announcements is breaking me out in hives. My previous joke about Timothee Chalamet being cast as Fingerprint Vyke could come true. I may live to see manmade horrors beyond my comprehension. The trailer...... I actually can't do this. Idk the director so I can't speak to that but I don't think I'd trust anyone with this tbh. ER is my baby:(

All we can do is pray for it to fall into development hell. It is all we can do.

WAIT IT’S REAL? ELDEN RING MOVIE IS REAL? SAY SIKE RIGHT FUCKING NOW

[fairwellersmustache]

Hoping, wishing, praying, etc. for a Jane Eyre inspired Mike Flanagan mini series

[thatscarletflycatcher]

"You think shipping a victim with her rapist is better than the character being disabled for a while"

Look, if you cannot escape the level of the plain text of the novel to address the meta level that all that happens in the novel are choices the writer made, and you cannot ask why he made them, then you and I are not speaking of the same thing, and will not understand each other.

When you are adapting a text, you need to stick to at least the main plot points of the story. Jonathan Harker goes to Transylvania and becomes the count's prisoner. The count goes to England. Jonathan escapes and marries Mina. Lucy is attacked, killed and turned by Dracula despite the efforts of Van Helsing and the suitors. The suitors kill the bloofer lady. The gang gets together, Mina gets bitten, they destroy the boxes, Dracula flees, the gang pursues him, [redacted].

The fact that Mina gets turned cannot be avoided because her bond with Dracula is what allows the gang to know what he's doing. Bram chose to write it that way. Any of us could have chosen 100 different ways in which Mina doesn't get nerfed the way she does, but then either the plot (not the characterization, the main beats of the plot) changes significantly, not allowing for the ending as-is on its bare bones, or you are left with a character that serves no narrative function.

Characters with little or nothing to do in a plot can be fine in a book, if their inaction is the point because it is telling us something about the character's situation or personality. Lady Middleton in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is such a character: her whole point is that she's little more than a sexy lamp, insipid and empty.

But inactive characters in movies and series tend to exist only for comedic effect. Unlike in a book, where such character's presence is only noticed when the narrator is focusing on them, in a movie you cannot remove them from the scene. If you are adapting Sense and Sensibility and keeping Lady Middleton, you will have to place her in every family scene, but give her no reaction, no lines, no action, because she doesn't have any in the source material in those scenes. Your only other choice is to change her characterization so as to give her something to do that doesn't disrupt the plot as is. This second route is taken every time Margaret Dashwood appears in an adaptation of S&S; she's given lines and very minor things to do, perhaps something symbolic representing the desires of other characters, but nothing that can change any of the basic plot happening.

Now, here you have Mina. Mina is a crucial character in the first half of the story, a very active character. Reached the end of September, Bram has been left with no idea as to what to do with her because the book cannot end just yet and he cannot bring himself to kill her because of many reasons. So he breaks the characters figurative arms and legs so that she can get bitten and turned and taken off the action (as a side note, I know spoilers and I don't think that justifies or changes it) and then he can manufacture delays to make the action last till November.

You are an adaptor of the book. You are working on a context where emphasizing the purity and fidelity and Victorian sex mores of the work would be read as repressed. The book makes it so that the attacks on Lucy and Mina are about Dracula destroying the morale of British men and taking their women, the ones that can bear children and therefore the future of British culture and society, to destroy it. Dracula himself says it in a line. But that is VERY xenophobic and antisemitic and that shit won't fly on a post wwii world. You cannot make Dracula really the foreigner coming here to rape women and destroy England.

But you also cannot have Mina not being turned and keep the original plot, because then she will be chilling in the background for half the movie with nothing to do, and that creates comedic effect and you need horror and suspense.

Your options are very limited unless you are making an adaptation in name only. So you think:

Oh, I can make at least one of them a reincarnated love of Dracula! I have solved the xenophobia-antisemitism problem (mostly), AND I have removed the implication that Mina's assault is all about getting at the men in her life, AND I have given her the current acceptable version of "she's a white wealthy woman and therefore delicate and in need of being protected at all costs" which is "she's experiencing romance/sexual attraction beyond the constricting barriers of her time and place."

I have said it before, I will say it again: I'm not saying it is a good idea, I'm not shipping it and I'm not saying is unproblematic. What I'm saying is that the mechanics of it make sense, and that the idea doesn't come out of the absolute nowhere, it isn't random and it isn't necessarily about romanticising rape or machismo.

[dailycharacteroption]

Elemental Monk (Monk Archetype)

(art by Jesika Art on Artstation)

 While we’ve had plenty of monks that gain the elemental fist as a free bonus feat, or master one element, Pathfinder shockingly didn’t have a purely elemental-focused archetype until late in the system’s lifespan (which isn’t to say you couldn’t make them elemental focused, but rather it would be through feats, rather than an archetype)

The way of the elemental monk focuses on the various elemental styles of the five most well-known types of genies: Djinn, Efreet, Janni, Marid, and Shaitan, mastering all five styles at once in an effort to be perfectly balanced.

This focus on balance means they are less focused on raw discipline than most monks, allowing themselves indulgences every now and then to offset what would normally be a very lawful outlook.

The end result is a powerful warrior monk able to adapt themselves to many different situations

 While other monks that master the elemental fist work on channeling a single element, these monks instead master all four, able to switch between acid, cold, electricity, and fire even between individual strikes!

They also learn how to enter the stances for the five different genie style, be it fierce and intimidating Efreet Style, acrobatic Djinn Style, fluid and graceful Marid Style, solid Shaitain Style, or flexible Janni Style.

As they grow in mastery, they also learn to implement the second, and finally third stage of each of those styles

But true masters can take this further, able to become totally immune to the associated element when in that stance (or in the case of Janni Style, able to shrink and grow as needed), becoming unparalleled masters of all five styles.

This mastery of the elements charges their attacks with a balanced energy that pierces the defenses of chaotic foes, and lets them perfectly pierce the defenses of elementally-aligned foes.

Additionally, true masters can use their connection to the elements to plane shift themselves and others to the elemental planes, though coming back to the material plane is harder.

What’s interesting about this archetype is that while it technically does not give you the elemental styles all at once, you can still enter any of them as a swift action as many times as you want each day. This basically means that they are integrated into the archetype’s teachings themselves, and that you do not need to spend feats to pursue any of them, you just have them, which can be quite useful for helping you decide on your build. In any case, be sure to research the benefits of each style so you can pick the right one for the right situation as well.

 These monks have to be true neutral, rather than any kind of lawful, but what does that mean for them? I feel the answer has to lie in perspective. From their point of view, the elements are evocative of a single, primal fact. And that is, chaos simply order without omniscience, and order is nothing but something we impose on the world around us. In this way, they find it in themselves to find personal discipline while also accepting that they will never be able to control everything, and that is more powerful than punching things with your fists on fire will ever be.

  Elka Tempesthoof is an atypical example of a monk, being a centaur and all, but when her fists and hooves blaze with elemental power, there can be no denying her mastery of the elements. It took a long time to modify the styles to suit her form, and she might be able to share insights on other modifications to other martial artists.

 Resistant to all four elements, the fiendish serpentine constructs known as abrakarn vipers easily negate the advantages of the elemental fist. As such, the legendary elemental monk Vicass captured and repurposed one of these horrors for use in his tomb, a perfect way to test if a true successor of his discipline could make do with the Janni Style, often forgotten by monks who have never been tested enough to run dry of elemental energy.

 The House of the Elements, that legendary school of the five genie styles, came together from the five masters putting aside their differences and discovering how much more they could learn from each other. This cooperation crumbled, however, after the master of water perished, and their grief and differences drove them apart. Now the monastery stands empty aside from lurking horrors and whatever secrets might be left behind.

[lookbluesoup-rp]

LFRP - I'lyrha Rinha

THE BASICS:

Age: Mid-20s

Race: I-Tribe Seeker of the Sun Miqo'te

Gender: Female (She/Her)

Marital Status: In an Open Relationship, Polyamorous

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE:

Hair: Calico

Eyes: Green

Height: 5ft (152cm)

Build: Sleek, practical muscle, befitting a life spent sailing

Distinguishing Marks: Long silky calico fur, scars on knuckles & back, one gold tooth

PERSONAL:

Profession: Red Mage (Previously a notorious pirate/slaver)

Hobbies: Meddling in other people's business | Getting into barfights | Napping in the sun | Drinking | Fishing | Training & Derring-do

Residence: None, she's a pilgrim!

Birthplace: Somewhere along the Ilsabard coast

Fears: Being recognized as an outlaw | Voidsent | Witches putting curses on her (I know)

Major Traits: Gregarious | Competitive | Proud | Adaptable | Sly | Penitent | Flirtatious | Brave | Snarky | Insecure | Curious | Honorable (ish)

RP INFORMATION:

DM me here, you can also check the intro post pinned for my discord and whatnot.

I prefer more flexibly-paced, story-focused RPs and to write in Discord, on Tumblr, or through GoogleDocs (preferred)

Regular adventures, shenanigans, etc are great! Serious/mature themes, moderate gore, horror, whump, & sensuality are also good as long as boundaries are clear/respected.

One-offs and longer interactions both are fine! Friendships, rivalries, enemies, romances, all good!

PLEASE read the info in my intro post!

RP HOOKS:

(below the cut)

Heart & Steel: You're in trouble. Be it bandits, rampaging goobbues, an abusive master, or a vengeful second-in-line-for-the-Duchy trying to get you out of the line of succession, it's Lyrha's job to defend those who cannot defend themselves. Fate draws her to your aid, and honor demands she sees you through to the end of your troubles. Or, perhaps she's more interested in the potential of a reward... It's, uh, little hard to be sure.

Heart & ... Steal?: While Lyrha's generally reformed into a model wandering heroine, she does occasionally blur the lines between right and wrong. Poncy stuffy Lordlings who look down on their servants and have more than they need are just asking to have an heirloom disappear mysteriously. That corrupt tax collector who took the flour some farmers needed to get through next winter can dine on limestone dust instead. And the predatory broker demanding three times the price she paid for a treasured mother's wedding ring just to get it back won't notice their ransom has been swapped out with a glamoured copper band. If Lyrha's stealing from another thief.... is it really stealing?

Birds of a Feather: Lyrha's griffin isn't exactly the most... well-mannered of beasts. For that matter, neither is Lyrha. Either she's managed to offend her bird (not difficult) or it's managed to offend her (also not difficult), and now it won't come to her call. And you, lucky soul that you are, have somehow been roped into helping her appease, soothe, flatter, or maybe even find the temperamental beast. Preferably before it maims someone. ...Did she mention it's part Vochstein?

Pound of Flesh: Try as she might to put it behind her, Lyrha's history is back to bite. Years spent sailing with notorious pirates and trading in human chattel has given this "queen" quite a reputation in some circles. And quite a bounty. There are no small few across Eitherys who would pay handsomely for her capture -- authorities, bereaved families, and slighted blackguards alike. Others would like nothing better than to hunt her down themselves and take their revenge.

Live By the Sword: Be it in an act of heroism or unfinished business from her past, I'lyrha has been badly wounded. Maybe she came to you for help, or maybe you were just in the right place at the right time to see that she needed it. Maybe you're the one she was trying to protect. Whatever way, this Red Mage is in need of healing, hiding, or both. It's an opportunity for a bit of altruism on your part, or else a chance to demand a bargain with someone who knows they don't have better options.

Once A Pirate...: I'lyrha's learned to behave. Mostly. Except she's still got the mouth of a sailor. And she still can't seem to avoid causing a ruckus at every local tavern. She stared too long, or spoke too uncouthly. Gave insult. Maybe to you. Maybe it was about honor, or money, or a boast, or a pickup line, or a mistaken identity. Either way, it can't be allowed to stand. Get ready for a good, clean, honest 1v1. Not a bar fight. No, a duel. A duel. Hey, wait, put that chair down

I'm Not SUPERstitious: Yes, Lyrha's afraid of ghosts. And sirens. She crushes all her eggshells to bits. She won't kill albatrosses, or eat bananas, and she whistles to summon the wind. Maybe you've done something she considers bad luck, or her obsessive eggshell-smashing has caught your attention. Maybe something on your shirt means she won't make eye contact. It's as good a reason as any to strike up a conversation with a stranger. ALTERNATIVELY: You have requested/hired Lyrha's assistance dealing with a voidsent problem. She'll help you. But she's going to complain the whole time.

Seasalt: Lyrha knows how to live off the sea. Be it a small fishing boat or as part of a larger crew, she's a useful addition to a vessel of any size. She knows the currents, too, and places to hide along the coast... and how to best keep from drawing unwanted attention to valuable cargo, from the Ruby Sea to Limsa Lominsa.

@mooglemeet

[blubushie]

for jess - a9, a24, b7, c8, d4, f4, h9, i6

for charles - b1

for you - L1

have fun, you HAVE to answer ALL of them (you don't have to answer all of them)

I love you I love you I love you. Original post.

A9 Jesse: Does your OC make a lot of excuses? For themselves? Others?

Not for herself. She does make a lot of excuses for other people, namely her father and Mundy and especially for Mundy when she's speaking to her father about him. She has to defend the object of her affections from her angry dad and when she's discussing it with her father she consistently downplays just how bad things actually were during that month of captivity (mostly because she knows that if she told Charles the whole truth Mundy would be dead by the end of the week).

A24 Jesse: What are some of your OC’s biggest personal obstacles? This could be emotional, physical, social… Are they aware of it? Are they trying to overcome it?

Trauma and her estranged relationship with her father. She's convinced herself that what she's gone through really wasn't that bad—I reckon that her father telling her horror stories from the war didn't help much—but it definitely haunts her and that lingering trauma is anything but gone. She gradually works through her trauma with Mundy (they do it together) and her struggle shifts more to focusing on her relationship with her father and her sense of self-worth. She's aware of the trauma and how difficult her relationship with her father is, but the self-worth isn't something she even realises is an issue. She isn't making an effort to overcome any of them however, and resolves to just work through them in time.

B7 Jesse: How do they respond to babies crying in public?

Mostly indifferent to kids. Crying is a mite annoying for her but she just tries to ignore it. She's definitely the type to go over and start doing silly faces so the kid stops crying.

C8 Jesse: Is your OC more practical or ideal morally? I.e., do they hold people to high expectations of behavior even if it’s not realistic for the situation, or do they have a more realistic approach and adapt their morality to be more practical?

Definitely more on the practical side of things. She's a mercenary, so she doesn't necessarily have some high standard of morality—in fact, Jesse is not as innocent as she seems.

D4 Jesse: Would they like to be immortal? Why, why not? If they are immortal, would they rather not be?

She's definitely the type to say she wants to be immortal and then three hundred years later be desperately trying to come up with ways to put herself in the ground because she can't take it anymore. Jesse loves deeply and hard, and eventually the point of seeing everyone she loves get old and die and not being able to join them would get to her head.

F4 Jesse: How clean are they overall with home upkeep?

She has chores around BLU Base (does her own laundry, makes her own lunch, in charge of her own effects) but her room has clutter everywhere like a mad lady's washing despite how often Suki pesters her to clean it. It's not so much that she's a slob, just that she forgets and procrastinates when it comes to keeping things tidy. At the least she knows where everything in the clutter is so it's necessarily a complete mess, and it's much better now than it was when she first got to BLU.

H9 Jesse: What are some things that your OC finds to be an instant turn-off in potential partners?

"Not Mundy." Seriously though, it would be someone who can't listen. She yabbers constantly because her mind is basically always going and she needs someone who can just listen sometimes.

I6 Jesse: Could they eat the same thing they enjoy over and over and not get bored of it quickly?

“I grew up dirt poor, alright? Y’know what’s the cheapest meat you can buy? Chicken. I was raised on that shit. Never get tired a’ chicken.” Jesse loves chicken. Fried is her favourite but she loves the parmi Mundy makes. Thanks to Mundy she also ends up having a craving for rabbit since it tastes similar to chicken but just a mite more gamey.

B1 Charles: Do they believe you have to give respect to get it, or get respect to give it?

Charles is very formal and is of the understanding that some people are automatically owed respect regardless of whether they give any back (specifically the British monarchy and superiors in rank, for example). When it comes to his teammates he's a mite up himself and doesn't necessarily see them as equals with the exception of Okumura. He'll typically be the first to extend an olive branch when it comes to respect, but that's more of his diplomatic tendencies and negotiation skills coming through than anything else. Normally he holds himself to a high regard and would expect respect to be given to him first, and then he'll extend some back to you.

L1 author: How have your characters changed since you created them?

Quite a bit! Mundy was originally from Wiluna, WA, but I tried to keep close to canon and despite the physical impossibility of being shot out of New Zealand and landing "a mile away" in Outback Australia (everywhere on the east coast is too green for where his home is, and the Tasman Sea spans a lot wider than a mile) I decided to keep that as close to canon as I could and had him be from Tilpa, NSW instead. (Shout out to Tilpa, I love that little town.) Jesse was originally a bloke, and then I decided to make her a chick and she was briefly paired up with Liem but during some writing exercises I realised she worked better as having a brother-sister relationship with him than anything else. Instead I briefly considered pairing her with Jeremy, but even if Jeremy and Miss Pauling didn't end up together, according to the comics Jeremy is completely loyal to Pauling and I try to stick to comic canon as much as possible. While writing Chapter 4 I realised that I really liked the chemistry between Jesse and Mundy, and the rest is history!

[shihalyfie]

Just a few notes about Ghost Game in regards to some discussion about its ghost/potential youkai theme:

I know a lot of people are bringing up Yo-kai Watch, which I think is a completely understandable and fair comparison because it’s a popular monster-collecting franchise that deals with this kind of topic, but...if you’ve actually seen the Yo-kai Watch anime, it doesn’t resemble this much in tone at all. Ghost Game’s promotion has constantly been leaning on it having a proper horror/scary atmosphere, which Yo-kai Watch prominently does not; in fact, one of its most notable traits is that it’s more about using youkai to explain extremely mundane phenomena like “people forgetting things they need to be remembering” and silly hijinks that often involve things like fart jokes. For that reason, it’s also extremely episodic and doesn’t have much of a dramatic plot; the games are more toned down about this aspect and have more drama, but that’s also partially due to the difference in format (and, moreover, it tells you something that the second game's plot was adapted into a movie instead of being part of the TV series). That’s one of the reasons it was considered a Pokémon rival, because it had the same “accessible to everyone” appeal and was intended to be an indefinitely continuing extendable franchise. If we’re just strictly speaking in terms of tone, you’d even make a better case for the early episodes of Appmon (which shares a writer with its anime, while we’re at it). Not even the whole series of Appmon.

You can also see this in terms of target audience too; with the exception of the reboot (which presumably had to use the same age levels as the original Adventure for obvious reasons), every Digimon TV series since Savers has focused on middle school children, and the primary target audience for Digimon has traditionally been preteens, whereas the original incarnation of Yo-kai Watch was very much aimed at a significantly younger wider-appeal demographic (same as Pokémon’s).

If you do want to make an accurate Yo-kai Watch comparison, there’s the Shadowside iteration of the franchise (which did have darker and more dramatic story-based elements), but I think it’s pretty unlikely Digimon would be taking anything more than a few minor cues; it probably wouldn’t be a good thing to be using Shadowside as a major reference of success, given that, uh, it didn’t do nearly as well financially (I’m saying this as someone who enjoys this, so I don’t mean this as a dig). It’s like saying that something’s trying to ride off of Digimon’s hype, but then the example cited is Frontier or Appmon.

The “ghost story” genre with going out and solving mysteries regarding them is not an uncommon one in Japanese media (see Natsume’s Book of Friends, Mononoke, Mob Psycho 100), and people paying close attention to Ghost Game’s production and staff are actually suspecting that this is more taking cues from GeGeGe no Kitaro -- which is basically known as the franchise about solving spiritual mysteries in Japan. And, incidentally, also produced by Toei! To the point it shares staff! Including Sawashiro Miyuki, voice of Gammamon, voicing Kitaro in the most recent version of the anime. Kitaro very much does have the horror atmosphere Ghost Game is advertising itself as having, to the point Sawashiro (presumably very self-aware about her position in this) outright namedropped it, and on top of that, it was the show that used to hold the timeslot that Ghost Game now has. So if a kid was watching Kitaro on that timeslot in 2018, it’s presumable that they might like something with a similar atmosphere, and it makes sense that Toei and Bandai would want to keep in mind what they could do to attract kids to the show when they’re about to lose the card of “Adventure-loving parents convince their kids to watch it”.

Moreover, horror stories mixed with Digimon aren’t new to the franchise; this is its first incarnation in kids’ anime in particular, but Cyber Sleuth/Hacker’s Memory indulged in a lot of that atmosphere, even for things that technically had nothing to do with ghosts or spirits (“doll quest”, anyone?). So while it’s possible it’s taking some cues from Yo-kai Watch because of its popularity boom a handful of years ago, I don’t think that’s the primary franchise it would be wanting to take after given the differences, and because Yo-kai Watch itself takes cues from Kitaro (the aforementioned Shadowside branch had a crossover with it, too), it kind of feels like saying any magical girl series released after Sailor Moon must be ripping it off -- a magical girl series may take cues from it due to its popularity, but it’s hardly the first magical girl series to ever exist.

[brawltogethernow]

Well, in the spirit of the season I guess I should ask... is Venom's debut story in ASM worth reading?

The only answer you need might be that my first thought was, "Wait, which one?" But, okay, having put together that you probably mean the actual issue "Venom", ASM #300, I'm gonna go with...I guess?

While the schlockily web-bedecked opener is noted and appreciated, this issue isn't on my shortlist of the franchise's best forays into horror. It's more standard action with a handful of horror moments? It's definitely not on my shortlist of best issues period. Like, it's not bad, not at all! It's just okay! There are some fun moments! I wouldn't press it on somebody and insist they read it, but I wouldn't advise people to skip it either.

I don't usually take this stance on stories from older comics that went on to be heavily retold and adapted, but the execution doesn't really do justice to the cool concepts in the introduction of Venom The Supervillain. I think I would still feel that way even if it were the same writing paired with an artist I like more, but... Actually that's probably not true. I have a really hard time vibing with McFarlane comics.

It's also not the strongest reading experience taken as a standalone issue, because it had a fairly long build-up laced through issues otherwise focusing on other topics. Even if you skip the Alien Costume Saga and go straight for issues rolling out the carpet for Eddie Brock-as-Venom, you're going to be starting a hop back in Web of Spider-Man #18, which I don't really need to namecheck so specifically but wanted to so I can clarify that that issue is about Peter getting stranded mostly naked out in the burbs, almost starving to death, getting arrested, and then being hunted by the wealthy for sport. This is by the same writer, so, yeah, I definitely like his approach to pulp better when it's not ugly. RIP.

Though it's definitely still true that... Once you hit the late eighties where Amazing, Spectacular, and Web are all running concurrently, the rough rule of thumb is that Amazing is going to be the most average one. It basically becomes optional extra reading to glean a better understanding of the other two main titles. Again, it's not bad! But its sister titles are regularly great, and the same is true of the first two and a half decades of ASM, so the comparison is rough.

For the spooky factor, I'm not going to knock "Spider-Man but with teeth" (though still before Venom really starts to be drawn as gooey), but I prefer the alien costume era's aesthetic, where the symbiote is two dimensional like a malignant shadow (that's in love with the subject it has taken the shape of but not enough to know how not to harm it) - an artistically minimalist descendant of the Phantom Blot.

(-- Web #1)

To let the words of others frame this sequence:

So yeah, Venom (composite identity) and Venom (alien) and Eddie (Catholic reporter) each have different reading lists floating around if you want to go spelunking in one of those topics. Fair warning for moviegoers that comics Eddie is literally just such a weirdo, like in a fun train wreck way but lacking that, like, sick chihuahua charm Tom Hardy brings to the role.

That said! The alien costume stuff isn't really a Halloween read either! If you want a Spidey story that will give you chills from the same era, I'm going to recommend "Mad Dog Ward", a three-parter in Web #33, ASM #295, and SSM #133. (This time it's all by the same creative team: Don't skip the ASM issue lmao.)

Fair warning that the trigger list on this one is, like, probably too long to tally on both hands, and I would have to reread it in full to try to compile that.

Edit: ...Looking at that cover again, I should probably clarify that Venom is not in the three-shot. Given those stories came out within six months of each other, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a point of design inspiration!

[lowkeyclueless5137]

Au introductions

Note that those are my aus! I'll credit whoever artist or writer I've inspired from if it's the case! If some aus are similar to others, it's pure coincidence unless I say so... I didn't really explore all the aus on the internet.

Blue-Original

Black-popular to the point where you don't know who started it

Orange-Inspired

Red-Different interpretation(a section of different aus) also original

Now let's start!

It's focused mainly (if not) only on Saioma... So bear with me

-Pretty Cure

-Good Mastermind post game

-Frozen

-the little mermaid and villan Shuichi

-Experiment and spy

-Murder in the orient express +Phanthom thief

-Persona 5

-Twisted wonderland

-Miraculous, assistant Shuichi

-Miraculous, next gen (Komahina as the guardians)

-musical balerina Kokichi

-cheaters

-HTTYD

-Accidentally Ghoul king

-Prankster Shuichi (can work too with Makoto, Cihiro or Hajime)

-MHA

-Demon Shuichi and exorcist Kokichi(Why not? It was inspired by an artist who made demon Kokichi and priest Shuichi... Sadly I lost their name but if you find them... Give them a lot of reblogs and likes... The need to be recognised!)

-Egiptean God

-superhero x Phanthom thief

-Among us

-maleficent

-saber tooth/tiger Shuichi (feat a few tiny penguin Kokichi because his cuteness is too powerful)

-Monster High

-Tokyo Ghoul

-Pirate

-Winx

-Bakugan

-Disney villans and heroes motive

-Harry Potter

-Gravity falls

-roleswap

-Detective x superhero (feat grappy shenanigans)

-lolirock

-Aladin with a little twist

-Haunted hotel

-kidnapped mutant

-cats

-Wizard x Demon king(set in an original universe)

-Grim reaper Kokichi pregame (+demon Shuichi ingame)

-Minions

-Vampire Shuichi x Bat Kokichi (Fluffy Kichi is my new religion)

In miraculous I mainly like to have aus centred on character development and sanity since it looks like it lacks a lot in most episodes!

Then again... We are talking about a kids show here

-Kwami swap (inspired by all of the artists from tumbrl... You guys really make it so unique for each of you! @zoe-oneesama has the amazing scarlet lady au and I'm in love with it)

-Powers

-MHA

-Persona

-Dense Marinette

-Dreams

This ones aren't really focused on one ship... They could be adapters simply to any kind of ship and game.

-Persona hybrid

-Monster

-Persona soulmates

-Real and cognitive fusion

And here we are... At the hell hole of good looking boys who need therapy. The homosexuality is boiling with this one.

-no magic

-roleswap (I saw it in here from more artists... Keep it up because it's amazing)

-Ghost seeing

-Miraculous

-Deuce, the Fae prince (basically Sofia the first but with more chaos)

-Dolls

-Kindergarten

-Language barrier (from @twsty-lav they have one of (if not the) best aus I've ever saw... Crack, fluff, angst... You name it... Also... Pretty twst au and bodysnatcher Yuu are legendary)

-Memewars

-Lumi as the MC/Portal magic fem!MC

-overBlot monsters

-Persona 3/4/5(I give my babies GUNS!)

-MHA

-Emotion mark(You can smell the angst potential)

-Danganronpa (again... Angst all the way)

-Rubber duck cult (I regret nothing)

-Mirror Epel (Angst, fluff, but most importantly... Shenanigans)

-Motherly Vices

-Voltron

-Castle of illusion

-slugterra

-Venom and Deuce au

-Cut the rope au

-Mafia au

-lolirock au

-monster high au

-jumanji au

-Twiches au

-the horror aus

-God au

-Cut the rope au

-magical girls au

-Bakugan au

-Wild magic au

-Dolittle au

-gravity falls au

That's all, folks!

You can request for oneshots(for the twst fandom) or explanation of this aus.

For the Saiouma aus, on Wattpad at LowkeyClueless you can find my aus explained only for the entire Danganronpa section. For the twisted wonderland section only a few of them.

[rigelmejo]

Some September 1st Updates

the READING SPEED difference of a novel at my level! I read the first chapter of 撒野 yesterday and this author is at exactly my reading level right now. I hit 0-2 new words each pleco page, which is usually the sweet spot to either guess the word or if I look it up I can pretty quickly adapt to recognizing it in context. Its also the sweet spot where if I only rely on guessing for new word meanings, on a second pass through I can fairly well guess the meaning quickly. 

It was a 32 page chapter in pleco and I read it in 20 minutes. Compared to the 20 pleco page per chapter pingxie fic i just finished (like 124k characters! WOW I read and FINISHED that much!), which was taking 30-40 minutes per chapter (mainly because of number of new vocabulary per chapter being a bit higher). If I’d wanted to speed read saye I could have, I’d have missed some small details but I could have tried if I wanted.

Then I did a second pass later in the day with the audiobook just following along with the text. Realized 1. I knew most words in the audiobook and did not follow as well as i thought - but those first listen throughs without having seen the chapter I did manage to figure out the main character just broke up, just travelled somewhere, ran into a girl and somehow the girls brother showed and the two guys interacted a little and someone was being somewhat helpful, then the main guy met his father trying to ‘pick him up.’ Which is a true but very rough summary of what happens in the first chapter. By reading I could confirm the words I thought were names AS names, figured out WHY the girl was interacting with the main guy and that there were actually two girls in chapter 1, and figure out who helped who and who was the girl’s brother. Also somehow before I looked at the chapter text I never caught that the audiobook mentions a motorcycle despite me knowing that word and it SOUNDING like mota-che/motorche! it sounds like the word and i knew it and didn’t hear it! Then later following the audiobook with the text I realized another issue I had, is I’m not used to listening to soft voices with such faint pronunciations of the final sounds. I’m much more used to deeper crisper pronunciations and being able to rely clearly on initials and finals AS much as tones to recognize the words, whereas this particular audiobook i needed to mainly rely on tones and initials to figure out what word was what - that probably threw me off a bit. It’s probably good for me to get practice listening to such a different voice to what I’m used to. I have definitely learned the deeper the voice, the more I have a far easier time figuring out what’s being said. Also standard accent more like beijing but without a huge amount of ‘er’s just some, and taiwan accent are the easiest for me to hear when i’m not pa

For anyone curious, here is the audiobook for SaYe I’m listening to: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2w27tfjeeaySbMK272NpXwUtsBc-e3YN

Also here’s a chinese audiobook youtube I found: https://www.youtube.com/c/%E6%9C%89%E5%A3%B0%E5%B0%8F%E8%AF%B4%E5%90%AC%E4%B9%A6%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8Cyoushengxiaoshuo/playlists

Which includes The King’s Avatar: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTJaWZoVPdT1ZhIQIKxVci7fVEHr-oX6k

And ErHa: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsxEOGKlBMaFa6CS6Hf5ndy6qTtUL0Au_

Anyway, its a great book right now for reading practice. It’s very much around my level. I will probably stick with this author for a little while and solidify what I know/my base reading level. 

-

IN OTHER NEWS:

I am apparently living proof listening-reading, heavy emphasis on re-listening a TON in the background as you work or type or walk/drive whatever, works for learning new words. 

I re-listened to guardian chapter 1 audiobook at least 20-30 times by now, just a tremendous amount. Chapters 1-10 I’ve listened to at least 5 times by now random chapters at random days, and some probably also 20 times. 

I have listened to these chapters enough, that I can officially follow so much that I know nearly every freaking word I hear, I know it immediately on hearing in at least 3 different audiobooks, and the few ‘less familiar’ words I recognize a second after hearing (like hearing ‘audacious’ or ‘glum’ in english it just takes me a second to re-remember), and the very few still forgotten words/specific details I learn From those words I can actually pick up from the context of listening.

 I hear ‘powei’ and somehow forgot it AGAIN? Oh it means ‘rather’ in this context. ‘anli’ well i always hear ‘anlishuo’ as in ‘people say/generally speaking’ so ‘anli’ in this context must mean ‘generally/generally speaking.’ chuanghu? can’t remember it because i was just typing this JUST now and only hearing a few words from the audiobook in the background - well in context its obviously window, but out of context my brain said window and i just couldn’t remember if it was window or curtain but felt curtain had something more complex than ‘hu’ as the second half - just looked it up and my guess was right, even with no context which i’d have had if i’d been listening better and it had been clear it’s window, it still made me think ‘window’ immediately just hearing the sound. ‘xiang yi ge ren’ sounds like ‘looks like a person’ which is the next phrase i just randomly heard. ‘hua le yao ming’ shouted for their life/in awful terror? or that would be ‘huo’, so maybe ‘streaking toward him to take his life’? would make sense in context of a horror scene - i just looked it up and 划了要命 would be the second one. even IF i heard the wrong line, both of those are pretty close to a good guess in context and hua is the only unknown because without context i can’t place if it was hua or huo. i still confuse the words wu and wo for hold etc, but in context i can tell which one it is (wo is hold a hand, hold a face, etc). 

I’m genuinely at a point where I can just completely follow the plot through at least the first 20 chapters from listening. And for most scenes, follow every detail too including stuff like guo changcheng spending half a year not working at home after he graduated, being so afraid of the phone, da qing being fawning to shen wei when they meet and rubbing against his leg, the specific conversation details when da qing runs across zhao yunlan’s car in chapter 2, what zhao yunlan’s room exactly looks like, etc. Its super cool to be able to follow the audiobook so well I can follow the story and details even when I don’t have time to read! It’s so fun! And it was not very hard!

It took 40 minutes of upfront study where you set time aside to focus: 20 minutes to have a program read the chapter aloud while you either see unknown word definitions pop up (like in Pleco) or look them up with some click dictionary as you listen. 20 minutes to go through and listen to the audiobook as you follow along with the text. Then after that, just play the audiobook chapters you’ve done this with whenever you want, either paying attention like when going to bed soon or walking, or in the background like when cleaning or doing busy work or driving. Since background listening can be done easily whenever all you have to do is remember to click play when you want something to listen to. 

I’m honestly blown away by how much 3 months of studying mainly like this (which is quite fun and only requires me to carve out a small amount of actual study focused time) has improved my listening skills. I can now also listen to the 2ha audiobook okay and follow along (provided its a chapter I’ve read before so I have at least some prior context to help me out) - at least so far as that’s what I’m listening to right now. Basically, I can tell Guardian has both upped my vocabulary significantly and also improved my automatic recognition of many words I half-knew and learned since. 

I recently found a new Guardian audiobook read by a deep voice and its lovely (and utilizes music and echo for effects, its lovely to listen to) I hope the poster keeps updating: https://fm.qq.com/show/rd002ED4aN0mYz2L__

I’ve been listening to it lately.

---

Also! Directions for using Pleco Android for screen reader:

1. To get any page bookmarked online: 

Open a page in your mobile web browser you want to read. Click the menu, click share, click Pleco Reader (or ‘more’ or ‘...’ then Pleco Reader).

Go to Clipboard Reader. Now when you click text, dictate text megaphone will be an option.

*Since Clipboard Reader is free, you can do this to read in Pleco and have things spoken aloud with no money spent. (Though I find the Reader tool worth the money and add ons).

2. To have any text ‘dictated aloud’:

Go to Pleco’s menu, Settings, Audio, click ‘use TTS if no recording,’ then for Sentence Audio section area System TTS Setting click Speech Services by Google (you can also experiment by clicking other options I am just stating what worked for me, it didn’t work at first I had to make that my default TTS in my Accessibility-Talkback Settings menu on my main phone first and restart my phone before all this). 

Then click the area right below to mess with speed and sound of the TTS voice. 

(Note, to test if TTS is working you can go to any dictionary entry sentence, click the speaker next to the sentence and see if it plays audio. If it does not, you will get an error message and directions on what to change in your phone settings. That is what initially happened to me: I had to go to phone Settings, Accessibility, Talkback, TTS Engine, TTS Engine voice and settings. Pleco recommended I choose Speech Services by Google, and uninstall then reinstall the Chinese voice. Then restart the phone. That worked for me. An additional note: I have Talkback setting on ‘on’ and just have it in my toolbar to use if desired but am not actively using it. If you turn Talkback setting ‘off’ in the actual Settings area of Accessibility, I am not sure if it will affect Pleco’s ability to dictate). 

3. How to put it together: 

Now go to Clipboard Reader and read the page from the internet you wanted or text you pasted, or go to Document Reader and open the document you wish to read. 

Click a word as a place to start. Now you should see both the loudspeaker (for pronouncing the single word) and the Megaphone next to it to start dictating all text. (If your phone is weird like me, you may need to press the megaphone a couple times before the audio works).

If you wish to change dictation reading speed, simply hold down the megaphone and select the speed desired. 

Now that I’ve figured this out I really want to take pictures of my print book, make a pdf, and listen to all the changes.

(Now I just have to fix my weird dictionary in Idiom app and I’m all set on the new phone!)

---

All I’ve been doing the past august study wise is just reading pingxie fic and finishing, and listening to audiobooks. It’s been a busy time for me ToT

I do think it proved you can be lazy and still make some improvements though: 

1. Reading in Pleco (or click-dictionary tool of your choice): pick something and read a chapter a day (that’s what I did, obviously the easier this is the less time you’ll need, but aim for around 30 minutes a day and reading material closer to your level if you don’t want to read too long)

2. Listening-Reading Method something above your reading level that you enjoy. Should take 40 minutes a couple times a week to several times a week to hours a week, depending on how intense you want to get with it and how much you’re going to alternate/include the reading portion. I did like 1-2 chapters a week so I was only spending 40 minutes to 1.5 hours a week doing this, or 3 hours one week no time another week. This is definitely something where you can do 6-12 hours one month then coast on it for another month just repeating older material’s audio/re-reading sections (which is what I did with guardian, doing 22 chapters then switching to just listening to audio a lot). 

Once you’ve done a little L-R steps 2 and 3 (in either order, whatever works for you - and doing step 1 if you want more context prior to steps 2 and 3), then just make time during your days to play the audiobook chapters you’ve studied. You don’t need to be focusing every single time (although focusing on actually trying to follow the audio the first time you listen without text to aid you will probably speed up your comprehension a lot by giving you a lot of basic-context to help you comprehend more later). Aim to listen whenever you’ve got down time! Or time where you’d play music or some background youtube video or podcast - walks, exercise, drives, when cleaning, when browsing the web goofing off, when working if you have times when you’d listen to music with lyrics or a podcast in the background without issues, times when you don’t need to focus 100% on listening just putting it on to hear in the background). 

That’s all I’ve done for study since May. It takes me about 30 minutes 5 days a week, plus 1-2 hours listening-reading actively a week. So 2.5 hours plus 2 = 4 hours of active study a week. Sometimes more like 8-10 if I got really into reading something or Listening-reading to several chapters. Then after that (very easy to fit into my life 4-10 hours per week of study) I just play the audiobook whenever I have downtime at work (that’s usually 0.5-4 hours where I just let it play because I forget its on while working on spreadsheets, updates, emails, etc, or play the audiobook while messing around on the internet in my free time at home, sometimes I put on music instead), while walking so 15-30 minutes maybe 3 days a week, while driving far so maybe 20 minutes - 2 hours per week. maybe lets say 2 hours*4 days a week (I don’t remember to listen every day) so 8 hours random listening+1.5 hours walking+1 hour driving per week. That’s 11.5 hours listening in the background or paying attention plus lets say 4 hours of active study a week. So 15.5 ‘study’ hours for chinese per week - an average overall of ~2.21 hours of chinese ‘study’ per day. This isn’t counting when I get into weibo and goof off, get into some chinese show with no english subs and just start watching it (I watched 16 episodes of Humans cdrama in August which is ~10.66 hours for a total of at least (15.5*4 weeks = 62 hours + 10.66 hours -> ~72.66 hours spent ‘with chinese’ in August at minimum. 4 weeks*7 days = 28, so over around 28 days or most of august I did 72.66 total hours/28 days -> or ~2.595 hours of chinese per day as an average. So... my guess that I spend at least 1-2 hours on chinese per day as the average was a decent guess. Looks like I’m usually 2 hours to 2.5 hours daily as an overall average. It’s not that hard to get in that much without a ton of time in the day once you get some listening skills built up ToT Deciding to build up my listening skills has been one of the funnest goals in chinese so far.

Notes on Listening Reading Actively - it also doubles as increasing your exposure to listening to your target language, and the more hours the better even if its passive in the background, just more hours adding up toward your mind getting a better ability to parse the sounds of the language is going to help your overall listening comprehension in general. So even if you don’t pay attention much and can’t follow the whole plot and only catch certain scenes, you will be improving at least comprehension of: hearing words you know, hearing colocations and common phrases and recognizing more automatically which will help with speaking/writing indirectly and reading recognition of those things, overall ability to hear things correctly in different combinations and getting used to the common combinations. 

You will be surprised how much more you can pick up of plot and details the 3rd listen compared to the first, the 5th listen, the 10th listen. It’s wild. Like... I’m listening to the 2ha audiobook and even having never read it in chinese, just knowing basic context, the 2nd read through I caught so much more of the plot throughout just because I had forewarning of when scenes change a lot, what audio plays during some parts I recognized in previous listens, and so I have more focus for figuring out the new details I missed. Whereas the first listen, I didn’t always know WHAT the scene context was until I heard a familiar line or description I remembered from the english version of the scene, but on a second listen I now have a better guess at the scene the lines are probably taking place in before and after those lines I recognized in the first listen. And this continues etc each time you re-listen to something. (So yes, that initial context of knowing what you’re listening to with a previous read of its translation or target language transcript will definitely speed up comprehension pick up - but if you just wanna test what your basic listening comprehension to new content is then it works fine just going into new audio with no prior context its just more difficult at first lol until you build an idea of the context from listening).

The original Listening-Reading Method person did like 40+ hours a week, 8 hours most days, no wonder they made fast progress! They often included reading in some form (hence the name) and later translation, so they also were constantly working on listening AND some reading skills AND eventually often some speaking/writing skills. Doing it my way results in mostly listening comprehension of stuff you could already read to a degree, more automaticity in recognition, and for picking up new vocabulary both in listening and reading. I do extra reading on the side with other stuff to get more reading practice in an isolated way (since I’m trying to push my reading speed up above speaking speed). I always try to do it the way the creator originally intended, but I am not able to focus on things for more than 20 minutes at a time, 40 to a couple hours if I take a break every 20 minutes. So doing it 8 hours just doesn’t work out. 

---

I’m fairly happy!

I am on plan for my main goals that started this style study plan: 

1. Improving my reading level to get to start being able to extensively read actual danmei novels - we got there! I am at a reading level appropriate for SaYe at 98% comprehension when I checked, and at a bit above 95% comprehension for Guardian! I’m now continuing with that goal while adding on increasing reading Speed in general.

2. Improving listening skills so I have better automatic recognition of partly-known words from reading (working super well so far - I can tell because ability to watch cdramas in only chinese has improved noticeably and gotten much easier), and so I can start following the main plot and key details of audiobooks of things I’ve read before (working great for guardian, starting to work with other audiobooks provided I listen to the chapters a few times or several times if its brand new material I have no context for, however reading level matters and while things I have prior familiarity with are going very well - brand new materials are still quite challenging in that they require multiple listens for the full plot and several listens before I start picking up most non-plot-critical details). 

[dvarapala]

welcome to this book recommendation (tessa’s version) because there was a realization that one very important and very favorite book series has been left out of the ooc meme i did earlier today, so, without further ado, more favorite book series because i can never shut up about books and also yes i know most of them are ya but there might also be not ya ones sprinkled in there. also, please check the tws beforehand if you need to. here we go:

- the wayward children series by seanan mcguire focuses, much like this blog, on doorways to other places. the main characters often went to places and when they got back, they didn’t know how to exist in the regular / “real” world anymore. so their parents / guardians shipped them off to eleanor west’s school in the hopes of them getting better except eleanor’s school is filled to the brim with children like that.

- every book karen m mcmanus writes. you can follow along with the mystery and the books are not too creepy which is important to me because then i can still sleep at night because, yes, i’m a weenie and easily scared.

- lore by alexandra bracken is basically pjo but for grown ups. it has a lot of triggers though so please be careful.

- how rory thorne destroyed the multiverse & how the multiverse got it’s revenge by k. eason is a retelling. this time, of sleeping beauty but make it multiversal and sci-fi. the titles alone made me the eye zoom emoji.

- rebel belle, miss mayhem & lady renegades by rachel hawkins is about a southern belle who gets super powers. i’ve read the first book and am now reading the second one. super hilarious.

- for the wolf by hannah whitten was on sale when i bought it but i love a good retelling so it goes on this impromptu list. it also has a sequel if i’m not mistaken.

- beauty queens by libba bray is just super duper hilarious and also deserves to be made into a tv show or a movie. i love libba bray, i should read more of those books.

- the final girl support group by grady hendrix is a bit more horror-y, i suppose. it’s about different final girls who each faced down their killer and lived. now, they’re adults and they’re barely holding it together. this was a lot but it also made me want to write something horror-y after i was done with it.

- lost in the neverwood by aiden thomas seems like a good one to put on here because i rec’d another retelling earlier. i wish i bought this one as an audiobook instead of a regular ebook, though.

- the bone shard daughter by andrea stewart has the coolest title ever and i want to read it asap.

- a spark of white fire by sangu mandanna is basically a mabharata retelling but in space. what more do you want? it’s the first book in a trilogy.

- the jasmine throne by tasha suri is about a princess and a maidservant falling in love + magic + it’s rooted in indian lore. the sequel is called the oleander sword. other books by this author include the books of ambha duology.

- the candle and the flame by nafiza azad has this sorta quasi maybe but not quite enemies to lovers thing going on. but what’s more is that the descriptions are so delectable. the food is mouth watering, you can almost see yourself walk down the alleys and the streets. it took me a bit to get into it but once i did, i was hooked.

- i haven’t finished dream country by ashaye brown yet but one of my favorite booktubers rec’d the book and i trust said booktuber’s taste.

- son of the storm by suyi davies okungbowa just has the most gorgeous cover, for one, and while i also haven’t finished that one, i do so look forward to doing so and getting sucked into the story once more.

- lobizona by romina garber. we had a short twitter interaction like last year or something; she was very kind. i think this book also is the first in a duology.

- trail of lightning and a storm of locusts by rebecca roanhorse. i’ve read book one and have since started book two and geez, i am begging on my knees for an adaption of any kind, be it live action or animation. it would be the coolest thing.

- want and ruse by cindy pon. i have the first one, but not the second. it’s about this guy jason scheming and infiltrating to take down the rich from within in a future where resources have become scarce. 

- the vicious deep by zoraida cordova has a guy turning into a merman for a change which i personally thought was hilarious. miss cordova also wrote the brooklyn brujas series which i’ve read the first two books of, if i remember correctly.

- son of a trickster & trickster drift by eden robinson are on here because i saw the trickster show first and then found out it got cancelled and then i got sad so i tracked down the first two books of the trilogy.

- the tiger at midnight and the archer at dawn (and the chariot at dusk which i haven’t yet bought) by swati teerdhala has two people on opposite sides falling in love. based on indian lore.

- hunted by the sky & rising like a storm by tanaz bhatena is also steeped in indian lore. it just feels like a very colorful book to me, which is strange because there’s definitely tragedy in there. maybe it’s because of the covers.

- the heartless divine by varsha ravi is about two soulmates being bound together, literally. hijinks ensue.

- legendborn by tracy deonn is a retelling, which i love, and it takes a swing at king arthur which i also think is super cool. i love the protagonist, bree, so much and can’t wait for the sequel to this book and for basically anything this author writes next.

- the epic crush of genie lo and the iron will of genie lo by f.c. yee. i almost finished book one but then i got a new phone and it didn’t save where i stopped reading and now i gotta read book one all over again before i can read book two. very much a rec because the main characters are all very hilarious.

* and now for the audiobooks: raybearer. i can’t quite remember how far i made it in but it’s a good one for sure. * also: the keeper of night, which is the first one of a duology, i think. it’s set in like the 1800′s or something (or maybe the regency era?) and it’s about reapers and shinigamis and i think it’s super cool. * i don’t think i ever finished to kill a kingdom but by gosh, i’m gonna finish it one day! * the same goes for faith by julie murphy. look up the tws beforehand, though.