#because my main blog has a bigger follower base than this new side and I rlly don��t want this post to flop

[aegis-elle]

Scene redraw I did to get me out of art block (and also because I’ve been meaning to draw dungeon meshi fanart for forever), I ended up really liking how it turned out!!!

[violenceenthusiast]

im curious why people are saying supernatural is jewish like idk if jewish writers makes an inherently jewish story especially when things like following out the christian apocalypse from revelations and showing a real physical g-d who is just some guy i think is super jarring since though christians claim to be against idolatry they seem totally fine showing depictions of gd or whatever i dont get jesus honestly but jews are far more strict and the idea of showing gds appearance is pretty wrong

WOOF okay um. Maybe this is one of those Tone Doesn’t Come Thru Well Online things but to me this is soo fucking rude… I’m half way between John Mulaney we don't have time to unpack all of that & Ben Wyatt wait it’s gonna bother me if I don’t explain why you’re wrong. 

This turned into all my thoughts. 

So like. First off, it’s all fun and games. We’re all just joking and joshing and projecting here on destiel dot tumblr dot com and Jupernatural is not an exception in a lot of ways. And so when someone shits on what we’re doing here (yes, even unintentionally) what you get is what happened: oh you think you’re funny well I’m about to be hilarious!!! aka I’m gonna do it even more now out of spite specifically because you said not to. Like it really is all jokes but also you know what’s not a joke? Antisemitism in all its forms, even the casual shit! It’s really draining and it builds up in your veins!! Just. Yeah. You saw a lot of people talking about it today in particular because much like other topics of the day, one thing kicks off a whole other turn of events. So like. one misguided comment that’s playfully antisemitic and then one more little one, and then one big/obvious one launched us (Jewish spn fans) into a whole bigger discussion about antisemitism and erasure of Jews in the spn fandom writ large. It’s one thing to be descriptive, offer a headcanon/what if, or employ a certain mode of analysis. It’s another thing to definitively say This Is The Truth, specifically when to do so overrides something else, especially in this case when what’s being overridden is Jews, an ethnoreligious minority. It’s also another thing to talk over Jews. And mind this has been building for days. Not in a bad way just like, it’s been topical for days and then today one big thing pushed it over the edge to us actually posting abt it (partially bc at that point it’s a pattern, which feels like it needs to be addressed). Like, destiel tumblr is small we pretty much all see all the same posts, and then Jewish spn fans… we’re friends, we chat about life? We joke around together, y’know? If you’re being antisemitic (yes, even unintentionally) we’re all gonna hear abt it. It’s how we stay safe or in this case, curate the online exp.

That being said tho projecting on fiction is like fun and even a good thing at times, and def opens up new modes of analysis. But! the other big thing here is that there IS a LOT of evidence for a Jewish reading of spn, in a lot of ways, and particularly if you know what to look for. Like there’s lots of niche Jewish slang (non-Jews just don’t know these things, and that is a reflection primarily of the writers but once you put it in the script it implies things about the characters too of course), the theology of the early seasons (I’ll get to that in a second), main character motivations (hold on), “Moishe Campbell” implying Mary is (and therefore Sam and Dean are) Jewish, etc. 

It’s not surprising to me or anything that non-Jews don’t catch anything/everything Jewish about spn but that Jews catch both sides of it, because that’s just how being part of a marginalized group works. You learn about your own stuff AND the dominant culture’s stuff because that’s how you survive (socially, psychologically, literally). Members of the dominant culture don’t need to learn the marginalized one, are never confronted with it, and so they just.. don’t. I don’t even mean that in a normative or accusatory way, that’s just an observation on the state of things. Non-Jews who aren’t part of another marginalized religion, aka expressed xtians and cultural xtians, have a ton of misconceptions about Judaism, for example, “Jesus was Jewish” and not, “Jesus was an asshole of an apostate who made life harder for Jews at the time in a myriad of ways and whose movement has had a lasting negative impact on world Jewry (and other peoples) for the ensuing millenia”. I truly Don’t Have Time right now to get into the varied and intense history of antisemitism in all its forms but. the point I’m making here is that I’m not shocked I need to explain that life experience shapes your worldview?? So if you’re Jewish you’re always gonna be living life through that version of the world and it does impact you?? Same as anything else?? As unwell as they may be, spn writers aren’t exempt from that. Jewish people writing about xtianity are doing so thru a primarily Jewish understanding and vice versa. Jews can (and did!) write about xtian lore but in a Jewish way! Some core Jewish themes: wrestling with angels/G-d, questioning G-d, IF there’s a G-d they will have to beg MY forgiveness, the afterlife isn’t really a big thing so all that matters is your time on earth, make amends to others directly and thru your actions rather than seeking absolution with G-d, you are not obligated to complete the work nor may you abandon it, etc… So that’s the other reasoning why we say “spn is Jewish” based solely on it being written by Jews. Rather than Death of The Author, let’s look at what the author has imbued the story with, both intentionally and unintentionally. And re: Chuck and idolatry… I don’t even know where to start with the way you phrased this but. the Jewish Spn Writers of Note are apparently Kripke, Gamble, and Edlund. All of whom stopped writing for the show years before the Chuck Is God plot! 

Like yes it feels very stupid to be writing a thousand words on antisemitism and supernatural but like. this is a spn blog run by a Jew so. This whole thing is also just the same every time. This is very representative of typical casual antisemitism.

[idiotic-genius]

How to write an immersive scene

requested by @noa-i - check out their blog, they have amazing lists of helpful links to writing guides!

As a writer, it is mostly inevitable to get to the point in writing where you are questioning whether anyone will actually want to read what they have created. A question greatly important to writing something the reader gets hooked up with is: How do I lure them in and make them feel like they are part of something? Sometimes, writing immersive makes THE difference between a scene quick to skip over and a scene you can't take your eyes off. But how do you create immersion?

In this post: 1. Worldbuilding 2. Narrators 3. Writing visually 4. Setting the scene 5. Example to summarize

Step 1: Learn your own facts

It might be banal, since you are the author, to re-read your own notes and think about what you have written so far. However, to get the reader hooked up, make them INTERESTED. This is easily accomplished by creating a detailed fictional world that doesn't seem flat. It might be a tiring process, but it always pays off! Knowing exactly what kind of world your character finds themself in makes it a lot easier to fill in details that subconsciously make the reader believe they are dealing with an actual real-world instead of "just" a fictional one. But even though it may seem harsh, cutting out some details and facts might make the reader feel much more comfortable. Their mind wants to insert them into the universe they're reading about, so overloading them with too many unnecessary details can be just as defeating as giving them too little info. Here is a link to a great beginners-guide on worldbuilding.

Step 2: Know your narrator

As we all know, there are a bunch of different narrator types to pick from when starting a new story, and each of them is good for a different thing- reaching from the typical first-person narrator (The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson) over personal third-person (Warrior Cats, Harry Potter) to omniscient third-person (Anne of Green Gables) and biased third-person (A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). If you are writing an unbiased third-person narrator in your WIP, you can just skip this step. However, if you have any indication at all in your story as to who the narrator is, you might want to think about this more closely. The narrator is the bridge that connects the reader to the fictional world. To immerse the reader in a book, it's usually easiest to use the first-person narrator or the personal third-person narrator, because that way the reader will either imagine themself as the narrator or as a friend of the main character, which keeps them interested. If your narrator is an actual character in the story, it is necessary to keep their speech and description patterns consistent with themselves and the events of the story. For example, a character narrating that has never visited a school or similar should not use highly scientific words to describe what's going on, etc, because it will interrupt the reader's reading flow and disturb the immersion just as much as time skips do.

Step 3: Writing visually

After making sure you have the narrator and the world they're in all set, it's time to choose a writing style, more specifically, to decide the visuality of it. What I mean by that is that having a fictional world so flat it's boring is just as bad as not describing it in a way that delivers it in the way it deserves to be delivered. Picture it like this: Every scene starts in a white room, with neither windows nor doors. If you as the writer don't describe what is going on in that room and what it looks like, at best while keeping the narrator's character in mind while doing so (to make it "3D"), the reader will never know what is actually happening. This also includes adapting the length and complexity of sentences to the scene: In a combat scene, you will usually find short and cut-throat sentences to represent the intensity and living-in-the-moment mindset of a fight, however, in a meaningful conversation between two characters about a heavy subject, it's more likely that longer and more complex sentences are of use to mirror the narrator's deep thinking of the subject and their concentration on the conversation.

Step 4: Setting the scene

By setting the scene, you fill in this white room in the reader's mind, adding characters, sounds, furniture, windows, and scenery in general, while still leaving space for the reader to fill in the blanks. To find a middle between these two extremes is up to every individual writer and depends on the writing style. If you over-describe the room, the reader will know every detail about it, but it will take away their focus from what is actually happening in the scene. However, if you don't set the scene at all, the reader automatically makes up what the room might look like based on what they imagine, and then breaks out of the immersion as soon as you mention something, later on, to be in the room that they did not picture. For example, if you just say that A enters B's bedroom, the reader might quite as well imagine there to be small windows, some bookshelves, a standard bed, etc. If you don't set that up right in the beginning and later on mention that B has small windows, the books stacked on the floor, a bunch of plants, an aquarium, and a bunk bed, the reader will get confused because it doesn't fit what they had pictured before. So ask yourself: What is so important that the reader should know it before the scene actually starts? Context also matters in that case.

5. Example

In the following, I will write the same scene multiple times in different styles to illustrate what makes a difference in writing immersion. The scene goes as following: Jae falls into a dark room underground with a hooded, mysterious person waiting for him. The hooded person greets him and lights a candle, and in the emitting light, Jae realizes who he is talking to. Remember: These are more caricatures of the different writing styles than actual representation and are very overexaggerated, but you get the idea.

1. first-person narrator (Jae), scene not set properly, no visual writing, no consistency in speech pattern

After three seconds, I landed on something soft and realized I had landed in a chamber underground, slightly lit by the moonlight above me. I walked through the only doorway and found myself in a second room. A hooded figure in the middle of the dark lifted their arm. From the table beside them, they picked up a candle and lit it using a lighter. "Hello, Jae", they said, and in the newly emitting light, I recognized them in front of the fireplace.

-> feels flat and jumpy, gives no significance to the change of scenery

2. biased third-person narrator, scene set properly, overly descriptive visual writing, consistency in speech pattern

After falling for what felt like an hour, even though it was probably just a few seconds, Jae finally landed on something soft. Before even attempting to get up, he shivered at the fresh memory of what slimy, earthy, suddenly appearing tunnels felt like. He stared up through the hole at the moon and the stars, and immediately recognized the constellation of Cassiopeia, high up above him. Cassiopeia is said to have angered the Gods, so they gave her the gift of divination, but made it so that nobody would ever believe her prophecies, finally banning her into the sky as this constellation. Weirdly enough, the stars' pattern doesn't look like a woman, or a human, at all. Jae slowly stood up from where he landed and realized he had fallen onto a rather big cushion with a print of primroses in yellow, pink, red, and blue. He looked around in my new location and found himself stuck in a small portico with no windows at all and only one doorway. The walls seemed just as dirty and muddy as the tunnel he had fallen through, and as he looked closer, he spotted about a dozen small, pink worms slithering through the soil. The floor on the other hand was made out of dark wooden panels- if you wanted to call it a "floor". The pieces were just loosely stuck onto the earth underneath, and mud squeezed out from the gaps in between. Jae slowly walked over them and reached the doorway after just four steps. He saw a hooded figure standing in the center of the next room. The room had two sources of lighting: One, the moonlight shining through the disgusting tunnel, and two, a crackling fireplace. It looked like it belonged in a small cottage, being made out of red bricks and looking a little old with the small black-and-white pictures put on top of it. The flickering orange glim of the fire met the silvery-white shine of the moon in the middle of the room. On the right side, Jae saw a big old round table made out of similar wood as the floorboards outside. There were obvious scratches on it, some made by smaller knives, others bigger and maybe made by swords, with splinters on their edges. Apart from two, the fours chairs around it seemed just as maltreated, but the two others were polished and reflected the two light sources, with no scratch marks at all. On top of the table rested a metal candlestick with one slightly burned-down candle stuck inside it. The candlestick had a few scratches as well, on the side and at the bottom. "Hello, Jae", the figure said snarkily, with a voice deep and rough like sandpaper. They wore a black cape, smooth on what Jae could see of the inside and rough on the outside, with a big hood covering their hair and most of their face. A few of the blue buttons with a golden pentagram engraved on them were missing from the coat, and it was slightly ripped in a few places. One strand of dark hair fell into the person's eyes as they reached out for the candlestick, lighting the candle inside with a silver zippo-lighter. The lighter had small scratches as well as a few symbols on it. Slowly, the flame grew bigger and bigger, until the shine from below reached the figure's face. Jae's eyes went big as he realized who he was talking to.

-> little place for the reader's fantasy, but details make scenery deeper and less flat. This kind of description does make sense if the narrator/the character the narrator fixates on (Jae in this case) is very observant and/or intelligent because they will notice details that others don't. The question is whether those details are important enough to keep in the story.

3. first-person narrator (Jae), scene set properly, visual writing, consistent speech pattern

After what felt like an eternity of falling and silently begging not to die from the impact, I finally landed with my eyes squeezed shut. Okay, legs, arms, and head still in place... I slowly opened my eyes again, realizing I had landed on a soft pillow with a flower print. Cautiously, I got up, gazing up at the tunnel through which I had fallen. The view of the slimy earth made me shiver involuntarily as I blinked against the bright moonlight far above me. The sky was clear enough to see stars, which could have been far more enjoyable if it hadn't been for my miserable situation. I had landed in a small chamber underground, with a single doorway leading into a bigger room. The walls were just pure earth and seemed to swallow all noise, but when I took the first step, the sounds of my shoes on the dark wooden floorboards and of the mud squishing out from beneath them was louder than I had anticipated. I could hear the crackling of fire from the next room and see the orange glow as I made my way over to the doorway and took a glimpse into it. The room was not very big, but also not as small as the one I had landed in. There wasn't much space because of a wooden round table and four chairs, which all seemed very old and maltreated, judging from the scratches on them. I could make out a few pictures on the fireplace, and in front of that- "Hello, Jae." I had to suppress a gasp as I realized that I was not alone. In the middle of the room, right where the silvery moonlight and the orange glow of the fire met, stood a hooded figure. Their coat looked as old as the few pieces of furniture, with missing buttons and rips. I couldn't make out much of their face, even though I squinted my eyes, but the flickering light made it hard to see anything, let alone recognize. But that voice... Before I could come to a conclusion, the figure reached for a metal candlestick standing on the table and lit the candle inside with a silver lighter. As the flame grew bigger, they dispelled the shadows below the hood that had disguised the person's features before. I could feel my eyes get big as I finally realized who was standing before me.

-> Gives enough information to "fill the white room" without dwelling on details too much, shows the context of the story, gives Jae a consistent personality

So that's it for this post! I hope I managed to pass on a thing or two that I learned while researching and that this post will help you with your writing. Please acknowledge, I am not trying to attack anyone's style of writing!! If you write the way I wrote a "non-immersive" scene, it does NOT mean that your writing style is bad, let alone wrong, because the existence of many different writing styles is what keeps it individual and interesting! Find your own way and let nobody get you down :)

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

completely brainless 1am ramble

On the topic of stagnation, and the geopolitical plot vs. character-driven plot discussion people are having rn:

Maybe this is just a nostalgia-blinded bias of mine, having started with the Disc War, but...I’ve never minded the more character-based plots? Anyone who’s followed my blog for a bit knows that I love the Pet War, but I also loved the Disc War and the Final Pet War too. In those conflicts, the factions served as a backdrop rather than being the main focus, and the plot was driven by the characters and their grievances with one another.

One of my favorite smaller plots from Season Two was Fundy and Ghostbur. That had absolutely zilch to do with factions, or L’manburg, or geopolitics, but it was honestly one of the most well-acted and heart-breaking plots I’ve seen from the SMP in its entirety. 

I think that character-driven plots are places where the SMP’s really shined, at least to me personally.

Maybe that’s not everyone’s thing, but I don’t think it’s bad for the stories to be more character-driven! I think a lot more of the SMP than people realize has been like that this entire time. I think people sometimes overestimate how much the factions have actually mattered, in a sense?

Remember how the Disc War started? 

Tommy and Sapnap were a pair. Punz and Tubbo were a pair. Ponk and Alyssa were a pair. Dream logged on to stop the fighting and Tommy and Sapnap killed him, leading to Dream allying himself with Ponk and Alyssa. These weren’t faction lines dividing everyone, but personal grudges. That’s how the SMP’s entire plot started. “You and me, versus Dream,” right?

While the L’manburg War was amazing and a game-changer for the SMP storyline as a whole, I feel like the motivations, the driving forces for that war were actually a lot weaker than the recent conflicts. It was a cool bit of political roleplay, yes, but it was kind of just a war for the sake of a war, to be honest.

L’manburg was founded because some Americans got in the way of Wilbur and Tommy stealing everyone’s blaze rods. It went from a hotdog-selling business to a literal independent country because...revolution, I guess? And Dream declared war because...sometimes you just gotta kill some people sometimes, y’know...? 

It was the character-based conflicts from before that war that ended it. The discs ended the war even though they had nothing to do with the reason L’manburg seceded, because Tommy and Dream’s grudge against each other held more weight than the actual country. Who cared if L’manburg gained its independence as long as Dream gained the discs? That was a bigger win for him.

The conflicts that happened afterwards continued that trend of being character-driven rather than faction-driven. L’manburg kind of disappeared for a month as the Disc Saga continued with Tommy and Dream, Tommy and Quackity founded the Cartel and then the Pet War started up because of Sapnap.

None of these conflicts had anything to do with factions, really, and having all these little smaller stories gave a chance for people like Quackity, Fundy and Skeppy to get in on the drama more and throw their hats into the ring. 

That’s what I think is happening right now, except since there are a lot more people on the server now, they’re starting up their individual plots around the same time so that they start to overlap. 

And remember how Fundy and Tubbo started up the Dreamon Hunters plot, picked out new skins, built a new setting and everything just for that plot to never take off due to needing to prepare for the Manberg Festival? Such a cool plot idea, and it just never happened, really.

Well, now, the Badlands have been having fun creating their own Blood Vines plot, and since they aren’t very involved in what Tommy and Dream are doing, they have space to flesh out that idea and not have it be overshadowed by other things. Whether or not you, as a viewer, want to follow along with the side plot is your choice! But Bad seems to be having a lot of fun telling his own story. 

Quackity creating Mexican L’manburg and having that turn into a five-day plot that ended in war? That’s basically just the L’manburg War 2.0, and if you don’t feel like following along with the plot -- again, no need to! But Karl finally getting his chance to shine, Sapnap and George having character development with Dream, and Eret, Puffy and H getting in on some drama was honestly pretty exciting!

The thing about the SMP is that it’s not really built to be just one storyline. It’s never just been about L’manburg. 

While the Camarvan was built, Fundy and Eret were having their Prank War.

The same day Dream and Tommy fought to bargain with Skeppy, Fundy was getting into a court battle with Punz, Eret and Tubbo.

While the Election was happening, so was the Pet War.

In the middle of Pogtopia building its resistance, the Battle of the Lake happened with Tommy, Sapnap and the Badlands.

The SMP has always had storylines going on at the same time. It’s just that since most of the viewers have always focused on Tommy and Wilbur for the most part, a lot of the time those extra storylines slipped through the cracks of memory.

Now let’s get back to the geopolitics vs. character-driven thing:

This feeling of “stagnation” isn’t new! The SMP’s had periods like this, where it feels a bit slower and everyone’s a little confused about where it’s going before.

Remember that period from like, October 18th to November 6th or so where pretty much nothing happened to progress the plot? And since none of the other streamers on the SMP were doing their own plots, it was just kind of this period of...”who knows what’s happening right now?”

The thing about a politics-based plot vs. a more character-driven, million side-stories type deal is that as long as none of the country leaders were online, nothing could really happen to progress the main plot, and since the character-driven stuff wasn’t the main focus, that couldn’t drive much either.

So...yeah, you got the Tubbo Bathwater stream three days after the Festival happened. That’s just kinda how it went.

Schlatt only got on very rarely, Wilbur a bit less rarely, and Dream logging onto his own server was always more of a surprise more than a routine. Tommy and Techno were getting into hijinks, but there weren’t really any political stakes. Even though he was supposed to be exiled, Tommy just moved back into his house anyway, because who was going to stop him? The one person who cared about him staying out wasn’t there to do anything.

Yes, the Big Plot Days like the Festival and the Meeting were jaw-dropping and amazing! I loved them! Incredibly-written, incredibly-acted. 

But what about what happened between them? 

One thing I’ve enjoyed about the recent period is that it feels like a lot more streamers are keeping track of their characters and holding onto longer plot threads. It feels like more people are interacting with each other instead of doing builds by themselves. And even the main plot is progressing at this more subtle, bit-by-bit pace where there’s a bit of new development with each stream. The big event days still happen, like the New Festival and the Execution, but the pacing’s a lot more consistently spread out. And with all these other streamers keeping their own mini stories as well, it’s more of this melting pot of different people interacting, each with their own arc and tale to tell.

Ponk and Jack, for example, are keeping their ongoing rivalry. Sam, Bad and Ant are getting into their own storyline whereas before, the Badlands weren’t really doing much of anything. And Karl’s been doing the same fun side-things that he’s always done for months, but he’s recently started to try and find a niche for himself by trying these light-hearted events or his new Tales series, which could end up being really cool the more he refines it! 

I feel like a lot of the “chaos” feeling isn’t really from how the SMP’s main storyline has been written; most of the main plot has still kept to L’manburg and Techno.

It’s just that more people are taking notice of all the side hijinks that are going on in the background all the time, and some of the people who weren’t involved in the main plot before have started creating their own storylines for fun. 

I will say it again and again: you don’t have to follow along with every storyline! If it overwhelms you to try and keep up with the Blood Vines? That’s okay! You as a viewer have the freedom to create the viewing experience that makes you the most comfortable, that brings you the most joy! 

But I also think people could try and branch out a bit too. Give some new creators a try. No pressure or anything, and it’s fine if you just want to stick to Tommy or Techno! But there are a lot of talented people on the SMP, and I feel like some of these smaller stories are worth paying attention to if you’re interested!

Aaaaanyway, this is just a long, long post with some nonsense thoughts that I felt like getting out. Feel free to disagree! The SMP’s an interesting piece of media that everyone’s going to experience slightly differently. What may be my cup of tea might not be yours, and vice versa! :]

[captainkirbypunch]

My love has left tumblr once again.

As many of you may know, the account under the name MDZADR, has left tumblr. They felt unsafe in their fandom, and as such have deleted their tumblr and AO3 account due to the bad memories linked to them.

As a part of their departure, they have asked me to post something in their name, as follows.

If you want more details about how I came to this realization, continue to read. If not, here is your summary:

TL;DR: For the safety and health of this fandom, I wanted to spread the word that Mooping-10 is filled with people who absolutely cannot be trusted, creating a very hazardous environment for the zadr community, and MelodyoftheVoid is connected to all of those people, living a double life amongst those of us that don’t “ship zadr correctly.” She has plenty of friends her inner circle knows nothing about, and nobody on either side knows who she really is. 

Full story below.

I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. Nobody did anything to me today, but this just wasn’t worth it.

My AO3 and tumblr are both gone. I didn’t say goodbye because I didn’t want to look like an attention seeker.

Here’s the thing. I wasn’t going to name drop, but you guys need to know the truth. I’m instructing my boyfriend (hi y’all) to turn asks off for his own safety after this because this is going to be a nightmare, but... allow me to tell you the full story. I’ll try to break up the text so it’s less difficult to read, but this is important. I’m sorry to air discourse so publicly, but please... I need you to listen to me.

I’ll start from the beginning, without being vague anymore about who “she” is. I request that you please read the whole thing and not skip parts of it. The whole story matters.

I finally returned to the fandom about two months or so ago. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t do well in my thoughts while left alone too long, so I posted saying I would stop messaging people I knew because I didn’t want to bother them. There were only two people I was talking to at the time, but one of them is famous so I didn’t want to message her directly saying that. Doing so would have put her in a position of feeling obligated to say “you’re not bothering me” rather than just simply being able to sigh with relief from no longer being contacted. 

But the first person to contact me was the famous person, and she asked if I was okay, and told me she liked talking to me.

God, I actually cried.

But, that’s just her. Melodyofthevoid is the type of person to talk to people in the fandom, totally unaware of her demigod status. She comments on stories, interacts on posts, messages first... a pillar of kindness, so it seemed.

But let the story continue.

Over time, we were talking more often. 

Mostly sending memes (cause everyone I knew, myself included, aren’t exactly great at holding conversations. No shade. Memes are a love language). I was still in the hero worship stage of our relationship, so my view of her was that that was perfect.

Now, let me bridge a connection with a new story idea I got around December 28th or so, and my thinking she was perfect.

I had recently finished watching Madoka and questioned “If I had magical powers, what would they be?” It then turned into its own story idea, basing creators’ powers around the strengths and weaknesses in creations. I actually realized “oh fuck. My stuff is incoherent. My friends’ works aren’t too different...”

Thus spawned the name “Incoherent” for the project.

What does that have to do with this? Well, here’s the thing that really fucked everything up quickly. 

This was not on purpose, because originally the project (which I had told nobody of yet at the time) was all about improving your works, making platonic friends, dressing our personas in cute outfits, and writing fun magic.

While listening to music and thinking of the story one day, my brain accidentally shipped my persona with hers, and I couldn’t unsee it. And I’m lousy at keeping my own secrets (other’s are different) so she found out on probably day one or two about my weird crush because of an ask meme of all things. 

She didn’t try to put me off any, which was another problem for future things to come, and so I decided that since Incoherent was finally making me feel alive again and feeling the euphoric feelings of love wouldn’t hurt anything (I figured they’d mellow out on their own eventually because that’s how infatuation works) since they helped fuel my inspiration, and then we would just continue from friends to better friends one day and this part of our lives would be over.

Besides, the forbidden is attractive somehow, and makes stories more entertaining. She’s aro/ace, so I had no chance anyway. Someone safe to crush on, in her own way.

This isn’t a story of a love betrayal however. There was no such thing. But it’s important to the story because Incoherent is where my mistakes were made, and hers brought to light.

By this time, I had a handful of people I was talking to, and I created a discord server for the project. Only my boyfriend (hi!) and I were in it at the time. I was not-so-subtly asking my friends what they’d look like if they were a magical person, what their names would be... I thought I would have had to lure Melody in to make her want to join us, but I managed to get her in very easily. Everyone was happy and excited! It was a no obligation, no time limit thing for us to enjoy, a little sandbox to play around in. 

Sure there were plans to make it bigger and I was working on art to the best of my ability, but it was gonna be a fun thing mostly. No pressure on anyone.

And how things started becoming a problem was that the rest of us posted publicly about the project and interacted with each other’s posts relating to the story, but she had started to interact publicly less and less with our things, and everyone noticed it.

It wasn’t because we were greedy and wanted the popular girl to reblog our things. It’s because we had a feeling she was ashamed of being seen publicly with us. The reason we were worried before then and started making that connection was because I mentioned I was going to ask another user if they were interested in joining Incoherent. Melody was the only one that seemed uncomfortable, and I messaged her asking about it. We agreed I wouldn’t invite that person but I knew things were off about it.

That person is like me. How long until Melody didn’t want to talk to me anymore? A few days ago, the other shoe finally dropped. A member of our little group and I were talking and (let’s call them Friend for simplicity. They asked to not be name dropped here) Friend was worried they had made Melody upset by tagging her in a meme picture they drew of her persona, and the two had agreed that Friend remove the tag. This spawned an anxiety-filled conversation where Friend and I expressed our concerns about Melody not interacting with the project, or us.

So since I wanted reassurance that that wasn’t the case, I messaged Melody with my concerns. I told her I had the feeling she was ashamed of being seen in public with us because of her friends, and she didn’t refute me. She simply told me to go get some rest. I messaged back with “I’m right.”

I deleted Discord off my phone for hours and nearly deleted my Tumblr, AO3, and the server after my boyfriend helped pass messages between us. Melody confessed that was the case because her friends expressed discomfort with my works, and she was playing both sides.

Her words, not mine.

Melody told me she would be withdrawing from the Incoherent project because it wasn’t fair to us if her heart wasn’t in it.

She didn’t stand up on my behalf when they said things about me. Her friends are the type who talk behind creators’ backs for shipping zadr “incorrectly.” Worse than antis because they actually participate in the “pro-shipping” side of the fandom. I broke that day and messaged her at 3 am.

We finally spoke at 3pm. We both missed each other. I tried to understand more. I wanted it to be more like a conversation rather than an interrogation. It was only one-sided however, and she never opened up further. And I made some mistakes and poor choices of words, and we ended up parting ways permanently right there. 

I nearly deleted everything, but much like a coma patient attached to many machines on a hospital bed, my blog was kept alive a little longer by people sending kind words in droves. I was briefly fuelled by spite, wishing to watch the world burn by making everyone on the "correct" side of the fandom upset by posting the worst, most vile content this fandom has ever seen.

I was also welcomed with open arms by a very kind server with fellow degenerates, all of them screaming and crying and partying when they managed to get me in their server. It was so heartwarming...

But as I spoke to others about my situation, I realized something. A disturbing pattern.

People telling me horror stories about how Mooping-10 was cult-like. How the people running it were antis. I was even told once that they have a secondary server where they go to have their talks and do their work, likely the place where the real bashing is held.

The server itself has rules against such behavior, but I suppose it's different when they do it.

One person (and this is the most unnerving part for me, personally) told me Melody actually set off alarm bells in their head without having even done anything yet, and the most disturbing part of the story was that one of the moderators was afraid and upset because they got Covid, and received basically no moral support at all. Only getting told "spoiler that. Sorry you got Covid".

I was horrified. That server has 100 people in it. How many of them are the same? They act like popular kids in school who picked up an unpopular main character and then bash others, and the main character joined in because they don't want to be left behind by their new "friends".

To put it short, back to my point:

TL;DR: I simply only wanted to spread the word that: Mooping-10 is filled with people who absolutely cannot be trusted, creating a very hazardous environment for the zadr community, and Melodyofthevoid is connected to all of those people, living a double life amongst those of us that don't "ship zadr correctly". She has plenty of friends her inner circle knows nothing about, and nobody on either side knows who she really is.

[sanoiro]

5x01 - Really Sad Devil Guy - Spoilers & Speculation

  Warning! There is always a possibility that certain scenes might have been mixed up under their non-respective episodes.

I’ll be clear about all this. Do not copy and paste the speculations, If you have found the original accounts from where the bts come from use yours do not get any of the photos from here. This post was NOT written to aid fandom spongers but in order to have fun with some dear friends and as a courtesy to the fans who come across my posts. I’m not a news blog nor a source and I’ll not be treated as such.

Written By: Jason Ning Directed By: Eagle Eglisson

Jason Ning has written/co-written the episodes:

1x03 - The Would-Be Prince of Darkness

1x06 - Favorite Son

2x05 - Weaponizer

2x16 - God Johnson

3x04 - What Would Lucifer Do?

3x11 - City of Angels?

3x14 - My Brother's Keeper

3x20 - The Angel of San Bernardino

4x03 - O, Ye of Little Faith, Father

4x08 - Super Bad Boyfriend

5x01 - Really Sad Devil Guy

Cast: Tom Ellis as Lucifer, Lauren German as Chloe, DB Woodside as Amenadiel, Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze, Kevin Alejandro as Dan, Scarlett Estevez as Trixie, Rachael Harris as Linda Martin and Aimee Garcia as Ella.

Season 4 Recurring Characters: None Officially Announced Guest Cast:

Erik Aude...Rod

Kelsey Chock...Kirby Jones

Patrick Duke Conboy...Club Guy

Joël Dupont...Lux patron

Mark Elias...Vincent Gill

Chasten Harmon...Megan Garner

Brian Majestic...Neighbor

Sierra Nowak...Emily

Jose Stephan Perez...Club Guy

Behind The Scenes Videos:

5x01 Locations:

1) LUX - Party

2) Precinct

3) The Yacht - Party - Maze (stunt) - Ella - (Ella & Maze) - Mr DOB? Money Lucifer?

4) The House - Night with Lucifer & Maze - Morning with Chloe Detective - Baby Shower - Girl

5) The DTLA Penthouse - Morning Lucifer - Night Chloe Sting  (Green Screen)

Due to the confusing titles we have ended up between friends to retitle them and this one is ‘The Gambler’ episode. The reason behind the name is because the case is taking place mainly in a high profile gambling establishment but also sets forward a very interesting concept for S5. 

Everything is a gamble and you need to be aware of what you are about to throw on the table. In my belief, the cards at our leads hands are misleading and sometimes some of them do not know what the power of the cards they hold. Pity that it’s not a card game though but a through of the dice with many unknown sides to the players. No God does not play dices with the universe as Neil Gaiman explains in Good Omens but how much of what is going on can be blamed on him? Not much in my humble opinion.

As you already know after all these years BTS is not easy on the contrary they are confusing and frustrating to no end… So stay cautious and try to have fun rather than search for definite answers. These answers may come only when the season P1 drops and if I managed to spot something correctly we were fortunate.

The first episode as Ellis said will clarify why Lucifer returned to Earth but unfortunately, we can only speculate as the bts do not give us a definite answer but we know one thing, do not expect Lucifer and Chloe to meet too soon in 5x01. For the most part, it seems like Lucifer tries to avoid her and for a very good reason. As Henderson said you cannot expect to lock an alcoholic to a liquor store for 20 years and do not have a regression.

The beginning of the episode will most probably take us to… Hell. The reason for that speculation is Ellis’ birthday cake. Yes, Ellis is an executive producer and usually, by now 5x01 should have wrapped as an episode its post-production so we assume that that scene takes place in the first 5-10 minutes of the first episode of S1.

If the scene of that cake is not one of the S5 first scenes then probably is a cut scene from Chloe wondering how Lucifer is doing and the answer is well… he is delusional. According to Boris’s speculation we might get a similar scene like the beginning of S4 but this time it’s Chloe who works and the files pile up as well as the boxes around her office... Some bts suggest that might be actually happening but we simply cannot be sure. 

We might also spot Gaudium on that cake but I would assume he appears like that because the delusion has not yet dropped so his real form might be a wonderful CGI. Henderson always wanted him somehow in the show so that would be the perfect time to do so…

So what has caused Lucifer wanting to get to earth? Again we do not know but it might be somehow related to the case Chloe will be working on. Of course, that relationship might not be obvious but more like the case of 5x04 where Lucifer’s connection to the case Chloe was trying to solve was purely accidental due to Eve.

Now the writers did tease that Lucifer will see a familiar face in Hell and many have speculated over that. When I heard it for the first time I thought it was Dan and I still hold that opinion mainly because Dan’s arc is more or less similar to the one of Charlotte. If a character is going to die in S5 I do expect it to be Dan even if it is for a little while, something that will lead to bigger problems later on and perhaps it will be the reason on why he needs the matching bracelet he wears with Lucifer and which appears in 5x03.

If that face is not Dan then who else could it be? Father Frank? In Hell, you may ask? Well, he felt immense guilt over accidentally killing his family and the boy’s family at that car crash so that’s where I place my next bet. In any case that familiar face is probably who shakes up things and causes Lucifer to seek something on Earth. 

My calculations on how long Lucifer is in Hell give out a 6 month period which has been confirmed and my speculation was based on that due to the babies that play Charlie :D. So what has changed 6 months later on Earth?

As we know from Lauren German fools everyone into believing she is doing well and she is supported by Maze and why not Ella. In 5x01 there is a bts which shows Chloe at a LUX party with Maze but Maze is dressed in leather and Chloe in work clothes. In the time of Lucifer’s absence, it was hinted by DB that Amenadiel has taken over LUX but fear not as LUX is the same place it always was and Amenadiel tries to imitate Lucifer’s dressing code and kind of entertainment in the establishment. At the same time if you notice the fridge at Linda’s apartment it has some photos with Amenadiel, Linda and Charlie so the domestic life is going well on that front as well for him.

^If it’s Amenadiel it fits with the rehearsal if not then Lucifer and Chloe reunite earlier but I believe it’s Amenadiel. 

Moving on as you know each episode has a case! Episode 5x01 features many different locations but I’ll start from Maze’s clothes at LUX. We do not know if the LUX scene is early in the episode and I would assume it is not. Maze’s clothes at LUX are seen in two locations LUX and at a boat where she is accompanied by Ella yet that’s not the murder scene.

^That’s the main pattern I saw at LUX day of the extras wearing. 

^Josh’s photo is upside down ;) 

^Just a speculation but does LInda visit LUX? No idea. 

After LUX day which lasted for over 13 hours I believe it lasted in total for about 15-16h... So it’s  big scene. 

^Chloe shot and Lesley Ann waiting to enter the scene

Ella’s shirt is also one of the reasons why I believe that’s at the beginning of the episode as later on, she wears a yellow and then a blue shirt during the episode. 

The murder scene takes place at a downtown Penthouse - not Lucifer’s - which acts as an illegal gambling establishment for rich players. If you have watched the movie Molly’s Game you will get what I mean. So let’s assume that murder happens there, the LAPD investigates the scene but afterwards, when Chloe is at the precinct she turns to Maze for some reason or Maze drags her to LUX. 

Note that Lucifer looks angry perhaps even dejected according to the available bts

^No Green screen so do not expect something supernatural to happen just Lucifer infuriated giving a verbal point of how pointless everything is I presume. 

Now call me a weird but there is a possibility of Ella being at the playing table BEFORE the murder case... or perhaps who could be the last person to see in Hell? Ella even for a fraction of a second? No idea again just a wild speculation...But I do not think that’s it... not entirely at least.. Aimee was well dressed at the following photo there... In my other speculation, Lucifer tries to get people to help him without involving Chloe at all.. Yet note that the dates they were posted on social media were different so we cannot be sure

Now if Ella does help with the case is it too farfetched to hope that she will spill the beans about Candy to Chloe in 5x01? Dad I HOPE SO!. 

Afterwards, we see that Maze and Ella track down a rich guy on a boat. Maze is wearing the same clothes she did at LUX and I would speculate that the yacht belongs to Lee (The yacht is called the Lightbringer and is a known in L.A. yacht to rent for events etc.) with all the money he got OTHERWISE it was Lee who got killed and is the familiar face in hell and a close relative (his son?) took his fortune. You see a young black guy was hired as a guest so it is possible to assume that. There was a script page as well a blurry one but we do not know if the name was Les or Lee.. Here is the thing though... There was also a guy who looked like Jeremiah aka Lee in DTLA but I do not know if it was during the murder -if it happens there which if it does then fitting! or if he was there for his usual encounter with Lucifer...- 

Now about that yacht...

Now at that yacht we have Maze kicking some not so pretty behinds and we do not know how it goes from there unfortunately but I would assume that Lucifer and Maze are reunited early on that episode perhaps around the first quarter or so.

While everything happens Lucifer visits the DTLA Penthouse - Gambling establishment and he seems pissed possibly because his money was the reason Lee was murdered if we support that theory?

From there we also have a location that was shot at the WB ranch, the place where FRIENDS shot their intro scene at the fountain and which was sold by WB yet they can still use it for the time being.

At that ranch, there is a small town set which has some middle-class houses. In one of those houses, there was a baby shower for a baby girl I suppose and is where Lucifer seeks more answers. I do not know if someone bleeds or something but they had to wash the street afterwards. The scene happens at night and Lucifer again is NOT pleased. Along with Lucifer I believe that there was also Maze and I do not know if Maze was also there in the morning shots that follow with Chloe but she had her stunt with her and her presence at the stages suggest that she may have been at the precinct as well with those clothes but that’s a speculation. 

Lucifer’s car at the lot in the main WB lot not the ranch. 

Now do be careful as Chloe's visit in the morning might be before Lucifer’s one at night we just do not know exactly at the moment. 

^You can see Lucifer in the middle of the shot. 

^I believe that’s in that house at night. 

^Maze Lucifer and the Guy?

According to the guest's clothes I suspect that Chloe gets there in the morning and then Lucifer at night as he wears the exact same ones...

At this point my belief is that perhaps Maze helps Chloe, then Lucifer gets involved without Chloe realising he is there or perhaps that’s the point she sees him and Maze along with Lucifer get into a fight. The suspect might have run or perhaps Lucifer and Maze protected Chloe unfortunately we cannot know what exactly is going on. 

A third speculation at the same timeframe is that Maze is reunited with Lucifer at the penthouse and they start working together from that point. The follow Chloe perhaps even save her from the suspect as he runs and then both return at night to confront him. 

Now there is also a morning shooting scene there or perhaps even two as we do know that Chloe as a Detective goes to ask the guy some questions while Lucifer has some action scenes at that point.

Ellis’ and Lesley-Ann’s stunts were there and took care of the scene which needed to be delivered yet, in my opinion, there was no meet up there. I do not know if Chloe managed to take a glimpse of Lucifer or not but I assume that at that point she knows Lucifer is back but he still avoids her to spare her the pain as he probably believes he will have to go back to Hell once his quest finishes.

Fast forward we go to the last part of the episode which takes place at the DTLA Penthouse at night where Chloe appears to be on a sting operation, pretending to be a player and I would also assume that Ella is at the van guiding her through that. At the same time though we have Lucifer and Maze trying to do their own thing and Dan somewhere in the middle.

We know that it’s the final scene as there are police cars at the scene and my speculation is this.

Chloe is at the sting operation, Ella helps and Dan is also involved close by at a car. Lucifer and Maze try to gain entrance and we have a Green screen used and some wires as they were shooting two different scenes and one of them had Ellis suspended I believe from the wires. No idea if he was trying that the human way or Lucifer had enough and flew up there yet at some point the suspect break free and goes to the street.

The last part of the episode is divided in two parts. The sting operation and the second painful part

^ The building on the right with the helicopter landing space is the where the penthouse is located and the middle of the street in front of Hope park is where the conclusion of the episode was shot with some other additional scenes. 

Two scenes were shot for the first time. One of them was Lucifer? lying, being levitated, using human means to climb to the penthouse? Who knows but there was a green screen behind him. Perhaps he was in the penthouse and was pushed or trying to avoid Chloe he opted to fall off? No idea. 

Now at the same location, we have Ella with a messy ban like she was really into the game she might have been instructed to Chloe to play at the penthouse.

Maze’s outfit makes me wonder if Maze decided to also go undercover to help Lucifer or even Chloe we will know once it drops I’m afraid. Yet it looks like she is along with the girls at the end of the episode. 

Also see javiergame4 ‘s BTS ON REDDIT AND POSTED ON IGMUR BTS

At the end, I think that the guy who Lesley-Ann was hugging was the culprit and the one who starts a chain of events. 

I do believe that Dan who might be in the car waiting for the sting to end up trapped with the culprit in the car and to be eventually be throwed outside the window. 

Of course, that is one interpretation as there is also the following bts Lucifer in front of the car and then the car seems to have turned so either Lucifer is the cause for the guy’s, perhaps Dan’s injury or the reason why he is paradoxically saved. Perhaps both. You can see teh green screen be used which may suggest a car chase or something which Lucifer puts into a halt. The second car I believe is Chloe’s. 

^The guy ends up on the street

But someone in white seems to protect someone so we do not know what is going on. If Lucifer protects Chloe, if some power comes forward and saves Dan. 

^The person in white next to the ambulance

My opinion? Chloe indeed needs help and Lucifer comes forward in a scene that reminds me a bit of Lois and Superman in Superman Returns meaning that it might be him saving her that exposes his return from Hell to her. 

Chloe, Ella - see the bun behind Chloe, and Maze in front of a dead body bag coroner bed. 

Also Chloe appears to be in front of the guy who gets injured... Again we assume this is the end of the episode... But someone eventually DOES die as we know from the body bag and again I would assume that it is Dan. Do not ask me why I insist on that so much but I have this gut feeling he will have a short experience with Hell which will allow him to seek a second chance like Charlotte for when Death reclaims him once more. 

Now if Dan does die for a while and Lucifer has a hand in his revival it would also explain why in 5x03 or even at the end of 5x02 we have Dan and Lucifer wearing the same amethyst bracelet... Also why Lucifer cannot really leave again for the time being... 

Additional info

We do know there is a woman guest with lines on the boat and the DTLA penthouse so I would keep an eye on her for the case.

Aimee Garcia was showing off Ella’s pens for the season and I have to admit that the screwdriver caught my interest for an obvious reason…

So has Amenadiel visited Lucifer at Hell? According to D.B.’s interview where he said that the character is currently busy so he has not, consider that Lucifer changing to a full Devil body in front of him may have not been the best memory he has of his baby brother. So in a way, Amenadiel might be deep down calm that the pieces have fallen into their place. He is of course sorely mistaken…

[thejudgingtrash]

I wanna hear the Dom/sub discourse!!! Also love ur blog :) (I personally am a proponent of dom percy just bc I like that idea but I’d love to hear yours!!! I didnt even know there was discourse!) love to hear your thoughts and again super cool blog!!!! :’)

* ALSO WOULD LIKE TO CLARIFY IF IT WASNT ALREADY ESTABLISHED BUT ONLLLLLLY IF THEY ARE LIKE IN THEIR OLDER 20S!!!! ppl doing that in the context of teens is *gross* (previous anon who sent in the ask before) :)

Oh! Thank you for the compliments. I’m still not used at being so visible now to people 🥺😥😅

Good that you’ve added your points because that essentially brings down my issues with this whole spiel. I guess I’m going to play the other card. My main issues with this whole thing are:

A) the fandom sexualizing kids

B) people not understanding that looks/behavior in or outside of a (romantic) relationship don’t necessarily have to correlate with sexual behavior, especially when powerplay is involved

Of course Percy is easier to grasp for us. We have five whole books where we hear his every thought, follow his every move and think we get to know him (that automatically makes Percy not a reliable narrator, just saying).

For every book quote that puts Percy into the „Dom“ slot, there’s also a book quote that would be fitting for Annabeth (the dance from TTC comes to my mind). I can see both going either way. Despite them having mostly different personalities (Percy internalizing his thoughts and motives, whereas Annabeth is doing rather the opposite), they are very similar when it comes to leadership and end goals. Annabeth can range from emotional to bossy in a similar way Percy does. They just express themselves on different levels and get seen by outsiders in different ways.

Did you catch that? Did you see the hypocrisy that I just committed? We are using book quotes to justify placing characters that are in that context and in overall canon minors/teens/essentially fucking children in sexualized categories. Tbh, as much flag as you can give Riordan, I can’t blame him for blocking people who do this. Not every author is a fan of fanfiction and fan theory and what not.

People throwing these BSDM terms around without a second thought makes me cringe (tbh, I’m too lazy to explain the psychology of power play and kinks in that regard, just know that the instigator is not automatically the top/dom and there are many, many, many layers in a pp relationship). You cannot base sexual behavior from the canon itself. We know nothing about Percy and Annabeth in that regard to even justify the slightest. Ripping actions out of context to give them a label doesn’t work like that so easily unfortunately.

The only way to settle this question for once and all would be by simply doing this:

The whole debate that happened months/weeks ago (quarantine makes everything blurry in my memory) was just fucking stupid?

Imagine being a 15 year old, anxious, frightened girl. You’ve been deeply traumatized since you’ve been seven years old, you’re scared to death because you have a crush on your best friend and think he might perish (newsflash: of course you as the reader can foreshadow that in that context the series goes on. The characters can’t as they lack that specific insight. Percy didn’t have to wind up dead in the books, but he could have been severely mutilated, gone missing (guess he did later), bruised, etc. apart from his mental struggles. The super power part is essentially the only thing that’s keeping him alive), you give him a kiss because you’re too shy to admit your feelings for him and he’s being an awkward cheeky bastard before looking for a fight and then some adult asshole has the caucasity of calling you a bratty sub. Literally what.

Some anon (or a group of anons, don’t know which) contacted a bunch of people with that Dom!Percy and Sub!Annabeth stuff. Anon, Liebste, homegirl, my love, mija, if you see this please slide into the DMs because whaddefuck? Your thought process hotdamn. Where did you pick this up? Let’s be open about this discussion. You didn’t go from A to B, you went from A to Z and robbed Jeff Bezos on the way out. I mean what???

People using canon to justify their headcanons is simply something I can’t get behind in this matter. The main issues is that they are children/teens/minors in canon. There is no way around it. Trying to justify/back up some of your thoughts in that regard with actual quotes only makes it worse because you aren’t only sexualizing them in your fanon, but you are also automatically transferring these thoughts to the actual books and thus fore sexualizing them in canon. You’re changing the basis and narrative.

I honestly don’t get the obsession that some have with their teenage sex life? This isn’t a personal attack on people but I’ve seen this throughout several group chats and social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest even and of course Tumblr. And popular stuff like Riverdale, Euphoria, 13 Reasons Why and New Adult Twilight rip-offs á la Shades of Grey and that Harry Styles fanfic honestly don’t help with the portrayal of „curious“ teens.

This also isn’t a strict PJO phenomenon, it happens across all fandoms. The odd trend with sexualizing kids/teens or things intended for kids has been going on for ages. I get it, you grow out of the related audience but that doesn’t justify the means? Canon won’t change simply because you do.

Percy and Annabeth are awkward teens that have never dated anyone else and had barely half a year between pjo and hoo before getting caught up in another mess. I’m not saying that teens aren’t curious and don’t experiment, some do drugs and/or have sex (let’s be real the probability of something happening in the stable scene in MOA is very high) but still? Putting dom/sub labels on them is sketchyyy. Also throw your fucking sex god headcanons out of the motherfucking window. They are 17-ish, if you need the mental image of some weird kids flopping on top of each other for two whole minutes for some odd reason, good for you but I’m side eying the fuck outta you.

You can’t really blame Riordan for not being more explicit. A) the series is for middle schoolers (aka kids), so it’s not strictly Young Adult and there’s only so much you can do B) publishers/editors interfering is a thing (especially with society’s views of sex = bad and violence = just fine) and c) the probability of sexualizing the characters of his own creation in that sense might have made him uncomfortable. Better to play safe, than end up with a bigger mess, just saying. I’m all for the sex talk in a non-berating, (slightly) educational approach when it comes to that in non-adult literature. Or even just stating a sex scene in a mere sentence. (Karen M. McManus did an amazing job with portraying struggling teens with a right approach in One of Us is Lying. Stating it or making it very, very, very clear between the lines. Then again, not everyone can pull that off or wants to go in that direction).

In addition to that, seeing stuff like the infamous ”the sea doesn’t like to be restrained“ or ”Percy has handsome features which shifted from humor to anger“ quotes getting constantly shredded is so… Meh. One simple question: what does Percy having a mean resting bitch face to do with his sexuality/sexual behavior? What does him being annoyed and on the moodier side have to do with it? For me absolutely nothing. The correlation isn’t really clear and out there. Pissed Percy doesn’t translate into Percy automatically being the dominant (in Percabeth’s sex life)?

I mean I get it. We all grow up. Erotica is a wonderful genre and art form (if you waddle through the trash). You will never be able to get that out of fiction and fanfiction. That’s also neither my goal nor my place to decide. As cheap and stupid as it is, I’d rather have people intentionally aging the characters up and stating their headcanons in that regard rather than people attempting to abuse canon where the characters are minors in order for sexualizing them. There’s no good way to prevent this from happening unfortunately (unless you really want to abolish all explicit fanon stuff).

Whenever you post a sexy headcanon just hold on for a second. If you have abstract future headcanons sure, go ahead, personally don’t see a problem with that. But if you use source material to fixate your thoughts on minors in canon to give them sexual labels… I urge you to seriously rethink that.

Stop sexualizing minors. Please. Pretty please.

Peace

[sometimesrosy]

(1) Thank you for the gif(t)s of Misters Elba & Morley. I could always use a little more of them in my life ;) Sorry for the last rant but I’m perplexed by those regarding Bellarke as a six season platonic friendship possibly to turn romantic in the last stretch or not at all. And “turn” is generous since some prefer to use “forced” instead. I suppose it can technically be true but only in the strictest, most surface-level sense. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of Bellarke as NOT part

(2) of a romantic narrative. I look back and see Bellarke as a three-sided dynamic- partnership, friendship, and romance, with each side of the triangle pushing and influencing the others and each season deepening the dynamic. Even season 1 had elements of all three. I’d say progression is the most accurate term to describe their story. Strangers of different hierarchical classes to political rivals to co-leaders to friends to lovers separated by trauma, politics, death, time, other partners to

(3) future couple. Not a single step exists in a vacuum. Their relationship and individual character development are pieces fit to form a complete puzzle over time. Or as I’ve come to see, a seamless 100-episode tale with interconnected threads from start to finish. The only right way to decipher meaning is to look beyond a collection of scenes to the full picture of what we have so far. All stories are chronicles of progression from one point to the next and romance plots are no exception. JR

(4) didn’t invent some newfangled revolutionary storytelling protocol. His story just requires us to look beneath the surface and connect the dots across a seven season sequence. By 6x10, there are no layers needed to be looked under. The romance is smack dab in the middle of the room for all to witness, figuratively and literally. Even the nonshippers can see it, it’s not exclusive to the trained eye of the romance lover. I thought I signed up for a great story years ago. But I never would’ve

(5) known HOW great it was without the thought-provoking, deep-dive analyses by you, jeanie205 and the 3rd in the triumvirate of fandom heroes, travllingbunny, the kind of insights that bring an accompanying joy to the show itself and leave one stupefied in awe. Thank you all, truly. I don’t have sure plans to watch the prequel yet but if the 3 of you will, it may just tip the scales for me into the affirmative. It’d be fun to geek out with you guys on a new-ish adventure from the start.

+++

I got chills when you said, 

Not a single step exists in a vacuum. Their relationship and individual character development are pieces fit to form a complete puzzle over time. Or as I’ve come to see, a seamless 100-episode tale with interconnected threads from start to finish.

That was the most unexpected thing about this show. That it wasn’t just another fun show with hot people in the apocalypse with shocking twists dealing with complex questions-- which would be good enough, you know? Lots of fun. No, it was more. I did NOT figure out that it was a novelistic show until we got to season 3 and even then I didn’t understand how LONG TERM a novel was being told here. Not a novel, more like a series. A novel would be season long, but the narratives here have lasted for 7 seasons. 

It is seamless. Subplots weaving in and out of the 7 seasons. Character arcs taking the whole series to complete. That actually really confused me in season 3, because I expected both Clarke and Bellamy to finish their hero’s journeys in that season, and instead, there I was, feeling like it was unfinished because they HADN’T returned from their journeys wiser and stronger, ready to change their worlds. Nope. They were still struggling and learning. 

Just because I SAW the hero’s journeys in season 3 (a little late, mind you, since they started in s1 in the ‘hot people in the apocalypse’ phase,) doesn’t mean THAT was the entirety of the hero’s journey. It actually stands to reason that if they’re on a hero’s journey, that it’s a whole series long journey. Oooh. But then this hiatus, someone was like... are you sure Clarke isn’t on a HEROINE’S journey? And I, not really being an expert on the heroine’s journey and only seeing the hero’s part of it (which is like the first half of the heroine’s journey?) had to go research it and LO AND BEHOLD, her journey was the HEROINE’S journey, which TOTALLY fits with the dual protagonist, yin/yang, dark/light, head/heart, binary stars, feminist, mythic, epic love story of it all. NOW it all makes sense, why I couldn’t understand that her hero’s journey hadn’t finished yet (because it shifted into the more unexpected heroine’s journey.)

It always frustrates me when people say I can’t admit I’m wrong and am delusional about bellarke, because I have continually adjusted my theories as the story has gone on, changing them when something is off and doesn’t match canon and THAT’S why my theories are still holding up, which they are. Because I keep checking them back against canon. And when canon confirms the theories I have, I keep using them. When canon josses my theories and headcanons, I adjust. I ask myself, okay where did I go wrong? what is he really saying here? I’ve been struggling, particularly with Raven and Murphy’s roles in the show, and talked to various people about them, because I couldn’t grab ahold of them. With shipping, particularly, things can get confused. I’m wondering if Raven’s love story is not for another person at all, what if it’s self love? Because her most consistent relationships have actually been with familial relationships. Clarke as sister. Bellamy as big brother. Abby as mom. Sinclair as dad. While the romances have failed her. (whether they intended to start out this way or not idk, since all the actors who played her love interests asked to leave or were fired.) And I’m wondering if Murphy’s main love story is actually a spiritual love story. His romance with Emori is a good one, but here he is now wondering about immortality and morality, and he’s always been concerned with that just not secure enough to have answers. Maybe spirituality is his route to finding peace within his soul and coping with his mental illness and trauma? IDK. ANYWAY

I don’t think this show is flawless, and maybe they’ve had to franken-stitch some of their plotlines together to fit when things didn’t work out, and maybe some of their subplots ended in a way that didn’t satisfy us because we wanted something BETTER for those characters even though the tragic ending was part of the larger narrative, but I agree that it is seamless, one leading to the other to the next. When I look back at the storylines I didn’t understand or didn’t like as much, I can see how they fit with the larger narrative. How they lead to the ending the whole show is heading towards.

It’s actually very exciting. It’s not a new way to tell stories, it’s an old one, but it’s not one we see on tv very often, with its ratings and early cancellations and dependence on seasonal !POW! endings to keep people watching, and it’s impatience with slow story telling. They COMMITTED to a long term story despite the risk, and that must have been really hard with the pressures from hollywood and the money people and fandom and reviewers and even the cast. it’s remarkable and I can’t wait to see how it’s wrapped up. No matter what the endings are for our fave characters, I think it will be fascinating to see. And being able to watch the whole show, knowing how it ends, and that it was all crafted to be that way, is going to be really cool. It’s impressive, actually. I think the future will actually be much kinder to this show than the present is. Watching it week to week, you can’t see the development so much, but when we get the whole thing, everyone will be able to see it. I think this series is going to count as a future classic. 

It’s like the reverse of GOT. We expected GOT to be novelistic, based on the epic ASOIAF novels as it was, we expected it to have a grand structure that pulled everything together and gave it a bigger meaning, and in the end, it was trash shlock with no meaning past boobies, action, trauma porn, and dragons. HOWEVER, The 100 was thought to be some trash teen scifi soap with no meaning but hooking up, action, trauma porn and apocalypses, and it’s ending up being an epic novelistic series with a grand structure that pulls everything together and gives it meaning. Basically, if JR had been hired by HBO to do GOT, he would have done it right. But D&D were hollywood hacks and flim flam men who only know how to do surface and don’t understand story. (and are also racist and misogynistic bullies.)

ANYWAY, nonny. Do you have a blog? You should be writing this stuff down under your own name. If you send it to me on anon because you don’t have your own blog, you should think about it. I’m pretty sure that @jeanie205 and @travllingbunny would agree with me. I have limited what meta I reblog due to past experiences, but I think other people would like to follow you.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

this is an outta nowhere question but what are your thoughts on Joker in Smash about a year since he was added? I've heard some folks say the reason the Persona fandom got so toxic is bc Smash got involved and I wanted to know what you thought since you've been in it way longer than P5 and Joker in Smash

Short answer: Yes AND No. 

Long answer (it’s me of course it’s gonna be under the cut due to length 8U):

I’mma be honest, there’s always toxic fans. I know Smash Fans (and Nintendo fans in general) haven’t exactly been peaches, esp when it comes to Twitter (which I think is also an issue atm). But there were toxic fans before than and there’ll be toxic fans later. It’s just life tbh. (dunno where to put this but I’ll put it here: Twitter nowadays is like 2012-2015ish Tumblr, different being Tumblr was a bit more hiveminded and if you disagreed with a popular fandom opinion you.....were kinda bullied let’s be honest so no one could really say their opinions. While Twitter now it’s not a hivemind but instead two sided extremist that you need to choose. Both toxic and similar but just a taaaaad bit different, I’d probs take the two extremist sides over the hivemind if I had to chose tho...even tho Tumblr had better content during that era than Twitter right now imo but that’s in general and not Persona only. 8U Tumblr’s REALLY calmed down since the porn ban I’m not gonna lie, and ironically that’s roughly around the time that Twitter started getting shitty. So like....kinda saying there’s a correlation, I think a lot of toxic tumblr people probably migrated to twitter, and while there’s toxic fans everywhere it feels like a lot gather on Twitter so it really highlights the fandom there sadly). 

From my experience (which is from P4 PS2 era onward, I missed the pre-P4 P3 PS2 era stuff but apparently there were waifu wars which from what I’ve found I probs would’ve just classified as “shipping war” stuff rather than waifu wars....and it seemed liked standard shipping war stuff from back then), the bigger a fandom grows the more fans it obviously attracts, but that also means more toxic fans too. And that’s why I say yes and no for the smash community, yes because they did attract more fans (and their community seems to be a bit toxic atm, like I get expressing your wants to a company and I support that! but the INSTANT you don’t get a specific character announced for the fighter pass and instead of just being like “oh golly darn :(” but instead “***** this place ***** Nintendo you all suck ****** *slur* *slur*” yeah no that’s a little....you gotta take a step back buddy, so yeah I’m sure there’s a bit more toxic fans in that fandom atm but they are also a BIG ASS FANDOM so I’m not surprised), but it’s also just the cause and effect of the fandom getting bigger in general.

It happened when P4 got it’s anime (btw anime fans ya still valid and are a Persona fan, just keep in mind if you wanna talk lore just know you did watch a very abridged version of the game so be aware you might have somethings wrong cause of that.....cause I’ve seen it happen.....DX btw let’s play watchers are also real Persona fans and I’d say even people who just like Joker in Smash are at least Joker fans and that’s ok too enough gate keeping guys DX), it happened when we started getting spinoffs, kinda with the P3 movies (only really cause FeMC fans were salty or P3 fans upset what was cut/changed, but it wasn’t on any toxic level tbh just normal complaints, I think the fact it was a movie instead of an anime bypassed newer fans than with P4/5 animes), it happened when P5 solidified it into the mainstream gaming market (I’ll stand by P4 helped break Persona into it via all the other avenues of mainstream, with P5 finally latching the main series into mainstream games.....I say mainstream cause spinoffs are looking the same as pre mainstream which.....>.> *shrugs* could be better imo), it happened with P5′s anime, and it happened with Smash Bros. And tbh I’m sure it happened or will happen with the Steam community (and Switch/Xbox if it ever goes there too) and P4G (P4 fans go through the same cycle of BS constantly, most of which I believe originated with the anime generation, that it’s hard to tell if there was an uptick or not). And it’ll probs get an uptick again with P6, and then P6′s anime. And maybe manga cause maybe P6 fans like the P5 fans and won’t listen when people say “don’t get attached to the manga name it’s probs not gonna be used so hold off till the anime” but hey let’s have drama for no reason cause we need it. 8U (obvie you can still like the manga name, it’s more for people complaining about name changes or not getting why Atlus just didn’t keep the manga name even tho an explanation is probs within arm’s reach and they were warned beforehand)

*sighs* Sorry back on topic, each time the fandom grows so will toxic fans. Tbh I feel like the phrase “toxic fans” are thrown around a lot. And it’s esp used for only....”haters” it feels like and I don’t think that’s right (cause it can be fans too), it just feels like ANY negativity (even constructive and kept reigned in by certain users) is viewed as that. Like take me, I’m sure I’m probs labeled as a “toxic fan” due to be being a Megaten/Persona fan but disliking P5 and talking shit/calling it out. But I try my damnedest to do that in the appropriate places (ie my personal blog, maybe a confessions place, or a thread/board that’s expressing negatives only OR it’s explaining/expressing pros and cons type of stuff, I find that to be the best because it keeps people who want to vent away from people who want to gush so no war happens, not saying I am perfect or you HAVE to follow this or you are toxic, it’s what I decided to ascribe to and find it works well and good enough and it gives me a better fandom experience). Aka, I don’t go on twitter to someone’s fanart of Yukari or Makoto and trash the character because I’m not a freaking asshole (or in this case a ~toxic fan~). But this also applies to the “fans” as well who will talk about something they like (character/game) but the ONLY  way they can raise it up is by tearing down something else (other character/game), it’s really rude and also toxic as well. Negativity is not inherently bad all the time, and Positivity is not inherently good all the time (with positivity it’s more of giving yourself a break from it rather than saying something positive can be bad at times, tho I’m sure there are times that-that has happened but it’s 2:30 am and I don’t want to think of an example for that). It’s how it’s used/expressed. I see the Twitter community trying to combat the “negativity” by trying to only spread “positivity” and I’m afraid 1) any negative expression, even constructive, will be scorned (I guess I’m afraid of us going back to a hivemind mentality again), but most importantly 2) the people trying to head it are going to be burned out and it’ll hurt them mentally (I do not want it to happen obvie, but I know personally it can wear you down which is why I’m concerned). Don’t get me wrong I love what they are doing/trying to do, but I think we’re generalizing the word “negativity” and “positivity” a bit too much and it’s just raising a few red flags for me (I’m just hoping I’m being paranoid/overanalyzing in this case). 

Uhhh there was one last thing I wanted to address.....Oh yeah gate keeping. I know you asked about Smash but this stuff is kinda related and hey think of it as a history lesson for the Persona fandom (or at least Nusona cause I didn’t have a game system in the 90s ;_; plus wee little me wouldn’t have been able to find P1/2 fandoms back then due to me not really using the internet like I do nowadays till around P3 was probs released). Plus you know how long winded I am so this is kinda what you sign up for, 3 am ramblings of overexplaining~! But gdi I will try to cover all the bases and get my point across in....some fashion. 8U

But yeah, Gatekeeping in relation to the Smash fans, cause I see Persona fans shit on new fans that got into Persona through Smash (I know above I said Joker fans are valid Joker fans rather than Persona fans, but I’m assuming they’ve yet to play/watch Persona and are just aware of Joker and are a fan of him vs the fans who saw Joker and then watch/played the games to get into the fandom. One set is a fan of a character vs the other set got into a franchise because of said character. Like I wouldn’t say I’m a FE fan cause I liked Marth/Roy in SSBM, which is why I have that distinction myself BUT if you wanna call yourself a Persona fan that’s valid, you’re valid, it’s whatever, I don’t really care about the details that much, I just have two categories for convenience). Anyway I don’t think it’s fair to shit on them. Same as I don’t think it’s fair to shit on anime only or manga only fans. Or if they got into the fandom through Nusona (Oldsona is P1/2, Nusona is P3-5 atm). Or Oldsona. Or another Megaten game. 

Maybe it’s cause I came from P4, where it got shit on cause it wasn’t (”dark”) like P3, it wasn’t (”dark”) like Oldsona, it wasn’t “dark” like other Megaten games, it got shit on every way to Sunday for daring to try to have a more lightened mood at times (3 murders happen, we see 3 dead bodies, a 6 yo dies onscreen, we have characters going through intense existential crises, we deal with characters mourning through death as well as other relatable struggles, basically shows our teammates die one by one in the final boss, having a chance to hear Naoto’s death scream on the phone if you don’t stop Adachi, just the “you didn’t save the person” phone calls in general, talks about society’s toxic gender roles and how it can negatively effect a person both to an extreme extent and minor, god forbid they eat an animal cracker to lighten the mood, and this isn’t counting the dark shit that happens in the spinoffs). As if P1/2/3 don’t have comedy, or any other Megaten game, all the demons are freaking weird of course there is comedy. Oh and it also got shit on for going mainstream first, and not even counting that it got shit on for spinoffs (which P3 was included but no P3 gets a pass for some reason), and the fact that it was shit on for not being P5 (before and a little while after P5 came out) because it wasn’t “dark” like P5 (fdksjafajkfljafj P5 has it’s moments, esp with Shiho, tho P4D did it first and went through with it, but seriously each game has it’s own light and dark moments and one isn’t better than the other only cause they have more of one than the other). And....*sigh* let’s just say thank god that I was able to buy other Megaten games right before the flood gates of shit came in, cause I dunno if I would’ve wanted to give it a chance if I had to hear my fav game shit on constantly. I say I dunno cause tbh I was craving more after P4 so badly I still would’ve probs gotten into it regardless of the fandom, I wanted more from the franchise even if it wasn’t 100% like P4. 

But tbh I don’t blame P5 fans, anime fans, or Smash fans for maybe not wanting to get into the rest of the series. I get old fans of whatever feeling like they are...I dunno being invaded? By new people in the fandom. Or their afraid of new fans not fully understanding the franchise (hey guys that’s where you teach people instead of try to passive aggressively try to get them to leave the fandom I dunno maybe make posts to educate instead of trying to push away??? 030). And change is hard and yeah. And maybe you don’t like the new game (keep in mind there’s a diff between saying “*insert* Sux” and “I don’t like *insert* because...” one’s shitting on something and the other is constructive), but hey shitting on the game they like is probs not gonna win them over to your fav game sflkdjafkjafja Educate and be helpful, don’t gatekeep and drive people away. That’s a sure fire way for us to lose this franchise (remember we almost lost Atlus all together, but it was able to get a 2nd life thanks to P4 saving it....tbh probably wouldn’t have ever gotten P5 nor SMTV nor any spinoffs if not for P4′s success with its game and anime, this is both a history lesson and a word of warning since it already almost happened once). 

Tldr; Smash didn’t help but it’s really just the fact the fandom got bigger and bigger fandom means we also end up getting more toxic fans mixed in. Twitter now is basically 2012-2015!Tumblr (diff is Tumblr’s was a hivemind vs Twitter’s now extremist two sides only thing), and Tumblr’s porn ban probably migrated a lot of their toxic fans to Twitter which probs hasn’t helped any fandoms on there. Negativity in general isn’t an issue, it’s if you’re being an outright asshole where it’s an issue. Don’t be an asshole in general, if you need to vent then vent where you need to, if you wanna gush then gush were you need to and without bringing anyone/anything down obvie. You are a Persona fan, regardless of where/how you started. Don’t gatekeep for the love of god, or so help me Jack Frost will sneak into your house and smack you in the face with a snowball (and if he doesn’t then I will.....jk...half jk 8U). Also *sprinkles of (allusions to? I dunno I tried it’s 3 am and my 2nd try on answering this and the first one was just as long) Silly’s Persona fandom history lessons throughout the post*

[joutacujo]

FNV Companion Meme: Hades

Found this on another’s blog and wanted to have a go using drunkle Hades! This’ll be the lone version without Bitesized or Tesla.

Template

General

Name: Hades

Location: Atomic Wrangler or one of the vagrant camps

How to obtain: Can be hired after completing the quest “King on His Own”

Character photo: I haven’t draw him properly yet, but I have this-

Companion Wheel

I think we should travel together: “You better be packing hydra.” / “Welp, better than lazing around here, I guess.” / (if courier is female) “Do I have to?”

Use Melee: “Shit, I’ll give it a go.” / “I can’t see straight, but a cleaver is a big knife. Bigger range and all.”

Use Ranged: “Does throwing dynamite count?” / (singing) “Shot-gun, sh-sh-sh-shotgun!~”

Open Inventory: “Come on, man. I’ve got a bad back!” / “Are you gonna pay me for this?”

Stay Close: “If I get in your way that’s your fault.” / (if female courier) “You better not be flirting.” 

Keep Distance: (if male courier) “Nice view from back here!” / “Got it, chief.” 

Stealth: “If you here cracking that’s my knees.” / “I’m more of a explode everything and run guy, but I’ll try.” 

Back Up: (jokingly flirting) “Throw it back?” / I’m sure my muscles get in the way.”

Be Passive: “Ugh... really?” / “Yeah, that’ll last until withdrawal hits.”

Be Aggressive:  “Now you’re speaking my language.” / “YEEEAAAHH!”

Use Stimpack: “Doesn’t hit as well as hydra, but it’ll do.” / “P is for pain... also Please give me more.” / (if female courier) “Don’t touch me. I’ll do it myself.” 

Wait Here: “Oh. Don’t go too far, okay?” / “Oookay. Just don’t leave me here.”

Follow Me: “Right on, chief.” / “I ain’t a dog...” 

Send to the Lucky 38: “Oh hell yeah!” / “You know I’m banned from the Strip, right?” 

Send Home: (can be found where?) “Home, sweet home. Time to get high.” / “Finally! I missed Tesla.” (Atomic Wrangle/vagrant camp or Hades’ Shack after his personal quest is done)

Injured: “Uhghhhh... chief I ain’t feeling so good.” / “Hydra hydra.. hell I’d take a bit of jet.” / “Chieeefff! Helpp....” 

Death: “Well... I was expecting this...” / “Oh, finally...” 

Aggression: Aggressive

Confidence: Cautious

Assistance: Helps friends and allies

Karma: Neutral

Perks

What perks does your oc have? Generally companions have a starting perk and then two perks they may achieve depending on how the courier completes their quest line.

[Been Through the Wars]

Hades’ starting quirk adds 3+ DT and 20% resistance to drugs and poisoning. 

[Cut off One Head]

If choosen the “Warrior” end to his quest, adds 25% skill points to the Explosive, Guns and Survival skills. 

[Happy Homesteader]

If choosen the “Retiree” end to his quest, adds 25% skill points to the Medicine, Repair and Barter skills. 

Drops

If killed, does your oc drop anything?

Tesla’s Note -A note from Tesla to Hades about their plans to party after “all of this” is done.

Shot In The Dark -Hades’ unique shotgun that has unlimited slag ammo.

3-6x Hydra 10-12x Dynamite Cleaver

Worn Kings’ Outfit -Hades’ unique version of the Kings’ Outfit

Ruined Dogtags -NCR dogtags with the details scratched out

Quests and Recruitment

How does the courier recruit your oc? Write a short description where your oc is found and if there are any requirements to recruit them as a companion.

You receive the quest “King on His Own” from Pacer after G.I Blues quest is done in the Kings’ favour. He speaks about a member of the Kings that had to be kicked out after “going psycho” from drug withdrawal. He says that this member was really impressive in a fight and he’d like to see him come back to them. Problem is, it’s impossible to get him to go sober, so he asks the Courier if they could do anything.

You can find Hades either in a vagrant camp (usually the one near the Strip) or the Atomic Wrangler. At first he’s very depressed and generally lethargic. Having high reputation with the Kings allows you to hire him as a companion, but first he asks you to track down 5 bottles of Hydra and some whiskey for his “happy time cocktail”. Upon doing this he’ll take this “cocktail” and suddenly become more upbeat and flirtious (if the courier is male). If the courier is female he’ll seem reluctant to join you, but does after a 25 Speech check. 

Bringing him back to Pacer leads to Pacer being disappointed in Hades, but he requests that you keep Hades around for a bit longer to see if you can help. Agreeing to this completes the quest and hires Hades as a proper companion with his quirk.

Personal quests are an important part of developing our companions. What is your oc’s personal quest(s), and what are the different ways the courier can complete them?

After travelling for some time, there’s a random chance you’ll witness Hades going through withdrawal. He’ll become very depressed and easily angered, fighting anything that comes within his perspective. Talking to him will give you the option of giving him Fixer which prompts him to open up more about himself.

He reveals he was born in a Vault set underneath an Arts Theatre. The musical scripts found in it is where his tribe gets their names from; he’s named after Hadestown: The Musical. He left his tribe as a young adult to seek adventure but was captured and sold into slavery. 

He refuses to go into anymore detail. Passing a 50 Speech Check he’ll reveal that he was sold to an older women that lived in this fancy condo for rich people. He’ll shudder at the memory then end dialogue. 

This prompts the beginning of his personal quest, “Why We Build the Wall”.

After completing three quests for the NCR, Hades will mention his distain for the NCR. Through dialogue it’s revealed he was a soldier for them but deserted during the Bitter Springs Massacre. Talking to Captain Gilles with Hades in the party will prompt a conversation between the two. Gilles is disappointed, but not surprise that Hades deserted them while Hades is bitter and disgusted that they’re still here. You can resolve the conversation peacefully with a Speech check of 30. 

After becoming Liked by the Legion this prompts a conversation with Hades. He is neutral towards them, saying their slavery is horrifying but at least they protect their citizens. He says he’d rather join an honest evil than a dishonest good. You can then ask him about his time as a slave. Reluctantly he reveals that his owner would beat and assault him whenever something upset her. He’s biased against women because of this (something he apologizes for if the courier is female). He is gleeful as he reveals that he escaped after she had a heartattack at a party, but quickly becomes subdued again as he’s been wandering every since. 

The last condition needed is to complete the quest “High Times” with Hades in the party. Upon completion he opens dialogue mentioning he drinks and uses drugs to forget his past. He says his companion, Tesla, is a complete amnesiac due to her excessive drug use and he’s kind of been hoping to have that happen to him too. But everytime he has a withdrawal, all those feelings he’s been bottling up just come out and start the cycle over again. 

Through dialogue you get two choices to help him. 

The “Warrior” end, has him continue to use drugs now adding in Buffout to help control his withdrawals. He becomes tougher and buries the past completely. 

The “Retiree” end has him use drugs at a half dose, using more Fixer and visiting the Followers. He regains more skills and unlocks his Shack where he gives you supplies like ammo and different crafting scrap.

Ending Slides

Another important part of companions is their ending slides. How do their endings change based on how their quests are completed and how the courier decides to handle the world around them? Below is a short template listing the different main story outcomes. Feel free to change whatever you need to fit your OC’s story.

If their personal quest is never completed…

Hades, ever drifting between highs and lows, remained a vagrant to the very end. Haunted by his past, body deteriorating from alcoholism, he took his life outside of the Strip’s Gates: a symbol of how the Mojave can chew one up and spit them out. 

If the Courier sides with Legion and Hades quest is completed with the Warrior Ending

As the Legion marched into Freeside they rounded up the drug addicts and vagrants. Most were executed on sight, some, like Hades, showed a battle prowess that impressed Caeser. Hades was cast into the Arena and after many battles, was finally slain. His body was burned in a sign of respect. 

If the Courier sides with Legion and Hades quest is completed with the Retiree Ending

Hidden away in his shack, Hades escaped Legion sight for a long time. Upon finding the now sober Hades, they captured him and sold him to Aurelius of Pheonix (or Lucius if Aurelius is dead) as a repairs specialist. Though once again a slave, Hades accepted his fate and eventually passed of natural causes. 

If the Courier sides with NCR and Hades quest is completed with the Warrior Ending

With the NCR taking over New Vegas, it wasn’t long before deserters were brought to justice. Hades refused arrest and fought until the very end, taking out many NCR soldiers in his wake. He eventually went down under a hail of bullets, screaming his bitterness to the skies.

If the Courier sides with NCR and Hades quest is completed with the Retiree Ending

With the NCR taking over New Vegas, it wasn’t long before deserters were brought to justice. Hades was brought before a trial and accepted his imprisonment. He lived out the rest of his days working in the mines, eventually dying in a mineshaft collapse, surrounded by other Kings. 

If the Courier sides with House and Hades quest is completed with Any Ending

Hades, like many vagrants in Freeside, was either ignored by Mr House or shot down when his robots came strolling into the town. Being a friend of the Courier, he was left alone by other factions in Freeside; leading to a lonely, if peaceful, life. 

If the Courier makes New Vegas independent and Hades quest is completed with Any Ending

Along with the other Kings in Freeside, Hades ruled and enjoyed a free life. In the chaos he often relapsed into using more dangerous drugs and whored himself out without care. Eventually, he passed after a bad, violent trip on pyscho which lead to him being killed in self defense. 

[go-events]

GO Rom Com Spotlight: @heavens-bookshop

The enchanting @heavens-bookshop has claimed How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s a little background about the source material!

About How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: An advice columnist, Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson), tries pushing the boundaries of what she can write about in her new piece about how to get a man to leave you in 10 days. Her editor, Lana (Bebe Neuwirth), loves it, and Andie goes off to find a man she can use for the experiment. Enter executive Ben Berry (Matthew McConaughey), who is so confident in his romantic prowess that he thinks he can make any woman fall in love with him in 10 days. When Andie and Ben meet, their plans backfire.

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @heavens-bookshop a little better!

* * *

goromcom: You know how if you open a Tumblr chat with someone you haven't chatted to before, Tumblr tells you two things they post about? I wanted to tell you that yours reports that you post "about #yes and #oh my god." I think those are actually lovely tags, and they show that you are frequently quite excited and supportive of the things you reblog and post! :)

heavens-bookshop: Hah, that's hilarious! I suppose that's understandable seeing as this is a blog I made just for Good Omens stuff! Anything I post or reblog here is content that I utterly enjoyed engaging with and want others in the fandom to see.

goromcom: That’s really great; I love the positivity.

You chose to adapt How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days as your rom com. Has this movie been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it?

heavens-bookshop: It's not really a favourite, although I do have some fun memories attached to it, I guess! I went to see it at the cinema when it was released, I was in high school and I went with a few of my friends. The film was okay, but I had much more fun afterwards just hanging out with everyone! I picked it out from the list because I felt like the main concept was one that lent itself pretty nicely to a Good Omens AU, where your two main characters have opposing goals (but develop feelings for each other along the way...)

goromcom: Definitely can see the parallel there, and also, I think the movies we see with friends in high school stick with us in a way movies you see later on just never will.

What's your favorite moment of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share?

heavens-bookshop: Well, there's a scene towards the end when the two main characters are heading out to a fancy event, and Ben arrives at Andie's place to escort her to it. When she walks out of her building, she's in a really beautiful outfit and it takes Ben's breath away. I am really hoping to have a similar moment in my story, with Aziraphale playing Andie's part, and Crowley playing Ben's part. I've worked it over a few times in my head, but we'll see what happens when I get down to writing it!

goromcom: Sounds quite exciting!

Other than recreating that moment,  do you plan to stick very closely to the story beats of the original movie, or make bigger changes?

heavens-bookshop: I plan on making a lot of changes. The overall premise is a fun place to start from, but when I re-watched the movie a few weeks ago, I got some pretty severe whiplash from how badly it's aged (I think this is something to be said for a lot of media in the genre). Much of the story revolves around the whole "Men vs Women" thing, and involves some awful misogynistic and homophobic tropes that I am very much throwing in the bin. So we're ditching the "haha aren't women clingy" narrative in favour of playing up Aziraphale being the standoffish fussy bastard we all know and love.

goromcom: It’s definitely been a recurring theme among the participants that their source material really hasn’t aged well! It’s a testament to the GO fandom, I think, and the lovely people taking part in goromcom, that everyone is seeking to smooth out the rough edges of the source material.

What's an interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

heavens-bookshop: Well, for starters, I updated some of the concepts - instead of working for a magazine, Aziraphale works at a Buzzfeed-esque website called Paradise where he writes an advice column. Crowley still works for an ad agency, but instead of trying to win a deal with a diamond company (which was very tied to a lot of outdated views on the roles of men and women in relationships), it's a dating app. I've also changed the location to London, mostly because I'm way more familiar with it as a place. I also wanted to include a few more of the women in Good Omens, so Aziraphale's two work BFFs are Anathema (who writes horoscopes) and Madame Tracy (who writes for the spirituality section).

goromcom: Okay, be right back while I go write in for advice from Aziraphale.

But after that, our last question, one I am blatantly stealing from The Good Place: The Podcast. Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

heavens-bookshop: I would like to mention two UK-based charities that have had a special place in my heart for many years - Macmillan Cancer Support and Marie Curie. When I was a teen, my mum was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and we pretty much provided all her end-of-life care at home. Macmillan and Marie Curie gave us a lot of the resources we needed to do that. Macmillan was a wonderful support system for my mum, and not only looked after her medical needs but also sent someone she could talk to about the emotional ordeal of facing a terminal illness. Marie Curie sent a registered nurse to stay with my mum through the night in her final weeks so that we could try to get some sleep while secure in the knowledge that she was being looked after and had someone by her side. They both provided us with some peace of mind during an incredibly rough time, and I will be forever grateful for all the work they do in supporting the families of people with terminal illness. If you're in the UK, I'd really recommend donating to either of these charities if you ever have the chance.

And so that I'm not just ending on a sad note, I will also tell you about my wonderful cat, Luna. I adopted her shortly after I moved to Texas in 2016 - I had moved all the way from the UK, on my own, and Luna kept me company on those days when I felt alone and completely out of my depth. She's followed me everywhere I've been since, even coming with me when I moved to Canada a couple of years ago (yes I moved a Texan cat to Canada in the middle of February). She is weird, very loud and talkative, has an ongoing vendetta against my running shoes, and I love her to bits.

goromcom: I had a hospice support team for my father’s end of life process, and I will love all of those people until the day I die. I am so glad your family had that sort of support as well. I’m so sorry about your mum.

It’s so wonderful of you to come back around, too, and mention how uplifting having your pet has been for you. I am so happy you have Luna by your side. I also have a talkative cat (with a space-themed name, as well, Nova) and so many days that would be bad are better with a little furry friend with you.

Keep watching for @heavens-bookshop‘s thoughtful GO retelling of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Coming soon!

[vios-rockland-corner]

How I’m going to tackle “Rumors of Rockland”

Hello there!  Today there was a RIDICULOUSLY large information dump on Outlaw’s Patreon about upcoming game layouts.  There’s far too much there to comment on right now, but there’s one thing in particular I wanted to focus on today.  This post actually is less of me talking about the possibilities of the game, and more so how “I” personally am going to approach these particular “games.”

Overview of what’s below:

- What is “Rumors of Rockland” (RoR)

- My OC Sasha Holmes

- What kind of posts you’ll see from me as these RoR installments come through

What is “Rumors of Rockland?”

Of the long list of future games to come from the creators in the Rockland Universe, one of the very first things mentioned that’s new is the “Rumors of Rockland.”  THIS might actually be the first bit of solid content besides the demos that you may see pop up.

“Rumors of Rockland” is a little interesting.  I’m not 100% sure I’d call it a “game” first of all.  I do fully believe it will be presented to us in the same visual format we get with Ren’Py.  The visual novel style basically.  But there’s two big keynotes on what makes this piece of media different from the creators’ other games.

1) The MC in these “games” is going to be more of an observer.  It’s specifically going to be different from the rest of the games where the MC is directly involved in the story.  Here, it sounds more like the MC happens to be in the same setting as another set of characters, but otherwise does not affect what’s going on.  With that being said, I don’t even know if we’ll be playing through with any choices to select.  The creators also said that it would ideally be the same MC in all the scenarios, further suggesting that the MC isn’t being placed in a perilous situation here.  They are an untouched bystander.

2) There will be several installments of this series.  Oh yes.  When I said “scenarios” before, I didn’t necessarily mean that there’s going to be a lot of things happening in this one...I’m going to refer to is as a “visual novel” until further notice.  What I mean is this is a series that will be continuously updated throughout the development of other Rockland games.  New installments can be called new chapters to the visual novel.  “Rumors of Rockland” appears to be a way to supplement extra information to the audience about certain characters and what is going on in Rockland.  That solidifies even more for me why I would prefer to call this a visual novel over a game.  Yes I know lots of games will sometimes continue to get DLC content to add further progression.  Call it a hunch though, I think the creators would want to save their time developing multiple games rather than developing one and just continually adding updates for it.  They have a lot of characters to go through, so this could be an effective way to show some elements that may not be able to make it into a main game.

Apparently, the release order of games has switched around once again and Rumors of Rockland is going to be released first, followed by “Welcome to Rockland” (this is a path focusing on just one character), THEN Misfits: First Blood.  I know, sometimes this gets a little confusing to keep track of.  Just trust me, a lot of this has to do with character shifts for the groups.

Right now the first Rumors of Rockland we’re supposed to get is just listed as “Introduction/Prologue.”  It might not be long, but we’ll see soon what we’re working with here.  There also was a BIG list of potential chapters touching on all sorts of different elements of Rockland.  It’s kind of wild.  Chapters may not be long themselves, considering how many they have planned.  But the good news is I think if they’re doing this the way I suspect...it won’t be difficult to pump out a lot of chapters at a faster pace than any of the other games.  I think all they need is a stock set of backgrounds and sprites...then it’s just recoding and new script each time.  That’s not really so bad if they don’t have the MC have to make a lot or any choices at all.  No complaints from me in that case.

My OC

Okay, little detour here, but this WILL become relevant to this blog and tie back into RoR.  I don’t make many OC’s, but I made one from scratch here.  Her name is Sasha Holmes and I created her specifically to be an NPC in the Rockland Universe.  

See I’m not really the creative type, but I wanted to try practicing character creation and development.  I’m NOT the type of person though who usually a) visualizes/creates my own MC for a game (I prefer games even with pre-made protagonist avatars) or b) self-inserts.  I have NOTHING against anyone who does either of these obviously.  My brain just...lacks the creativity to do the former, and since games are a form of escapism, I don’t self-insert because that’s not part of the fantasy and escapism aspect for me.

What’s more, lots of these games are going to be horror survival.  I feel even LESS inclined to craft an OC I may fall in love with only to throw them into the pits of hell.  Likely any character I make would die, and I don’t have the mental energy to create another OC for every.single.game, haha.

To get around this, I said: “Well what if I just make a character that solely exists in this universe, but never interferes with the story.  Surely there are just normal citizens that live in Rockland?”  What I was planning on doing was occasionally utilizing Sasha for extra posts when I couldn’t think of anything to write.  Something like journal entries she’d make about her day and gossip that she’s heard around town.  Perhaps gossip about people going missing even or shady dealings.  How would Sasha react?  Sometimes a normal person will wave something off as too outlandish to be true.  If it doesn’t directly impact you, it’s easier to ponder one second but push it to the side the next.  Or maybe what you hear could make you start to feel paranoid.  Especially if things persist.

Originally, I was going to split things so that some of the gossip or rumors Sasha heard were actually based on real things that “I” know happen in the games and universe, and some things that are false (because you know how rumors get pretty outlandish if someone mishears something or someone’s just looking for attention).  I was prepared to just kind of craft my own type of content like this in due time.  In addition to all the analysis posts, don’t worry.  The posts regarding my OC would have just been filler when I couldn’t think of anything else.

Now that Rumors of Rockland is a thing though…do you know what this is for me?  It’s a template. I am literally being gifted the EXACT kind of scenario I would have previously had to craft myself.  This visual novel doesn’t need an interactive MC, just one that observes the events happening.  If they’re the same MC in every chapter too, that means they should be safe!  I am beyond ecstatic and not going to look a gift horse in the mouth!

My Rumors of Rockland Posts

So here’s what going to happen in the future.  I’m going to try to do at LEAST one post for every Rumors of Rockland chapter that comes out.  Even if the chapters are short, they’ll still be enough for characters to comment on. The goal here is for me to try something new and have a little fun while also putting out content.  At the moment, I don’t know which of the two types of posts I will end up preferring to do:

1)     Journal Entry- The RoR event has already taken place, and Sasha’s just writing in first person her exact thoughts on the day/information. This would be beneficial if I don’t feel up to describing a whole lot of actions for Sasha or what’s happening around her and just want full dialogue.

2)     Present time fic?- Writing the story as the events of the chapter take place.  This means placing Sasha directly there and describing all that’s happening with her and getting her IMMEDIATE reactions to certain information.  I’m not going to lie, I need to see an RoR chapter first to kind of figure out how I’d write a present time piece.  I certainly don’t want to copy paste all the dialogue she hears. Could do a –cut to RoR chapter- note literally in there, and do more of Sasha’s before and after behaviors and emotions.  This one would be more dynamic definitely, but I would have the advantage where I could practice having Sasha interact with other characters I bring in such as coworkers or friends.  It could be interesting depicting Sasha conversing with another person about what she sees/hears rather than just focusing on her inner thoughts.  I also have another side character I might want to utilize to explain why Sasha is even repeatedly going back to where these events take place.

I will admit, I’m not really a creative writer.  So I’m going to apologize ahead of time if what I put out isn’t all that stellar. This is going to be practice for sure. Like I said, I may start to favor one post type over the other.  I don’t know if I’ll keep them short and sweet, or make it long.  Whatever I feel up to I suppose.

I will also mention that I may still end up doing an ADDITIONAL analysis/thoughts post of sorts along with my OC post for an RoR chapter.  This is only if there is information revealed that “I” personally want to comment on that I know Sasha can’t.  Sasha might not be able to either because she, as an in-universe character, is not aware of the bigger picture, or because her personality doesn’t allow her to think about something in a different way.  Sometimes characters are very set in their beliefs and views, which can affect how they perceive information.  So if there’s people viewing this blog who are more keen on the analysis posts and don’t really like OC content, don’t worry.  Not only will all the big games solely get more analytical posts, but the RoR chapters may still get some as well.  It just depends on what kind of information I get fed.

I need to stress again that Sasha is NOT a self-insert.  She’s a completely human OC, but she is not me.  Now, of course it’s not uncommon for a creator to put just a little bit of themselves into any OC they make.  Sasha’s no exception.  What’s more, I just realized she’s one of the few purely human OC’s I’ve crafted. I might accidentally end up having her share similar beliefs and mannerisms to myself simply because…that’s what I know best.  Sometimes you write better if you write what you know.  That being said, I do also try to go out of my way to give my OC’s both minor and major differences to myself, whether it’s small likes and dislikes, physical appearance changes or certain beliefs. The only reason I’m explaining this is because in the event I have both an OC post AND an analysis post that seem to contrast greatly, it’s because my OC and “I” are reacting differently to something.  Don’t assume necessarily that the way Sasha views something is exactly the same way I view it.  If you do, you might get confused, haha.  I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of times where it can’t be helped that Sasha and I think very similarly.  But for this, I want to try my best to give Sasha a consistent personality and system of beliefs. Big or small.

I don’t know if I will be putting out a post immediately once the first RoR chapter drops. I’m feeling pretty good about the image I have of Sasha in my head, but there’s still some BIG bio points I need to settle on before I can get started.  I know I shouldn’t try to nail down every little piece about her right away so that I can have some flexibility later, but a couple of things I think I need to settle on include:

·        Age and occupation- There’s a time skip I know we’re going to get for the Rockland universe, so it’s important for me to decide where I want to start and where she will potentially be in the future.  I know some of the other characters’ ages now, so that helps a little in deciding how much younger or older she is compared to some characters. It’s also a big deal whether or not she’s a college student pre-time skip, or already started a career.

·        Long term resident of Rockland vs. New in Town- As cliché as it sounds, I may be leaning towards “new in town” simply because it really IS an easy way to explain why she’s never noticed anything strange before in Rockland. While it’s true that children are often ignorant to a lot of the world happening around them, I don’t know enough about the Rockland universe to say WHICH things should be “common knowledge” to a local.

Those are the big ones.  After a lot of thinking, I’m sticking to my original plan that Sasha will just be “good.” Don’t expect her to be TOO sympathetic to a person who she hears committed murder for example, haha.  I just think not only will it be easier for me to write someone who is a “normal civilian” with a good conscience, but also because I think it might be fun later down the line to tackle a little fear that grows and pondering on why people do bad things to begin with.  She’s be a good girl, right now most likely lawful good.  Maybe if I ever wanted to craft a side character that’s a little more chaotic than her to bounce off dialogue with to get other perspectives in there, I could do that.  That’d be another challenge for me altogether though.  

I’m sure not every single chapter though in RoR is going to be about hearing characters describe how they’ve murdered someone recently though.  Especially not continuously in a public place.  Not everything is going to be crystal clear I’m sure. Sasha might brush off some things that happen, and other stuff seems so incoherent without the context that she won’t know WHAT to make of it.

I’m also still debating whether to not only wait for at least the first RoR piece to come out, but if I want to wait for “Welcome to Rockland” to come out as well before finalizing Sasha.

Last thing before I end this!  I wanted to get this post out as a just heads-up on what you’ll see from me in the future.  This should work fine considering the RoR chapters sound like information dumps in visual novel format for the most part.  I want to be make it clear though that I am NOT copyrighting this way of commenting on the RoR chapters.  What I love about these installments, is that you could literally have any viewer’s own OC operating in their own space and just reacting to what happens in plain sight. Anyone should feel free to imagine themselves as the MC here and it’s not going to interfere with anyone else’s story.  I would certainly love to see if anyone else tries to do something similar to what I want to do with the RoR updates.  There’s so many different types of MC’s people can make and I’m positive they won’t all react to things the same exact way as each other.

[all-brown-everything]

My favourite Indian films of 2018

Sorry for the wait this year. 2018 in the movies mirrored my own life a lot; the films on the list are films to love, make you feel something human, and they force you to take their characters and hold them close to your chest as if they were your own. While the most interesting mainstream movies from South Asia over previous years on this blog have excelled when they chose to experiment with the language of cinema itself, the 10 I’ve written about here have, similar to great literature, embraced pain, longing, love and everything else that comes with being alive.

10. Theevandi

I’ve seen this film being described as an “anti-smoking movie.” I couldn’t disagree more. It’s a story about the nature of habit (rather than the disease of ‘addiction’), of locating the source of your personality, your soul, and trying to change it against the will of nature. During my time in India this year, nothing brought more joy than an ice burst and cutting tea at the side of the road, perching on the side of the pavement and watching life carry on around you. And while this is a film with a main character who wants to quit smoking, it isn’t about cancer. It isn’t about that horrible sooty smell at the end of your fingers, or yellowing teeth or a decreased sperm count. It’s about how something as innocuous as a tube of rolled up tobacco hanging out of your mouth can act as a fragile crutch for the entire weight of the world.

9. Laila Majnu

Like many of my favourites this year (and every year), this re-telling of one of South Asia’s most important romances wants to know what love is. Here, we see love not as a generous, giving emotion, but as pure greed. With one of Bollywood’s most gorgeous soundtracks, that bleeds furiously out of every frame, and a constant sparkling gleam of glamour over these gorgeous young actors and the Kashmiri hills they prance around in, I enjoyed this enough just based on the commercial tropes it toys with for fun. But its real beauty lies in its brave and painful final declaration; that the most divine love may connect you to God and remove your soul from your body, but it will destroy you and your connections to the Earth, as the cruelest form of asceticism.

8. Cake

I’m including a Pakistani movie (again) because our film industries were birthed under one national identity, and I don’t see the studios of Karachi as any more culturally distant from Mumbai’s Film City than Kodambakkam. Moving to Cake, this stunning portrait of a dysfunctional family surprised me against all my instincts that it was a Western-facing production clearly aimed at piercing its way into festivals and a patronising ‘World Cinema’ bracket. It is in fact, a study of shifting societal politics in an increasingly extreme and polarised World, of figuring out where your values stand in the midst of religion, feudalism and globalisation, and accepting that when these heavy, abstract concepts weigh down on your shoulders, it is the human beings around you who will feel the strain first.

7. Golak, Bugni, Bank Te Batua

I really love Punjabi cinema. Seeing it come into its own and reclaim its cultural narratives and aesthetics from bastardizing Bollywood (where now even a film set in rural Gujarat will feature a Punjabi language song) has brought a lot of joy. Now here comes a  happy little film not set on preaching the glory of Sikkhi or telling an epic tale of brave warriors or earnest farmers, but on bringing us into the lives of a middle class Hindu Punjabi family in a small mohalla of a tier 2 city. And these aren’t the Hindu “Punjabis” of a Bollywood movie set in Chandni Chowk, who might throw in a “tussi” or “tuadi” here and there at the most. These are real people with a real culture, as intertwined with Punjab and their Sikh neighbours as they are separate. The film doesn’t patronise them by drawing humour from their novel identity; the situational character-based slapstick and witty back-and-forth theatrical dialogues exist in a warm parallel with the “World” of the movie. And then the lives of these people change in one instant as demonetisation hits, and we are hilariously reminded that whether you’re Hindu or Sikh, Northern or Southern, you are (unfortunately) still in India.

6. C/o Kancharapalem

I won't say this film stood out as a "Telugu movie", as such slight, subtle films are an anomaly no matter what language they're made in or how brash those other films produced in the same mother tongue may be. These small and quiet tales, with their shy characters who live at the fringes of society, whether that mean they are Muslim prostitutes or simple middle class teachers carving out a living in a small village, are special because they manage to transmit such humanity without stirring from the dark alleyways or shaded courtyards where they take place. Not every film needs to stand tall like an intimdsting Tolstoy tome; some can be as unassuming as an RK Narayan novella and still make us feel like they're an epic.

5. Pyaar Prema Kaadhal

Let's be honest. Casting two leads from a reality show, putting heart shaped balloons in your posters and deciding on the title "Love, Love, Love" pretty much screams "trash" doesn't it? But here was a humbling reminder that Indian popular culture can surprise you in the most pleasant of ways. These two good-looking young wannabe-stars and their social media followings represent so much about the "new India", a steadfastly singular culture (or cultures) whizzing through the fiery hoops of globalisation at breakneck speed, coming to terms with a mixed up value system, raging sexual frustration and an ever widening class gap, all of which have left a generation feeling more connected yet more alienated than ever before. This is 'Pyaar, Prema, Kaadhal', a flawed and horny love story, sweating with tension and all the repulsive angst of human emotion, yet with the glamorous musical heart of Indian cinema still beating loudly underneath.

4. Manmarziyaan

There was as much to love about 'Manmarziyaan' as there was to hate. The age-old filmi love triangle rears its head again, only this time with characters who are more manipulative and frustrating than any you've seen in a "mainstream" movie before. But while the film never forces you to judge (at times leaving you confused about whether you're actually supposed to like any of these people) it demands that you engage. It's encouraged some of the finest writing on cinema I've seen in recent years, and such an unashamedly "Bollywood" film inspiring this thrilling thought and analysis from our finest critics (whether their judgement is kind or not) warrants its inclusion on this list alone. Then there's the way its incredible soundtrack weaves in and out of scenes like the characters own breaths, the way life changing moments are obscured from the script by deafening silences and acutely observed minutiae, and of course THAT lead performance. I'm not sure if I "liked" it or not, but I sure as hell can't wait to watch it again.

3. Pari

The better the film, the harder it is to write about. 'Pari' is rich with metaphor. While being a ghost story (and a damn good one) merely on the surface, it has plenty to say about the way our society treats women, poses the question of if we can truly be born evil, and even critiques our savage treatment of "the other" in a global society where more of us are on the run than settled in our homes. But I think its biggest strength is that while it challenges you to reach into the very centre of your being and take a look at yourself and the World around you, its craft and screenwriting is so good that not at any moment does it give you a second to realise that's what you're doing.

2. Rangasthalam

'Rangasthalam' is so great. Like really really great. Once an innocuous muscle man, Ram Charan has channelled his inner Dhanush and located his physicality, writhing and slanging his way into the mind and body of the quintessential South Indian rural hero, hoisting his lungi and flicking his beedi into one of the most visceral and truly cinematic masala movies in living memory. The thumping pace and kinetic choreography (both of the rousing song sequences and the busy, lived-in frames of the rest of the movie) evoke a dusty, violent world with the same panache of Ameer in 'Paruthiveeran' or Sasikumar in 'Subramaniyapuram', while the moustache twirling dialogues and meticulous emotional beats offer as much pure fun as a "Dabangg" or a "Khakee" or any classic Hindi masala movie. I've read pieces linking the cinema of 'Rangasthalam' to film noir traditions, but to me it simply proved that the masala genre still has as much excitement to offer as any other.

1. Mukkabaaz

I'll remember 2018 as the year that Anurag Kashyap, previously India's frontrunner in the realm of "interesting" (but more often headscatching) cinema, stopped thinking with his very big brain and instead used his even bigger heart. His most straightforward film is undoubtedly his best, Hollywood-esque in its writing but firmly Indian in its sentiment. The scale is small - empty boxing arenas, bleak winding village paths and a cast plucked from the TV screen - but its emotions are pure opera. This is a timeless film, and though it laughs at the ridiculousness of modern India, poking a nasty smug finger at caste oppression, petty politics and the bureaucratic nightmare of simply trying to stay alive, it defies analysis. Much like the song at the centre of the story, the violently stunning 'Paintra', it only asks that you feel. And what more could we want from cinema?

I've had so much fun at the movies this year. From dancing to Dilbar in the cheap seats of G7 in Bandra to reciting Dhanush's Maari 2 dialogues at the bus stop outside Ilford Cineworld, Indian movies have continued to punctuate my life and bring me more joy than they have any right to. I can't wait to do this all again this year. What were the films that stirred you over the last 12 months? Let me know. Xx

[the-real-xmonster]

GIF-Making Tips and Tricks

Hello guys, today I’d like to try tackling something different from the usual skating… things because the skating discourse recently has got a tad wearisome "how do you make GIFs” is a question I’ve been receiving quite a lot. If you have never attempted nor have any intention of one day tinkering with GIFs, feel free to scroll past this. If you are interested in GIF-making, especially for Tumblr, or are just curious to discover something new, read on.

So there are 3 main steps in this GIF-making process: (1) find the footage (2) edit the footage and (3) convert the edited footage into GIFs. For ease of discussion, I’ll organize my tips and tricks into these 3 buckets as well.

The software I used are:

4K Video Downloader for video download

Adobe After Effects CC for editing

Adobe Photoshop CC for conversion

You can substitute 4K with any other video downloader of your choice, or you can use one of the many web-based tools out there, like this one for example.

If you’re not familiar with After Effects (and you don’t want to have to learn it from scratch), you can use any other video editing app for this part. You can also skip this altogether and do your editing in Photoshop - though I personally would not recommend it. PS is simply not very efficient as a video editing tool.

I’m not sure if there is any viable substitute to Photoshop in the final step. If you know of any app that could replace PS, do let me know in the comments.   

STEP 1: FIND THE FOOTAGE

#1: YouTube is your friend.

#2: The video quality plays a big part in deciding the quality of your GIFs, so I’d recommend going for a video of at least 480p, ideally 720p or more - keep an eye out for that HD sign. So let’s say if I want to GIF Yuzu’s SP Otonal at GP Helsinki, I’d go for this version (thanks, @muffinlorando, you are the best).

#3: As a caveat to point #2, if you don’t have a video editor and opt for editing with PS, you might want to pick videos of not more than 30fps. PS is not great at adjusting the frame rate and you really don’t want to end up with a raw import of 60fps, for reasons I will get to soon enough.   

STEP 2: EDIT THE FOOTAGE (with AA)

#4: Learn After Effects in 20 minutes. Seriously, that tutorial is awesome. It covers all (or most) of the basics, the explanation is easy to understand and follow along. The only complaint I have about that video is that it is actually 23 minutes and 24 seconds instead of 20 minutes as promised (#fake news???).

#5: Re: the dimensions of your Tumblr GIFs

The maximum width allowed for Tumblr GIFs is 540px and that’s what you want to aim for, especially if you’re making an in-line GIF, i.e., a GIF to be inserted into a text post, like the example above, or this:

If you are making a standard Tumblr gifset with 10 GIFs arranged in two columns, like this, aim for 268px in width for optimal display.  

For a gifset with 3 columns, like this. the optimal width is 178px.

Three notes:

I only mention width because it’s the limiting factor, the length of the GIF is entirely up to you.

For full-width GIF, you can make do with something smaller than 540px, but I wouldn’t recommend going below 480px as it’d make the GIF quite grainy/blurry in display. Same for 1/2 and 1/3-width gifs, I would suggest a minimum of 250px and 160px, respectively.

For 1/2 and 1/3- width GIFs, you can go over 268px and 178px if you want your GIFs to look bigger in single view (i.e., when people click on the GIF to view them separately). In my examples, I used 270px for both gifsets. Don’t bother going over 540px with the big GIFs though, Tumblr will force-resize it to 540px.

For reference, most of my full-widh GIFs are 170px to 200px in length, my 1/2-size GIFs are usually in a 4:3 aspect ratio, and my 1/3-size GIFs are 1:1.

#6: Re: the duration and frame rate of your Tumblr GIFs

These are important factors because Tumblr has a size limit of 3Mb on GIFs. If you exceed that limit your GIFs won’t play at all on your blog, so there is a trade-off you need to consider in terms of the GIF’s dimension, duration, frame rate, color quality (which we’ll get to later), and size (in Mb).

My rules of thumbs are:

Frame rate: don’t go lower than 24fps, otherwise your GIF won’t look smooth, but don’t go for something as crazy as 50-60fps either, otherwise you won’t be able to condense it to <3Mb without some serious sacrifice on the color quality.

Duration: don’t go longer than 5-6 seconds for the small GIFs and 3-4 seconds for the 540px stuffs. 

#7: Make your footage slightly bigger than the composition. The reason for this is sometimes, in some footage, depending on the broadcast’s quality, there’d be some fuzzy pixels around the edges of the video. If you leave them in they can make your GIF look a bit messy. What I like to do is, first, fit the footage to comp width (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H), then bring up the Scale property and slightly increase the automatic fit, usually rounding it up to the nearest percentage.

#8: Re: color correcting the footage.

Use an Adjustment Layer to keep the color correction separate from the footage. That way it’s easier to turn it on and off to assess the effect of the correction, and it’s easier to copy that layer to a new composition if you’re making a gifset.

I like to start with Curves to adjust the brightness and contrast to my liking. You can use other effects such as Levels for this. My note here is that you might want to err on the side of brighter and more contrasting for your footage, because when it is converted to GIF, it will lose quite a few colors and the result is often less vibrant than the footage. Here, for example, is what happened to a GIF I made from Mao’s Sochi FS when I was done converting: 

To quickly enhance the brightness of a somewhat dark footage, duplicate the footage, change the Mode to Screen, and reduce the Opacity to around 20%.

Use Selective Color to target-correct the color you want to focus on. For example, in this GIF, I dialed up the Cyans / Blues and lightened the Reds / Yellows to accentuate the color of Yuzu’s outfit: 

Use Leave Color if you want even more pop, like what I did here to make the red of Nastya’s dress stand out.

Some skating footage can have a yellow tint to it because of the light reflecting off the ice surface. If you don’t like that tint (I don’t), top the adjustment off with a Photo Filter. Pick one of the Cooling Filters and play around with the density until you get the desired look. I used this effect on the Yuzu spread eagle GIF above too.

STEP 3: CONVERT THE FOOTAGE INTO GIF (with PS)

#9: Usually, either of these two settings will give you the best result, i.e., the maximum preservation of colors and depth from your edited footage. 

One drawback of these optimal settings is that they can make the GIF quite heavy. In case you have to compromise, I would recommend not going lower than:

Pattern with 128 colors, or

Diffusion with 128 colors and 80% dither

 Anything lower than this can make your GIF look very washed-out and/or blurry.

FINALE: BRINGING EVERYTHING TOGETHER

#10: There are certain exceptions to all the rules of thumbs I mentioned so far. Since, as said, making a GIF and wrestling it into Tumblr’s size limit is always a four-way compromise of color integrity, video quality (frame rate), dimension, and duration, there are a few cases when you can make a 10 seconds+ GIF or a huge 540x540 GIF without sacrificing too much in the way of quality. Most of those are when the footage does not have a lot of different colors to begin with. So this one for example is a pretty big GIF (540x250) and yet only ~2.6Mb:

And this one is a full-width GIF that actually lasts 4 seconds (though I did have to reduce the dither a bit to make it <3Mb):

At the end of the day though, I’d say GIFs are for capturing the moments, so I usually would not go for too long of a footage. If you want to point out something that lasts more than 10 seconds, it’s much more convenient to just direct the viewers to the video itself :)

Aaaand, that’s it for the basics. Hope this was useful to at least some of you, If you want to see more posts like these, let me know in the asks / comments. I can also go into more details of how to make fancier GIFs with text overlay: 

or layer masking, this sort of stuff:

Happy GIF-making!

[escapingburger]

Final Fantasy XV Discovered: The Future of Final Fantasy

This is it, folks--I'm finally just about done with Final Fantasy XV, and with it, my nearly seven-year project to play through the entire series. Final Fantasy isn't done, though, with the vaguest hints of a Final Fantasy XVI already starting to float through the air. So as I finish up the series, for now, my thoughts have turned to its future, and what its recent past might suggest about what's to come.

Final Fantasy will be turning 32 this year, one of the few game series that's managed to continue uninterrupted for that long. As these posts have shown, it's taken many forms over the years, which is probably a big part of its longevity: Final Fantasy has never needed a reboot because every game is essentially a chance to start fresh. From a high level, it looks like a great example of how to navigate the many changes in technology and market trends as the game industry has matured. With fifteen games over three decades, we've gotten a new Final Fantasy about every two years, on average, which is quite healthy indeed.

Of course, if you follow the series a bit more closely, you'll know that the average is misleading. Fully eleven of the main series games were released by 2002, in Final Fantasy's first fifteen years of existence, many of them within a year of each other. In the seventeen years since then, there have only been four. Each of those games has its own story, but all told, one wonders if the series has actually ridden out the last couple generations that well. After the steady, frequent releases of the early years, here's what the later era has seen:

Final Fantasy XII suffered from a long development period and the health-related departure of its original director; it eventually released four years after FF11.

Final Fantasy XIII was pushed back by FF12's delays, then moved to a new console generation and a new engine, eventually releasing about three and a half years later.

Final Fantasy XIV came out only a year after FF13, but was so poorly received that they essentially scrapped the game and started over. The new, better version took three more years to complete.

And Final Fantasy XV, as you probably know, started life as a spinoff of FF13. It took so long to finish that it moved platforms, dropped the FF13 connection, and was promoted to the main series presumably because they had no other FF15 in production. It came out three years after the reboot of FF14, and ten years after its own development began.

Now, this may be painting too dire of a picture. I don't think Final Fantasy is in trouble, exactly, but it definitely doesn't feel like the well-oiled machine it once was. Producing a top-end AAA game has gotten considerably more expensive and complex over the last couple generations, and a lot of studios haven't been able to keep up. Square Enix is still pulling it off, but it's been a bumpy ride. Back in the PlayStation era, they managed to set a standard for scope and production values while still releasing a new Final Fantasy every year or two, but now it seems like each one is kind of a struggle. I do wonder: With as long and expensive as FF15's development was, what if it bombed? Will we someday see the Final Fantasy equivalent of Bioware's Anthem, and what will that mean for the series?

I'm not suggesting that Square Enix return to the frequency of their earlier releases; I probably wouldn't be able to keep up with them anyway. But it would be nice to feel that the development process was a bit more deliberate. The actual release of Final Fantasy XV was a bright spot--after years of seeing little aside from CG trailers, Hajime Tabata finished the game up pretty quickly after taking over as director. I get the sense that he brought a more structured approach to development, though he has since left the company, so who knows what means for the future.

Another possible solution is smaller, less risky projects, which Square Enix has actually done quite a bit of. The release schedule I described above is actually kind of misleading, because while there have only been four mainline games in the latter half of the series's life, there have been all sorts of spinoffs and side projects in between. They've released tons of nostalgic content like ports, mobile games, and occasionally something a bit more unique like Final Fantasy Theatrhythm. More critically, we have also seen some direct tie-ins to the main series, like the FFXIII sequels (FFXIII-2 and Lightning Returns), or Final Fantasy XV's updates and DLC.

I do suspect the DLC route is something we'll see more of in the future. From a financial perspective, DLC makes tons of sense: Games have gotten a lot more expensive to make over the last fifteen years, but retail prices have actually gone down if you account for inflation. DLC lets developers get more mileage out of their work, helping to earn back what they spent creating the main game. And FF15's DLC has been pretty good--I wouldn't call it truly critical, but it does fill in some noteworthy pieces of backstory, while expanding on the core gameplay in some often interesting ways. It's also important to me, though, that the DLC ends. While I don't mind picking up some new chapters in a game I enjoy, what I don't want is to see Final Fantasy turning into a service-based "forever game" that intends to monetize its players indefinitely. I play these games in large part because I can eventually get a complete story, a complete experience, and then move on. I'd hate to see Final Fantasy lose that to chase the Fortnites of the world.

Fortunately, this doesn't seem too likely, at least for the time being. It's actually oddly heartening that Square Enix cancelled the rest of FF15's DLC when Tabata left, because it meant they didn't want to hand his story off to someone else just to keep the money coming in. And if you want a Final Fantasy that never ends, that's what the MMOs are for. It does seem harder to justify a huge, expensive single-player game these days, but there will always be those of us who want to play them. And that's a role Final Fantasy has been fulfilling for years, whatever else has happened, so I'm hopeful that it isn't going to give that up anytime soon. I still expect the future of Final Fantasy to bring plenty of changes, but that's always been the case. I'm looking forward to what comes next.

The End And that's it, everyone. I'm actually still finishing up a bit of FF15's Comrades expansion, but I don't anticipate any more posts coming out of that, so I'm calling this the end. It's been a long journey, starting in September 2012, but it's finally time to put this series to bed. I am going to post a table of contents to make it easier to go back through everything, but after that, it's time for a nice long break.

So what's next? Honestly, probably not much. Whenever Final Fantasy XVI turns up, I may add it in, but otherwise this page will probably go dormant for a while. I originally started this series as a way to revitalize my blog back at 1up.com, and it kind of turned into something bigger than I'd really expected. But now that it's done, I'm looking forward to playing or doing whatever I want, without having to worry about writing it up for a few people on the Internet. Follow me here or on Twitter to be alerted if I do eventually add something new, but I wouldn't expect anything anytime soon. So long!

[burnouts3s3]

Citrus, a review

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously.) Just the facts 'Cause you're in a Hurry! Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price for Season (MSRP): 48.74 USD How much I paid: 32.88 USD (I pre-ordered it when there was a New Year's discount). Animation Studio: Passione Licensed and Localized by: Funimation Entertainment Audio: Japanese Audio with Subtitles and English Dub available.   English Cast: Megan Shipman as Yuzu, Amber Lee Connors as Mei, Margaret McDonald as Harumi “Harumin” Taniguchi, Kristi Rothrock as Matsuri, Terri Doty as Umi, Number of Episodes: 12 Episodes Length per Episode: 25 Minutes on average. 21 Without Intro and Ending song. Number of Discs: 4 Discs in Total. 2 DVD Discs and 2 Blu-ray discs. Episodes per Disc: 6 Episodes per DVD Disc. Episodes 1-9 on the first Blu-ray disc with Episodes 10-12 on the second Blu-ray disc along with the special features. Bundle also includes: Digital Copy to redeem. (which doesn't work because when I enter the code provided with the discs, I get the message 'The Digital Copy is not yet Active'.). Also on: Amazon Video, Funimation Now, Funimation’s streaming service that requires a subscription and Crunchyroll, a subscription based service that allows streaming for shows. Free streaming is available with ads. Bonus Features: Textless Openings, Textless Ending and Trailers for other Funimation Licensed Shows. My Personal Biases: I actually saw Citrus a while back but never reviewed it. I like other shows in the Shoujo Ai genre such as Mai Hime, Mai Otome, Maria Watches over Us, Strawberry Panic and yes, even Kannazuki no Miko/Destiny of the Shrine Maiden. I am not fond of Citrus. My Verdict: Citrus is trashy, exploitative, gawdy, and mainly exists for the titillation of its audience. And while other Shoujo ai shows have done this as well, there’s also a lack of a narrative structure to the point where older works like Kannazuki no Miko look like the Godfather compared to this. If you lower your expectations, you’ll find a good deal. WARNING: SPOILERS FOR CITRUS AND OTHER YURI SHOWS AHEAD! Citrus, a review

Yuzucchi “Yuzu” Aihara is a new girl about to transfer schools. She’s never had a boyfriend and hopes to break that curse once and for all. But, when she realizes that she’s been transferred to an all-girls’ school, Yuzu’s outlandish behavior, clothing and voice captures the attention of the ultra-strict Student Council President, Mei. After a heated first day in which Mei confiscates Yuzu’s cellphone and Yuzu sees Mei kissing a teacher, Yuzu has one final revelation: her mother’s new husband is also Mei’s father, making Mei her step-sister. And to top it all off, Mei kisses Yuzu and steals her first kiss.   Citrus is one of the few Yuri manga that not only managed to sell a number of books in Japan but also make the New York Times�� Best Seller list. It’s a series so successful, it’s spawn drama CDs, a 12 episode anime and a spin-off series after the manga’s conclusion, Citrus Plus. It’s also been criticized as a schlocky teenage soap opera with numerous peripheral characters that add nothing to the plot, and for depicting things like Mei forcing herself on Yuzu as sexualizing rape. For a number of viewers, the depiction of, yes, sexual assault is going to turn them off, and I can’t blame them. archive.is/DRUN8

But it’s not a problem for me. This is because (and yes, I’m aware of how this sounds) I’m of the party that says you can make a good story out of anything, including, yes, rape. The Late Roger Ebert once said “It’s not what a movie is about; it’s how it’s about it”. It’s a quote I’ve come to appreciate as of late. You can make a good work out of any subject material, but you have to use it well. One of the most influential shows of my youth was Kannazuki no Miko, in which one of the main characters, Chikane Himemiya, sexually assaults Himeko, her love interest. But, I give that series a pass (again I can only speak for myself) because it was one of the first depictions of a Yuri couple in an anime after Utena and Sailor Moon and serves a purpose to the story: the good girl becoming bad and the friend character wanting more (as well as a convoluted plot with weird universe rules explaining in great detail why Chikane did what she did). While Citrus uses sexual assault, it’s more for titillation and premise. It’s clearly there to hook the reader in by generating cheap unearned drama. Again, if that were the end all be all issue with Citrus and said work gave me a fulfilling story, I would give it a pass. But even pushing aside the scenes of nonconsensual assault, there’s way too much going on with way too many characters to the point where the story’s structure resembles more of a weekly soap opera rather than a romance between two girls. 9 years after the anime release of Sweet Blue Flowers and Whispered Words and THIS is what we end up with? What’s interesting is that Yuzu, despite being the usual blonde in a Yuri anime (a loud, expressive extrovert who’s unclear of her sexuality), actually receives a lot of character development. While she does make mistakes (a lot of them), there’s a strong sense of justice in her and she attempts to right the wrongs she committed. It also helps that for the majority of the story, we’re given internal monologue from Yuzu’s point of view and we see there’s a girl struggling with her newfound sexuality. One of the highlights is Episodes 5-6, in which Yuzu starts to see Mei’s unresolved father issues becoming a part of her character and realizes the last thing Mei needs is romance and avoids it so she can better help Mei become a healthier person. But on the other side of the relationship, Mei, is little more than a reactive drama magnet. Mei, at least in the 12 episodes that adapt the early parts of the manga, has very little character. I get that’s the idea; this is clearly an introvert who’s been so focused at school and extracurricular activities that she has no life and her first sexual experience would involve assault of some sort. But in execution, she’s little more than a plot device that’s meant to generate problems to prevent Yuzu and Mei from being together. First, it’s an overbearing grandfather that doesn’t approve of Yuzu. Then, it’s a childhood friend who likes to sip tea. Then, it’s an absent father figure who stopped being strict and decided to be a traveling wanderer. It also doesn’t help matters that when Mei does take action, it’s either downplayed or shown off-screen. Do you not have enough plot going on with the fact these two are step-sisters? What next, is Seto Kaiba going to be Mei’s half-brother and kidnap her and tie her to some train tracks until Yuzu beats him in a card game?   The plot contrivances start from the very first episode. I’m not caught up on Japanese culture so I’m willing to accept that Mei and Yuzu have never met each other until after their respective parents got married, but the contrivances keep piling on. Now, Mei and Yuzu share a double bed! Now, Yuzu has a childhood friend, Matsuri, who’s really into her and is an expert blackmailer. Now, Yuzu meets a really nice girl who has a crush on Mei. And of course, where would we be in a romance series if we didn’t have two characters having a conversation about their crushes when they’re unaware they’re referring to the same person? The pacing of each contrivances are so smashed together it makes it seem like a wacky sitcom or one of those dramas found on the CW. And all the while, Mei barely changes from her introvert self. Christ, this makes me sound old. I can’t believe I’ve come to a point where I can say Kannazuki no Miko had a better sense of Story Structure compared to this. What makes this really frustrating is that other side characters continue to be way more interesting than Mei. Harumin, a girl who quickly befriends Yuzu, remains an energetic bright spot as well as a shoulder to lean on who actually has more chemistry than the main pair. Matsuri is actually very entertaining when she’s allowed to be. Funimation Entertainment did the localization and the script mainly remains loyal to the source material (for better and worse). Amber Lee Connors as Mei does the best she can when saddled with the role of a mopey, emotionally constipated introvert and manages to wring out some emotion out of the character when the story doesn’t. But it’s Megan Shipman as Yuzu that carries the series. Shipman gives Yuzu just enough energy and fire to make us empathize with a loudmouth and her internal dialogue really does help us understand the character. JAPANESE AUDIO WITH SUBTITLES IS AVAILABLE FOR THOSE WHO PREFER IT. All things considered, Funimation’s offering a pretty solid deal for Citrus, giving all 12 episodes on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital Copy (which doesn't work because when I enter it, I get the message 'The Digital Copy is not yet Active'.). It’s too bad it’s wasted on a series that, even with the trashy exploitation and inevitable thinkpieces about consent scenes, the narrative itself settles for villain of the episode melodrama. And while characters like Yuzu, Harumin, and even Matsuri, Mei continues to be less of a character than she is a plot device. CAVEAT: For a lot of people, Citrus was ‘their first Yuri anime’, as in it was the gateway anime that led them to discover other works. And in some ways, I can understand how said nostalgia can affect one’s perception of the show. After all, shows like Strawberry Panic, Kannazuki no Miko and My-Hime were ‘my’ gateway shows that led me to a bigger and better genre. But, just as time goes on, so does the genre grow. So, I would hope fans wouldn’t limit themselves to just one series and start exploring other and older works. Shoujo-ai and Yuri anime has a long history of balancing fanservice, sex appeal and story. Even older, more lurid works that DO use sexual assault to progress the story, such as Kannazuki no Miko, make up for it with strong story structure and character development. But compared to works that truly do attempt to weave a complex narrative about girl’s romance such as Sweet Blue Flowers, Whispered Words and Simoun, Citrus remains as shallow as the fountain Mei and Yuzu fall in.

Verdict: If you’re a fan, pick it up. But if you want the genre to get better, maybe wait for a sale or watch it for free on Crunchyroll first.