#by little i mean a couple of weeks at most

[trustmypoison]

SVT in a long-distance relationship

Requested? Yes!

Request: ‘hi! i love all of your writing! Would you be willing to write a fic about SVT in a long distance relationship? thank you!!‘

It’s physically painful to be separated from his phone - Jun, Hoshi, Vernon

You guys have a never-ending text conversation that really doesn’t have good mornings or good nights included at this point. There’s no point in it when you guys were already talking, you know? On bad days when he really misses you, he hands his phone over with a deep sigh when he can’t take it with him. Like, does he want to perform? Of course! But some nights, he’s counting down the minutes until the show is over, and he can pick up the conversation again with a simple ‘I’m back.’ Really doesn’t mind the physical distance so much as long as you’re just a message or phone call away. 

A total expert at FaceTime dates - Jeonghan, Wonwoo, DK, Chan

Complete with a recurring calendar invite every week and everything so neither of you schedule over it. You guys usually eat together, even if one of you is having breakfast and the other is having dinner. The distance doesn’t feel so bad when you guys can just simply carry each other from room to room and keep up the conversation for hours on end. And when you don’t feel like cooking for yourself on one of those FaceTime dates? You don’t know how he does it because he doesn’t even break conversation or seem distracted, but takeout just shows up at your door. When you lightly scold and thank him for it, he pretends like he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. 

Constantly sending gifts to you in the mail - Seungcheol, Woozi, Seungkwan

Regular communication? Most certainly. But the little silver lining in a long distance relationship for him would be packing up a little care package every couple weeks or so. Tangible objects mean a lot to him when it comes to you, so he gives you a constant stream of them. Sometimes, it’s just snacks or little trinkets. But sometimes, it’s extravagant gifts that make your jaw drop and scold him for the expense. He sort of lives for the random text that he can sneak to read during a busy day when you say, ‘Not again!!’ Shortly followed by a ‘Thank you, I love it.’ And naturally, he loves your little care packages, too. If one of his members tries to get a hold of it before he can, he can and will fight for it because you made it, and it’s his. 

Just gets on a plane the moment he has some free time - Joshua, Mingyu, Minghao

The constant phone calls and texts, regular FaceTime dates, and gifts in the mail are great and bring him a lot of comfort when he needs them. But nothing beats having some time off to just jump on a plane and go see you. He doesn’t really care if you have to go about your business because it’s a surprise, and you can’t take time off. He’ll wait patiently at your home while you have to be out and do things for you while you’re gone. And when you’re finally home, expect him to be glued to you. The ‘goodbye for now’ might be hard when he has to go back home, but it’s well worth it. 

[brucebocchi]

Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 5: #10-1

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here, part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here. all of my seasonal reviews are on my ko-fi and under my anime reviews tag, mixed in with my occasional musings. thanks!

And we are in the home stretch! I didn't want to split up my top 10 like last year, so it took a couple days to get it all together. Thanks for your patience.

​As you may have noticed, some of these reviews are longer than others. I've reviewed most of these shows before, so I didn't want to be too redundant while talking about shows I've already reviewed. You can, of course, go back and read my initial reviews in my previous seasonal roundups.

Also, I just wanted to quickly shout out a few shows that I haven't watched much or any of, but would likely have placed well in these rankings, namely Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction, YATAGARASU, the Spice and Wolf remake, Orb: On the Movements of Earth, Sound! Euphonium's third season, and the late Akira Toriyama's SAND LAND and Dragon Ball DAIMA. I only have so much time in a day, week, month, and year, but those series have been on my radar and I do intend to pick them up sooner or later.

But for now, let's focus on what I did watch. Off we go:

10. Blue Box

This is a slightly biased placement on my end because I picked up the manga this year and quickly fell in love with it, and I’m just happy that it got a faithful, well-made anime adaptation. If you have an issue with that, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: This whole list is biased. It’s MY list, after all.

After an uneven summer output between My Dear Friend Nokotan and Suicide Squad Isekai, WIT Studio is in full form adapting Kouji Miura’s gorgeous high school sports romance. Rising first-year badminton player Taiki has a huge crush on his basketball star senpai Chinatsu, who practices in the same high school gym he does. He’s happy enough to keep a friendly distance as they improve at their respective sports, but that distance is closed significantly when her parents go abroad for work and she ends up moving in under the same roof as him. The spirit of competition is in the air, and is that a whiff of romance I smell as well?

The reason I felt the need to call out my own bias at the start is because Blue Box’s debut cour is, on balance, probably just “pretty good,” but I was just so overjoyed that this anime even exists that I was willing to overlook the early story’s growing pains. Taiki, of course, is the POV character for most of the first cour, and most of the romantic tension we see so far is entirely from his end as he swoons and huffs and goes into cardiac arrest over any and every gesture Chinatsu throws his way. You know, teenage boy stuff. There have been criticisms that Chinatsu doesn’t get much interiority for a bit and that she’s a bit of an enigma in terms of her role in the central “romance,” such that it is so far, which is a valid criticism of a lot of shonen romance stories. I’m generally of the mind that these things are more potent when the object of the protagonist’s affection is treated as more than a puzzle for him to solve, but I think Blue Box does a fine job of establishing what Chinatsu means to Taiki before we do indeed begin to get a feel for how she operates and what she might think of him. If you found that part a little maddening early on, trust me when I say it’s worth sticking it out.

Regardless, the character writing is what made Blue Box such a hit in Weekly Shonen Jump. Taiki is a flat-out good kid, if a little naive, and his boundless determination to achieve and exceed his goals in both badminton and romance makes him easy to root for. Chinatsu is fairly taciturn, as mentioned, but that’s by design; she’s a notoriously difficult person to read, as even her friends and teammates note that they can rarely decipher what she’s thinking. She’s still an effortlessly charming character, and it’s not hard to figure out why Taiki’s got it so bad for her. The real highlight of the series, though, is Taiki’s classmate and longtime friend, Hina, a rhythmic gymnast and an absolute troll. She is an absolute delight in every scene she’s in, whether she’s knocking Taiki’s knees out from under him, focusing on rehearsing her next routine, or prying into Taiki’s love life and realizing that, oops, she really cares about him too. Hina is wonderful and I just want the best for her.

Characters this likable will need the voices to match, and I am over the moon about this show’s casting. Shouya Chiba is tremendous as Taiki, in a far cry from his Epic Based Stoic Chad role as Ayanokoji in Classroom of the Elite. Every line read for Taiki sounds exactly as gung-ho about sports and devastatingly down bad for his crush as you’d expect of a hormonal 15 year old. Reina Ueda is terrific as the soft-spoken Chinatsu, but I’m looking forward to hearing the always-delightful Xanthe Huynh (Haru in Persona 5, Marianne in Fire Emblem Three Houses) take on the role in the dub just as much. Akari Kitou channels much of the same gremlin energy she did for KamiKatsu to portray Hina’s mischief, and I look forward to hearing her nail Hina’s excellent upcoming character moments. And although it’s a secondary role, the casting I was most excited to hear was Chiaki Kobayashi (Mash in Mashle, Stark in Frieren) as Taiki’s teammate Kyo. Kobayashi’s languid tsukkomi affect was exactly what I had in mind whenever Kyo would put Taiki’s lovelorn antics into stark relief in the manga. It’s like he was born for the part.

This show looks tremendous, perfectly adapting both the soft, doe-eyed character designs from the manga as well as the lower-detail gags. The pastel color palette and gorgeous lighting effects are exactly what I was hoping for while reading the manga.  If I have any complaint, though, it’s mostly that I want to see more of the sports action. The granular details of the badminton matches and basketball games are hardly the focus of the story, but the action panels are usually the best part of Miura’s art in the manga. Shot-for-shot, it certainly does hew close to the manga presentation, but it’s mostly a racquet swing or close-up jump shot followed by an onlooker’s reaction. I’d have liked a bit more follow through. The CGI used for background competitors can get a little distracting after a while, too, but it’s easy to forget about.

Blue Box is continuing into 2025, and I’m waiting for every new episode with bated breath. If you liked the first cour enough but still have doubts, trust me when I say it just keeps getting better. I look forward to coming back to the second half of this season in another year for my victory lap.

9. Girls Band Cry

This is one of the most inventive girls-band anime out there, certainly the most so since that one from 2022 that I swore I wouldn’t bring up by name. Gorgeous 3D-CG animation, stirring original music, and a compelling cast of characters combine to make Girls Band Cry even more than the sum of its parts.

More than anything, I think what makes Girls Band Cry a terrific showbiz series is that it depicts the uncomfortable reality that a lot of artists are just flat-out unpleasant people and often don’t mesh well with one another. Protagonist Nina is messy, stubborn, and angry at the world and her parents and will not hesitate to make it your problem. She butts heads with her friends and bandmates at any provocation, but stubbornness is a major driving factor in the plot: Each of the five members of Togenashi Togeari has something they’re trying to move on from with their music, and while they each have an opinion on how to get there, they do come to realize, after a lot of silly yelling matches, that they want to do so together.

As a vehicle to push Girls Band Cry and Togenashi Togeari as a real-world multimedia experience, this show is a success. It’s a terrific-looking show in ways we rarely see outside of Studio Orange productions (and allegedly Love Live! Sunshine!!, which director Kazuo Sakai also had a hand in); the 3D computer-generated character models and animations are terrifically expressive and lively, and creative visual effects add a compelling sense of synaesthesia to Nina's emotional highs and lows. The voice cast, all pseudonymous contest winners, are also the real-life band members, and they fully nail both elements of their roles. TogeToge’s music in the show is terrific, and as an already-existing Gorillaz-esque virtual band, I’m excited to dig into their back catalog.

Girls Band Cry finally got an official English translation, so there’s no longer any excuse to sleep on this one. It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, and above all else, it fucking rocks. Don’t let this one fade away just because you might’ve missed it when it aired.

8. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, second cour

When I ranked the first cour of Frieren as the best anime of 2023, I wrote:

The debut season of Frieren will continue into 2024, and if the quality remains a constant, it could very well be one of the best anime of next year too. It has remained as MyAnimeList’s top-rated anime ever for its entire run, warding off the legion of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood fans. Frieren deserves it.

A year later, it is still MAL’s top-rated anime, and by a healthy margin. Another 12 episodes aired to kick off 2024, and it was indeed one of the best anime of this year as well. I stand firm in my convictions that not only is it one of the best anime of the decade so far, it’s one of the best anime I’ve ever seen.

I really shot my wad by praising Frieren so profusely midway through its run, to the point where I still don’t really feel the need to add much more here. The second cour mostly focuses on the First Class Mage exam arc, allowing us to learn more about the present state of magic in the modern day and adding some much-needed depth to the cast. It continues to strike a lovely balance between the quieter moments and bonkers action sequences, as well as the more serious moments with laugh-out-loud goofiness. It may be a lesser arc in this story, but it would be a standout in so many others.

If I haven’t been clear enough, I remain over the moon about Frieren. The second cour looks and sounds just as incredible as the first, and this show’s success should serve as a reminder to the industry that investment in quality pays off. Madhouse knows they have a banger on their hands, and if the next season can maintain this level of production value for the major arc that is still to come, Frieren may very well earn GOAT status. Even if another season somehow never materializes, I’ll still be talking about this season in five years when it comes time to talk about the best of the decade. Watch this goddamn show.

7. A Sign of Affection

For all the romance anime and manga I consume, I’ve shamefully been lacking on the shoujo/josei front. I really gotta fix that. If reading more shoujo was what spurred Yukinobu Tatsu to make DanDaDan, then who knows what it might do for me? A Sign of Affection isn’t my first shoujo, strictly speaking, but it does feel like one of the first I’ve seen of the good old-fashioned flowery romance type.

What a gorgeous show. A Sign of Affection looks terrific, sounds terrific, and above all feels terrific. This is just a lovely, fluffy romance with low stakes and easy payoff; just two pretty people getting to know each other and learning to overcome their differences. It’s low on gimmicks and plot contrivances, and for as much as I like romcoms and romance stories with a unique bent, I love a good straightforward romance just as much sometimes. Everyone looks beautiful and likes each other and Jesus Christ look at the lips on these boys. There’s even a double-date to Costco, and what better depiction of marital bliss could there be?

I’m still pleasantly surprised at how this show handles the main character’s disability. Protagonist Yuki’s congenital deafness isn’t a single-note character quirk or a plot device to make her seem helpless; it simply is. It’s a part of her life that serves as the lens through which all of the people in her life see and treat her, and it leads to the only thing that resembles a major conflict in the show. Itsuomi, the main romantic interest, doesn’t baby her or walk all over her; he instead gently tests her boundaries while learning to accommodate her in a way to ensure her comfort. Her childhood friend Oushi, on the other hand, is very jealous of this development because he seems to feel entitled to her just because he did the bare minimum to accommodate her. The circumstances aren’t common, of course, but it’s a good lesson for a shoujo to have: Don’t settle.

My praise for A Sign of Affection mostly boils down to “it’s just really nice,” but it does “just really nice” so goddamn well. It’s fluffy, it’s comfy, it’s cozy, all of those adjectives that would set off my fight-or-flight response if I heard them from someone else, but I was enthralled by this show week in and week out. I can’t believe I neglected to start reading the manga, and I’m gonna have to get on that ASAP because I can’t wait for another season.

6. The Apothecary Diaries, second cour

I found myself more intrigued at The Apothecary Diaries at the end of 2023 than most other shows I’d watched that year. I grew more and more invested in the idiosyncratic Maomao as she investigated mysterious ailments and navigated imperial palace politics, all the while being a lovable little shit. 

Before I’d realized it, though, the 2024 half of its run knew it had its hooks in me and took me for a ride. What looked at first like a series of one-off puzzles quickly began entangling into a much larger mystery, rapidly gaining momentum until exploding into a massive emotional payoff. So many of the small details in what you assume are episodic mystery-of-the-week mini-stories become relevant in unexpected ways and draw you in ever further. I adore this kind of lowkey long-term storytelling, and for it to be part of such an appealing package is basically catnip for me.

For as gorgeous as The Apothecary Diaries can be visually, sonically, and sometimes even emotionally, it’s worth mentioning that this show is also hilarious a lot of the time. Maomao is on permanent goblin mode whenever she isn’t carrying out official business, and any time the palace officials have to rein her in is a delight. The push-and-pull between her and Jinshi is endlessly entertaining to the point where I can wait forever for that payoff if I have to.

I neglected to read the Apothecary Diaries manga after the first season went off the air (though I nearly bought all of it sight unseen), and with the second about to drop, I guess I’m holding off for another six months. Can’t say I mind, though. I’m along for the ride and I want this show to keep surprising me for as long as it can. This is easily one of the best anime of the 2020s so far and I’m gonna be there front row center for every new episode.

5. Bang Brave Bang Bravern

People say “peak fiction” too goddamn often these days. Not that it was a meaningful term to begin with, but it’s been memed to hell and back and is mostly just thrown out ironically to mock garbage writing. To be honest, I’m not above it myself, but I prefer to ascribe it, even jokingly, to stuff that can only truly come from a brilliant and/or deranged mind. Preferably both. Peak fiction, to me, is the intersection where talent meets insanity, no matter the degree of either.

Bang Brave Bang Bravern is peak fiction.

I gushed about this show after the winter season, and I almost don’t want to say anything further about it, mostly for two reasons: Firstly, because I don’t really want to give the game away any more than I already did back in April, and secondly, because I think it may have permanently burrowed into a specific part of my brain and then melted it. All I’m left with is “this show fucking rocks, dudes rock, you need to see it, it’s peak, don't ask questions, just watch it.”

Indeed, Bravern is the Dudes Rock anime of the year, and an essential piece of Dudes Rock media. It’s Top Gun with aliens and a giant talking robot. And the robot wants to fuck his pilot. This show is loud, horny, stupid, and self-aware, combined just so into a cocktail of legitimate brilliance that is, for better or worse, unlike anything I’ve seen before or since. Nearly every single episode had me clawing at my hair and shrieking “WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING,” and that is the highest praise I can give just about anything.

I might be overselling it just a touch, but Bravern is just as earnest as it is utterly wild. It’s an intentionally hilarious show, but it means everything it does and says. It’s a love letter to mecha anime and tokusatsu, and with its top staff sporting Gundam and Macross bona fides, that love oozes into every aspect. The mechs, both manmade and alien, all look tremendous, the music is a throwback to the goofy bombast you’d find in series like this as far back as the Showa era, and the ensemble cast outside of our silly leads are just as gung-ho and serious about Saving The World as you’d find in just about any other mech show. Anything that can be this goofy with a completely straight face is going to hook me in.

All in all, Bang Brave Bang Bravern is hypercompetent lunacy with heart. Call it weaponized genre awareness if you must, but it knows exactly what it’s about, grabs you by the collar, and takes you for a ride, all while doing badass tokusatsu poses and calling out special moves with silly names. This is legitimately what fiction is all about. 

Also, if you don’t like Lulu just because she screeches a lot, you’re a weakling. Gaga-pi, motherfucker.

4. The Dangers in My Heart, season 2

This was a series whose first season was conspicuously absent from my 2023 rankings, but I caught up shortly after finishing that list in order to catch up to the second season. I’d watched a glut of slice-of-life romances in 2023 and figured I could afford to miss this one. I’m overjoyed at how wrong I was.

To paraphrase the second season’s exceptional OP, The Dangers in My Heart is indescribably beautiful. As I said with A Sign of Affection, I love me a straightforward anime romance, and this middle school slice-of-life is just that: Underdeveloped edgelord boy ends up making unlikely friends with, and falling for, the cheery popular girl in his class. This is easy wish-fulfillment on paper, but that’s hiding the trick: Kyotaro isn’t gonna get anything he wants by keeping his quills out for anyone who comes near, and he has some growing up to do if he’s ever gonna get what he wants.

Season 2 picks up right where the first left off, with Kyotaro’s arm still broken from his family trip and Anna feeling guilty because she thinks her distraction was what led to the injury. Right out of the gate, we see the care these two have developed for one another: Anna wants to help while he can’t do his own schoolwork, while Kyo is quick to try to cheer her up when she no longer feels like she’s able to. Already we’re seeing Kyotaro’s character development coming to light: The Dangers in My Heart isn’t a story about a Nice Guy getting the girl just by being there; it’s a story of self-improvement, of trying to become the type of person whom your crush would want to fall in love with. For a story about and ostensibly marketed to early teenagers, that’s a good lesson to have, and I absolutely devour stories like that.

As can be the case with plenty of adolescents, most of the conflict here is internal. Kyotaro spent the early part of his middle school education keeping a safe distance from everyone in order to avoid getting hurt, and as you can imagine, that did a number on his self esteem. Though he’s mostly kicked the chuunibyo mindset, Kyo still prefers to keep his distance, less because he doesn’t want to get hurt, but now because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. Specifically Anna. So much of this story is about him learning to be okay with letting people in and not just falling in love, but making friends and becoming somebody whom people just want to be around. It’s a chuuni rehabilitation story. You love to see it.

With all due respect to mangaka Norio Sakurai, the biggest surprise that came from reading the manga was how much better the anime looks than its source material. The anime looks tremendous in its own right, but compared to Sakurai’s doodly, occasionally messy style, the love put into the show stands in stark relief. Characters, backgrounds, and lighting are all soft, squishy, and warm, almost like the entire thing was run through the filter through which only a 13-year-old in love can see, even as a little edgelord. Little flourishes in the environment and music highlight the minute but consequential motes of progression in Kyo and Anna’s relationship. The OP ended up shaking out as my favorite of the year, even with 2024 being bookended by Creepy Nuts bangers. It’s that special to me.

And just like that, The Dangers in My Heart went from “eh probably not for me” to “yeah this is one of the best anime of the decade so far.” It’s a simple slice-of-life romance on paper, almost literally so in the manga, but this is a transformative adaptation. There’s much more of the story to tell, and I wouldn’t complain about more, but as it stands after two seasons, The Dangers in My Heart is damn near perfect as it is.

3. Oshi no Ko, season 2

Another year, another season, another top-four finish for one of the best manga adaptations I’ve ever seen. 

The anime adaptation of Aka Akasaka and Mengo Yokoyari’s showbiz-revenge manga made shockwaves last year following its thunderous feature-length premiere, and its source material made even more waves due to some questionable plot developments that fortunately went nowhere. Doga Kobo was undeterred by any negative attention brought to the brand, though, and pressed forward into the next arc with a level of swagger you rarely see brought into an anime’s sequel season.

The 2.5D stage play arc in Oshi no Ko’s manga wasn’t my favorite, but it was one that you could tell just from reading it would translate well to the screen. Even then, I wasn’t prepared for just how hard Doga Kobo would go in adapting it. Character animation is sumptuously fluid, color used to amazing effect, and personal expression bursts forth into impressionistic abstraction to such a degree that it made manga artist Yokoyari cry. Everyone looks and sounds incredible beyond any way I could’ve imagined from reading the manga, which, at the risk of sounding defensive, is still very good as a whole.

This being a story largely about the music industry, the music remains as on-point as ever. It’s too soon to tell if the second season’s OP/ED pairing tops the instantly-iconic “Idol” and “Mephisto” from the first, but these are no slouches. This season’s OP, “Fatale,” is a whiplash-inducing banger by Tatsuya Kitani and idol Kento Nakajima, performing under the collaborative name of GEMN (itself a relevant name to the show; twins without the i/Ai, DO YOU GET IT???) with visuals that might actually top those of Idol. The new ED, “Burning,” is Hitsujibungaku at their fuzzy, 90s-style alt-rock best, and it takes on a brand new meaning by the end of the season. Of course, there’s also the story-relevant music; while the bulk of the season focuses on the stage play, the last few episodes give us a glimpse into the pop music process, with the season capping off with an in-universe music video that, while not sonically my exact cup of tea, features 90 seconds of some of the best-looking dance animation I’ve ever seen in my life. That’s a flex if I’ve ever seen one.

And just like the first season, the second capped off with an announcement that Oshi no Ko will indeed be returning for another season. At this rate, and with the anime’s success, they will adapt the entire work, which will raise some eyebrows. I’m not going to litigate the manga’s later controversial developments nor its widely-panned ending, but if Doga Koba was able to handle everything that came before those things with such aplomb, I have faith that it will at least be done well.

2. DanDaDan

I want to preface this by saying that I agonized over whether this or the final entry is my anime of the year. I’m comfortable with what I chose, but if I’m being realistic, DanDaDan is basically 1b. This is a masterpiece already.

Although the source material was a bit of a cult hit until this year, DanDaDan came with a considerable amount of hype. If you were even peripherally familiar, it wasn’t hard to see why: Yukinobu Tatsu’s art is absurdly detailed in almost every panel, character designs are easily recognizable (one of the leads dressing similarly to a Persona 3 character was fortuitous for the anime to drop in the same year as Reload), and so many bizarre things happen in the plot that relaying them to anybody who wasn’t already familiar would make their brain briefly touch the void. Above all, though, Science SARU was tabbed to animate it, and any project by them is immediately worth your attention.

Sure enough, DanDaDan made an instantaneous splash, its first episode adapting the manga’s bombastic, twisty 63-page opening chapter nearly beat for beat. I’m not gonna “don’t look it up, just go in blind” this one, but almost too much happens for me to properly detail it all without just writing a complete synopsis. It boils down to “lonely nerd boy believes in aliens, angry kogal believes in yokai, it turns out both are real and now they have to deal with it.” It’s silly, it’s wild, it’s action packed, and if you can stomach the sexually-compromising alien abduction of the girl, you’re along for the ride.

I’m not gonna harp too much on that last point. It does stink that the female lead, Momo, is stripped to her underwear for the sake of alien sexual “research,” but said aliens get their comeuppance before anything happens to her. It’s still not great, and it’s not the last time female characters are portrayed in their underwear, but I do promise it’s for story reasons, it takes a backseat to the onscreen action and is pretty clearly not done for the sake of fanservice. I know such things can be beyond the pale for some people, but if you think you can compartmentalize that, I recommend you watch the first episode with that caveat in mind and decide from there. You may be pleasantly surprised.

DanDaDan is effectively two stories at once; on one side, we have Momo and the boy, Okarun (a nickname Momo devised for him to preserve her own sanity), gaining wacky supernatural powers in order to fight back these occult threats and regain what was stolen from Okarun from his first encounter with the unexpected (IYKYK). Because these threats can come out of nowhere, their daily high school lives can completely pop off without warning. On the other side, we have quieter slice-of-life tension as Momo and Okarun get to know (and frequently misunderstand) each other and realize they are completely and hopelessly head-over-heels for one another.

Surprise, motherfucker: DanDaDan is a romcom.

Yukinobu Tatsu, formerly an assistant on the first saga of Chainsaw Man, long struggled to get his own work serialized. At his editor’s urging, he read something like a hundred manga for inspiration, including several shoujo romance series. That research shows through in DanDaDan; although the bonkers action sequences and off-the-wall monster designs are what draw in readers and viewers alike, what’s kept this many people along for the ride is the beating heart just barely under the surface in the form of the romantic tension between Momo and Okarun. It’s easy to write this off as some “lonely nerd gets the cute gyaru just by being a Nice Guy” wish fulfillment, but that’s not really the case here; Okarun was a weird little twerp right from the jump. Similarly to Kyotaro in the aforementioned Dangers in My Heart, Okarun believes early on that he’s nowhere near Momo’s league, completely unaware that she quickly grows to actually like having him around, so he puts in the effort to become a more well-rounded person so that he can be confident enough to be seen next to her. He also just wants Momo to think he’s cool, and she thinks that’s adorable. And she’s right! These two are cute as fuck together.

So you come for the wild action and stay for the tremendous character dynamics. It should go without saying that Science SARU nailed all of the above, but I’m gonna say it anyway. Reading the Manga+ comments on each chapter as I read through the manga, readers were begging a top-flight battle shonen studio like MAPPA or WIT to pick up the series, and I think these fans got more than they bargained for. Masaaki Yuasa hasn’t been in charge of a series at the studio since Eizouken, or anything they’ve put out since Inu-Oh, but his influence is all over their recent works, including last year’s fellow top-three series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. It’s beyond impressive how, much like Scott Pilgrim, this series manages to maintain the source material’s art style while still looking very much like a Science SARU anime. Everyone is bouncy and malleable as their moods dictate, line weights are wildly varied, and action animation is kinetic and unpredictable. Each fight with an alien or cryptid is awash in eye-searing color or eerie greyscale. The music is a boatload of fun as well; even putting aside the Creepy Nuts OP (banger after banger after banger from those dudes) and Zutomayo ED, regular proceedings are punctuated by a wildly varied score, from funk to folk to an insane chase scene set to an electronic mashup of the “William Tell Overture” and the can-can. Everything about DanDaDan keeps you guessing.

I was looking forward to DanDaDan enough that I went to the theatrical premiere of the first three episodes and was sufficiently blown away. If you’ve seen the show, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that it looks and sounds incredible in a cinema setting. I left the theater positively buzzing, telling anyone who’d listen that they had no idea what was coming, but even knowing the entire story, I wasn’t prepared for more of what was to come. The literal next episode after what I’d already seen in the theater had one of the most bonkers action setpieces I’ve seen since Gurren Lagann, and just four episodes later an unbelievable emotional gut punch, prior knowledge of the manga be damned. Every single aspect of DanDaDan as an anime was given the same level of love and care that Tatsu put into his own work. It’s one thing for an anime adaptation to be faithful to its source material, and another entirely for it to elevate and transform it. DanDaDan is somehow both.

If there’s anything that held this back from being the anime of the year, it’s that this season kind of just… ends. With the 12-episode runtime that was given to the debut season, DanDaDan ends its first run right after the beginning of the manga’s next arc, which feels bizarre. There’s no resolution, but there’s no real cliffhanger here either. Which I kind of get, the story is driven by a constant forward momentum, but a little warning that the season was ending would’ve been nice. It’s only a six month break until the show comes back, but judged on its own, the way this season ended left me feeling a bit cold and the season itself feeling incomplete. Even shows that have year-long breaks between cours rather than seasons tend to put some kind of cap on each individual run, but DanDaDan just kinda left the toilet unflushed, and next to it a Post-It note promising to come back later. For something this lovingly crafted, that seems like a bizarre oversight.

That was hardly enough to temper my enjoyment though. Anything this well-made is deserving of the attention and success it’s attained, but to have this story, with these characters and this level of bonkers action made this well, is just an embarrassment of riches. And God help me, I’m shamelessly greedy. July can’t come fast enough. I need all of it.

1. Delicious in Dungeon

At the end of its run midway through the year, I declared Dungeon Meshi the best anime of the year up to that point and that I’d be impressed if anything would manage to overtake it. Though the other two entries in my top three made extremely strong cases, nothing else quite hit the spot and nourished the soul quite like Dungeon Meshi.

Barely a year removed from one of 2022’s best anime, Cyberpunk Edgerunners, Studio Trigger kicked off 2024 with another Netflix original, this time with its first proper manga adaptation since the studio split from Gainax a decade prior. It seemed an odd fit at first to have a studio known for wacky, hyperkinetic action productions like Kill la Kill and Promare to adapt this quirky fantasy dungeon manga, but hey, they also did Little Witch Academia. It turned out to be an odd fit, but in the best way: Dungeon Meshi is pretty offbeat as it is, so for it to get picked up by one of the more oddball prestige studios ended up making a tasty stew.

I struggled to elaborate on what makes this show so good after each of its cours, and six months later I remain a little lost for words. It’s an exceptional story adapted exceptionally well. Between the characters, the story, the setting, the emotional stakes, the comedy, the highs and lows, they nailed it all. Trigger just gets it. Even when characters go off-model for the sake of an intentional animation quirk, it still has that inimitable Trigger charm to it. It sounds just as good as it looks, too: The orchestral score highlights the quieter, sillier moments just as well as the tenser action setpieces, the foley work behind the dungeon’s bizarre and varied flora and fauna is immaculate, and the cast is perfect in both Japanese and English (I rarely ever say so but seriously, shout out to the dub).

I’m just as sick of saying “this show speaks for itself” when I have trouble finding the words as you probably are of reading it, but I have little else to add here. I’ve written plenty already. Just go watch it. This is already one of my favorite manga ever, and by the time the series wraps up at the end of its second season, it will easily end up as one of my favorite anime ever.

[xmads-omensx]

Part 3

Word Count: 1,759

Pairing: Noah Sebastian X Reader

Content Warnings: fake dating, mild harassment, swearing

Tags: @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard @lacy1986 @collidewiththesav @kenjipepsi1 @follow-me-down-to-wonderland @alwaysfightforwhoyouare @chey-h @amelia-acero @thisbicc @dominuslunae @enemiestolovershoe @xxkatsatwatwafflexx @thisbicc @fadingangelwisp

The next week or so had gone by smoothly.

Like clockwork, I would pack my things from my desk and get the elevator down to the lobby with Gabi and Ashley, whilst Stephen glared at us from the glass wall of his office.

Noah would be stood in the car park, leaning against his car and would pull me into a kiss or a hug depending on if he noticed Stephen watching from his office, which he did most days.

Thankfully, our little arrangement seemed to have warded Stephen off for the time being.

There had been no pointless meetings, which he spent questioning me on my personal life or just ogling me in my button up shirt.

There had been less arm touches. Granted, he hadn’t stopped, but I was grateful for the reduction of them nonetheless.

Our plan was going perfectly.

The only issue that I had faced was when Gabi pointed out that I didn’t have any photos of Noah and I on my desk. I had no photos at all on my desk besides a photo of my family dog, Rocket, who had been my partner in crime for as long as I could remember.

He was a brown labrador, he was getting older sadly, but I didn’t love him any less.

Besides me, Rocket loved Noah.

Everyone in the office knew how much I loved that dog.

Then it hit me.

If I put a photo of Noah and Rocket on my desk, then our relationship would be more plausible.

After work I made Noah drive me to the nearest Walmart so that I could print a photo I had taken of the two last Christmas and buy a nice frame for it.

“Why did you pick that one? I look stupid.” Noah exclaimed.

“No you look cute.” I defended with a sigh, already fed up of his complaining.

He had been like this ever since I had explained my idea of putting the photo on my desk.

“No, I look like an idiot. I am wearing a matching Christmas jumper with a dog. A fucking dog Y/N!” Noah laughed.

“Hey! Don’t be mean about Rocket, we both know you love him.” I exclaimed.

It was nice falling into this rhythm with Noah. We still joked around like nothing had changed, which technically it hadn’t, but something still felt off.

Our arrangement became like an inside joke within the group, seeing as it was quite hilarious seeing Noah and I scramble to act like a couple whenever we were nearby my office building or any of the coffee shops that Grace liked to frequent.

“Rocket hates me.” Noah huffed in response.

“Don’t be ridiculous Noah.” I scolded. “He barked at you ONE TIME  because you startled him. You know this.”

“Sure, whatever.” Noah stropped jokingly.

He huffed about the particular photo that I had chosen right up until he had dropped me back off at my place that evening.

When I put it on my desk in the office, I sent him a photo of it, to which he replied with the middle finger emoji, making me laugh.

The photo made our relationship more realistic in the eyes of my colleagues. If they believed the relationship was real, then Stephen was bound to believe it was real eventually.

“I see you and your little boyfriend are official now?” Stephen’s raspy voice, caused by years of smoking cigarettes, interrupted my momentary peace.

“We aren’t official now. We’ve been official for our entire relationship.” I sighed, frustrated that he was still sceptical about my relationship with Noah.

In fairness, the relationship was a lie, so I had nothing really to defend.

“And how long might that be?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Two years.” I replied simply, wanting this interaction to end.

“That’s a long time.” He said.

“yeah, I guess it is.” I said.

“Especially without a ring.” Stephen gestured at my left hand.

I stilled.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gabi choke on the water she was drinking. It took all I had to not laugh at her reaction.

“We aren’t quite there yet.” I responded as deadpan as I could, just wanting this conversation to be over.

“Why not? You’re beautiful, and I’m sure Norman is a lot better once you get to know him.” Stephen said offhandedly, leaning on  my desk.

“Noah.” I curtly replied. “And, I’m not too sure that whether my boyfriend and I are engaged or not is any of your concern?”

I chose to ignore the fact that he called Noah unattractive, because he was clearly blind, but the whole interaction was irritating me.

“I just want my employees to be happy, is that a crime?” Stephen asked with a shrug.

“Zacky and I got married four months ago, and you still haven’t said congratulations.” Gabi piped up bluntly.

“Emma and I got engaged two months ago.” Ashley added.

Stephen simply sighed, “Well I don’t see how this chat is allowing either of you to do your work.” He snapped at Gabi and Ashley who promptly rolled their eyes and got back to their paperwork.

“You let me know if Nelson hurts you, right Y/N?” Stephen said with fake concern, caressing my forearm before walking back to his office.

I fake gagged at Gabi and Ashley after he was out of eyeline.

“You better go wash that arm.” Ashley laughed, making Gabi and I laugh in turn.

I did, in fact, wash my arm after that interaction.

On my way back from the bathroom, my phone buzzed in the back pocket of my dress-pants. It was a text from Matt on the groupchat.

Matt: Party this weekend. Welcome home for ERRA. Be there or else.

The text made me chuckle.

“Is that Norton?” That familiar raspy voice shattered my joy.

“Noah.” I corrected, walking past him and back to my desk.

Luckily, he didn’t follow me back to my desk, but that didn’t put my mind at ease at all.

His presence was still a complete stain on my day and it made my skin crawl. It felt like he was always watching me and I hated it.

“He still bothering you?” Ashley asked once I sat down.

“Yep.” I sighed.

“Ew.” She sighed, absentmindedly clicking on her computer.

Ashley and Gabi were my best work friends. We had all instantly bonded over our shared love for microwave ramen, and had formed a little ramen club, in which we tried a different flavour of ramen each week.

Sadly, since Stephen had been forcing his way into as many aspects of my life that he could, we had to put an end to it.

The rest of the day went by relatively uneventfully. Stehpen kept himself away in his office, probably sensing that the three women who sat in the bull pen outside of said office, were more than willing to tear his head from his body if given the chance.

By the time 5pm rolled around, I was exhausted and desperate to jump into a long, hot shower with my chill playlist blaring from my speaker.

Noah waited for me in his usual spot and as I waved goodbye to Gabi and Ashley before greeting Noah with a hug.

Before I even realised what was happening, Noah picked me up, spun me around and kissed me deeply. It was by far the most intense kiss we had shared, therefore Stephen must be watching.

I secretly hoped that Stephen was watching me greet Noah after every shift. For one, I revelled in the idea of it ruining his day, and two, I was starting to enjoy kissing Noah.

“I hate that guy.” Noah angrily muttered as we got into his car.

“He’s the literal devil incarnate.” I sighed, resting my head on the passenger side window.

“You feeling okay?” Noah asked. “We can just hang at your place and not go to the party.”

“No, we have to go, they’re our friends. Besides, I could use a good distraction right now.” I smiled at him, making him smile in return.

“Ugh, I was kinda hoping you’d let me bail.” He laughed, making me giggle.

“Keep dreaming.” I sighed, playfully slapping the side of his face.

The rest of the drive home was filled with a comfortable silence, that is, until we arrived back at Noah’s house.

Music was playing from inside the house, a mix of ABBA, Mariah Carey and some other random music that Jesse had deemed ‘party worthy’.

Upon entering the vibrant and lively house, I said brief hellos to everyone before running up to Noah’s room to get myself ready for the party.

It was routine at this point for me to get myself ready in Noah’s room.

The room was familiar.

He always kept it neat and pristine, with the only objects littering the surfaces being my own hairties, claw clips and makeup brushes.

He never moved them or tidied them away. He always left them exactly where they were.

A small box sat on his bathroom counter that contained makeup remover, moisturizer, pimple patches and period products, ready for me to use.

Noah always wanted to be prepared for whenever I came over, but I had heard over the last couple of weeks that this hadn’t always worked in his favour.

Grace was convinced that the box meant that Noah was sleeping with other women, when he wasn’t. Noah had tried to explain that the box was for me when I came over, but she wouldn’t listen, and instead resorted to outright hatred towards me.

According to Noah, Grace had been possessive over him for the majority of their time together, despite it being nothing serious.

I laughed when I reminisced over Noah recapping the entire story to me. He kept having to pause in order for me to react with a “she did what?” or a “is she nuts?”, which had made him laugh in turn.

I pulled on my jeans and black corset top, just in time for a knock to sound on Noah’s bedroom door.

“I’m coming now.” I said, hurrying to the door, which opened to reveal Noah waiting for me.

“Well you better not be cumming in my bedroom.” He said with mock anger, making me laugh.

“As if any woman would be cumming in your bedroom.” I laughed, playfully slapping his chest.

A shrill, nasaly laugh interrupted my train of thought.

“Well, I did.” The same voice said with a painfully annoying giggle.

Grace.

[in1-nutshell]

I would like to request juno having the sparkling at the worst time and place

Highly requested and now here!

Yes, I know that Bots cant have sparklings like humans do. Yes, I did this pregnancy loosely based off of human pregnancy.

Hope you enjoy!

Juno and the sparkling

SFW, Platonic, Familial, Romance, Mentions of pregnancy and birth but nothing too graphic, Cybertronian reader

MTMTE

The ship was buzzing with excitement and anxiousness.

Juno’s due date was coming soon, and all the final preparations were being placed.

Perceptor and Brainstorm made it their job to check that everything was sparkling proof… after checking 50 times that is��

Rodimus was rarely seen too far from Juno.

Did this make his job harder?

Yes, Magnus had already long given up on trying to get him to stay for more than half the day.

Rodimus was uncharacteristically nervous about the sparklings arrival.

Juno, for once, was being the levelheaded one and tried to calm their partner down.

Rodimus had a paintbrush in one servo and several color chips in the other. Juno walks into their shared habsuite and raises and optic. Juno: “Roddy? What are you doing?” Rodimus: “I’m repainting the habsuite.” Juno sighed tiredly. Juno: “Roddy this is the 5th time this week. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Rodimus: “But its just not right. How is the sparkling going to fall asleep fast if the colors don’t help her sleep.” Juno: “Help him fall asleep?” Rodimus: “I found some articles on sparklings from Perceptor and Ratchet’s archives. And its she Juno.” Juno: “Nope, it’s he. I can feel it.” Juno takes the brush from his servo and replaces it with their own. Juno: “How about we lay back and watch something?” Rodimus: “But—” Juno: “Do you really want to argue with a heavily sparked bot right now Rodimus?” Rodimus: “… I’ll set the movie up.” Juno: “I’ll get the snacks.”

The arrival of the Scavengers was a welcoming surprise.

Swerve had gotten in contact with Misfire and told him the news.

The rest of their crew wanted to stop by and personally congratulate the pair since they were close by.

No one saw the harm in that.

Juno looks over and spots Spinister. They wave at him as they try to get through the crowd of bots. Juno: “Spinister!” Spinister jumps a bit at the sound of his name but relaxes seeing Juno slightly waddle to him. He walks over and pulls them in a side hug. Spinister: “I leave for a couple cycles and now your sparked. You didn’t waste any time.” Juno chuckled a bit returning the side hug. Juno: “A couple thousand cycles you mean.” They both chuckle a bit. Most of the Scavengers are staring in amazement and concern. Rodimus is just staring at the servos on his Conjunx’s waist. Juno: “Oh you have to see the new built in cameras in the crib Spin! Perceptor did an amazing job in modifying it.” Spinister: “Lead the way.” The pair walk out of the room chatting away leaving a silent room behind. Fulcrum: “Wh-what just happened?” Crankcase: “I second that.” Rodimus gets a strange look on his face and quickly walks after the pair. Krok: “Have you ever—” Misfire: “Seen Spinister so… civil? Not in my lifetime. Bet they used to be a thing.” Perceptor: “Juno remained with little to no contact with most Autobots and Decepticons throughout the war. The likelihood of them meeting Spinister, let alone be courting him is slim to none.” Brainstorm: “… Are you placing any bets?” Perceptor: “Brainstorm!”

This was the hot news now spreading around the ship.

Jumpy, scared of their own shadow Juno was happily chatting with the most trigger happy Decepticon, Spinister.

Rodimus eventually joined them and tried to make a wall in between the Con and Juno.

Occasionally trying to ask questions on how the pair knew each other.

Too bad none of the questions would get answered.

The ship’s alarm went off.

Someone was invading the ship again.

Rodimus tried to get in contact with the others, but communications were down.

As much as it pained him, he sent Juno and Spinister to the med bay.

It would be the safest place for Juno to be in.

Rodimus was surprised when Juno reached out and grabbed his servo.

They had a pleading look on their face.

He almost caved in, but Spinister gently took their servo.

 With a silent promise the bots ran off into different directions.

On the way the way to the med bay, Spinister and Juno found the rest of the Scavengers.

They all feezed at the sound of the Empyrean suite began playing in the halls.

Tarn was here…

Everyone quickly ran into the nearest room and locked it.

Too bad they hid one of Brainstorm experimental locked rooms.

The room not only was heavily fortified but had locks thicker than Grimlock’s helm.

Nevertheless, they all started fortifying the room in the worst case scenario.

Everyone pants and vents tiredly. The music sounding a bit closer than before. Everyone hushes down. Fulcrum: “At least it can’t get any worse than this right?” Misfire shots him a glare. Misfire: “You did not just say that.” Fulcrum: “I’m trying humor Misifre.” Crankcase: “Sorry but I’m siding with Fulcrum on this one. It can’t get worse than this.” Misfire: “Literally everything goes wrong when you say that! Right Grimmy?” Grimlock nods in agreement. SPLASH! Juno slowly looks down at the fluids running down their pedes. They frantically tap Spinister’s arm to look. His optics widen significantly. Spinister: “Oh no.” Krok looked over. Krok: “What do you mean—oh Primus now!” Everyone looked over in horror at the fluids on the floor. Misifre: “I told you!”

After the first few moments of terror, Spinister takes control.

Everyone’s servos on deck.

There was a sparkling to be delivered.

Fulcrum, due to his squeamish tanks, was put on communications duty with Crankcase.

Both were trying different channels for anyone to answer.

Grimlock was to make sure the door and all the barricades stayed in place.

He even managed to promise Juno that nothing would get past him.

Misfire would be Juno’s stress ball/ comforter.

His servos were going to need repairs with how hard Juno was squeezing.

Krok would be Spinister’s make do nurse.

Which was mainly passing Spinister things and holding Juno down.

Juno had to be gagged to muffle their screams and cries of pain.

Spinister was doing everything he could to make this a safe birth for the sparkling with the limited supplies around.

Fulcrum managed to get a signal.

Fulcrum: “Hello? Is there anyone there?” Drift: “This is Drift speaking.” Fulcrum: “We are here in one of the rooms close by the med bay and need medical assistance.” Drift: “What happened? Anyone hurt?” Fulcrum: “Well—” Misfire: “Can’t you hold it in?!” Juno angrily spits out their gag. Juno: “YOU TRY HOLDING IN A SPARKLING AS STUBBORN AS THEIR FATHER!!!” Fulcrum: “Did you get that?” Drift: “Oh… Oh sweet Primus its happening! I’ll get medical assistance over—” CLICK! The call had been cut off. Fulcrum sighs tiredly. Misfire: “Put this back—Did you just try and bite me!?” Juno: “I WILL BITE OFF MORE THAN THA—AAAAARRRGGGHHHH!!” Meanwhile with Drift… Drift runs to Rodimus and Ratchet’s side as they watch the DJD’s ship fly away. Drift: “Roddy! Ratty! We’ve got to go now! Its Juno!” Rodimus looked at him worried. Rodimus: “What happened?! Are they okay!?” Drift: “I just got off the com with Fulcrum, they are having the sparkling now!” Rodimus: “NOW!?”

Drift and Ratchet had never seen Rodimus look so stressed and barrel through a crowd so fast.

They followed behind him, recruiting First Aid and Velocity on the way.

It took a bit for them to find the right room before Rodimus finally melted the right door with his flaming servos.

Grimlock fully decked him in the face, knocking him out cold.

At least he kept his promise.

Rodimus woke up a few minutes later in the med bay with a smiling Drift above him.

He groaned as he woke, gripping his helm right as the memories of the past few hours came rushing in.

Rodimus quickly jumps up from the med slab and grabs Drift. Rodimus: “Juno! Where’s—" Drift shushes him and leads him to a separate room in the med bay. The Scavengers were there surrounding something while Juno, in the med slab, was talking to Spinister and Ratchet. Rodimus: “Juno!” He quickly ran up to his Conjunx, knelt to their level and gave them a tight hug. Juno chuckled weakly burying their face in his neckcables. Some tears escaped from both parties. Juno pulls away and gesture to the Scavengers. Juno: “I think that there is someone there who wants to meet you.” Rodimus freezes a bit before he slowly walks to the crowd. There is a lot of cooing as the Cons part a way for him to go through. In the little basset was a sparkling. His sparkling. Juno and his sparkling. Rodimus smiles down at the little one. The sparkling smiles back. The bitty had Juno’s smile. Rodimus: “Hey there, its me you father.” He let the sparkling grab his digit. A series of happy chirps and whirls came out. Juno: “Looks like our son likes you. Don’t you Flare?” A son! His little Flare. Rodimus carefully picked up the sparkling and held him to his chassis. They both smiled… then the sparkling sneezed and busted into flames. Everyone screamed in surprise as the flames died down. Rodimus: “HE CAN FLAME OUT!!!” He started twirling around with the laughing sparkling in his grasp. The medics tried to get Rodimus to stop twirling around with the sparkling. The Scavengers were just trying to comprehend what had just happened. Juno’s optic was twitching, already making a mental note to have fire extinguishers at the ready. BANG! The med bay doors flew open as a disheveled Perceptor and Brainstorm vented heavily. Perceptor: “Who was going to tell me Juno had the sparkling?!”

[1driedpersimmon]

Do you have any advice for people who might want to get into making comics like yours? I'm always pleasantly surprised by how fast you pump them out and even have other little projects/doodles on the side. How do you keep the quality consistent?

(sorry if this sounds a lil cold (?) i rlly love your peppercakes they r so skrunkly)

First off - Thank you !! I'm honored you like my lil guys and comics hehe! (and no worries on the tone !! I didn't think it sounded cold at all!)

Alright secondly lets see...

Short answer: You really just gotta start and keep going!! Once you start you get the momentum and it gets much easier (like riding a bike, which people like to use as comparison often).

Long answer:

Alright I thought about how to answer for this for a bit and I think I'll break it down to the main aspects.

So timing ! Basically I'm drawing 24/7 (and I'm currently not working as it's an off time for me, but I shall in a week and you will see that my posting frequency will decrease substantially). Ok maybe not 24/7 but I essentially am drawing from the moment I wake up to when I sleep (minus eating, restroom, working out, some errands) and while I do not say this is the key to being better, I'm just realistically displaying how much time I'm spending on drawing. (... one of my new years resolution is to not in fact do that and go out more because I feel like I'm being cooped up in my room a lot haha). But minus the amount of time I spend itself a lot of it has to do with the importance I take in speed drawing. And when I say that I mean quite literally how fast I can draw. AND I think a large part of where that speed comes from is how I like to generalize designs and just my overall process of drawing. (Which, I will not go over now but if you'd like I could make a separate post on how I go about doing my usual sketch, lines, colors, etc) Like, I love ff and all of it's crazy designs but it's so complicated I simplify everything till it's juussstt recognizable, and that's something I feel like really adds to the speed of things.

Also that's sweet of you to say for the quality haha (I always am thinking stuff like ah man this aint it... not my finest work, and then just post anyways cuz who cares I already made it heh)! That being said my quality wasn't alwaysss consistent! Here's an example of my very first "comic" I made for my characters:

And here's the same 4 panels I redrew just about 2 years later:

So I've been basically drawing comics for this for just about 2 years now (will be 2 years officially in a few months) and I most certainly did not get here in one night. I think, as I've mentioned, it's really important to keep up with the comic making (or drawing in general) so that, yes, you can get better, but the way you get better is that it becomes familiar to you. So you can approach concepts and ideas with a more experience. And I think a large part of what holds alot of people back is the idea that "ah I can't do this idea I'm not good enough." So what !! Still do it, I most certainly did it a couple years ago when I barely scribbled my ideas. And then you can totally go back and redraw it ! no "Rule" saying you can't go back and revisit your ideas, like hell even professional artists go back and republish their works with their improved art styles ! (ex. Tokyo Ghoul... even though I don't care for the story, it's still pretty cool! I think he even added more scenes? Anyways..). I think there was that one post going around where it was something like do it scared and that's really REALLY what you gotta do.

And that leads to my final point. You gotta love doing it. I like to make comics because I LOVE my characters, their story, and actually the act of putting it all together into a story, drawn comic, visuals, etc. And, I found my method of loving them. For me, what held me back was the "structure" of comics. I mean you can p much see that the way I like to do things is def not the "traditional" manga/western comic book style right? I won't go as far to say that I "made up this way" of comic making where it's one panel at a time but it certainly worked for me. (I have no idea how many comic wips I have collecting dust in my folders from my earilier days of making this comic where I just gave up 20% of the way in because I really could not vibe with the formatting, but then I figured out I really like to "thumbnail" comics (a result of when I was studying storyboards alot imo) and I went on from there).

This is where I feel like alot of people get stuck too. Where they really do like their ideas, their character, their stories and such, but as soon as they try and go through the process of creating in a certain way... the wind is just instantly taken out of their sails. And while I do believe sometimes you just gotta push through and do it anyways, sometimes that's not the right method to go about it. So instead of brute forcing a method of creation and eventually forming a bad relationship with the process, find a method that works for you. And maybe it doesn't look all that great or good compared to others, but that comes in time and as long as you like doing it, that's what really matters at the end of the day.

Tl;dr: be a lil freak, and lil weird about what you do (this applies to everything, not only art :3)

Alright so I think that's all the points? idk if you still want to ask me stuff, feel free to anytime :) Always happy to share my thoughts!

[bottom-lexa]

got another 600 words down for the werewolf au!!! this is for chapter 2 but still

[francy-sketches]

I'm gonna have to work on my final project non stop for like a month straight bc I procrastinated on it too much fuck my stupid baka life

[a-bucket-in-the-void]

the first thing i’m doing when i come out is driving two hours to the place that i first saw a queer space in real life and switching out my pronoun pin that i got from there from he/they to he/him

i need that closure

[todayisafridaynight]

Since you mentioned it, what did you think of Speak No Evil? I was thinking of watching it myself :0

i really liked it ............ my friend scoffed at me when i told her i was watchin it so take my opinion with a grain of salt tho </3

[vulpinesaint]

school for the kiddos starts up again tomorrow and i'm gonna be so honest i love summer camps so much but also i'm really excited to get back to my school year job <3 walk the kiddos to school... sit and help them with their homework...

[skrunksthatwunk]

im finally going to replay y0...

[longagoitwastuesday]

I guess I have to suck it up and admit that, yeah, despite myself, against my own wishes, I suppose I do love that damn Gojo Satoru guy after all

[weaselle]

it was too much i had to make my own post

line cook here. ACCURATE

if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.

it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.

The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.

So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.

(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)

Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.

More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.

So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.

all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.

while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays

Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.

Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.

The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.

Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself

you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)

If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.

Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there

Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in

oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?

water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.

Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!

The clean up is not just some light wiping down that can be easily interrupted, is what i'm saying.

You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)

THE POINT IS

by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.

For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.

if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.

you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.

See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?

those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...

And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...

Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.

In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ORDER SOMETHING ANYWAY, HERE IS WHAT TO DO

open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.

Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.

It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.

but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.

[a-sleepy-ginger]

28/4/24

✿❈✿❈✿

Got most of my psychology report done

Ice cream

My cat just tried eat my foot cus it moved under the covers

Also picked up my cat and wiggled him gently cus he was scratching at my cupboard doors and strangely enough it worked and he stopped

Felt cute cus my hair looked nice (which is rare my hair is usually a sad looking mess)

[eowynstwin]

Price x Reader. Age gap. Divorced Price. Older BF Price. Vaguely smutty. Follow-up to this.

Price realizes you’ve never had a reliable man in your life exactly the second time he discovers you looking up DIY home maintenance for very simple projects.

It missed him the first time because he was deployed. You’d mentioned offhand how you were figuring out how to rebalance a ceiling fan, and he’d just automatically assumed that you were doing it yourself because he wasn’t there, so he simply praised you for your resourcefulness and lived for the next three weeks off of the way you’d absolutely glowed at his words.

But then he gets home, and one evening on the couch he catches you googling “how to fix a leaky sink.”

“What’s that?” he asks you, tamping down on the sudden feeling of masculine inadequacy that reared up almost immediately at the discovery.

“Faucet handle’s leaking all over my counter when I turn it on,” you say, not looking up from your phone. “Landlord’s out of town and can’t fix it.”

“I’m in town, ain’t I?”

You look up at him then, brows raised. You hadn’t even considered asking him, then.

“Oh—I didn’t want to bother you, John, you only just got back, and you’re tired…”

You trail off at the droll expression on his face.

Price has learned a lot of lessons from his previous marriage. The foundational one: just because he hasn’t been asked to help doesn’t mean he is believed to be unreliable. Adding that lesson to his knowledge base about you—young, modern, independent—calculates out an obvious answer that curtails any sour mood that might have sprouted up over the issue.

He puts his hand over your phone screen and lowers it down to your lap. “I’m fixin’ the sink,” he says simply.

He enjoys the way your eyes dilate at the assertion.

The next day, he shows up at your flat wearing old work clothes and carrying his heavy toolbox in his hand.

(You don’t live together yet—something he’s keen to rectify—but he has a toothbrush in your bathroom and permanent space in your bedroom drawers. He can be content for now.)

And you—you answer the door in the filmiest of sundresses, the ribbon tie on one shoulder hanging at a loose angle.

“Heard you need some plumbing done,” he says in the gruffest of voices, already understanding the game.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here,” you say, barely able to hide your giggle, “I’ve been so worried.”

He steps in close to you, close enough to feel the heat of your body radiating off of your bare skin. He has half a mind to put the charade aside and lift your skirt here and now, but another lesson helpfully springs to mind: anticipation of the act makes the finale all the sweeter.

“I’ll show you to the kitchen,” you murmur, looking up at him with warm, dreamy eyes.

When he gets under the sink, he finds the problem easy enough to fix—the cold water supply line simple isn’t screwed in tight enough, and when he wiggles the whole contraption by the valves he finds that nothing has been tightened up to standard. A couple of years knocking the thing around had probably loosened up the locknut.

He elects to fix the whole problem in one go, while in the meantime you stand off to the side, watching him. He feels your eyes on his legs, trailing up to the hair on his belly exposed by his shirt riding up.

“Sir, I’m sorry, I should’ve said before,” you simper, “but I’m not really sure how I’m gonna pay for this.”

His cock jumps in his jeans, and he feels your gaze move to it as if it’s a physical touch.

He levers himself out a little and meets your eyes, keeping a stern expression on his face.

“I’m sure you’re gonna figure it out,” he says. Looking down at his groin and then back up at your face might be a touch unsubtle, but clear communication had been the most important lesson of all.

He slides himself back under, and pretends he doesn’t feel you approach, or lower to your knees between his spread legs. He ignores your gentle hands falling on the closure of his jeans, the pop of the button coming undone, the parting of the zipper as you pull it down.

“Of course, sir,” you say, “I’m sure I will.”

The softness of your hand meets his growing erection, caressing the head of his cock with your thumb—followed very close behind by the wet, liquid heat of your mouth.

next

[phantomrose96]

So my mom's birthday was this week and I flew down with Patches to visit her for a few days. Patches, while a verified hater of the airport, really loves my mom's place because there are so many more closets to explore and birds to watch and cobwebs to dust with her stupid little face.

My mom also goes to bed earlier than anyone I know, so for the evenings it was on me to monitor Patches' activity. And she's very good. She's 99% good. She's 1% "could use improvement" good and the 1%, which I'd forgotten about, is tomatoes.

Patches will leave most things alone. (And by "alone" I mean she'll absolutely bitch slap them onto the floor, but they will leave the ordeal with just as many or few surface punctures as they had before the encounter started.) Not tomatoes. Patches has it the fuck out for tomatoes.

So when I noticed her batting something around on the ground I realized that my mom had left a sole, roma tomato in the fruit basket on the counter and it was now experiencing the life cycle of a pingpong ball between Patches' paws.

I take it away from her, like a fucking evil woman, and now I'm like "okay actually, where do I hide this." See at home I have an anti-Patches cabinet, which is for things that have no business living in a cabinet but which WILL have business dying at Patches' hands if left accessible. And this is WEIRD to have such a cabinet but it's my own home.

I'm scanning my mother's cabinets going "is this weird here? can the tomato go in my mother's dish cabinet?" And I briefly consider sticking it in the fridge, as a normal location, but the audacity of altering this tomato's ripening process is an audacity I do not possess. So I go with cabinet. I go with the first eye-level cabinet, which is the coffee mug cabinet, which is perfect because the tomato will not be lost to cabinet purgatory there, since my mom opens it every morning for her coffee. I will simply tell her in the morning that the tomato is there.

Next morning. Seeing as my mother goes to bed at the butt-crack of dusk she ALSO gets up at the ass-crack of dawn. This means I trail down like 2 hours after her with my work laptop and Patches. This is also now her birthday. I'm sharing the sofa with her for a good 15 minutes when I think to myself I'd like some coffee, and I remember I put a tomato in the cabinet. I tell my mom as much. I put the tomato in her coffee mug cabinet.

And the look I get is one I can't really figure out on spot. But she says "Chrissy this is the best birthday present you could have given me" which is a very weird response to the already weird statement "Oh you probably saw, but I hid the tomato in the coffee mug cabinet because Patches has it out for tomatoes."

So I do not at all know how this makes for a good birthday gift. My mom tells me how a week or two ago, she came home unloading groceries. At the end of putting everything away she could not for the life of her find her phone. Absolutely nowhere. She pinged it from her iPad and it started singing. From the fridge. She opened her fridge. Her phone was in the fridge.

A couple days later she lost Ash's collar. Spent three days looking for it. Couldn't remember where she'd taken it off or what she did with it. Showed up in the grass when she remembered she took it off to let him play fetch in the lake.

And then this morning, her birthday morning, she came into the kitchen, made her pot of coffee, opened the cabinet to fetch her coffee mug, and found... tomato. Singular. Tomato in the cabinet. Tomato she had no memory of placing in a cabinet. Tomato she could not possibly fathom having a reason for being in the cabinet.

She was like Chrissy I cried. She was like this is it, time to send her to pasture. She's a harebrained old lady now and there is no coming back from this. She's the lady who accidentally puts tomatoes in the cabinet. Awake before God, standing in the kitchen, signing her life away over this tiny roma tomato. (Roma tomato with little cat vampire teeth marks in it).

I was like oh. No. I put it there. Because Patches was going to commit war crimes against it. I put it there because I did not stop to consider "Will finding a single tomato in the coffee mug cabinet somehow be the very specific thing that undoes my mother this morning?" I put it there out of careful consideration for the life of this tomato, and with no consideration for the extremely esoteric way that a tomato in the cabinet could be received like a horse head in the bed, Godfather style.

We made a salad with the tomato. Happy birthday Mom.