#but in retrospect this makes what my brain did very funny.

[badnewswhatsleft]

i wonder if the video you’re looking for could be the apple music interview one? i think patrick says there that joe has a distinct writing voice and when he hears his ideas he could pick him out of a crowd… it’s around 34:10 of the video !

hope this helps!!

!!!!!!!! YES THIS IS IT THIS IS THE ONE HOLY SHIT THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!😭🙏 ACTUAL SAVIOUR FR it was eating away at me so bad im crying😭😭😭😭

i swear i had the faintest inkling ab the apple music one but i was 1. half convinced it was a patrick solo interview and 2. putting off rewatching it because i... find the host's style so incredibly obnoxious lol. but honestly thank you a million times!! timestamp and everything so goated

my beautiful guy. my beautiful joe mention. my beautiful clip. never leave my brain ever again.

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 97

Smile by Kayleen756894

Same as when we covered Burning Lungs, check the tags for this fic before ya jump in cause it gets pretty dark even within the first chapter. 

It’s a big day for the project people, I mentioned back on Day 60 that there were three fics that I consider directly responsible for this entire thing since they’re what set me on this path of a comically large amount of Junkan. And today we FINALLY talk about another one of them, even if I admittedly did cover a little bit of my history with this specific story during Day 60 for the sake of context. Apologies if I repeat myself a few times!

The previous few days I’ve been covering fic first, then the art. For this day however I’m going to cover the art first, along with any other bonus facts I have, and THEN i will do my best to adequately sing the praises of today’s stories.

Also let it be known that the music I put on while I read through the whole fic in preparation for today’s ramble was “LEASE” by Takeshi Abo. 10 hour loop too. Someone will find that funny probably, maybe even you!

(This is another long one, get ready)

Before I address the art I might as well have a little fun and discuss the order I decided to do these in, interesting I know.

Days 91-92 were easy, the first Soft Fic and the first fic to use the Non-Abusive Tag, they had to be the opener. Day 93 was one of the longer stories so I did that one first, since I did read each story before working on the art. From there it’s a pretty simple pattern of “Short Fic followed by a longer, more serious fic that I gotta psyche myself up for.” And it was done pretty much with todays subject in mind, but we’ll get for it. 

You’ll notice I have two different art pieces today, the reason is simple. I wasn’t very happy with the initial art, so I made a much more direct adaptation of a scene from the first chapter to go with it. And in a rare instance I can also bring you some early versions of the initial piece!

From the initial sketch you can see that this was supposed to be a proper cover for the story, as I wanted to feature scenes from each of the three chapters, that middle shot is one I’ve had in my mind since the first time I read the story. Those who have read the fic can probably recognize each one. The second image was almost the final version of this. I scrapped the lower portion of the art for a few reasons. The flames of burnout were miniscule but still present, though rest assured these would not come into play until after the point of when the fanfic art is all finished. Secondly, when I was supposed to work on this art, a power outage hit my house. This also meant that in terms of making the art I only had the first chapter read, anything else was purely memory (Like I said though, I read the full fic for todays ramble, rest assured). And thirdly, I kinda, just thought it didn’t look good? And as you can see this version had details cut despite how far into the process it was, fully removing the expressions outside of the two smiling. Cause y’know . . . “Smile.” Plus in retrospect the eyes, while striking compared to the rest of the art, look kinda fucking silly?

Why didn’t I like the end result? Honestly I think I was just in a bad headspace at the time due to the combination of the power out stressing me out, and just generally speaking my mental health has never been the most structurally sound aspect of myself. I’m good at drawing, not so much being well put together. Looking at it now, while I think the piece is a bit esoteric and might not be what I’d make today for a piece based on this fic, I like it a lot.

And at the end of the dead even if I didn’t like how the first one turned out, I’m pretty happy with it! Even with perfectionist brain bitching at me that I could have done Junko’s hair a bit better at the given angle. Just a straight adaptation of Junko and Mikan’s first kiss from Chapter 1. The most interesting note on it’s creation is that I had to make last minute changes to Mikan because I realized her hair needed to be a lot shorter and more well put together, as earlier in the fic Junko does fix it up a bit. 

Oh! I did also send the second pic to the author herself as a way of introducing myself and showing appreciation, so that’s a bit of added sentimental value! Kayleen’s an absolute treat by the way, super fun to talk too, great insight on writing, you should absolutely check out the rest of her writing! I’m not in most of the fandoms featured say for RWBY, but based on the quality of her writing on the Danganronpa side of things, I feel confident recommending anything she’s published in the past, present, and future!~ 

Speaking of writing, I should probably like. Talk about the god damn fic, huh? Well. Nope! I still have more fun facts!

I almost didn’t adapt Smile! I knew for certain that Kayleen needed a spot on this list, it would have felt wrong otherwise. And there were two fics in mind for adaptation.

“Smile”, obviously, and “Soft (But only for Her).” My earliest plan was going to be to just do both. However I only had 8 days to work with, and spoilers, Day 98 is in fact a returning author, so I didn’t want to take up half of my slots on two authors, I wanted to show my appreciation to as many as I could during this string of the event before going back to my own stuff for the last two days. So I thought it over, and decided that Smile was too important to pass up on this project, leaving Soft (But only for Her) for later.

I did have a full plan for it though, unlike Smile where I didn’t really have an idea going into it. I’ll tell you what the plan was gonna be.

Most people would be curious which of the around 30 wonderful one shots I could have chosen to adapt, I’ve already done one of them with the very first chapter in that collection! However you my audience, are not most people. There’s a good chance you’re reading this paragraph, rubbing your temples and resigning yourself to the fact that I was very much going to draw art based on every single piece of that collection. Because yes I was just gonna adapt all of it. Was gonna make a big collage out of all of em, even the chapters that have so much angst I struggle to even read them cause they make me too sad! I’d still do it too. I probably will. When you least expect it. 

For now though I really wanna draw something based on Chapter 25 when I have the time. I wanna draw art based on a lot of other fanfics actually, I’ve just been pretty swamped. But rest assured, to those of you who’ve written a Junkan fic and weren’t featured. Rest assured, I have my eyes open, I’m always looking that tag over, and there were definitely some stories omitted that I really wish I could have included IN the project. Give it time. My self control grows weaker by the day!~

Okay, okay. NOW, I should be able to talk about the fic. Probably.

So I’ve told this story before, but now you’ll get to hear it in a bit more detail compared to before. Will hopefully not be too repetitive for ya’ll!

So once again we jump back a few years during say, 2020, MAYBE early 2021. I find a fic that includes Junkan when I was simply trying to find Ikuzono. It ends up being pretty cute and makes me curious, “I thought this ship was super toxic? How is this one so cute?”

So, I look around the tag, still not sure how to Navigate AO3 even after gaining a lot of experience through the power of many late night tokomaru binges. And as you already knew or could guess, I came across Smile.

At the time it only had 2 chapters, which normally might have turned me away at the time, I wasn’t a desperate animal like I am today. However I guess I either ignored that, or just didn’t care, too curious to see what else this ship could entail.

So here I am, sitting in my bed, writing this ramble, trying to figure out once again how to talk about one of the fics that set me off on this obsession with Junko and Mikan as a softer, loving couple. That and also a fic that is much more serious in terms of its tone and content, as this fic, like Drowning, is one of the only fics in this stretch of the project that is definitely set in the main canon of DR. Serving as essentially a new origin for Junkan as a couple prior to the tragedy. 

I’m sure I’ve said before that when it comes to how I view Junko and Mikan’s relationship, that Val’s work is basically the primary blueprint for how I interpret and portray them. However that’s for the Non-Despair AUs, while there is some bleed over in how I handle Canon portrayals (And I admittedly haven’t done a lot with a serious interpretation of that), in my brain this story, Smile, is the blueprint of how I view a canon timeline version of Junkan. That might just be bias from it being the first fic I read that like, but it does kind of help that this is just one of the most excellently written interpretation of these characters I’ve ever bared witness to.

The first chapter was originally supposed to be a Standalone according to the Author’s Notes, and it really works as one! It’s a very complete story that’s super well put together, and ends very satisfyingly if you just stop after finishing it. I’m extremely glad it continued, as I don’t think my obsession would have come to fruition when it did if not for those following two chapters. But maybe I’m wrong cause this fic certainly knows how to hook you on a ship!

I was god damn mesmerized reading the first chapter. This has to be one of the saddest takes on Mikan’s character that I’ve ever read. Burning Lungs comes close however we never get to actually see things from her perspective, that’s all from Junko’s outsider point of view. Here we get to see it all from Mikan’s perspective, all of it, the sad stuff, the extra sad stuff, the stuff I don’t really know how to talk about because I’m inadequate with this kind of subject matter. And some gay panic, because it’s not Junkan without at least a little gay panic somewhere in the mix.

Junko is really god damn good in this first chapter, she’s god damn good in the whole fic but we’re talking about chapter one right now so i’m specifying. She has such a mysterious aura around her the entire time, and not just the obvious “Oh she’s planning the tragedy behind the scenes,” but also the mystery of how she feels about Mikan! It’s something left up to viewer interpretation in the first chapter, and to a much lesser extent the following chapters (I say lesser extent cause it does eventually lean into her having real feelings for Mikan, just being super confused by them. At least that’s how I look at it). Everytime I read one of these stories that serve as an origin point for these two’s relationship, it’s always really interesting to see how things initiate. It’s pretty much always Junko initiating of course, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a fic where it was Mikan who made the first move? If there is I’m having a severe lapse in memory it seems, or I’ve misinterpreted! The point of course being I really like the way Junko handles things here, saving Mikan from her darkest point, all that good shit! 

And the kiss? I drew it for a reason, it’s amazing. From the buildup to the way Mikan has a rare instance of boldness and grabs Junko’s tie? The grabbing the tie part makes my brain explode, the fact that Junko herself was surprised by it is even better. I love it whenever Mikan can actually get Junko surprised or flustered. It’s great!

I feel like I should be more detailed, more meticulous, but it really is a struggle trying to be in depth when discussing something this good, I wouldn’t consider it my strong suit? 

So let’s try moving onto chapter 2! I do at least have a story with this one but that can be for when I finish desperately trying to talk about the chapter itself. 

It’s lovely! Big shock! We get to see the two of them just acting like a normal couple for a bit, and even better we get to see the two partaking in some sleepy cuddles. That scene also does one of those Junkan things I fuckin love where Junko just, fucking reads Mikan’s mind. I know that’s not what she’s doing but also it’s funnier to put it that way. I just like Junko putting her analytical ability to use by reading Mikan and understanding her finer details. It can be used in all kinds of ways, cute ways, funny ways, saucy ways, but this might just be my favorite way? Her being able to tell when Mikan’s about to spiral and snapping her out of it quick. 

Their date is lovely by the way, love the drive there, the conversation is just a treat. And I really like the reference to the grenade scene from the DR3 anime, I might not have fond memories with that series like, at all, but that one clip of Junko tossing the grenade and Mukuro (We’ll get to her) catching it is just a really fun bit of energy. It’s also just fucking funny because it reads like they practiced that shit for like 2 fuckin weeks- Sorry, distracted. Anyway I think the scene is both a fun reference, and another good way to kinda remind of us the darker parts of this storyline underlying the softer surface. Junko is in fact trying to burn the world down, she just also happens to have a tooth rotting-ly sweet relationship with a very sad nurse. The moments where Mikan unintentionally peers into that world, whether hearing an explosion or seeing the red roots of Junko’s true haircolor, I love it all!

Great moment with Mikan helping that kid from bullies, always love to see Mikan flourishing in these stories (foreshadowing)! I think it is very funny that the small child just immediately clocked that Mikan and Junko were dating, the kid either has a crazy gaydar or Mikan and Junko are the least subtle people alive . . . okay yeah it’s that second one.

The following scene is great too, fuck those parents, and fuck yeah to Junko coming in for the clutch as she is one to do in this fic. The kiss to follow? Fantastic. Junko’s joke about exhibitionism? Also fantastic. The part where Mikan says she’s gonna go see her parents- Fuck.

Okay so, I’mma make the assumption that if you’re this deep into my ramble you’ve probably read the fic already. And if you skipped out on the fic due to the subject matter noted in the tags, you can probably already tell by my apprehension that everything in this fic from here on out is like, the opposite end of the spectrum from all the sweet (albeit ominous) stuff we’ve had up till now. And you’d be correct, and I quite frankly don’t know how to talk about it, like, at all. There are parts of this that I do wanna talk about from this and the following chapter, but also I feel neither confident nor comfortable explicitly discussing what happens to Mikan here. Even if you can probably already tell.

Still, I must show my respects to the literature and it’s author, so I will do my best. Apologies if I fumble here.

I’m still not gonna talk in depth about Mukuro here, but I do like the conversation leading up to this scene, before Mikan shows up. It’s something that was going to inevitably come up, because yeah, Junko can make Mikan fall deeply in love with her, but that won’t exactly prepare her for being complicit in the apocalypse. There’s a part of me that’s curious what her gameplan was before the end of this chapter happens, how was she going to try and turn Mikan over to her side 100% and make sure she’s ready. The world will never know.

Junko’s great at the end of this chapter, not just the comfort she provides. But the way she, in the words of the story, Snaps. That line? That stuck with me when I first read this. I think it’s the moment that confirmed for me personally, that yeah, Junko does love Mikan even if she doesn’t understand it. And it wasn’t just that moment that stuck with me, it was the whole fic by this point.

That’s right, it's story time. So when I found this fic, there were only two chapters. And I wanna remind ya’ll that before this fic I read a fic so silly, soft, and fluffy that it made me question what this ship could be. Jumping from that, to this was definitely . . . Whiplash?

What happened after that is fun, because I don’t fucking remember. I think unironically the amount of stress that ending put me under just from the shock of it, made me fuckin black out?? Which by the way, huge kudos, it takes some really fucking good writing to get me so invested that I get real life stressed as shit because of bad things happening to the characters. But anyway, I didn’t actually just, black out from stress. But everything after that is so blurred that it’s borderline incomprehensible, I try to remember past that point, and it’s like looking at memories put through a paper shredder before being put back together by a toddler doing a handstand. 

All I can say for sure is that starting from the morning after, I was obsessed. I woke up, and kept fucking checking to see if Chapter 3 was out yet. I hadn’t checked the time of the latest update, I still barely fucking understood how AO3 actually worked. I’m pretty sure it was through this fic that I learned that when a fic updates it moves to the top of the page for a given tag. This was also way before I had an AO3 account, so I couldn’t just subscribe or bookmark it. I’m sure I read other fics at this point, probably including Kayleen’s other works? But the timespan between Chapter 2 and 3 feel like white noise, whatever I read didn’t exist in my memories by the time that story ended. And god damn did it end.

When Chapter 3 popped up, it was late I’m pretty sure. I don’t know what I was doing at the time, maybe looking at manga online, talking with friends over discord dms, failing homework over online school, maybe even doing some of my own writing since i’m pretty sure this was back before my passion for it died out. Whatever it was, I dropped it fucking IMMEDIATELY. I needed to see this ending, I needed that catharsis.

So I layed in my bed, in a house I was still new to, and read the god damn chapter.

It was perfect. One of the first times to my knowledge where I’ve had the satisfaction of reading an unfinished fic and getting to actually see it end.

Where do I start, what do I even say? Anything I say just kind of boils down to “Junko and Mikan are perfectly written and I love their interactions and also god dammit I feel so bad for Mikan.”

The scene on the rooftop is great, I remember in one of Kayleen’s other fics Mikan shows concern for Junko’s eating habits, so getting to this scene and seeing the reverse was nice. And like, god, Junko’s so good in this. I get she’s trying to start the end of the world but she’s doing such a fucking good job here. Sure, she asks Mikan to kill her parents right after this, which might not be the most normal way of helping your girlfriend through a severely traumatic experience, but that’s just Junko y’know? 

Should I talk about Mukuro now? I should probably talk about Mukuro now, I really wanted to wait like one more scene but fuck it we’re talking about Mukuro now. 

Have I ever really talked about Mukuro in the context of Junkan? I know I’ve definitely made note of her, and I’ve obviously included her in these pieces with varying degrees of prominence. But I don’t think I’ve ever noted how I think she’s is one of the most interesting and amazing assets of Junkan as a ship. Calling Mukuro an asset feels like a disservice, but I lack the words to adequately describe what I mean here. 

The Despair Sisters are already one of the most interesting dynamics in Danganronpa, and a pretty versatile one at that based on the various interpretations I’ve seen of these two. And I think adding Junkan into the mix is just lovely, because it adds an outsider perspective, but not just that, it’s the outsider perspective of someone who’s closer than anyone else due to Mikan dating Junko. Bonus for the contrast of Junko pampering Mikan and shit talking Mukuro, even if I believe that shit talking is just a very layered way for Junko to express that she does care about Mukuro as a sister. 

And I think Mukuro and Mikan is a really fun dynamic too! I love the idea of Mikan finding love through Junko, and then in turn getting a second person in her life that cares about her. Mukuro being Mikan’s bodyguard bare minimum is great, protect that sweet little nurse you desaturated girliepop you. But I think the way their dynamic can evolve overtime as Mikan continues to date Junko is great. 

Mukuro getting to see firsthand how Mikan is changing Junko for the better, even if it’s in a canon timeline where Junko’s still like, very locked in on the apocalypse. She’s getting to be happier in a more genuine way, which I’m sure Mukuro would be grateful for, and that just makes her caring about Mikan’s wellbeing all the better.

Plus like, something I don’t think about often, at least not until very recently, but if Junko and Mikan are dating, and inevitably get married. That does just kinda mean Mikan and Mukuro are sisters in law. And, I fuckin love that? Mikan not only gets an amazing relationship with Junko, but she also just gets to have a sibling, something that to my knowledge she doesn’t have in canon. It’s that found family stuff that I love, even if the found family in this case is a bit more literal rather than just being a metaphor. And Mukuro gets a new sister, one who cares about her just as much as Junko, but is just significantly better at expressing that by comparison. I think Mukuro would really appreciate having a sister who like, hugs her without slinging an insult, or just getting any kind of open, visceral appreciation without having to read between the lines. 

I love to see Mikan with plenty of friends, she has a bunch of dynamics that I appreciate. But I also have a lot of appreciation for the idea of Junko and Mukuro being the only people she cares about, the only people she needs to survive. 

Where was I- Oh right.

Kayleen’s depiction of Mukuro and her dynamic with our other two primary characters is amazing. Spectacular even. Fucking perfect perhaps. It does everything I love about the Despair Sister’s dynamic without bordering into uncomfortable territory like some facets of the main canon does. But what I especially love is her dynamic with Mikan in the few moments we get to see them interact. A protector, a friend, and eventually a sister to her, it’s amazing. The scene when Mikan wakes up to Mukuro watching over her while Junko is away is phenomenal, and I love Mikan’s concern for her given the way Junko treats her, which does look pretty bad without the deeper context. The moment at the very end of Chapter 2 where Mukuro just heads off to (I assume) kidnap Mikan’s parents after just sharing a look with Junko, it’s another one of my favorite bits in that scene.

And of course, the scene that lead me to start yapping about Mukuro like that out of fucking nowhere, her talking to Mikan about Junko’s test. It’s great how she tries to help Mikan come to a decision without forcing anything. But also finally giving some more confirmation that Junko definitely feels something for Mikan, expressing how many changes in her demeanor she’s noted. And the reveal that Junko routinely struggles with Nightmares whenever Mikan isn’t around?? Fuck I love that. God dammit. 

I feel like I should talk more about this scene, but I feel like I kinda did? To an extent? A lot of what I just said about Mukuro’s place in this dynamic kinda sums up a lot of the great things about this scene. So I suppose we move on.

The buildup to the big scene of this chapter is wonderful of course, not much to say there. And I admittedly just really want to talk about the scene that follows.

Because god it’s everything I was hoping for when I finished that second chapter and had no idea whether I’d see this scene or not. 

The reveal is great, and as grotesque as I anticipated. I do cringe a little reading some of the details, not the modern dickhead definition of cringe either I mean the “Oh god fuck that’s brutal” kind of cringe. And it is so perfectly contrasted by Junko being Junko, love the idea that Junko and Mukuro just nabbed up these people and didn’t explain a goddamn thing until this very moment where they finally figure out that this crazy bitch is dating their daughter. Mukuro punching Mikan’s dad in the face was fucking great too. 

And the buildup to what comes next, is so god damn good. It feels weird out of context celebrating it, but the scene where Mikan breaks? Fucking spectacular. The distortion on the word Red hits like a fucking truck, and also speaks to my childhood of being a creepypasta kid because i’m like, half sure that’s the zalgo text filter, correct me if I’m wrong of course. Point is it was an out of nowhere detail that perfectly emphasized the tensity of what’s about to happen.

And I can go on another tangent now, because this is something I have had no opportunity to talk about during the entire duration of this project. At least not to my memory or knowledge.

I love Angry Mikan. I love the Mikan that snaps and is fully over the edge, not willing to deal with anyones bullshit. I of course have criticisms of Chapter 3 in DR2, but Mikan’s reveal of her true self, or I suppose the herself prior to the NWP, I love that moment. 

I’ve never depicted Angry Mikan before, but someday I really want to. So until then I take great enjoyment in seeing such a rare side of Mikan, which itself is even rarer in these fics. I think counting this one there are only 3, maybe 4 other fics off the top of my head where we get to see Mikan fully lose her temper. Now of course, I could be suffering another lapse in memory, or I just haven’t read the other stories that feature it. I only think I’ve read like, 90% of the Soft Junkan out there, I can’t confidently claim I actually have for certain, so maybe I missed it! 

Point is, seeing Angry Mikan is a treat. And here especially is fucking amazing, the verbal teardown, the havoc of it all. It’s great. And Junko just adds to it with her sheer excitement (which is putting it lightly given some of the dialogue), getting to see Mikan finally become, from her perspective, the best version of herself. Someone who can survive alongside her. 

When things start moving, it’s amazing. A small moment I really love, and the moment I was originally gonna wait for to talk about Mukuro with. Her offering up an assortment of firearms from “Her personal collection.” is just, weirdly wholesome? The things I get to say talking about this ship I swear. I dunno, it feels like such a small, personal moment and offer that only Mukuro could provide, and feels like the perfect cap to Mikan and Mukuro’s dynamic throughout this fic.

Also, fucking enamored with the the presence of a Rocket Launcher. Funniest alternate timeline sitting right there, imagining Mikan with a fucking rpg over her shoulder is hilarious.

Junko offering the reverse side of the weaponry coin is lovely too of course, but it’s the wonderful stuff I’d already expect with Junko, so much less of a pleasant surprise like Mukuro. I do appreciate her keeping a knife used on Mikan’s father as a trophy though, imagine that over the fireplace.

Anyway I don’t know how I could really explain to you why the torture scene is nice. It’s catharsis, it’s just catharsis. I don’t even remember how fucking long I waited to read this moment but it was so worth it, Junko and Mukuro joining in to help setup equipment was also really cute . . . i feel like i shouldn’t be calling segments from a torture scene cute. Hm. Well anyway, I can say that while I appreciate its existence, I’m also glad Kayleen chose not to drag it out for too long. Ironic coming from the most excessive bitch around here, but it probably would have been a bit much if it took up the grander majority of this chapter.

Which means we say goodbye to Mukuro and return to our regularly scheduled Junko and Mikan moments. 

And yeah what do you want me to fucking say, it’s amazing? Because it’s amazing as fuck, yeah. I’m running out of ways to just say how fuckin much i love this, but i’ll persevere best I can. 

I mentioned way earlier that I love it when Mikan catches Junko by surprise, and we get more of that here. Though in this instance I think it’s better to describe that this is the first time Mikan just gets the upper hand on Junko, who’s struggling to fight back in the conversation because she’s already struggling to figure out her feelings. And it’s really lovely to see Mikan fighting past Junko’s own insecurities, especially when she regards herself as a bad girlfriend. It’s great, and it’s more of that role reversal I love. 

The book analogy near the end of this conversation is so good, it’s sappy as fuck but that’s why it’s good. And Junko leaning into it despite how lame it is makes it all the better, and I only noticed on this recent reread that there’s even a cheeky V3 reference as well, clever!~ 

The kiss is of course great, and I think i’ve just fully fucking run out of ways to talk about how much I love Junko and Mikan kisses in these stories. Thank god there isn’t one in tomorrows fic- getting ahead of myself. 

Rip to Scissorhands, thanks for the gay but you will not be missed.

God damn amazing fic, so well written. It’s one where I have to be in a very specific mindset in order to read it, as that middle chapter really does stress me out enough to be a bit of a roadblock. But admittedly this most recent reread wasn’t the worst compared to the previous few times. That said the fic definitely had it’s effect on me like usual, my body felt all kinds of wild ways, my heartbeat was a lot more intense, breathing a bit wacked out, my nerves up. The whole shebang, so good fucking writing. Equally bittersweet considering that, at least I assume, the normal events of DR are going to follow this story, even if not immediately. So Mukuro’s gonna die, Junko’s gonna die, and then Mikan’s going to have her brain undespaired and probably lose all her feelings towards Junko (Though I will admit, the idea of Mikan after the actual events of canon still having feelings for Junko while not being a remnant is pretty interesting). 

However, I can live with that. It’s still an amazing story even with main canon in consideration, and I think I’ve run out of things to say here. 

Tomorrow is the last fic based art in the event, Days 99 and 100 are all on me. And by process of elimination you probably have an idea of what Day 98 is, you may even know the exact fic. 

I said there were three fics that were vital to me reaching this point in my life, being this obsessed with Junkan as a ship.

The Third Fic, Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed, is the fic that sent me spiraling into brainrot to the point of snapping and drawing art of it behind closed doors, eventually snapping me into drawing more Junkan than I imagine most if not anybody ever has.

The Second Fic, Smile, is what got me obsessed with the ship in the first place, of course only enough to enjoy reading it in secret, which would lead me to EYED.

All that’s left is The First Fic, which you’ll see tomorrow. The fic that made me bother to even give this ship a chance in the first place. Hilariously, I will probably not yap about it nearly as much as the previous two, even if I love it. 

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~

[hauntinglesbian]

rewatching episode 3 of AAA (cause for some reason it's been unwatched on my account even though I did watch it!) and just an interesting study on Agatha:

(disney isn't letting me screencap so I'll just have to do quotes sadly....)

it's interesting retrospectively watching this and you can tell Agatha is plotting, like what does she say to the rest of the coven cause she's literally making it up as she goes. Does she know it's Billy yet?

Billy is manifesting this whilst they're thinking about what form of trials they are up against e.g. when Alice says trials, Billy's brain immediately thinks of trials. Oh Billy, little do you know...

I do not see Kathryn, only Agatha, but also impressive of Agatha to make it up on the way.

when Agatha says 'safe as kittens' and puts her hands up like that, i feel like that's soft agatha <3

why is agatha putting her hand on her chest when they go into the house? Kathryn tell me your acting choices !

huge tiny lies = big little lies

oh billy that's not true, he died cause he wasn't supposed to live long.....

I feel like this agatha and agatha revealed is very different?

Going to delete my disneyplus history so I can restart watching again lol.

Do I feel bad about Sharon in this episode, yeah I do, but also Agatha looks really beautiful as always and also the scheming noise sounds like something from a reality tv show lol - like real housewives of beverley hills or something

Aww agatha in the background sitting she lost looks like she's having fun

okay so you know how she refuses for teen to drink the wine, do you think at first she thinks it's nicky?

also Agatha's hands <3 - the nails okay she's got very witchy hands lol

poor lilia <3, she's not well, she also didn't deserve to go.....

the baby scene is odd cause it's like, not true? Why is she whimpering? she did not trade her bébé for the darkhold :/

okay the parallel between Jen pushing Lilia out of the way to actually helping her, character growth!

Agatha so selfish lol

It's so weird to rewatch when having already watched it if you know what I mean

just rewatched this exact episode right now with the bestie @ragnarockz cause they are a whore for the Agatha milf fit in the first trial (can’t blame them though 👀)

So funny when she’s coming up with shit she’s like “1 trial for each skill” and then gives a little look like hell yea I kinda cooked with that one ngl. Then they get in the house and she’s like “the road changes for the coven” and she’s like damn I’m good at this making shit up on the spot stuff. 😏

Love soft Agatha, that’s my baby girl right there! 💖 me when soft agatha:

I heard someone saying something about some sort of grounding technique when Agatha puts her hand on her chest. But I can’t remember the exacts words I’m sorry.

Idk if she think it’s Nicky, I feel like she explained she was unsure for a bit so could have been. But even if she didn’t think it was him I think she would have stopped him. Recently was talking about how in Wandavision she made pb & j sandwiches for the boys with chips on the side and that’s just the cutest thing ever. And you know why, because I think agatha is a milf first! Excuse me… slipped up there… I mean a mother first! Yea she’s bad, mean and even evil if you will but one thing she’s gonna do is be a good mom (while alive).

The nails kill me a bit. Like I don’t love them. But her fingers are going 100 miles a minute in this episode it’s insanely hot.

No one deserved to die and I miss them ALL OKAY GIVE THEM BACK TO ME. I want them all to be alive and happy 😭🥺💖

She didn’t trade her baby you’re right. Not sure why it would have made her so upset. I feel like I’m the worst person to come to cause I just be watching things. But maybe it just reminded her that this is what people think of her but she believes the truth is worse, so maybe it reminds her of the truth? I’m just a simple girl. I was not made for this kind of thing. Maybe anything Nicky makes her upset. Maybe she wishes she could have used the darkhold to bring him back but it never worked out. I don’t know much about that though.

Agatha is selfish but I love women’s rights and women’s wrongs so what can I say? I love the bad boys… right?

Yea when teen/billy says “so what do we do?” outside of the house and Agatha just locks eyes with him and just does the biggest smile….

[tsuchinokoroyale]

Are you in RI often?

I think I went to Providence once when I was like 9 years old on what ended up being a hilariously homophobic family trip. So the Royale family decided to go to famously gay city Providence in June, and there were definitely some pride activities going on. My parents were very frantically trying to cover our eyes from the leather clad bears, but there were three of us and two of them so I saw them and I was like “what is the problem here.”

This imprinting of morality is pretty funny in retrospect. If my parents didn’t try so hard to cover my eyes, I would never have glanced over to see what the fuss was about. And then it wasn’t like “egads those hunks are wearing fetish gear!” It’s like “oh there’s some people over there? Crossing the street without looking first, I guess? Idk.” I couldn’t have told you what was “wrong” about the picture. It’s not even like it was hardcore dicks out fetish gear, there were men in less clothing down by the beach. The only thing it did was make me nervous that my parents might be homophobic when I put all the pieces together later in life. Like these hunky leather bears weren’t even a major factor in me realizing I was gay.

But that honor would go to Season 3 Episode 19/21 of Fox/ScyFy television series Sliders, hilariously called “The Breeder” in which Kari Wührer (( who I only knew from the lyrics of the iconic Rural Juror song from 30 rock )) becomes host to a parasite that loves breeding hot men. This process is not as sexy as it sounds.

Imagine this: you’re a pre-pubescent preteen home sick with a fever and you put on the TV just to have something on while you sippy on some soupy. You’re like oh dangggg, hot babe in a towel, yeah boys my age are into that. And then That Happens™ and your feverish brain is like Women Are Scary Actually. Less of a coming out and more of a staying in, really.

I turned out gay for more normal reasons later in life but I do attribute this show as being the turning point in my life and I’m so grateful for that ❤️

But no I’m not in RI often

[sungbeam]

the boyz office au, but you're the ceo

tbz ot11 x gn!reader

2.5k words, assorted headcanons, bullet format, ceo/office au, swear words

a/n: this was for fun and fun to do ;3

LEE SANGYEON: nothing changes; he’s still the boss

he’s a ceo, but he’s the ceo of another company, not yours

you and sangyeon are actually really good friends, and met when your friends attempted to set you guys up because you were both majorly workaholic (and still are) and were in desperate need of a life

but instead of ending up dating, you both agreed that you wanted to postpone a relationship and focus on your careers first 💀 which is, in retrospect, the total opposite of the reason behind setting you guys up in the first place, but…

what’re you gonna do ig 🤡 you’re both the smartest idiots to ever exist

of course, though, sangyeon does have feelings for you and kinda feels (in)secure because he thinks that if you end up not finding anyone else, that you could reasonably fall back on him instead

plus, everybody thinks you guys are together anyway (“have you heard? yn’s engaged to the son of the lee business conglomerate…”); when people ask him about confirming or denying, he’s very good about replying in a well-mannered way “no, yn and i are just very good friends”, but sometimes he wants to just say “no comment” with a secretive smile and let people speculate (but he respects you too much to do that)

JACOB BAE: the assistant who is not your assistant

imagine the one scenario from that cheesy netflix romcom called set it up, wherein the assistants of two successful ceos attempt to set each other's bosses up with one another, but then said assistants fall in love w/ e/o instead

EXCEPT jacob's the executive assistant of some other ceo who is trying to ~woo~ you (quite poorly, might i add), and he's been tasked with sending you gifts and getting to know you

this basically means he knows you way better than his boss, who is supposed to be the person trying to win you over, but jacob ends up falling for you instead as he gets to know you and what you like and what you are like (and he's just absolutely enamored by your work ethic and compassion and ingenuity and—)

suffice to say that it's really not so difficult to write you romantic cards attached to flowers when he sends them to you, but it's awfully off-putting when he has to put his boss's name instead of his own

(you like jacob so much better than his boss anyway, and whenever you meet the two of them, you send him cheeky winks and smiles because you know)

like imagine the way this man offering to personally deliver today's little gift to your office to escape his work and to see you

AND THEN instead of just accepting the gift and dismissing him, you ask if he'd like to stay for lunch to, idk, "chat about his boss" (he'd just be overjoyed)

KIM YOUNGHOON: brand ambassador

ah, the beloved pretty face of the company—other than yourself (you are arguably a fine face for your company yourself, but celebrity endorsement is never not needed); now that you thought about it, your company did employ a lot of pretty faces…

anyway! kim younghoon's obviously gotta be some big, rising actor star person and he's got the big name, the great smile, the clear charisma, and when he signed on to become an official partner of your company to endorse the product, you were over the moon

because he was your biggest stroke of luck in this realm, and your first, you and he actually got to work very closely in the early days of shoots and branding, up to the point where younghoon became a lot more involved in the marketing than just sitting pretty and smiling on a billboard (he had beauty and brains… hard not to fall for this one)

oftentimes, he would send you invitations to his red carpet events to be his plus one, too. just imagine sharing a limo with this guy, giggling in the backseat as you make funny faces at the paparazzi outside, and then holding onto his arm as the two of you posed at premieres

(oh my god and he would be SO cheeky if people asked if you two were dating smh like lee sangyeon, who??)

LEE HYUNJAE: head of the legal department

oh, you know this man's gonna be a little shitter—but he's also the best in the legal realm, and you couldn't exactly pass up the chance to be represented by lee hyunjae (who could've been the district attorney, but decided he wanted to take on the cutthroat world of business law instead lmao)

okay but please, he probably looks super fine in those crisp, fresh-pressed suits and the thin-wired specs as he takes on the courtroom (did someone turn up the heat…?)

i'm sorry i will move on TT

MOVING ON! you and he have probably been friends for a long time, maybe since high school or college, and so you got to see him rise during his career. he was probably one of the first people to encourage you to start the business, and sat with you through really long nights drawing up contracts and foundations and going through all the red tape

so maybe he's the best friend type, but he knows not only your business inside and out, but also knows a lot about you too

he's probably gotten so many offers to join other legal teams, but he loves the one he's built here and he can't really see himself representing any other company but yours? you yourself don't get into a lot of trouble, but he does find immense pleasure in taking care of anyone who thinks they can mess with you or tarnish your name

LEE JUYEON: vp of human resources

nobody is more equipped to handle the dramatics of hr than our lovely baby boy juyo 🤩🤩

some people might doubt his abilities because of his good looks (pretty privilege or sumn lmao) but he's got a work ethic of steel and a heart of pure gold; you don't trust your new recruits with anyone else but lee juyeon

pretty much everyone under your employ has gone through the hiring process with juyeon and even though he's very soft and charming, he can also be honest enough to cut out anyone who doesn't fit the work ethic the company might require of them (but on the same note, he's also got enough faith to be able to see the good and potential in people to give them a chance)

if anyone's got a problem, you can almost always count on juyeon to help you out

you and juyeon are often seen lunching together to talk about performance management, employee relations, and other associated policies in order to keep up to date with those and up to date with each other, because even though you are boss and employee, you're still good friends

juyeon's also no stranger to the world of brand ambassadorship, and he's one of the people who helped bridge the gap between you and the limelight, especially networking with people like younghoon

and it definitely helps that juyeon is also pretty enough to be on the cover of your company's billboards too 🥴

KEVIN MOON: global ambassador/vp global relations and investment

you didn’t even realize that you’d get to the point where your company was large enough to need to think of global expansion, so kevin’s coming onto the board of directors became a blessing and a huge marker of your company’s success

he’s everything you’re looking for in a global ambassador: charismatic, down-to-earth, creative, diplomatic, fluent in like 20357038 languages (english, korean, japanese, some french, etc.)

you and kevin actually took a trip to a location abroad to a prospective new office branch, which gave you and him lots of time to bond and become familiar with working with one another (changmin was left in charge, and though he was jealous that you didn’t even think to bring him, he was honored to manage the company in your stead; you and the rest of your board of directors met up at the location too so it wasn’t like it was just you and kevin ‘cause that would be… a little too much scandal for the rising employee)

anyway, kevin basically loves travelling and he always offers you this one guest house villa/timeshare he has in the location for you to stay at when you’re in town

like, whenever he hears you're in town, you know he's coming to pick you up in a pair of aviators and a convertible, and treating you to the absolute best the city has to offer

CHOI CHANHEE: vp of finance

chanhee's definitely your stereotypical, run-of-the-mill finance person, and not the Finance Bro™, but like the glasses-wearing, shrewd, calculating, and eagle-eyed excel spreadsheet wizard who doesn't take "impossible" for an answer

well, "impossible" only if it applies to certain financial constraints, but you hired this man in particular because you were confident in his ability to deal with money

and he definitely has not let you down

he's not really outgoing when you first meet him, but once you get to know him and the two of you start working together a lot more often, he starts to open up to you and you get to see more to him than just his smarts and snark

he's actually quite shy and, frankly, adorable, once you get to know him, and it's really fascinating to watch him work whether it's with just his mental calculator or with his extensive excel knowledge (he once did a presentation on excel and navigated the entire thing with just the keyboard and to say you were a little too entranced by his finger movements would be an understatement…)

is shy at first when he receives your praise, but is much more smug when he knows you better later on and catches you staring; imagine he offers to teach you his excel wizarding tricks and just leans over your shoulder and places his hand over yours on the mouse (*malfunctions*)

JI CHANGMIN: the assistant™ (i'm sorry, but are we surprised…)

oh boy, where do we even begin with this one?

well for starters, there are a handful of reasons you decided to hire changmin as your personal assistant/secretary even though he didn’t really have experience in the realm other than some desk job a few summers ago

he’s got an attitude that takes no shit from anyone (similar to chanhee), he’s got an approachable face, but he’s also got the ability to scare anyone off or into doing their work on time

changmin’s a really hard worker, and somehow worms himself into your heart and your office, always insisting that he stay at the office until you go home, too

gives anyone who presents themselves as a threat to his close, right-hand-man standing with you the bombastic side eye and a very scary smile

rip to changmin whenever he’s approached by reporters about your alleged “engagement” to lee sangyeon (very quick to shut those rumors down; even asks if you’d like him to contact the legal department but you brush it off as unimportant)

but besides always being your first line of defense (to be there for you), whenever sangyeon isn’t in town, he’s always your next choice to bring along to fancy galas/events (gives him the excuse to let you see him in a light that’s not just your scarily efficient assistant)

i liken assistant!changmin to the mistresses of kings who protected their positions ruthlessly (except no one in this is inbred and changmin totally wouldn’t poison any possible competition, right… haha right? right??)

JU HAKNYEON: college crush → celebrity crush 😎😎😎

to be completely real with you, haknyeon’s had a crush on you ever since college days when he was delivering pizzas to your neighbor and always saw you either coming in or out of your own apartment

you were always really friendly, greeting him with a sweet smile and appropriate “good morning”/”good night”

he occasionally saw you on campus and knew of your reputation as an ambitious and innovative go-getter, and he thought your energies matched really well

but for some reason, he was always too shy to ask you to hang out (maybe he was embarrassed that he was just the pizza delivery guy, but then again, you never indicated that you looked down on him for that)

he went abroad to go to this really great culinary school though, and eventually came back to open his own place

he had always planned to reach out to you and invite you to the opening, but it’s even greater now that you can both reunite as successful versions of your younger selves

(he invites you to his restaurant often, and always has a table reserved for you; almost always sits down to share a meal with you and catch up like he always wanted to do in college)

KIM SUNWOO: the one new paparazzi guy

he has no clue what is going on half the time to be honest lol but he's been hired, given a press pass, and now has a big boy job. what's the job? paying attention to you! well, it's a little more complicated than that…

when sunwoo majored in journalism, he didn't think that he'd be spending his day camping outside your company building for an exclusive interview with you

he didn't really understand your appeal until he was sitting in the lobby of your top floor office across from a very scary-looking assistant waiting for you to be ready to give him that exclusive interview

he definitely becomes a fan of everything about you afterward: from how you run things to the very way you made his coffee in your office—plus, he wrote one hell of an article on you and he got a great promotion because of you (he still doesn't know what he's doing half the time)

anyways, whenever something about you comes up at his publishing firm, he always worms his way into being in charge of it, and if anyone says anything bad about you, he's one of the first people to defend you

lmao he's also always the one who asks changmin if you and lee sangyeon are an item just to annoy your assistant (even if sunwoo is also secretly hoping that you and sangyeon aren't...)

ERIC SOHN: the intern who spilled coffee on you the first day

i feel bad for doing eric so dirty, but tell me you can also see him rushing down the hall with open coffee cups in either of his hands and he doesn’t even see you coming toward him until he—CRASH!—absolutely destroys the blouse you’re wearing and he’s a total, blubbering mess

he’s so afraid that he’s about to get fired on his first day, because anyone who doesn’t work directly under you believes you’re super scary, but you don’t fire him

he comes back the next day in fear of his life whenever he even hears about you

you bump into him (less literally than before) in one of the break rooms because you ran out of tea packets in your office and you soothe his worries

like literally made him smile and giggle like a school girl until he could look you in the eyes without cowering—

cue the literal heart eyes he has for you now instead of pure fear (he always peeks out of the copy room whenever he hears you coming down the hall so he can greet you)

tbz m.list

permanent taglist: @crazywittysassy @seomisaho @stopeatread @enhacolor @rnjfy @jaehunnyy @kpopjackie @spiderrenjunfics @soobin-chois @stayarmytinyzenmoa-l @mingiholic @ja4hyvn @vatterie @yogurteume @ethereal-engene @hyunjaespresent-deobi @justalildumpling @hongyangi @pxppxrmint @nerdypastacalzonespy @jcmdoll @zhaixiaowen @wtfhyuck @winterchimez @sodafy @fluorescentloves @tinkerbell460 @kflixnet

[kozachenko]

A Retrospective Analysis on Touhou 17

So it's finally here, and even though I know for a fact that I am not going to be able to get the Keiki drawing done by this time (I'm having trouble with the eyes, for some reason it's always that aspect of drawing her that's difficult for me, I can never really capture the essence of her character no matter what I do) I still wanted to post something about this game today since it's the game's 5 year anniversary. I have a lot of thoughts on it, and my views on the game have changed quite a lot throughout my time being a Touhou fan. This is going to be very long so I'll put the rest under the keep reading tag.

So for some background, Touhou 17 was the first Touhou game I ever played, I got into the series during 2021 shortly after my Hunter X Hunter phase ended (since the manga was still on hiatus at the time) and I remember playing 17 during that time as well. I'm pretty sure that the reason I played it was because of that one nitirushh animation where Keiki disses the animal spirits so hard that they die (still my favourite fan-depection of Keiki tbh, it's just really funny to me) and that set my interest in the game itself. It was also the newest Touhou game at the time and none of the other games interested me as much. Then I actually played the game and at the time I found it insanely fun. I remember feeling so excited playing the stage 1 of the game and thinking to myself "Holy shit I'm actually playing a Touhou game" and having a lot of fun with it. Even though the game itself is the easiest out of all the Touhou games, it was still a challenge for me at the time since I had never played a bullet Hell before. For this reason, the game as a whole struck a chord with me. Funny Touhou animation aside, I don't know if it was because I had only recently gotten out of my Hunter X Hunter phase after finishing the whole 2011 version of the anime and had caught up with the manga during 2020, but maybe some aspect of 17 kinda scratched a similar itch in my brain and it really stuck with me IDK.

As for what I think of the game itself now.... gameplay wise, it could be better, it's still fun but there was so much potential for the game to tell it's story through the medium it chose to present itself in. Why did we not have more similarities between Eika and Keiki's danmaku styles to show their connection? Why did we not have a moment similar to what happened in TD during the final boss fight where Mayumi comes back in to take over during the fight in a last ditch effort to protect Keiki? It's the final boss so go all out! The animal spirits could also be balanced a lot better as well, especially with Youmu becoming incredibly overpowered with the wolf spirit, and visibility is a bit of a problem in this game. Some of the tracks could use a bit more polish too, I commend ZUN for being experimental with his newer tracks but the stage 3 theme and staff roll theme are both kinda eh, and while the boss themes have a lot of good punch to them and can be really good, it still feels like some extra spice could've been added to really make them stand out (which is why I love the theme remixes Saki and Yachie got in Touhou 19). I also wish the Animal Realm got explained better within the lore of the series, mainly because it raises a lot of questions about how Hell was founded and it kinda needlessly complicates things. I would've rather it be introduced as it's own region of Hell rather than being a separate thing entirely that just so happens to be located next to it. I also wish that we got more stuff with this setting that explains how it connects to the rest of the worldbuilding a lot more, I definitely feel like actually having it explained more in the mangas would definitely help to make it feel less convuluted, but unfortunately the closest we're getting are cameos in Lotus Eaters and very brief mentions of the games themselves. I still like the game though, as I've mentioned I do love a lot of the music and I love all the characters we got introduced to in this game. I've been appreciating Eika a lot more recently, I do like Urumi but she's neat and I like her design a lot, Kutaka is a fucking shithead who kept FUCKING UP MY 1CCS IN BOTH 17 AND 17.5 THE FUCKING BITCH- who is very funny and I love seeing more insight into Hell's management. Yachie's great and I find her relationships to the other characters in this game very interesting, Mayumi is awesome and the more I think about her the more I like her, and I love how Saki contrasts Yachie in her strategies. That being she has no strategy and just goes "fuck it, we ball" with no hesitation lmao.

I'm pretty sure you all noticed the absence of one character in particular, that being Keiki. I've made it no secret on this blog that Keiki is my favourite Touhou character, and a lot of that is because of her role as an antagonist in Touhou 17. I always found it really fascinating how ZUN created her as an allegory for AI (I don't know if Apollo just randomly blessed him with the gift of prophecy because MAN does that statement hit harder now more than ever) and the fact that she's portrayed as a very morally grey character in the game itself and Reimu's reaction to her, stating that she can see an "evil aura" in Keiki. I've already talked a lot about Keiki on this blog and I don't know what there is that I haven't said, but I wanted to start off with her because it ties into a big part of why I still find this game's story interesting. That main aspect being it's parallels to Gensokyo and Touhou's overarching them of humanity's relationship with nature.

So to step back from 17 for a second, I feel like we should look at what the Youkai represent in the story. Youkai in Touhou are created from humanity's fear, and back before science was able to properly explain anything, this fear very often manifested into a fear of nature. Natural disasters would end up wiping out villages, dangerous animals would often lurk in forests and end up killing anyone who would go in them. Overall nature isn't very kind to humanity, and humanity knows this. This is why humanity would often try and find reasons as to why these things would happen. This brings us back to the Youkai in Touhou who are the embodiment of the unexplainable. In manga like Forbidden Scrollery and Lotus Eaters, we often see how the humans in the human village are at the mercy of these Youkai, the only reason that they aren't being slaughtered is entirely for their own benefit so they don't run out of resources. The only hope the humans in the village really have is to turn to the gods, another product of man's desire to explain the unexplainable, to potentially save them. The survival of the people in the human village will always be in the hands of beings beyond their comprehension. No matter what, humanity will always be at the mercy of nature.

Coming back to Touhou 17, we can see that the relationship between the human and beast spirits isn't exactly.... pleasant. The beast spirits all see the human spirits as slaves essentially and they gain strength from their torment. The only way that the human spirits are even able to stand a chance against them is to submit themselves to a god and pray for their protection. And even then there's no way in Hell that they're getting out of this situation since the god they're praying to views them the same way as the animal spirits (whether they are aware of it or not).

So if you haven't noticed by my word choice, there are quite a lot of similarities here with the dynamics of the Animal realm and Gensokyo. That's not even mentioning the fact that in both places we have at least 3 different parties fighting over control of the humans, whether it be animal spirits or Youkai. Hell, this race for power in Gensokyo is a plot point in Lotus Eaters and Forbidden Scrollery, so it's not like this is a new concept for the series to explore either.

There's also something to be said about how Keiki and the technology she brings with her are seen as a threat to the order of the animal realm. Throughout human history, humanity's creativity and ingenuity have always been major factors in our survival as a species. We created tools to use the nature around us and make it work to our advantage, we created weapons to more efficiently hunt and find food to survive, and we created art and literature to document our histories and make sense of the world. Going back to 17, Keiki is the epitome of humanity's evolution and creativity and she is the one who responded to the human's cries for salvation. Another thing to think about is that in Gensokyo, the best the villagers are going to get in terms of technology are old computers that are very limited in their use, and even then barely anyone will have any idea how to use them. The reason that Gensokyo even exists in the first place is to preserve the Youkai and Gods that would become forgotten by humanity's technological advancement. In both of these places, technological advancement is seen as a threat to the natural order and must be suppressed at all costs.

Of course in Gensokyo it isn't as extreme as the animal realm. The Kappa, the Tengu, and even gods like Kanako are all quite technologically advanced and/or are introducing new technologies to Gensokyo (those are just the ones I could list off the top of my head, but please tell me if there are more that I forgot). But here's the interesting thing, notice how none of the examples I listed there were humans. The only way for the humans of Gensokyo to have these technologies introduced to them is if the powers that be, nature, let them have those technologies. Going back to the animal realm, even after Keiki is defeated we can see that the beast spirits are still using the technologies she (most likely) introduced, i.e. that one chapter in Lotus Eaters where one of the otter spirits introduced what is essentially a GameBoy to the Kappa and Nitori saying stuff like, "oh yeah the animal realm is actually pretty technologically advanced nowadays" as well as that one story in CoLA where Ran and Yachie deal with the AI Sumireko made. Once again, the only times when the use of technology goes unprotested in this series are when it's kept out of the hands of humans and back into the hands of nature. Even when humans are able to fight back and create their own technology, nature will always win in the end, no matter how hard humanity tries to defeat it. The way Touhou 17 ends is indicative of this, with Keiki being defeated and the Animal Realm returning to it's status quo.

However, Gensokyo has never had this kind of issue before.... or so it may seem. Yes there's never been any technological uprising by the human villagers and with the way things are there most likely never will be, but when you take away the potential for technological advancement from humans then the next best thing would be magic. And when humans in Gensokyo use magic to find a way to gain power and be more than just fodder for the Youkai, they end up being punished. This is most prevalent in Forbidden Scrollery when Reimu kills the fortune teller. I don't think I need to go too in depth about this moment since I already did so in my Forbidden Scrollery review but this once again shows a parallel between Gensokyo and the Animal Realm.

So what am I trying to say with all of this? I've been bringing up a lot of the similarities that these two places have but similarities can just be chalked up to coincidences that don't mean anything. What I've been trying to say with this whole thing is that the Animal Realm represents an extreme version of Gensokyo, one where every ugly aspect of it is dialed up to 11 and the law of the strong eating the weak rules all. It's a Gensokyo without a spell card system to level the playing field. I do want to say that I don't believe Gensokyo is a grimdark setting, sure some parts about it are bleaker than others, but there are also many good aspects of Gensokyo that I feel like I should bring up. It's a safe-haven for the forgotten, and if we continue viewing the Youkai and Gods from the lens of both of them being allegories for nature, Gensokyo is a place where nature can fluorish outside of humanity's hands. Unlike the Animal Realm, Gensokyo was never established with the intentions of harming people. Nature is both beautiful and terrifying, and where Gensokyo displays the beautiful sides of nature, the Animal Realm displays all the ugly sides of it. Even then, there is some overlap between the two, Gensokyo does have a nastier side to it and the Animal Realm is a place where nature can exist unrestrained by humanity (even if the place is still a shitshow overall). Now that I think about it, this sort of duality between the two realms is kinda fitting for Touhou, and I can't stress enough that when I say that Gensokyo and the Animal Realm have some parallels I am not trying to say Gensokyo is a grimdark dystopia. Hell even going back into the Lotus Eaters manga, the otter spirit that escaped from the Animal Realm even said that Gensokyo was a better place to live.

So yeah, I don't really have any good way to end this aside from saying happy 5 year anniversary Touhou 17. You are a flawed game but god do I still love you. Oh yeah, and if there's anything I missed or any mistakes I made, please correct me/let me know.

[cephalofrog]

hmm. disco elysium

I liked it less than I thought I would.

I guess that's a shame. with the amount of praise the game gets I expected it to absolutely blow me out of the water so even though I did like the game, it's weighed down by the fact that, like, I expected to get a new favourite game, but instead I just... had a pretty good time.

I definitely got pretty frustrated with it during my ongoing thoughts post and I'm not sure how I feel about that frustration in retrospect - in one way it was an expression of my investment in the narrative. in another way it was me being immature and expecting the game to give me what I demanded, and in yet another way it was the game seeming to punish me continuously for making mistakes I didn't even realise were mistakes

it's kinda hard to talk about the game as a whole cause it feels so split between stuff like the character writing, which is really good, and the more "gamified" aspects like the skill checks, which feel... clunky in my opinion, due to the chance-based nature of them. it feels like I'm enjoying an incredibly good visual novel which I then occasionally have to pause in order to allocate some skills or change my clothes in order to optimise for skill checks, and if I fail a white skill check it can feel like that entire storyline gets put on hold until I find a way to unlock it unless I want to potentially waste skill points (which I didn't want to do, since they felt like an extremely limited resource). the skills themselves are as wonderfully written as everything else and I'm glad they're in the game, but the %-based checks - particularly the white checks - just feel... rough. I struggle to come up with a solution here though outside of "rewrite the entire game to basically just be a visual novel in which the player is guided by the skills and must use that plus their own brain to try to figure out the right thing to do in any situation rather than just levelling them up". even then you miss out on the red checks which, on the one hand, avoids the horrible feeling of failing them, but on the other hand, balancing red checks feels like the intended source of most of the game's tension. I got shot twice during the confrontation with the mercs due to ignoring reaction speed my entire playthrough, which frustrated me massively - but I think the single most standout moment of my entire playthrough was having the check to warn kim about the woman attacking him appear, seeing a 97% chance of success, and feeling, for the second time in my entire playthrough, that I'd actually made the right choice in picking the purple starting class.

(the first time was when breaking the news to the wife of the man who fell through the pier and broke his skull on the bench. the third time was when meeting the phasmid at the very end.)

so, idk. frustration getting through one blue check to proceed the story only to be hit by another after getting a tantalising taste of plot progression. relief at being able to succeed at the red checks that really mattered. in retrospect the only red check I'm genuinely upset to have failed is the karaoke. that one hurt

anyway I already mentioned but the character writing is absolutely excellent. not a single miss. kim is my #1 boy (I want to marry him). evrart was a real standout, he's just so slimy but so likeable. I wish we got to talk to ruby more, she seemed really interesting. klaasje is a disaster and I wish her the best after I didn't arrest her (much to kim's frustration). titus took such an interesting swing from basically an antagonist to a friend as both he and I began to trust each other's intentions more. also shoutout to garte I like him he funny

the worldbuilding is also incredible. every time the details of any kind of technology or part of the world was mentioned, I was hanging on and absorbing how cool it all was. the pale absolutely FUCKS as a concept, like, fuck yeah the continents in this world are separated by a giant barrier of... nothing??? that's awesome.

which is why it's kinda weird to me that the story didn't like... do more. the murder mystery aspect was lovely, I love the feeling of having each part of the puzzle slowly slot together, but there's also the whole memory loss kind of part of the plot, and outside of being a framing device for why you, the player, don't know anything about the world, that plot kinda just... goes nowhere? you get told straight away "you are sad and drunk and miss your wife" and then nothing about that fact changes aside from the fact that she was actually your girlfriend. the sheer grief harry seemed to be feeling had me convinced that she'd actually died but like... no, she just left. maybe the entire point is that he really was just an extremely shitty person before his memory got wiped? or maybe I just don't understand romance enough and this is actually meant to be understandable or relatable

I also find the ending to the mystery a little unsatisfying but pretty much better any other possible ending I guess. I'd have disliked if it was ruby, I'd have disliked if it were klaasje, I'd have disliked if it were titus, and the other mercs doing it wouldn't have made sense. so whatever. random guy on an island go

I think, to me, the ending felt like it should have been an inevitable tragedy, or at least deeply bittersweet - maybe I undercut it for myself by taking a 2 day break in between the encounter with the mercs (which felt to me like a horrific disaster that would inevitably result in the union being wiped out by the mercenary company, even though we managed to kill the 3 of them that were there) and actually finishing the game? idk man, I was expecting the ending to be, like, another violent revolution has been inevitably set into motion, the forces of capital are gearing up to attempt to put it down whatever the cost, best case scenario is kim and harry just riding it out somewhere in obscurity after bringing the person responsible for kicking it all off to justice. and then instead I got you did it you arrested the murderer :) good job :) there's some societal unrest but we get to just keep on copper-ing with kim :)

speaking of which I think I largely struggled with the game cause I didn't go in with the mindset of it being a cop game, which it very much is. you can play it unlike a cop (I at least tried to avoid being too much of a cop for most of the playthrough) but the game does expect you to be down with some level of cop-ing. I'm not upset over this but I will admit I was expecting it to be more... subversive I guess? I was expecting it to be cop-critical but instead it's pretty much cop-positive, albeit in a kinda sam vimes discworld way.

not much else to say. art pretty. music good though idk if I'll listen to it much after this? it's mostly very ambient which doesn't tend to hold my attention well. probably not gonna become a hyperfixation but it's not impossible. kim kitsuragi beautiful please marry me. disco/10

[alygator77]

I came back to apologize for my previous ask about the smut in M&M. Not about the question, but the delivery.

Reading it in retrospect, it sounds terribly abrasive, abrupt, and rude. That was not my intention. I’m actually quite embarrassed that I typed it out the way I did. Very disrespectful, and I am sorry.

I’m also a single mother, AND a business owner, who happens to read a lot. And as a matter of fact, I do write my own fics.

When I came across yours, I was immediately enamored by it, especially because I had never seen anything like it. I LOVE the entire concept. Its creative and extremely relatable. Especially for people like me. I realize I should have led with that.

I felt very strongly that you needed to know I truly wasn’t trying to be an asshole when I asked. The delivery was awful though, and since I wrote it in the middle of the night when I was already tired and my brain was looking for smut (lol but not really funny), I projected that in a bad way.🤦🏼‍♀️ I truly regret it.

In an attempt at an explanation, I saw most of what I said as a joke, i.e. “Good God. If they moved any slower, they'd be going backwards ... Sorry ijs...” I remember actually laughing when I typed that.

It wasn’t meant to be an insult, but more rhetoric or hyperbole. I wasn’t careful with my expression, so I apologize for that, too.

All of that being said, I also just happen to be a straightforward person, but I wasn’t angry at all when I wrote it.

When I said “Why not omit the smut altogether?”, I was actually wondering why you didn’t just choose to just make it fluff instead (though you can do what you choose). As I read it, it didn’t feel like it was even mandatory, especially considering the dynamic between them, and how it was clear he had strong feelings for her from the beginning, even when they worked together.

I also admit that with the tags, I had an expectation of more, which is where the mess that came out of me originated, but I was absolutely not expecting it for every chapter.

I don't agree with adding too much, adding it in every chapter, or that the only thing that matters is sex. His character really is objectified a lot, and all of that can dilute a story very quickly or even ruin it.

My question was more geared towards gaining an understanding of why you chose the route you did. Which was a far better way of asking than the way I did, and there’s no excuse for that.

I hope you continue to write great stories, and again, I SINCERELY apologize for my insensitivity.

Firstly, I would like to say I really appreciate you reaching back out to me — I was pleasantly surprised to read this and it makes me SO happy to know that there are people like you on the internet, capable of addressing a misunderstanding in a respectful and thoughtful way. You being willing to send me this says a lot about who you are as a person, so seriously, thank you.

No hard feelings on my end, all is forgiven. I can completely see where you were coming from and I also relate — there have been many times in my life where I’ve said something and it came out different than what I intended. It happens love.

When I said “Why not omit the smut altogether?”, I was actually wondering why you didn’t just choose to just make it fluff instead (though you can do what you choose). As I read it, it didn’t feel like it was even mandatory, especially considering the dynamic between them, and how it was clear he had strong feelings for her from the beginning, even when they worked together.

I will happily go ahead and answer this question! There are two answers to it.

The first answer is that I will not omit the smut altogether simply because… I like sex? 🤷‍♀️ Idk, it’s a simple answer really, lol 😅 But I think to put it in perspective, I like sex in a different way most people consume on this platform. I am demisexual — so I have to have that close emotional bond with someone before I find them remotely attractive. When it comes to writing smut (and sometimes even reading it), this really plays a big part to both my inspiration and my comfort level.

Secondly, I’ll address what you said regarding the characters in the story, specifically relating to the comment about how the smut wasn’t mandatory. 

Personally, I do think the smut scene in ch 3 was relevant to the story bc it gave readers an insight into Satoru’s feelings/perspective. While yes, Satoru was drawn to reader in the beginning, he didn’t understand his own feelings, and there were walls he built up around his heart (you get a glimpse of this when he talks to reader about how he never wanted to get married; it was after their courthouse ceremony in ch 2).

Also, most of the interactions between him and reader were subtly intimate in chs 1-2… he really did not start acting more bold until after the smut scene in ch 3 (ie, he tries to kiss her in the supply room and in the kitchen). Basically, his walls did not come down until they shared that first kiss, because it solidified his own feelings for her. He mentions this to reader when they share their second kiss in ch 6.

If you listen to the song on my playlist for mhm called “Cardiac Arrest” by Bad Suns, it really speaks to the image I had of Satoru while writing the scene during/after their kiss in ch 2.

The moving too fast thing plays into readers character. She was cheated on by naoya (also naoya is just a prick lol), so of course trust is not something she is going to give lightly. I did not feel comfortable having the smut continue in ch 6 bc it felt like their relationship would regress — reader wasn’t honest with satoru yet yk? It would’ve felt super hypocritical for her to preach about how important trust is to her, but then not deliver it herself. putting myself in satoru’s position, I would feel pretty hurt if immediately after I fucked someone for the first time, they suddenly decide to tell me a secret they were hiding from me? 🙂‍↕️ Again... idk, that could be just me though, bc as I said, emotional bonds are big when it comes to physical intimacy for me.

Anyways, I hope this gave you some perspective to my own thought process and answered your question love.

As a fellow mom myself, just wanna say, you single moms are literal super heroes 🥺 Sending you love bc it is NOT easy. Thanks for reading my story and apologizing 🫶🏻

-aly💕

[oacest]

Sorry if it's been already asked but I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on Slide Away(’s lore).

I always very casually liked oasis and even watched supersonic in 2017, just thought it was a cool doc and went on with my day, but got into them deeply after the reunion announcement and was a "normal" fan for a while until I searched oasis on this platform and my whole world shifted and here I am lol

So a part of me still feels it's rational to think it's about Louise, especially when Noel said he thought they were soulmates (this comment from Noel is all over the internet but I can’t find the original interview), and it’s generally believed that the song is about her, but at the same time, whether it's about Liam or not, none of the lyrics screams heterosexual romance and some of the lyrics really evoke Liam & Noel together as a pair, like "together we'll fly" and "two of a kind". I've read the interview excerpt where Noel said Liam came up with "Let me be the one who shines with you" on the spot iirc, which makes it even more of a liamnoel song. 

It’s very interesting that the brothers seem to have a more deeper emotional relationship to slide away than some of their other songs. At the top of my head- the collective “WHAT FOR”, the infamous iTunes gig, Noel acoustic Chicago ’98, and I’m sure the list goes on but that’s all I can think of at the moment.

Also Noel saying in MM podcast he doesn’t remember Liam and him shouting “what for” together is so suspicious to me. Just like that one time Matt made him do a fanmade oasis quiz and said this song is disturbingly titled and a bit incestuous but Noel pretended not to be able to guess the super obvious answer. I don’t think Liam would do the same because he seems to be far less bitter about their past than Noel. I wonder it’s because the “what for” is so intertwined with whatever relationship they had back then (they never did it again after ’96 or ’97 for some reason) that it feels like an old inside joke with an ex or something to Noel. He very well could be in complete denial and has partial memory loss but fingers crossed that they bring it back this year🤞 

the denial of ("er, thingy") sister lover is soooooo funny always. he's so embarrassed by that song he can't even bring himself to performatively denounce it. the ONE TIME he doesn't go out of his way to make something extra weird by commenting on it when no comment is necessary, and for once this silence actually makes everything so much more sus. a casual "yeah it was about that girl band, bit of a joke" would suffice, but he can't even do that. constantly thinking about that eternal silence on the podcast while matt was prompting him, and the grunted "oh right" and immediate moving on. you aint sly buddy <3.

but anyway, re slide away, idk,,,, i think it's pretty fair to call it an essentially basic noelish lovesong without too much depth to it. AS USUAL there's no way to know for sure bc a) he lies b) his brain is swiss cheese, c) he often takes a long time to write things and repurposes a lot of stuff, so how/why a song begins is not necessarily how/why it ends up. some combo of louise angst + knowing how to whip up a Big Hit on the spot doesn't seem farfetched to me. otoh liam is great at making everything about him, so retrospective meaning can always be applied with or without noel's consent lol. not to mention the loaded emotional weight of its live performances in the later 2000s of course 💀. death of the author applies even (and especially) to noel gallagher.

although the thing you're thinking about re liam supposedly coming up with the "let me be the one who shines with you" line was actually noel refuting that version of events. supposedly liam claimed he invented that line, but noel says there's an early demo of he himself singing it that way before liam ever got ahold of it. now afaik this supposed claim of liam's only exists in this specific quote from noel himself lol, so who knows what degree of truth there is to it. (i don't have that interview to hand at this exact moment bc im writing this at midnight and im lazy tbh, but we can probably locate it if anyone is interested.)

[kinetic-elaboration]

November 24: The Menu

Decided to watch The Menu in the middle of the night because why not. Nothing could go wrong there. (This isn’t even sarcastic; I am and will be fine other than being up this late.)

I… feel like I have many thoughts and feelings but also no way to put them into words. I did really like it. I thought it was very well made. I really, really liked Ralph Fienes as the Chef, his mixture of utter sadism, cult-leader like charisma, unbearable pretentiousness and narcissism, and true pain and even vulnerability (as in the making the burger scene) that somehow all made sense together to form a coherent and very watchable character. He would be the rewatch element for me, should I ever decide to rewatch it.

I know it’s hard to put genre-straddling films in boxes because they’re pretty much always more one thing than another, but the idea of calling this a black comedy/horror is very strange to me. It had a couple jokes where I laughed out loud, in a snort sort of way (in particular, the yes-man to the critic agreeing with her when she said they were all going to die, and “No student loans? You’re going to die” and I think there was another but I forgot it already), and I suppose the introductory part was “funny” in the sense that the characters were being introduced as SO fucking annoying that I was impatiently awaiting their deaths, but generally I was not laughing. I was not finding this funny. Straight-up horrors should be funnier than this (see my reaction to Longlegs), which isn’t a complaint about the level of humor just my opinion that there was nothing in this that would warrant putting the label ‘comedy’ on it. Even black comedy—I mean I get that there were ‘so outrageous it’s funny’ aspects to it, especially as I went on, but…mmmm.

In general I actually found it incredibly horrific. Maybe it just hit my fears better than some of the other horror I’ve been watching, but really the whole middle part had this unpredictable and claustrophobic feel that just made me feel like I was losing it a little bit. The contrast between the incredible violence and the general acceptance of that violence by the characters. The calm and cult-like devotion of the staff. The smallness of the set. The slow ratcheting up of wrongness, from ‘wow that’s pretentious’ to ‘pretentious and off-putting’ to ‘subtly threatening’ to EXTREMELY VIOLENT. Tyler’s character in particular really sat on either side of the line of unbelievably over the top in his cliché foodie attitude (has the pretentious foodie lifestyle rotted his brain THAT much?) (yes) and evincing an attitude of such extreme wrongness, behaving in such an absolutely bizarre way even versus other characters, that he was frightening. I guess he was the black comedy all along.

There were also parts where I wondered if there was some degree of hypnosis (the clapping) and/or drugging (you must eat for the menu to work) happening, that was the level of psychological torture/horror I felt like I was witnessing.

This horror part, I think in retrospect, reached its peak with Tyler’s death and then started to go downhill at the fight in the Chef’s house. I sort of zoned out a little at that point, and though I don’t think the movie was too long—I think its slow pace allowed for building dread and I wouldn’t want it to rush itself—if I were going to cut it, say bring it down to 90 minutes, it would perhaps be in this section. From that point it was more thriller than horror, and I was primarily invested in seeing how it all turned out. I’d gotten the concept, so there wasn’t any more of that disorienting ‘what the fuck is that next turn’ feeling really left, and the torture was fairly out in the open. Was the last psychological trick, the asking for help that won’t come, really necessary? I mean, I suppose to explain why they all stayed. Emotionally it hit the least hard for me I’d say. And I thought the speech about the burger was a little expository and unsubtle, though I didn’t hate it. I mean in general I would call the film subtle as a horror but unsubtle as a movie with a specific message about foodie culture specifically and wealth/entitlement/service more generally. And it certainly played with some old-school, familiar tropes of locked-door mystery/horrors and retribution on the sinful and so on.

I did like the ending and found it satisfying. And that burger looked really good except for the onions. I laughed at the list of ingredients of the s'mores including ‘staff, guests, restaurant,’ so, yeah, there was another comedic element I guess.

[mieux-de-se-taire]

Headfirst For Halos - MCR Interviews

89.5 WSOU FM Interview - 7/11/02

22:28-22:31, 32:22-32:43

Gerard: (After being asked his favorite song) That’s my favorite and “Headfirst”, because I get to dance a lot, “Headfirst For Halos.”

Interviewer: Alright, so we’re gonna get into the final song of My Chemical Romance tonight, and that’s “Headfirst For Halos.” Did you wanna get into that? Gerard: Really quick, just to save you some time, it’s a song about being really depressed, on a lot of anti-depressants, and wanting to kill yourself. But instead of doing that, I just wrote a song about it, so...that’s what you should do if you ever wanna kill yourself. Interviewer: Write a song? Gerard: Write a song about it.

/

Punk News Interview - 4/11/03

Paragraph 10

Interviewer: What were your inspirations during the beginning guitar in “Headfirst for Halos?” ALL: Van Halen, Queen.  Ray: Queen was a big one.  Background: (there were certain other influences too. . . ha-ha)  Ray: Ohhh well that influence was for the rest of the music in this song. We were fuckin’ zoinked out of our heads when we wrote that song. It seems like it is really against what everything sounds like on the record. It’s really major.  Gerard: We wrote it literally on the spot. I mean that song wrote itself. In like 10 minutes, lyrics, everything. We were just joking around and I was like this is the catchiest, popiest, stupidest shit I have ever heard, and I was like how can I make lyrics make it not. And then I figured a way to do that. At first we were like no, this in not a My Chemical Romance song, but we just kept fighting it until it was.

/

Recroom Magazine Interview - 8/12/03

Jessica (Interviewer): I like that song.  My favorite song on the album is number six; I'm sorry, you know I'm really bad with the titles. Matt: “Headfirst for Halos” Jessica: That's the one. Just cause that's my favorite song, I'm curious as to what the songwriting process was like for it. Gerard: It started as a joke. It was really funny. Ray: We were stoned and we were jamming. Matt: And we thought it was obnoxious and funny. We were just like, "Oh my god, this is so stupid." And Gerard's like, "No! This is great!" Gerard: Yeah; it was brilliant. So I put really dark lyrics to it and it worked. Jessica: That's what I like about it. Cause the music is all upbeat and it sounds like it would be a happy song and then the lyrics are all dark and contrast with it.

/

NME Interview - Late 2003

Paragraph 3

In ‘Headfirst For Halos’ (which [Gerard] Way considers “very similar to Blur”), he sings, “I think I’ll blow my brains against the ceiling / And as the fragments of my skull begin to fall / Fall on your tongue like pixie dust / Just think happy thoughts.”

/

Warped Tour 2004 Retrospective - May/June 2005

3:46-4:06

Ray: [Heath Saraceno from Midtown] would actually come up on stage and play an older song from our first record, “Headfirst For Halos,” ‘cause he wanted to play with us so band that he wrote like a harmonized guitar solo thing for something that I did. And he would play with us, and it was just awesome having 3 guitar players up there, and hopefully we can do that again sometime.

/

Alternative Press - June 2005

Page 7, paragraph 1

Frank: [The other most unforgettable Warped moment was when we were in Calgary, and] the power went out while we were playing “Headfirst For Halos.” The kids kept it going. I’d never been a part of something like that; a place where we had never been before carried us through that song. I think it was the best time we ever played it, because we didn’t play it at all! [Laughs]

/

Matt Schichter Interview - 11/30/05

4:23-4:30

Interviewer: Let’s play something off the first record: either “Cubicles” or “Headfirst For Halos.” C’mon, you choose. Mikey: “Headfirst,” definitely. Interviewer: How come? Mikey: I just like the song better. (Laughs)

/

Life on the Murder Scene - 2005

35:39-36:09

Gerard: The most important song is “Headfirst For Halos.” (clip of band playing “Headfirst For Halos”) Gerard: Why it’s important is that it’s a song that kinda started as a joke (“Headfirst” continues to be played) Gerard: But, it’s the song that-- I had said to the guys “if we can pull this song off, if we can accomplish this, and do it believably, like, if we believe this song could work for this band, it’ll-- we won’t ever be pigeonholed.”

/

Kerrang #1143 - 1/17/07

Page 3, paragraph 2

Gerard: There’s a song on every record that allows us to push ourselves further. On ‘Bullets’ it was [Headfirst For Halos] and on ‘Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge’ it was ‘You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison.’ This actually started out as a joke. Then we realised that, if we could pull it off, it would allow us to do so much more because it would prevent us from getting pigeonholed. We worked on it to the point that it wasn’t a joke at all which, in turn, allowed us to do a song like ‘...Prison.’

It happened naturally because it was only after we finished writing it that we realised where it might take us. We had a thrashy pop song in our laps and we thought, ‘This doesn’t sound like anything.’ Maybe it was a bit of a Beatles rip-off, maybe it was a bit Britpop but that was all I could think of.

Again, it had a visual quality. That song and ‘Vampires Will Never Hurt You’ both gave us a real sense of identity. They brought in the entire gothic thing. It was those songs that made people think we were a vampire band! 

[duplicitywrites]

🍭🌿?

thank you beloved apples 🍎

🍭why did you start writing?

i've had silly little stories in my head forever. as a kid i wrote a surprising amount of original fiction -- i still have a lot of those files saved somewhere... and while the writing certainly leaves something to be desired, the ideas were very interesting 😂

specifically the first story i remember writing a substantial amount of was princess diaries inspired. girl discovers she's a princess, gets whisked away for Princess Training.

things take a funny turn when the cute boy who is teaching her Princess History or whatever turns out to be her brother?? who also has wild blackouts where he murders people or something like that. so for some reason their parents just gave him a whole new identity, i don't really remember why.

✔ murder ✔ (accidental, star wars style) incest ✔ supernatural elements because i'm pretty sure i intended him to have a werewolf vibe

in retrospect maybe what i write nowadays isn't that surprising

🌿 how does creating make you feel?

about the same as life does. sometimes everything is great and sometimes you want to set your brain on fire

[dragonairice]

first-draft snippet of chapter 4!! i don't know if it's ooc but I just like to write hundreds of words of jeremy being absolutely clueless

Day 2/??? - Approximately early morning.

Jeremy’s (frankly embarrassing) haze of purple lullabies and the best night’s sleep he’d ever had in his life were very abruptly ended when he felt cold water splash his face. Ah, now cold water dares make an entrance? When he was already in peace? Rude.

He sensed his panic creep in from a mile away, in the second between “what the hell” and “this is the second time I have had to process that I’m not dreaming.” But the first motive for panic cancelled the second out, since once he opened his eyes he saw a better reason to worry.

A woman. She looked angry, and although Jeremy deeply wished that anger wasn’t directed at him, he figured there wasn’t anyone else around. Great.

He opened his mouth to speak, but only a pathetic and embarrassing and girly scream came out of his throat. Double great.

The woman looked like she was about to beat him up, like she was a hunter and him a damn cockroach appearing in the bathroom. But instead of vandalizing his backpack, she asked him brusquely:

“Why are you here?” Jeremy wished he could answer. Or at least being able to articulate that he wished he could answer.

He curled up tighter against the grass. Like that would have helped anywhere, he thought, since it definitely hadn’t the last 2 times. He could feel his annoying heartbeat already speeding up, what was the fight or flight response for, if he always freezed?

The scary woman looked unimpressed and slightly annoyed. (That was never a good look on someone that looks like they could beat you up. “Amazing job, Jer,” he scolded himself.)

He was promptly grabbed by the shirt and lifted from the ground. It always seemed funny, in retrospective, that he chose to notice little details when he panicked. Yes, he was so scared he might vomit in this woman’s face. Yes, he could also see that the necklace she bore had a half-heart, one of those “best/friends” necklaces 10-year-old girls bought at the mall and that was all the front tab of his brain would focus on. Shut up.

His examination was paused when the woman yelled in his face, a very scary “Who are you and why are you here?”

That did the trick.

“Jeremy! I’m Jeremy! I don’t know where I am please don’t hit me,” he blurted.(“Very impressive, Jer, what a way with words you have,” he thought sarcastically.) But the woman didn’t hit him, so he marked it as a success. (However, the option wasn't discarded in his brain, and he stayed alert for a change in her attitude.)

She let him go, and he very ungracefully fell on his back. Yay.

“Alright, Jeremy,” she spat, very literally spat while she spoke. He didn’t know if spit carried bacteria in this weird space but he still didn’t like it much. “Tell me everything you know, right now, or I swear respawning will be your worst nightmare.”

He had heard better threats, by far more eloquent videogame enemies, but he wasn’t exactly in the position to be picky on dialogue. He was in the position of getting beaten up.

He was not that stupid as to not infer, from the situation, that “everything” was related to the very recent “everything”s he had been experiencing. Only after a few seconds it occurred to him that he hadn’t said anything. Brilliant.

“I, um, I, I think it was, um, yesterday? And I wasn’t here but, I, I, um, bought a game with my friend and I woke up here,” he said, eloquently.

“Right.” The woman looked like she was expecting him to go on. Ah.

“And, um. There was a, a green field? Robotic voice from the, the sky and. Yeah, then it shocked me a lot.” He paused for air, then realized his mistake, “I mean shocked me as in the electric kind, not the ‘wow’ kind. Well, the ‘wow’ kind too, but in a bad way. Very bad ‘wow’, you know?” He chuckled in hopes that it would relieve the tension. It did not. Wow. Shocking.

The woman scanned him. What she was doing was only describable as “scanning”. Her eyes were brown and bright, but not in a Michael, warm way. They were bright like a knife’s gleam. 

He did what he did best: keep talking and making things worse.

“And I, there was kind of a beam? Bright light, and I woke up here. Hah, Heere.” He mumbled at a possibly very annoying speed “Sorry, I mean, then I rolled a bit on this, um, purple hill?”

The woman stared at him for a few minutes. It was very uncomfortable, and all he could do was wait for her to stop doing so. Which was uncomfortable too. He used the nervous time to properly look at his possible future bully.

The woman was tall, strong and scary. Long hair tied in a- braid, it looked like. Poofy hair, like that girl that sit in front of him in History class last year. But that girl was shorter and paler, and this woman was about to beat the living daylights out of him. a red shirt, like the ones he saw on that period drama with Michael last winter. 

She looked like a proper human-rogue, with all of the little bags on her belt and the cloak around her shoulders. The golden tattoos- tattoos? The golden marks (“it was so rude of me to assume they were tattoos, oh my god”) spiraling around her dark arms weren’t helping her beat the Cool D&D Avatar allegations Jeremy’s brain had already offered. Then he remembered how the sky robot voice hadn’t offered D&D classes as options for whatever the hell this was, and the thought was sadly shut down. Damn.

“Look, kid, I’m sorry, but you have to leave. It’s not,” she paused. Jeremy was getting sick of being stared at, it was like being back at school. “It’s not a fun game, it’s a game in a very… very bad way. It’s not a game for you, it’s a game for him. You need to leave.” She explained. Or tried to explain, because Jeremy wasn’t feeling more enlightened than he did when she woke him up. 

Her voice sounded tired, he noticed, but pointing it out would be rude, and he wasn’t about to be rude to this scary woman.

He had been worrying more about being rude lately. Since when was he so polite? (“Since you actually interact with people, because you don’t have to worry about that if you don’t talk to anyone,” a saccharine voice that sounded like Michael’s sarcasm chirped in his head.)

He needed to reply right this instant.

“Yeah, eh, I would definitely like to, to leave? I really would but, uh, I don’t know how. I’m sorry,” he said, quieter than he would have liked. Then it occurred to him that this woman should know how to do so! This woman was telling him to leave, she could tell him how to leave and then he would leave and go back to his life and wake up and realize all of this was a very very realistic slushie-induced coma dream! Great, fantastic even!

It also occurred to him that he didn’t know this woman’s name. Ah, there went his concerns about not being rude towards people that could beat him up. Since she hadn’t said anything yet, he should hurry up and fix that.

“I, um, what’s your name? Also, how do I leave? I swear I won’t bother you anymore once I do!” 

She stared at him, and it really sucked to be stared at.

“You don’t have to tell me! It’s ok, I will try to figure it out on my own just, um, it would probably take a while. I’m sorry.”

She sighed, looking disappointed on him. Or maybe that was just his nerves?

“I’m Myrene. And I was hoping you’d know how to leave by default. Or that when another player arrived it would be someone else. Sorry for picking you up, kid.”

Now it was Jeremy’s turn to stare at the wom- at Myrene. 

“So, you don’t know how to leave?” That came out wrong, very very wrong and he sounded like he was mocking her. Shit. “It’s a, a genuine question, I’m sorry for the tone!” Saved it, great.

She sighed and, before Jeremy could feel bad about it, she offered him a hand to get up. And he stared like an idiot at it for several seconds, because of course he did, before accepting the offer and thanking whoever was up there that she hadn’t punched his lights out.

“You can follow me if you want, I won’t force you. But a kid like you shouldn’t be bumbling around this place,” she said. To be honest, Jeremy was very relieved that he had something to do instead of processing the panic that had been bottling up inside him since he woke up. And she seemed to know what she was doing, so…

He decided to follow a stranger to a second location, greatl! Fine, cool, chill.

Oh this probably was supposed to be first but my phone messed up my inbox woopsies

One thing I noticed - "what was the fight or flight response for, if he always freezed?" should be "if he always froze"

BUT OTHER THAN THAT I ADORE THIS IT'S SO VERY COOL <33

Jeremy continues to point out the D&D parallels peace and love

ALso poitning pointing pointing Autism

[fostersffff]

*sidles over* so.....heard you got upset over ZTD......I'm something of a ZTD hater myself....idk if you have the mental RAM to really get into it rn considering your current projects but I'd love to hear you complain about it at length

So, granted, it's been... seven years (!!!) since I played it, so I don't remember every minor detail, but I can absolutely talk at length about The Fucking Stupid Thing That Fucking Sucks And Makes (Almost) Everything Bad In Retrospect

(big dumb spoilers for ZTD beneath the break)

Of the (admittedly few) VNs I've read, nothing has deflated me harder than getting to the Transporter Room. 999 did a really good job of building up to the idea of morphogenetic fields, and VLR then took that concept and slowly ramped up the "power level" with shifting, so the player could accept greater feats of psuedoscientific nonsense. But that was the universe, and the suspension of disbelief held.

Then, in a single fucking gameplay segment, Uchikoshi went "oh yeah ayylmaos are real and they left an Actual Time Machine that works in the exact specific way that I need for the plot to happen the way I want it to". It cheapened basically everything else that happened afterwards, too! Like, Sigma and Diana realizing Phi is their daughter should be an emotional megaton, and it felt like that at the time, but there something gnawing at me that has since widened out into a cavern because the way they got there was so unbelievably convoluted and unearned.

Delta also sucks in a way that is... kind of what I was expecting? Living up to the hype from VLR was always going to be a long-shot, but then he actually gets lamer as time goes on. On the subject of "shit not being introduced", he gets a set of powers that is effectively parallel to shifting called MIND HACKING because there's literally no other way that he could manipulate the events of the game into happening the way they needed to, so he just got a set of powers that could manipulate the events of the game into happening the way he needed to.

Another thing that jumps out at me is that 80% of how Mira was handled was actually Really Fucking Good, but the last 20% sucks so hard it, again, almost invalidates all of it. Smoking hot uninterested super babe dating The Biggest Loser On Earth who seems (to the player) like she's just there to have big titties for the player to look at is then revealed to be a violent serial killer who can only feel when she's murdering, which is the actual reason she's so uninterested and "dating" the loser is so she can murder him later. But then it turns out (checking the wiki real quick to refresh my memory) that one of her first victims was the loser's mom, which actually tied into everything else that ever happened in the series. And then they have the audacity to throw in the happy epilogue where they're like "BABE WE'RE MARRIED NOW AND WE'RE GONNA GO USE THE (fucking) AYYLMAO TRANSPORTER TO CURE YOU OF YOUR BRAIN PROBLEMS". Not everyone needs to have a happily ever after ending!

Carlos sucks too, but in a benign way for the most part? Like, he's there because they needed three people on a team, and he's a Main Character Man, and that's about it. It's very funny that the Grand Finale is him pointing a gun at Delta, like this has been his story all along, when it should probably be Akane beating him to death.

Also, the last and most obvious thing, the "style" of ZTD was always an annoying point, because even though the character artwork is gorgeous, they instead decided that they had to use some of the stiffest looking 3D models "to appeal to Americans" or something (even though the American fanbase evidently was cool with character portraits considering they bought 999 and VLR in the first place), made worse by the fact that it's originally a 3DS game, so even uprezzing doesn't help all that much.

I think that's all I can remember, but seriously: more than anything else, fuck that Ayylmao Transporter.

[smokeybrandreviews]

A Rambling Retrospective of Phase Four

I always find it funny that cats keep attacking the MCU because Phase Four was the worst one, but people forget that the entire Marvel franchise is for f*cking kids. Now, I'll be the first to say a kids flick doesn't need to be brain-dead on arrival but, with the exception of Thor 2, none of the MCU films actually are. For the most part, they are solid flicks with decent messaging and great characters. In terms of Phase Four, the writing has slipped, for sure, so a ton of sh*t is getting shoehorned into shows that should have been films and films that should have been shows. And that’s the problem with Phase Four: Execution. WandaVision should have been a movie. Shorten up that run time, focus the budget a bit, and that sh*t could have been wonderful. The last two episodes of that show were trash. They ran out of money. With a cinematic run time of two and a half hours, you are forced to trim that fat. Same thing with Ms. Marvel. Make it a Special, like Werewolf by Night and carry on. Eternals should have been, for sure, a limited series. Focus on the principal characters as we follow them over the years after their break up, subtly weaving the danger of the those Deviants throughout the narrative, and end with that revelation about the Celestials which could potentially lead into a film. Build a little mini-Eternals universe within the MCU because that’s basically what they are. Execution.

Honestly, while Phase Four has been disappointing, it’s not all terrible. There are some very strong entries in this, more or less, experimental Phase. Obviously No Way Home is peak Spider-fair, i really dig Moon Knight (a fourth watch is actually what spurred this essay), and i actually really liked both Loki and Ms. Marvel. I though Falcon and Bucky was a very strong entry which was as important a story to tell as Black Panther and, for all of my previous criticisms, i genuinely enjoy, like, eighty percent of WandaVision. Speaking of, MoM was amazing because of Wanda and Shang-Chi worked in a way i did not expect. There is much more good in Phase Four than bad. Let’s be honest, even at it’s worst (She-Hulk), Phase Four has nothing as sh*t as say, Transformers 2. Not even Dark World is THAT dog sh*t. Phase Four is, undeniably, the worst the MCU has ever been but its not because of wokeness or lack of passion. People are blinded by all of the “social messaging” and “identity politics”, which is f*cking stupid because, upon a revisit to the majority of these entries, these films don’t say sh*t. There is no messaging. Outside of making people of color the leads of these new entries, or gender-swapping a few B-list villains, there is nothing so overly egregious about Phase Four to make it that controversial. I you have beef with Phase Four, make sure it’s on the merit of the shows, themselves, and not because of the diversity put on display.

Falcon and Bucky has an undercurrent of race relations throughout it’s run, which makes sense, because the lead character is a black man. More than that, i hearkens back to the incredibly f*cked up history the US has with black bodies, personified with the character Isaiah Bradley. That type of sh*t happened to us all the time. It still is happening to this day. The fact that there is a capeflick story about, doesn’t take away from the fact that Falcon and Bucky is arguably the strongest entry in Phase Four. It’s also the only show with a message. Well, i take that back. She-Hulk kind of does, too. Now, i liked She-Hulk. I th0ught it was a cute little side-story which rang true to the character i know from the comics but all of the neckbeards and chauvinists were ringing their bigot bells because the dared to make light of their sexist squeals. That entire show is meta commentary about the reaction said show was going to get in the blogshpere. It’s f*cking wild because, even the few who picked up on the fact that the entire goddamn show was dunking on them, still went on their rants about how the “M-She-U” was ruining everything. Outside of these two entries, there is absolutely no messaging in  anything the MCU has ever made. Even in Phase Four, those two shows are the only inherently messaged pieces of media but, apparently, the entire Phase is terrible because of politics? Really? Y’all are throwing the baby out with the bigoted bathwater.

Phase Four sucks because the writing has dulled considerably and the executives started taking the audience for granted. hey stopped trying and got comfortable with their formula. The worst hing about the MCU is they blew their load with the first three Phases. They used up all of the recognizable heroes early on, which is funny because, when the MCU started, those cats were B-list. Plus That’s why Marvel even had the rights to Iron Man in the first place; No other studio wanted to buy them. He wasn’t known as a top seller. That movie MADE the MCU, which made every other character introduced along the way. But that’s over now. Just like in comics, it’s time to change the guard. Phase Four was always going to be a difficult situation. It was always going to awkward. We are saying goodbye to characters we’ve known and loved for a decade, while introducing characters no one knows a f*cking thing about. Shang-Chi? Really? Kamala Khan? Riri Williams? Who the f*ck are these character and why should we care? That’s literally the same thing everyone said when Iron Man dropped in 08. Look how far we've come. And we got this far on the back of solid writing, dope execution, and great f*cking performances. Phase Four has two out of three, which kind of lines up with Phase One when you think about it.

More to the point, how do you come back after Endgame? DO you have any idea how difficult a challenge trying to continue any semblance of narrative after the f*cking Infinity Saga? Of course the first Phase after such an endearing narrative was going to be all over the place. What threat is as potent as Thanos? What villain is a is imposing? How do you tell a better story after half the goddamn universe was snapped out of existence? That, in of itself, should give a bit of leeway in where we are to go next but nope! “Fans” are taking to the internet in an effort to spew their vitriol and hate, not because the shows; themselves, are bad, but because they are too “woke.” Woke being code for ethnic, of course. I’ll be the first to say some of that is a little heavy-handed but even with the current management botching fundamental aspects of cinema, these films are still popcorn blockbusters that have a ton of heart. If I'm a twelve year old getting into comics for the first time, the MCU is a perfect adaption of that experience. They are fun, lighthearted, character-driven adventures which don't go too heavy on the messaging and isn't some grimdark, edgelord, misery festival like Snyder's DCEU. There's a reason Aquaman, the most MCU of that lot, made a billion goddamn dollars. Capefilms can be highbrow fair if they want to be. Road to Perdition and V for Vendetta exist. They can be elevated to Oscar caliber cinema. Joker and The Dark Knight claim that crown. But let's not forget that, first and foremost, these are movies about cats who where their underwear on the outside and cut this genre a bit of slack. Cut the MCU a bit of slack. They’re starting over after giving you a decade’s worth of the best entertainment possible, even though they’re just supposed to be kids movies.

[nom-de-plume-system]

We used to have two sisters, both older, one disabled to the point of being unable to communicate/walk/feed herself. She was the one favored by everyone; she always got the sweets, the good snacks, while we sometimes would go hungry. (Our oldest sister would starve us both though, and sometimes we'd have to sneak snacks)

We never really got close to our disabled sister, there was nothing we could get close to; when we were really young, we played with her as kids do, she had limited mobility on her hands and knees and some dexterity with her hands, but it wasn't the same as someone like us. (for context, she got cerebral palsy from a mosquito bite after I suspect our egg donor didn't vaccinate her; she got an infection, brain swelling, seizures, and then she wasn't the same afterwards; supposedly, she couldn't even swallow her own saliva. Our egg donor did treatment via hyperbaric oxygen therapy; supposedly, it helped greatly, considering she could eat and swallow in our very earliest memories.)

Unfortunately, our oldest sister... she was parentified from as early as perhaps 11, and when we were really young, she didn't seem to hold a lot of hatred for us. We kissed, we played, she bathed me, but there was also times I remember the bath water being too hot and it hurt and she had left the room and didn't- or ignored- our cries. We were in 1st grade. 6, or 7.

We remember our egg donor finding us, showing how red our skin was to our sister, and berating her.

When we lived in Florida?, we had gone to an uncle's place, and we were going to leave, it was nighttime, and she had strapped me into my booster seat and left the door open. I don't remember what exactly happened, but I remember while she was gone my booster seat wanted to topple over, and I held onto the car door for dear life until a while later she found me and got it right again, as I couldn't undo it.

She was, an okay caretaker. We were a bratty, picky child, we were spanked more then our oldest sister was in her life. One time we were super hungry, in Florida, we had gotten some fast food, and we were super hungry, and didn't want to say please. We had grabbed the bag after 15 minutes of it being in front of our face, and our egg donor pulled over and spanked us, and we didn't get to eat.

We had diagnosed ADHD and Aspergers, our egg donor flushed down the ADHD meds down the toilet, and we were super hyper and inattentive, and probably a handful. Throwing that onto someone as early as 11, and I could see where it could breed resentment.

I do remember when we lived in a house in Florida, I grabbed a bunch of socks, put them on one foot, and asked my sister to take them off, and she did, until she discovered another sock, then another and another... it was a funny little prank, in retrospect.

I remember those little tad frog books and games, in our old bedroom in Florida.

I also remember finding a thing of Nesquick, playing with it, spreading it on the bed- guest bed? and our oldest sister discovering, us being put into another room- a bunk bed room, so maybe not the Florida room? And crying because it was scratchy and sticky and we remembered finally going to sleep with it still on.

We were maybe two, or four, during those times.

I remember watching Inuyasha with her, being up in a high chair, and falling asleep, waking up, wanting out, before falling back asleep.

But I also remember, when we were 13, well into Arizona and not having power or water at times, we wanted to put on some black lipstick she wore, and she said "no, egg donor didn't let me wear black lipstick until I was such-and-such age" (16? 18?), and we snuck it and wore it for a while until she caught us, yelled at us until we cried, and made us wash it off.

She would starve us when our egg donor was back in Florida and we were in Arizona, and she was scream at us and make us refold clothing over and over and over until it was perfect, starved us when it wasn't, and we were only 10 or so at the time. We snuck a corned beef roast until we became sick of eating it one time during that resulting in a permanent diet fatigue/repulsion to it, and our disabled sister was skin and bones with heavy knots in her curly hair as she was neglected heavily and couldn't sneak food. When our egg donor called, she would lie and say we were asleep, or she would make sure we were in a good mood and in the same room when we got on the phone with her, and then our oldest sister would take away the phone, kept it in her room where she stayed most of the day, and would sometimes tell us that the egg donor authorized her spanking us. (And these spanks were not light smacks with a palm; it was hard lashes with Home Depot paint sticks, and those things hurt!)

She was 20, we were 10, and the only person she feared was all the way in Florida with no way of knowing.

As the years went on, as we grew older, she seemed to get worse... but near the end of us living with her, we fought back - I wish we didn't personally as a new-ish host that never met her, but we were grown, we could maybe overpower her, and after all the years of what she did to us, it felt like just deserts.

Now that we've left Arizona, we want to go back though. I wish I could. After the severe neglect our egg donor did for both me and my disabled sister, and the neglect our actual caretaker did, even I'm afraid to know for sure if our disabled is actually alive. After all the calls to CPS that was on our egg donor's record, it makes me worried. After the fact our egg donor and oldest sister murdered our father (ruled as an accident but we have evidence that shows very much otherwise, but been too afraid to show since we have a deep mistrust of police and despite us being powerless, we'd rather die than go to jail for our dad's fate, which we had no control over.)

Our oldest sister is likely to murder either our egg donor or our disabled sister (or both!) out of resentment, or our egg donor murdering our oldest sister since we are no longer the scapegoat that could be sacrificed...

How can I help our disabled sister, if I don't have the money to at the moment? I'm sure there's programs, government assistance, but I'm not sure entirely. I'm willing to help her, feed her, bathe her, clothe her, play with her, be her caretaker and her younger-yet-older brother, at least do more hyperbaric oxygen therapy and other things to see about helping her.

I don't have the money to go back to Arizona yet either, and I don't want to abandon a job once I do, but the only reliable way to get money is to get a job, since freelance work hasn't been working out, and it could take well over 2 weeks to get everything sorted. The longer I wait the more it's likely that our egg donor will disappear off the map and leave the house we left abandoned; she certainly was doing that already before we left. (We had a friend look, and there is some changes to the house, so it's abandoned but not fully...)

U.S. based, if anyone has any advice, it would be really appreciated. It feels like a double bind and I can't stomach waiting and not doing anything for much longer.

comments from tiktok about siblings