#check MY BELOVED HE MAKES SO MANY AMAZING ARTS AND ANIMATIONS

[universeskies]

Working hard and doing Your best can get tiring too. Always make sure to relax!

This is part of Hooked on to You story That Both @thejaytapes 💙💙💙💙 And I did!! Please PLEASE PLEAE Check Him out!! He did The AMAZING AWESOME DESIGNS FOR MARINA 😭

OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG JUST I LOVE YOU SO MUCH HONEY!! THE STORY AND THE PURE ROMANCE AAAAAAAAAAAA💙💙💙💙

[toniko]

side stories spoilers

there was only a little bit of LHH in these new chapters? I mean more of him next chapter but I miss him so bad…

oh but seriously hyunwoo is so gilyoung coded it’s crazy, the image of them lying side by side… LHH’s sentiment about them looking like brothers is such a sweet sentiment

otherwise i feel it’s finally time to settle my opinions on the readers

1: Lee Hakhyun (my serious favorite chara of all orv)

He refuses to let ANY reader die, it really reminds me of that Dokja selfishness for his companions but it somehow expresses so much kinder out of LHH idk, i just be saying shit now

thank goodness that he’s slightly better emotionally regulated, i love how everyone loves him as well n he so loves them back (especially that 41!YJH guy…) (damn this kind of rehashes my reasons for loving Dokja but that guy is severely more emotionally constipated so i like LHH better)

he feels like such a reliable guy, he really makes sure everyone will be okay n it truly feels like orvss will have a good ending bc he’s there to see it through

yk that feeling of pride u get when Kim Dokja gets hyped up on ORV, yeah i get that for LHH so hard he’s like my guy ever if i were a constellation, half my savings would be gone bc im busy gassing up LHH. he’ll do anything n ill be like “damn RIGHT he did, my goat”

2: Cha Yerin

theater dungeon cube room convo my beloved, literally a top 5 scene for me and all they did was talk

seriously tied w her brother but i think i like her slightly more because she’s the first reader 🥺 i mean LHH’s biggest number one fan literaturegirl64, likes his original works more.

the story of her n her brother is such a, idk gets my heart… orphanage, siblings? she’s blind and her brother has info dumped orv in audio over 6 complete times to her? amazing (this one of applies to why i like both characters, duh)

also just one of the most skilled fighters, ik orv women go crazy but orvss has so many new top tier female fighters, rlly said “no constellation” just a martial arts goat, she n her bro stood out immediately as the badass readers. her design makes me rlly happy too, i keep thinking abt it please make her real blackbox or webtoon ( in aprox. 6 years…)

the 1 on 1 convos she has w LHH are always so special to me, more than ever LHH is an author to her and she is his reader

she’s living my dream btw (got to read LHH’s old novels)

3: KillerKing (Cha Sunwoo???)

i think maybe, if LHH didn’t STILL call you KillerKing (regardless it’s what you go by damn) then I’d remember ur real name

idk I genuinely have to revisit the chapters to check again bc no one is updating any wikis… no should i do it? anyway

he is easily the funniest new character of the side stories bar none, god damn YJH kinnie, chuuni ass

recent recycling center arc (the animal masks one) sold me so hard on him, how can he consistently be like “no, go on without me!” flips black coat n still be cool… coolest lamest guy ever

jophiel is also such a cool constellation sponsor, some of the other readers have yet to have constellations so im excited to see what they end up with

his idea of surviving also being not to be like kim dokja but to do what you’re good at? it’s so good, makes so much damn sense. amazing.

the duo video game skill is awesome, I just can’t believe YJH beats the really cool co-op siblings bc he’s a fucking pro gamer, like get a JOB

4: Ye Hyunwoo

is that right? you want to be kim dokja but you can’t. this mf sets off 20 red flags every damn chapter but there’s that sense that he will always remain an ally cause he’s a smart kid and very self-aware so it’s also tragic in that sense

oddly enough he feels like an outsider to the group but he’s around really often n i think he really sets that distance himself

i think he’s really gotta embrace that he’s okay with being taken care of and hiding behind someone but is also capable himself. gong pildu literally your dad little man. I think we’re really at the trickling last bits of his general character arc

5: Lee Dansu (Noh Kyunghwan) (made me cry like 20 times)

favorite dilf in the apocalypse. im joking. maybe

inevitable insane tragedy of staying alive beyond his family

his entire like arc got me bawling my eyes out ong i just wish for him to be happy, kindly middle aged man who only read orv to understand his daughter? like what if i end it all omg it’s so… 😭😭😭

my wish is for him and hyunwoo to talk deadass. they should mourn together. hyunwoo knows what happened to his daughter and they both share a really close connection w her

there’s a real time to shoe him in these chapters bc that’s his daughter’s best friend n then his constellation came down too? deadass

6: Kyung Sein (does this count as trans girl)

she’s goofy silly cute… him? i mean it’s the only time we’ve seen a different gendered reader to character deadass did they run out of incarnation bodies for transmigration?

but anyway, i think it’s fun that she just stans heewon so hard she worked out n then is like bros with hyunsung. 41!YJH legitimately values her and the rest of the companions in combat. this round is so interesting bc like there’s the usual incarnations + the readers who got crazy good powerful so the balance is wrecked

honestly she and Lee Dansu were like, the first companions so there’s a sense of fondness that just comes from knowing them for so long

7: Ji Enyu

victim of less screen time bc she’s being badass on her own, seriously. initially she’s all like “haha what if we get put in the orv world there’s no way I’d survive” n she’s surviving the hardest, the balls on this woman. i think my jaw drops everytime she appears bc she’s got new awesome abilities n powers n connections. don’t even need that YJH carry

+ Yoo Sangah constellation, + LHH’s equivalent of Yoo Sangah, + the editor of ORV (its editor…. 🥹)

she and LHH literally got that best friend feel on, just looking at each other n understanding each other

also possessing King of Beauty is unironically crazy, but so so funny. someone who found her own way but still remains a reliable ally all the way through

seems to be getting more screen time this arc PLEASE more of her

that’s the companion readers i deadass can not write anymore in this tumblr post i mean i can. oh wow the readers are so fucking awesome man…

[missyourflight]

some stuff i read and watched in june:

taskmaster (s1-5): haven't done an early seasons rewatch in so long, s4 and 5 are basically perfect 2 me. incredible that mark watson manages to be both my favourite type of taskmaster guy (hopelessly despairing) and also nearly won the thing lol. nish forever obviously

silo: got well into this! probably at some point apple will stop throwing millions at sci-fi shows but i'm going to enjoy their folly in the meantime

mission: impossible ii: hadn't seen this one! the weakest of the lot but the john woo of it all is undeniable

mission: impossible iii: PSH outrageously good as the villain, hi keri russell

mission: impossible - ghost protocol: so much fun, especially the sequences where you can see brad bird's animation brain going

mission: impossible - rogue nation: ILSA my beloved, the opera sequence is so gorgeous, no notes!

mission: impossible - fallout: it's good when henry cavill reloads his arms, it's better when tom cruise is sprinting around london rooftops and breaking his ankle etc, my most basic trait is that i Love when they're in london like oooh tate modern. anyway i'm very ready for dead reckoning

asteroid city: the bits about making art really got to me! the vending machines were cool!

joint security area: crash landing on you prepared me for this, blank check weren't lying when they said it was homoerotic, song kang-ho forever etc

dodie smith, the town in bloom: the most delightful narrative voice i've read in Ages and v funny. easy to sell me on 1920s theatrical shenanigans

k patrick, mrs s: So hot and butch, i liked the butch friendship stuff almost more than the sex stuff. more sexy lesbian novels Please

kj charles, the secret lives of country gentlemen: another winner from KJC, my most reliable romantic comfort reads. this time it's smugglers!

alice slater, death of a bookseller: sticky little thriller about being poisoned by true crime, great sense of place, So many pints of dark fruits

laura kay, wild things: bisexual disaster in love with her best friend, tragically very me- and also george russell-coded, god i want to swim in a pond again

SOME STUFF I SAW AT ROCK WERCHTER

the dj on the first nigt who played a mash up of i'm gonna be (500 miles) into temperature and then the 1d cover of one way or another into little lion man (deeply cursed fandom flashbacks etc)

weyes blood with candelabras and glowing hearts and amazing adam curtis projections on the big screen behind her

king princess sending the gay girls of belgium absolutely wild - "you wanna hear a sad lesbian song?"

matty healy is a dickhead but he's very good at being the frontman of the 1975. like if ben whishaw was straight and kind of disgusting

stormzy!!! literally the rain was pouring during blinded by your grace pt 2

mumford and sons - this whole festival was like being borne back ceaseless into the past but the cave still fucks me up, marcus really in his ken marino era, face-wise

PUP - i do believe if this tour doesn't kill you, i will to be a wholly perfect song, they had a trans flag on stage, best vibes of the festival

sigur ros - sometimes you just want to be in a massive barn with thousands of people with your faces turned up in the dark feeling like you're inside the sound somehow

muse - fucking incredible live band still!! every time i'm see them i'm floored by how hot chris the bassist is and then i forget about it and then i see them again and i'm poleaxed etc. they had a tech meltdown during knights of cydonia at the encore so we got showbiz instead!!

christine and the queens - beautiful and terrible as the dawn

jacob collier - asked if we wanted to get funky then put on a special hat, bit george russell-coded in the face

arctic monkeys - sometimes you just want to be in a field with one of your oldest friends singing the songs of your youth!! i love the 70s act actually! there are so many sexy songs on AM!! the skies finally cleared for the beautiful full moon, thank you belgium, good night

[isekai-crow]

Sasaki and Peeps / Sasaki to Pii-chan Episode 1

THIS WAS SUCH A WEIRD FIRST EPISODE.

Overall Rating So Far: 7/10

(Purely because I have no idea where this is going and there is So Much and I can't make sense of it)

(This promo art implies it won't be a harem but I'm starting to have my doubts...)

I have no idea where to put my hopes in this anime, as everything that interested me initially got blasted through in the first episode.

Also, the MAL page has been updated since I last looked at it to show an almost all female cast whereas it had more male characters like French in it before it started airing...

However, I still hold hope. We've got quite a few big name VAs, but a studio thats mostly put out harem isekais (and possibly some hentai?).

Fricken Namikawa Daisuke is in here as a side character, French the cook (a bit on the nose for a name but..). He's one of my favorite VAs, and his famous roles (for me) being Hisoka from HunterxHunter and Chousou from JJK among a host of other huge roles. His basic existence is a draw for me. The fact that he is in this at all has gotta mean something, right???

Sasaki-san is also voiced by a big name VA, Sugita, Tomokazu !! Gintoki from Gintama, JOSEPH JOESTAR, Rudeus from Mushoku Tensei, KATAKURI from One Piece!!

And Pii-chan HAS ANOTHER FAVORITE!!! Pii-chan voiced by the amazing Yuuki, Aoi!! Our Beloved Maomao!!! who, btw is also the voice Madoka!! Tsuyu-chan from BNHA!! Tanya Degurecha from Youjo Senki!! Tatsumaki from One Punch Man!! An awesome voice with an amazing range.

THERE ARE SO MANY BIG NAMES IN THIS!!

I'll give it a few more episodes and see if the supposed actual plot keeps my attention. I'm decent at ignoring harem and fan service when it suits me (See, My Love: Tensura) (and I do also love me a good yandere)

Episode 1 Spoilers below~

Our main character is a salaryman/office worker name Sasaki, who is ready to "This is fine" and "Yes, and" his was through life.

We have a Java Sparrow, and exotic pet that said officer worker decides to buy ON A WHIM with NO pre-emptive research whatsoever.

Said Java Sparrow is a MASSIVE CHUNIBYO EDGELORD named Piercarlo who has been isekai'd twice?? and is a wizard, but can't use his powers because HE'S A SPARROW.

The scene where Peeps is calling for someone to pick him is hilarious, but man, the ability to just walk into a pet store and buy an exotic pet with no license, training, or background check continues to be terrifying. (I had the chance to buy a hooded crow for $2000, and was mind boggled that they wouldn't let me pet it but would let me take it home with me that day if I just paid. Japan animal laws aren't great yo)

The first episode was a double feature but I didn't notice until we got to the second magic system and went wtf?? It's still going? (I needed to LEAVE and was like... one more episode? *sparkly eyes* and ended up getting two... Nuuuuuuu not like thiiiiiiis I'm gonna miss my traiiiiin)

Last time this happened was with Ragna Crimson (Which SURPRISE SURPRISE IS BY THE SAME STUDIO) and I think Capybara and I made it to episode three? I feel like it's a sign if you need two whole episodes to express one episode's worth of set-up, there's too much going on. And that might be the case again. We get multiple magic systems! We speed run the setting up a trade business and a restaurant in another world! THAT WAS WHAT I WANTED THO, WHY'D YOU SPEED RUN THAT.

I was sincerely hoping for another Campfire Cooking in Another World...

I DO love that Sasaki-san rolls with everything that comes his way, including a yandere high school girl (however it's implied is being neglected since she's always sitting outside her front door while her mum fucks some rando... and I guess Sasaki does nothing or just doesn't notice?)

But after all the set up, suddenly a lady in a business suit shows up and is actively getting MURDERED by some dude with Magic?? But they're in the real world?? ? And she's about as Genki as Shion is in TenSura, (but I hope not as annoying as anime Shion, because manga/LN Shion is a badass).

BUT WHY. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING.

After a bit of research...

"The author, Bunkorori, says that he wanted to develop a story that would create a sense of tension in the modern world instead of showing a slow life in the other world. The author says that he wanted to keep a pet but was unable to and that he wanted to express his desire through writing, which was the impetus for writing this work."

This makes a bit more sense now... Not really, but that's basically all the pieces of what was included in this first episode set-up. I'm kinda bummed if it's not actually gonna be a slow life in another world, but maybe the tension of the modern world will be fun?

Not that I don't already have enough tension in my real world...

Anyways, a few more episodes! We will see if this is worth sticking with or if I'm gonna drop it.

ep2 ep3 ep4 ep5 ep6 <- these will eventually become links

[kirain]

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie “copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[shikonotama]

Noragami Reverse Bigbang 2021

Hello! This is my piece for this year's @noragamibigbang. The idea for this fic came from @littlessushi who was my partner for this reverse bigbang. Please make sure to check out her beatiful art! As this was the first time I participated in a reverse bigbang I was quite nervous at the beginning but thanks to my partner's help it was a really great time and I enyojed the writing a lot. Have fun reading! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ »That’s all. Thank you very much.« The young woman took the bag in front of her, bowed politely and left the supermarket she often used to visit on her way home. Right after stepping into the already fading sunlight that warmly lit the surroundings; she stretched both her arms high up into the air, closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. It had been a tough day so far.

Since she had finished medical school and started to work at the local hospital some weeks ago, starting from tomorrow she had her first days off, so she could take things easy today.

‘Alright, Hiyori’, she told herself, ‘time to head back home, get some warm tea and a blanket and just chill on the couch.’

Meow…

Surprised she lowered her arms and opened her eyes to look around.

»Meow…« It took her quite some time to get a glimpse of a tiny black cat. It sat on top of a trash can cover and had its eyes strictly focused her way.

»… me…ow…«, the sound coming out of the small mouth got quite a bit lower after she took some steps into the small cat’s direction.

»Don’t be afraid…«, she smiled, stood still and squatted down while leaning forward a bit. At first Hiyori feared the cat would jump up straight away and run, but it just kept watching her, then the black head rose, the cat closed its eyes and the tiny black nose started to wiggle.

»What’s wrong?«, she asked, knowing well a cat wouldn’t answer. Instead it opened both eyes in an instant: »Meow!«, the big green eyes were now focusing the white bag Hiyori just bought. The woman smiled, stood back up and put one hand into the plastic bag.

»Are you hungry? I only bought some buns, you know?«, she laughed and held a piece between her fingers, so the small animal could reach it without any trouble. When their eyes met again, Hiyori’s smile vanished in an instant and she froze.

Even though the weather hadn’t changed the slightest, the sound of raindrops falling onto the ground reached her ears: raindrops that hit the ground, the roof, the rain drain, her umbrella and the trash can cover.

“I will keep my promise!” Her own words echoed in her ears, “I will never ever forget about you…!”The young woman shuddered and held her breath.

»Ya…to…?!«, she whispered while barely getting any kind of sound out of her mouth and took a closer look at the pair of light green eyes that carefully watched her. The bun she just held dropped on the floor. Just one second ago, Hiyori believed that the cat’s eyes’ colour had changed from green into a deep and light blue – but she was wrong: It was still the same.

‘Why …?’

“Will you really keep that promise, I wonder…?”

Not caring about some people who would probably think she had gotten crazy, Hiyori let the entire bag fall on the ground, turned around and ran.

The park she just entered was still filled with people, mostly families and friends. Many of them already started to prepare their way home, but some were still enjoying their time together. The cherry blossom trees throughout the city had just started to bloom and drew everyone’s attention towards them. Tiny pink petals were dancing through the air, swirling around and lightening everybody’s mood, or so it seemed.

Countless children were running around, screaming and dancing with both leaves and their friends while on the other hand older people were sitting on blankets, drinking, chatting and laughing with their beloveds and family – meanwhile Hiyori was still caught in her thoughts, not fully aware of what just happened or where she ran to.

It was only some minutes later when she finally recognised she ran quite a distance. She abruptly stopped and leaned against a trunk, her eyes still closed to get back a hold of her breathing.

As her emotions calmed down and the surrounding sounds started to reach her consciousness again, she carefully blinked and reopened her eyes. Even though she could still feel her heart pounding against her chest, her breathing tempo went back to normal and her brain had started to work properly again. Even her hands had stopped shaking.

‘What’s wrong with me, all of a sudden?’ She led out a heavy sigh and watched the children play on the grass right in front of her eyes. Hiyori couldn’t help herself but bring back a smile to her face. It felt like ages, since she last went out for a walk during the Hanami. When she was younger, she used to go out with her family and play with her brother and friends like those kids did just now. Later, when she entered middle school, she used to come visit the blooming trees together with her friends, but since she went afar to study to become a physician, she simply didn’t have the time to take a relaxing walk around the park.

Just now, when her eyes tried to follow the petals swirling through the air, she felt like a heavy weight was lifted from her chest – a feeling she hadn’t felt in quite a while. Like a vanishing mist that lay upon her soul for the past… days… maybe weeks… or even years?

»This place sure is amazing, isn’t it?! We definitely have to come back here again next year!«

»You bet we will!«

»For real?! It’s a promise! You better not forget, okay?«

»Of course I promise. How could I forget something that important?!«

The three people, walking by Hiyori who still leaned against the trunk of one of the biggest cherry blossom trees around, laughed and giggled up until she lost sight of them.

»… a… promise…?« Hiyori murmured, softly pushing her body away from the cherry tree trunk. Slowly she continued her way through the park, passing by several trees – some of which were lit by nearby street lamps that had just been switched on one second ago. As she moved on, the amount of people crossing her way decreased, until she finally found herself at the edge of the park, looking over a beautiful riverside, while the sun had continued its way, so it was just about to touch the ground in the far distance now. This caused the white and pink petals swirling around Hiyori’s body to be touched by the fading sunlight, turning the already beautiful view into an even more mysterious one. The tree right beside her, which had its trunk wrapped up in a mat of straw, didn’t seem to be one of the strongest or biggest ones she passed today, nevertheless its petals rained down and spread across – some of them might even reach the other riverbank.

She carefully approached the tree and put her palm on top of its somewhat familiar bark.

‘So warm…’ She lifted her eyes and waved her gaze to the treetop. In an instant she could feel a fresh breeze of wind playing with her hair.

“The Sakura’s in full blossom.”, her own voice echoed in her ears. She shrugged.

“Whoa… they sure are pretty!” It was the voice of a young man, maybe still at a kid’s age. Startled, Hiyori took some steps back from the tree she just put her hand on and searched her surroundings.

“They are… Let’s come back next year, too, okay?!”

“Definitely…” The blonde boy beside her, his eyes sparkling in joy, nodded, still gazing at the big cherry blossom tree. Just one second later he snapped out of his current mood, turning his attention to the back while shouting: “Yo – You dumb old stalker. We did you a big favour by letting you come with us, so you better be careful!” Following his voice, Hiyori turned around as well. Some meters behind them stood a young man dressed in a black track suit. His gaze was locked on the cherry tree as well, but in contrast to the boy, his eyes didn’t sparkle, nor was there any joy visible on his face. His expressions hadn’t changed since Yukine spoke to him, he didn’t even spare a glance on the two. Hiyori couldn’t help herself but feel unease: It was rare for him to put up that kind of face. She wanted to ask him, wanted to know if something happened she didn’t know about, but on the same time she didn’t find the right words to do so. His mind seemed to be in a place far away from here, would he even bother to answer?

Then suddenly, he started to mumble some words. Not loud enough to understand completely, even though she really tried. The wind made the young man’s black hair cover his eyes, so she couldn’t get a hold of his expression anymore. ‘What’s wrong??’ Just as she started to make a move to turn around and walk in his direction, some of his words made it through to her.

“… huh? … can’t even remember… when I last saw…”

‘When?’

“What are you rambling about?! Cherry blossoms are everywhere in Japan…!” The boy’s voice snapped both of them out of their thoughts.

“Hmph… Dumplings over flowers for me any day.”

Without any further word, Yato headed straight to the bento boxes Hiyori prepared for today, sat down on the blanket and pinched a bit out of the box next to him. “SO MUCH FOOD!”, he picked up one of the sausages shaped like an octopus. In contrast to his appearance just some moments ago, he wore a big grin on his face, his cheeks rosy from excitement.

“Ahh, just looking at these adorable octopus hotdogs makes me warm with Hiyori’s love…”

“Wait ‘til everybody gets here, okay?”

“Everybody?”

Just as they spoke, a bunch of people appeared in the far, strictly heading for the cherry blossom tree they prepared the picnic at.

Hiyori couldn’t help herself but giggle at the images that just flashed before her eyes. Both Yato and Bishamon sure were energetic that day. Everyone else probably had a lot of fun, too!

»You should quit drinking that much if you lose the capability to control your actions, you know? Don’t blame me, Yukine or anyone else for the things you did!«

Hiyori had turned around, rolling her eyes and both of her hands rested on her hip.

‘At least he doesn’t make that gloomy face anymore.’

The annoyed look on her face vanished and turned into a happy smile as their eyes met.

»Whatever… this day turned out to be a lot of fun, huh? Well… it was even more chaotic as I could’ve ever imagined beforehand…«

After a short pause, she continued: »Yato…!« It was just then, when she finally realised that neither Yato, nor Yukine nor one of the others had been with her to begin with.

In front of her eyes there was still that cherry tree which had a small part of its trunk covered, the same petals dancing around her body and the same river some steps ahead.

»Right…«, she told herself, »… it’s already been some years.« ‘How could I forget? … Again…’ The whole amount of energy she just felt some minutes ago had already left her body, so she leaned against the tree behind her, slowly sliding to the ground. In silence, tears had gathered in both of her eyes, blurring her vision before they rolled over and left a wet mark on her face.

Back then she couldn’t even think about a life without them – a so called normal life. A life where she simply went to school to learn, have fun with her classmates and friends and then starting to think about her future goals.

After she was hit by that truck when she was trying to save this reckless god running over the street to catch a stray, she tended to leave her body from time to time. Even now she couldn’t fully understand what happened back then. As a so called half Ayakashi she could jump up high and her kicks were even stronger than Tono’s. Yato had promised to find a cure for her state. ‘Right… I even payed him the five Yen he requested.’ As time went by, she had started to stop regretting her new state and used the power given to her to help her friends and fight. What started as something alarming and scary turned out to be a way full of friends and mysteries to solve. Never could she have imagined that it would not stay like this forever.

Even though Tenjin had warned her to stay alert and thus suggested that cutting ties with Yato and everybody else would be for the best, she refused and stayed. She wanted to stay by their side – by his side. After she almost forgot about everybody once, she treasured her dairy even more, closely paying attention to reread and write something down every single day.

‘Why did I forget about them again? Did he cut the ties for real this time? That night?’ – He didn’t, she just remembered. After her cord was heavily damaged and her physical body had gotten weaker, Tenjin brought up the matter of cutting ties again.

“I’m sorry… if it wasn’t for me, your condition wouldn’t be that bad right now…«, Yato stood some steps away from her, his eyes strictly directed to the floor. It wasn’t easy to understand every word he said, because his voice was about to start trembling any moment. To cover up, he kept it low.

“That’s not true! Why do keep blaming yourself for things you can’t change?!!”

Hiyori’s voice was filled with anger and despair. If he really wanted to cut the ties that connected the two there wasn’t much she was able to do against.

“Yato…”, after a while she lowered her voice too, slowly closing the gap between them until she was able to touch his chin with her fingertips. Gently and yet firmly she lifted his head so his eyes had to make contact with hers. His were cold and without the sparkling deep blue she loved about them the most. His face was covered in bruises from the many fights he had to endure and despite her having bandaged them the best she could, he really looked like someone who should rest rather than standing here at night, chatting.

“… please.”, she continued her talk, “I don’t want to forget, I will be fine, I’ll-…!”

She felt cold sweat running over her face and her breathing was unsteady and fast. It was just at that moment, when she suddenly felt dizzy and was about to tumble. Yato quickly had put his arms around her waist and pulled her close to his chest. She could feel every finger of his tightly holding onto her shirt while desperately trying to cover the fact that his hands were shaking.

“Please… I don’t want to forget… again…”, she whispered and could feel him strengthen his grip even more.

She tightly wrapped her arms around her knees as she remembered what happened more than six years ago. Her condition kept getting worse, so everyone suggested it may be best for her to continue living a normal life. That’s why she decided to sign up for medical school far away from Kofuku’s house. If she studied far away, kept her distance and regained her health, she would be able to meet with them again – at least that was what she had hoped for.

Her condition did indeed get better throughout the years passing by, she felt a lot healthier now and

could not remember a single day she left body again. ‘But… I ended up forgetting about them… about all of them nonetheless.’

‘I wonder… are they still arguing day for day? Fighting evil spirits? Did they get into a fight again and got hurt? Are they… still ali-…!’

Hiyori stopped her own thoughts, opened her eyes wide and held her breath while covering her mouth with both her hands.

“The only kinds of believers Yato could ever relay on were those one-time customers, not to mention he was never really blessed with a good shinki… I’m sure he had his fair share of fears and doubts. I bet there wasn’t a day when his mind was at ease, since he had to cling to one person’s memory at a time to stay alive…”

‘Right… without his lifeline, an unknown god like Yato would…’

Her chest hurt and her head was filled with dust. Hiyori could feel her knees shaking, as she tried to stand back up on her feet again. After she forgot about him during the past six years, did he…? No…

»This can’t be… right!« Hastily the woman grabbed the bag she was carrying her mobile in; at least she tried to. Where she remembered her bag to be, she could just grasp thin air. She must have lost her bag after encountering the black cat next to the supermarket this afternoon.

»Damn…!« With one jump she ignored her still shaking knees and jumped back on her feet.

‘It doesn’t matter if we’re supposed to cut ties… I don’t care…’ Her body ran back into the park she came out of some minutes ago. All its ways were lit by streetlamps, now that the sunlight was almost completely gone for today.

‘I have to call him… I have to know whether he and Yukine are safe… Please – be safe!’

The tears had flooded her eyes, making it difficult for her to follow the path she was heading properly.

‘Please…’, she begged in her mind, not able to think of something different anymore.

»YATO-…!«

Some birds that were sitting on nearby branches to enjoy the last warmth of the sun flew away in fright – not because Hiyori suddenly shouted out a name into the dark, but because of the sound of two bodies crashing into each other. The uninspected impact made the woman stagger backwards; therefore she was now sitting in the grass, heavily breathing.

»I’m terribly sorry… I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. Are you hurt?«, the calm voice of a young man dispelled the rising panic occupying her mind.

»No, I’m… I’m fine. Sorry.«, she answered in a low voice and raised her head. Since it already got dark and the last piece of sunlight couldn’t reach the centre of the park she was now in, the big cherry blossom trees around her were all lit by some streetlamps. One might say the contrast of the dark night with its deep blue sky made a beautiful contrast to the white and pink petals still swirling to the ground, but Hiyori didn’t care about anything like that right now. She was looking into the direction the young man’s voice had reached her ears from. Even though she could only see his silhouette because he stood right in front of one of the lights, he had a somewhat calming aura around him. As she took a closer look she noticed he wore some kind of tracksuit. Maybe he was one of the students or freshmen who spend their time after work for some fitness runs through the park.

‘Whatever… I have to hurry!’

As she made a move to stand back up again, the person in front of her came some steps closer and made something swing right before her eyes.

»This happens to be yours, doesn’t it?«

Just now she realised that it was indeed her mobile phone the stranger was holding. She nodded.

»I figured.«, he replied and straightened his back again, »Well then…«

»How did you kn-…?«

»Be careful – tonight’s gonna be a gloomy night.« The young man in front of her avoided to answer her question and turned around, just to be gone not even a second later.

»Wait!« Hiyori put her hand in front to push her body on her feet again, when she realised her phone lying right before her eyes. Hastily she picked it up and unlocked the screen when she suddenly paused. Attached to the upper right of her phone, there was a small keychain she did not remember putting there in the first place. It was a golden crown which was attached to a thin string, shining even in the pale light of the street lamps.

The tears that had stopped once she fell to the floor continued to run all over her face, as she embraced the small keychain and squeezed it close to her chest.

»Thank god…«, she murmured and couldn’t hold back the sobbing that echoed through the dark, while a gentle wind, which brought a lot of cherry blossom petals with it, gently caressed her body, as if it wanted to give her at least a little comfort.

************************************************************************

Close to the riverside the young man was looking back at the park full of cherry blossom trees, when the woman’s whispers reached his ears and a relieved smile hushed over his face. He closed his eyes and turned around to leave.

»Stupid… I won’t disappear that easy.«

[hbcsource]

Helena Bonham Carter’s Interview with ‘The Sunday Times’ | 20 December 2020

“I have always found that clowns seemed sad,” Helena Bonham Carter tells me over a patchy Zoom call. “That’s why they have to paint their smile on.” She pauses thoughtfully. “I often dress in clown-like things — baggy trousers, braces, white face . . . I love a white face. I don’t know where that comes from. I like any mask, to be honest. Anything that stops me from being me.” Bonham Carter has been feeling the tears of a clown a lot this year. She has seen her industry struggle and worries for younger performers. She has been mourning one of her beloved friends — Nell Gifford, the founder of Giffords Circus — and she has just finished narrating Channel 4’s animated version of Clown, Quentin Blake’s wordless book about a toy who is determined to escape the dustbin he has been thrown into and to build a new life for his fellow binned playthings. “The clown has been discarded on Christmas night, rejected and forgotten, and the story is about how he’s found again and how, through being loved, he comes to life,” she says. “It’s very poetic and touching. The pathos of the clown.” In recording it she found herself thinking a lot about Nell, who died a year ago. They met years ago when Gifford’s traditional circus — vintage tents, old-school performances and artful storylines, written and directed by the mighty Cal McCrystal — was just making its reputation. “We had similar backgrounds,” Bonham Carter says. “Both of us had a parent who had a traumatic brain injury, and our response was similar — an instinct to create our own worlds. She ran off to the circus. And when my amazing father’s brain tumour operation went wrong, I found an agent to help me live as other people. Our lives went through similar things — children, divorce — and we helped each other jump on to the next step. When she died it was very sudden. She had cancer, but I thought she would defy everything.” The film of Quentin Blake’s book, published in 1995 and told entirely in pictures, is the first offering from Eagle Eye Drama, the production company launched by the team behind the TV drama brand Walter Presents. Walter Iuzzolino, its founder, recalls his route into showbiz began when, as a six-year-old in Italy, he watched the Disney Silly Symphony Santa’s Workshop on television. “It was a symphony of movement as the elves worked to create the toys and paint the sleigh,” he says. “It was a hand-drawn piece of 1930s modernist art. I asked my grandparents who did this, and they explained what a producer was. At that point I knew what I wanted to be.” The animation itself was Covid-induced. Eagle Eye had a drama ready to go into production when lockdown closed things down. Iuzzolino realised a replacement project could be created by animators working at home. The team had always loved Quentin Blake and was delighted to find the option on Clown was available. “With Quentin’s drawings being so beautiful, we immediately discarded the CGI PlayStation animation that’s everywhere today — and I hate it,” he says. “We went back to the roots of the craft. I wanted to create my own Silly Symphony. We found artists and animators in the UK, Italy and around the world, and had to produce 30,000 frames, working around the clock while recording the score one instrument at a time. “And then we met Helena — her voice is like the finest Belgian chocolate melted on a Viennese cake. At our first meeting she talked about Giulietta Masina, Mrs Fellini, in La Strada, and I knew she understood the tinge of nostalgia, sadness and melancholy about the clown.” Bonham Carter is flattered, but slightly unsure. “I’m narrating, although I think the cartoon might have been better without me,” she says modestly. “For the genuine children watching, it may help to have my voice guiding them through the story. It has no words as a book, so I’m not doing any characters. I am just the voice-of-God narrator.” She pauses and thinks that through approvingly. “Voice of God. I like that. I’ll try that on my children — ‘I am the voice of God today!’” She remembers the conversation about Masina. It was her husband’s film La Strada — about a brutish circus strongman, played by Anthony Quinn, and his little clown assistant, played by Masina — that began Bonham Carter’s loving relationship with clowns and circus. “I always found the mainstream Zippo-style circus too loud and brash and in-your-face, although I suppose I was always drawn to clowns,” she says. “Why else would I dress like them?” Does that mask thing work? Does it protect her? “Of course it doesn’t,” she says, sighing. “It’s more likely to reveal the internal you. I get excited about acting because it holds the promise that you could become someone else. Then you see yourself and go, ‘Dang, again I didn’t do it. Again I’m revealing myself.’” She bursts out laughing, a full throaty chuckle. “When will I get the message?” she says. She’s 54. “I’m always doing too much. Early on in my career I was told by a director I have an expressive face, and I’ve been trying to keep it in check ever since. And words! I use far too many words. Even my name has too many words in it. The bane of my flipping life. Can I have your autograph? Ugh. It has 18 letters. Brad Pitt only has eight.” And she chuckles again. Having fallen for Masina, she found herself drawn to the circus in the most unexpected ways. “I love the circus family that goes back for years — handing the skills down to the next generation,” she explains. “So the only showbiz thing I forced Billy and Nell, my children, to do was tap dance. It’s not circus, but it felt connected. I tortured the hell out of them by dragging them along every Saturday morning — it’s the only vicarious ambition I’m ever going to force on them.” Has she never considered clowning herself? “I can’t run away and join the circus, I have responsibilities,” she chides. “Nell and I did have serious chats about an act, but we never got around to details. At one point I was going to descend on a moon singing a song, possibly going commando.” She sniggers. “I think one day I will get into the ring somehow.” For the photoshoot she seems to have gone halfway towards the big top. Her look is based on Masina’s little clown — a bowler hat and big boots. “Doing the photoshoot was very cathartic, and I’m afraid I did rather take it to the limit . . .” Her laugh bubbles up again. “I’m a Covid-starved actress, I haven’t had a part for a year, so give me a costume and I will go for it. My children are 17 and 13, so they are no longer prepared to dance with me — photoshoots are my chance to dance by myself. I had the music on and was throwing myself around.” I have the same problem, I confess. My daughters used to dance with me in the kitchen, but now find the idea of Dad dancing a crippling embarrassment. She is outraged. “We don’t have to say goodbye to their childhood just because they have,” she exclaims. “Have you read The Velveteen Rabbit?” I have, I say, but I can’t these days. It breaks my ageing parental heart. “But think about what the story says,” she urges. “It’s like Clown. These toys are the classic result of children growing up. They are discarded, and it’s an emblem of age. The rabbit is losing its ears, but that’s because it’s been so loved. You and me, our faces can sag and our bits can fall off, but that’s because we are being loved.” I give a small gasp. She gives a determined nod. “You remember that this Christmas, Stephen. You hold on to your children’s childhood. Don’t let them take it away. Carry on dancing. Spread the word! Parents and teen-agers: carry on dancing!”

[af1899]

FEH - So... quick thoughts on [CYL 2021]

The [Feh Channel] was released here and we’ve finally got news on artwork, base kit and stats on everyone, I’ll share some early thoughts and reactions on each of the four, plus the identity of the new [Grand Hero Battle] unit right below, feel free to read on.

First of all, you might be most interested on our latest [Grand Hero Battle] unit, that’s... Pelleas “Ashnard’s Orphan”, going to be available starting August 18th at 4:00 a.m. (GMT-3). Quite the interesting pick and the guy deserved to be added to the game for a long time, he's a [Grand Hero Battle] because he's fought (albeit optionally) in a snowy map early on part 4, and he has a smaller room for growth compared to most of the cast in the game.

Now, I’ve read he’s using a generic red tome with a lion pattern engraved on it, this could very well mean it’ll have [Fury 3] or something similar, but this is a R.I.P. for him because he gets no PRF to stand out and is just going to be another free infantry red tome in 2021... ugh... but I’ll wait and see on the data mine when it rolls out tomorrow.

Next up, kits for everyone and stats:

(As for what are the other skills other than the weapons, feel free to check the trailer linked above)

Now, I’ll order the characters from most to least anticipated by me, along with what I think of each:

Marianne: I’d say she’s the absolute winner for me but... much as I adore her, I actually feel rather mixed about this alt. She comes with [Atk/Spd Unity] which reverses field penalties on those stats and her kit+stats priming her for pure offense on player phase, she’s going to be really fast and able to take in a large portion of damage for the first strike from the enemy per combat. Not really shabby and actually really interesting colorless tome offensive unit, but I’d have liked to see a version of her wielding [Blutgang] after timeskip... I’m guessing we’ll see that in an alt like the Valentian Whitewings. Sadly, I’ve been eagerly waiting for [Atk/Spd Unity] so that my Clarisse would have it, but the worst thing that could happen is that she already has the other two passive skillas Marianne has, so I think I’ll keep waiting. As for artwork, I like it but at the same time, I feel slightly uncomfortable by the styling itself, Marianne’s expression in her special art is particularly bothersome but not to the extent I’d be upset about... it just feels odd, like maybe another artist such as Asatani Tomoyo might have proposed a take that’s more my liking.

Eirika: she’s kind of a special case here, in this ocassion, she takes up on Ephraim’s weapon and garment, I actually like this idea, since it references her strong connection with her beloved brother. The art is pretty and I find it refreshing her hair is tied into a ponytail this time; but now, in terms of gameplay, she plays similarly to Marianne, yet there are many glaring differences for sure, like lowered damage reduction and easy stats plus follow-up negation effects nulled, making of her yet another excellent [Windsweep 3] source. *Presses F in the chat for Lifis* She also carries a powercrept [Swift Sparrow 3] which I have no doubt will be inheritable, as it can heal the user by large amounts, complimenting skills with large cooldowns like [Aether] really well (do note that works when an offensive skill triggers in-battle).

Marth: the wait has been long worth for his fans, although I was never too drawn by him, I still like him from the Akaneia titles (yes, I just used an old translation all right). Although he’s just another infantry sword user, I actually appreciate he’s doning Anri’s armor, Marth’s ancestor from old times, the concept itself is actually so good and the artwork is impressive. From a gameplay standpoint: his weapon is loaded with a ton of effects that require consistent stat boosting in field for the maximum effect, fortunately, you don’t have to worry as much about positioning allies near Marth, just keeping them buffed with at least a +5 on everything, Fae with her preference weapon (no need to refine) got you covered, but having a total of 25 is enough and easy to make of him a powerhouse. Again, he also comes pre-built, without any need for investment except of course adding an assist skill like for Eirika and Marianne, slightly gearing towards enemy phase but rather flexible to build.

Gatekeeper: I never hated (or will hate) him, he’s a well revered guard in the Garreg Mach Monastery with a cheerful and dutiful attitude that I like.. I’m just not really attached to him nor find the popular meme that interesting or funny. Anyway, I have to admit that I.S. went very creative with his quotes, epithet and skill naming (and did you see that weapon’s animation? That’s crazy). His artwork is amazing too, you just have to look at all the detail on it like the castle on Gatekeeper’s background and his teammates accompanying him in his special attack. As for gameplay, he’s pure enemy phase, a strong and durable mixed wall with tendence towards buffing his physical defense and carries an ability to block the enemy’s advancement and warping skills within an area centered on him, plus he also offers a little support as well, a rather interesting unit indeed, I don’t think he’ll be too annoying or even a common threat in PvP, but he might see use in some situations.

As for my free summon, I’m probably picking Eirika actually, I quite like her and that new A-skill plus [Atk/Spd Menace] on regular pool is looking spicy, perhaps my Nyx is going to love these, but I’ll wait for data mine to confirm inheritance restrictions on all new non-PRF skills.

Oh, I almost forgot but we’re getting a {Dragonflower} stat boost cap increase as follows:

And these rewards tomorrow:

I like this because my Sonya will have 69 base attack for a month but again my maxed out projects will be incomplete aaaaaaaaa.

[julie1706]

Julie’s incredibly aesthetic incredibly autumny list of movies that she maybe recommends (part 2)

Oh sweet joy! It turns out that there are many more great, fantastic, cosy movies (and tv-series!) just absolutely perfect for autumn. By popular demand, I return with even MORE autumny recommendations, and this time, there might even be spell-checking. (Looking at you, “Silence of the Lamps”) (I won’t edit that, because that’s just funny.) 

Thank you for reading the previous one, and I hope you’ll enjoy this one too! We have some GREAT ones coming up. I hope! Maybe! But what I believe will really perfect this second list, is the fact, that autumn is close to being at its peak right now, with it being October! Woohoo! 

Pumpkins, Jack’o’lanterns, spooky movies, Halloween, tricks and treats, fog, rain, candles lit in the dark, delicious tea, and scarves, because the chill is back in the air! Amazing! The aesthetics are to die for! 

I’m on a small break from university, and have actually been having some allowed free time, to do autumny stuff. By this I mean I can do autumny stuff with my family and friends, and not feel guilty, because this time I’m not procrastinating. Well, I’m a little behind on some books, but it’s not that bad. You’re allowed free time on breaks! They’re supposed to be mostly free time, anyone knows that. I refuse to be a good student on breaks! 

This free time means that I have actually had time to watch some of these movies and tv-shows myself, and so I can feel a little better about recommending most of them, since I’ve actually seen them. Hehe. Still. I do have other, boring stuff to do, like reading for uni, emptying the dishwasher, cooking, vacuuming, etc., so there will be some of these I’m including, I have not watched, and those will be, again, backed by the power of optimism. Yay! Anyway! You’ve read enough not-halloween recommendationing, and is getting bored - Let’s get to it! (Also, these are still in random order, and I will put warnings at the end, again <3)

Coraline

I remember watching Coraline when it came out in theaters, years ago. I also remember that we had a little closet-thing in the wall, small and closed-up, but still very similar to the one she goes into, in the movie. Needless to say, this was not a favorite for little Julie, who was absolutely scared shit-less by this movie. I remember button-eyes, decaying puppets, and a very scary mom. Now, I have not watched the full movie since, but from bits and pieces through the years, I can wholeheartedly recommend this one. It’s stop-motion, the details are incredible, and wow, this movie is great. If you, like me, are no longer 9 years old, watch it! It’s wonderful, and surprisingly, very feel-good in the family aspect. A great movie!

Official synopsis: 

An adventurous 11-year-old girl finds another world that is a strangely idealized version of her frustrating home, but it has sinister secrets.

//Warning: do not watch this, if you are around nine years old. It will absolutely traumatize you about small closets in old houses. If you are not nine years old, I think you’re good! Just the right amount of spookyness, I believe!

Sense and Sensibility

I watched this with a good friend in february, I think. So I’m not sure why I think this has to go on an autumny list, but I stand by it! Maybe it’s the beige and brown, beautiful clothing, the many shots of nature, and the relationships between these characters, that fits very well with the cold and chilling air, we find ourselves in, here in lovely October. I don’t know. Food for thought. But this is a great movie, and I really think you should try watching it under a blanket, with tea and a good friend. We didn’t know the story before we saw it, and it had us guessing! And there is a part my other friend Sif told me, always makes her dad cry, and I think that should be taken as a compliment to this movie! It’s great! Love, sisters, crisis and period drama (and great clothes), this movie has it all! (also - Emma Thompson!)

Official synopsis: 

Rich Mr. Dashwood dies, leaving his second wife and her three daughters poor by the rules of inheritance. The two eldest daughters are the title opposites.

//Warning: It might make you cry. But I promise, it will be a good experience, in the end. It’s not scary, though.

Over the Garden Wall (animated series)

Well, this one, I’ve been dreading to add to my list. Now, you must not misunderstand, it’s not because I don’t like it. It’s because this series is so great, so weird, so beautifully drawn and made, that I’m afraid I could write a whole blog post dedicated only to Otgw, and still not feel that I have done it justice. It's just so good. It’s like the someone just decided one day, to make a series, that absolutely, perfectly encompasses autumn and halloween, and then did just that. The storyline is good, the art is good, the soundtrack is good. God, the soundtrack. I’ve also made sure to listen to this show’s soundtrack, since we left summer behind, and it’s just so good. There’s a reason tumblr went wild, when this show was first released. But since this is an AUTUMNY list, let me focus on those aspects. Big dark woods, scary noises in the dark, red and golden leaves, fantastical beings - this show has it all, and trust me, it WILL get you in the mood for autumn. I almost started puking leaves and pumpkins when I watched this with my friends, that’s how pumped it got me. This show has a special place in my heart, and if you promise not to tell all the other movies and shows on the list, I’ll admit something: this might be a favorite of mine. Maybe THE autumny favorite. 

Official synopsis:

Two brothers find themselves lost in a mysterious land and try to find their way home.

Warning: May be a little spooky, but I have it on good authority from a friend that is a true scaredy-cat, with nerves of whipped cream, that’s it’s fine. She  could handle it, watches it every year, and she’s fine. Good levels of scary.  

Corpse Bride

Believe it or not, that same scaredy-cat of a friend, I just mentioned, actually instructed a musical, based on this story. Is she a horror-fan or not? I have no idea, but her show was so well-done, that it actually made me like this movie a bit better. I have seen it before, but she convinced me, by telling me the original story behind this movie, that it’s pretty great. And by association, this movie became pretty great, too. It’s been some years since I saw this, but it’s a pretty good halloween movie, I think. Dead people tormenting the living. Classic autumn stuff, I would say. And it’s pretty well-made, I think, stop-motion again! I like the aesthetic of a corpse bride, though you have to admit the actual thing is pretty sad. The premise is haunting and scary, but it’s more morose, melancholic and depressing, I think. Poor Emily. But a good movie! Sorry, maybe that wasn’t a very enticing description, but I promise, it will do you more good than bad, to watch it. And then go google the original story, the movie is based on! 

Official synopsis:

When a shy groom practices his wedding vows in the inadvertent presence of a deceased young woman, she rises from the grave assuming he has married her.

//Oops, nearly forgot a warning! Warning: some people are dead, and therefore rotting a bit. If you’re squeamish, don’t watch. If you love sad love stories, definitely watch!

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Yeah, I’m not sure why this has to go on my Autumny List either, sorry. It just has to. I know it takes place over an entire year, but in my head, it jut fits very well with the whole magic, supernatural, foggy halloween times we find ourselves in. I mean, look at the cover! Maybe it’s the iconic scene, right before the troll is discovered in the girls’ bathroom (sorry, spoiler), with the floating jack’o’lanterns, and tables almost crashing undet the weight of candy and cakes, that convinced my brain, that this is a halloween movie. I don’t know. Just trust me on this, and watch the first Harry Potter movie. It’s pretty good. 

Official synopsis: 

An orphaned boy enrolls in a school of wizardry, where he learns the truth about himself, his family and the terrible evil that haunts the magical world.

//Warning: Nah, you’re good ;-)

Little Women (Important: 2019 edition)

Alright girls, we’re hopping genres again! This is another period-drama (sort of), about sisters, and wow, I cried to this. I bawled, I sobbed, I choked on snot, and was a little inconsolable, when I watched it with friends, at the cinema. One of the best experiences this year, and one of the greatest movies I have watched in a long time. I love everything about this movie: the family-bonds, the clothing, the many nature-shots, the developments of characters, (almost) all the characters, and just, wow. No good way to end that sentence, because I want to just keep describing all the good parts of this movie, because it's everything. It’s amazing, and yes, i’m exaggerating, but I can’t help it. I forgot to eat my popcorn or drink my water, when we watched this, that’s how mesmerized I was by this movie. I love Jo, I think I can empathize a lot with her, and if I could talk to her, if she was real, I would thank her for telling her story. This movie is great, you should watch it, because it makes you feel so warm inside. 

Official synopsis:

Jo March reflects back and forth on her life, telling the beloved story of the March sisters - four young women, each determined to live life on her own terms.

//Warning: Might make you break down crying. But in a good way. Very cathartic, actually.

Alien

I watched this for the first time last year, when I decided I was going to watch the classic older horror movies, and not freak the fuck out. I mostly succeed. And this movie was a joy to watch. That’s maybe weird to say about an alien horror movie, but wow I just love Sigourney Weaver, and the aesthetics of this movie. The story is thrilling, and I really did not like most of the characters, I thought they were hysteric and annoying, but I still rooted for them. It’s a different kind of horror movie, that’s for sure! But when I watched it, I totally understood why it has become such a classic.

Official synopsis: 

After a space merchant vessel receives an unknown transmission as a distress call, one of the crew is attacked by a mysterious life form and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.

//Warning: Uh, yeah, Sif, this is not one for you. It’s gross and scary. Malin, I think you’ll like this one! Go ahead! Maybe we should see it together?

Edward Scissorhands

Haven’t seen this one! I want to, though. I think I’ve seen one scene, where this man accidentally pokes a water-bed, and younger me felt that was a very tragic thing, on more levels. Johnny Depp yet again, so it has to be good, right? I know this poor guy, Edward, has it rough, and was given some really not that practical hands. Man, he looks sad, huh? So maybe more sad than scary, yet again. Dont know! But I really do want to watch it. Winona Ryder is in this, too, so really, it’s a no-brainer!

Official synopsis:

An artificial man, who was incompletely constructed and has scissors for hands, leads a solitary life. Then one day, a suburban lady meets him and introduces him to her world.

//Warning: I don’t know? Maybe not that spooky? I think it’s more sad, to be honest.

Pride + Prejudice + Zombies

I mean, why the hell not - right? I love Jane Austen. I love Pride and Prejudice. And I really like halloween, so OF COURSE, I’m including this one. I’ve seen it, too. My friend Malin and I watched it a couple of years ago, and yeah, it’s good. It’s not high cinema, no, but I don’t need that. It was a fun, weird twist, and sometimes, that’s all you need. There is a very interesting scene with a corset, that was NOT in the book, and I think it really added something to this story. And Lily James. Whew. Great movie. Great for autumn. I will be watching this one again.

Official synopsis:

Five sisters in 19th century England must cope with the pressures to marry while protecting themselves from a growing population of zombies.

//Warning: I can’t really remember, but I think there’s some pretty gross scenes with zombies. Rotting flesh is NOT pretty. But just close your eyes for that, and  you’ll be good!

The Haunting of Hill House

I first watched this series when i came out some time ago. I never finished it, I don’t think my heart was in it, but by no fault of the show. Now, that the same creator has made another show, which my mom and I are hooked by, and almost through, I think I’ll be returning to this one - it deserves another chance! A great old house, ghosts, family secrets and INCREDIBLE aesthetics, mean there must be something here! Also, I think it’s based on a novel by Shirley Jackson, and it’s supposed to a classic horror novel, and Stephen King tweeted that he liked it, so yeah, it’s promising! The series I’m watching with my mom is spooky, but tumblr says the Haunting of Hill House is supposed to be much more spooky, terrifying, even, and I really want to find out if that’s true!

Official synopsis:

Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.

//Warning: Very Scary! Faint of heart - Beware! Just enjoy this beautiful gif of Nell dancing by herself, and move on <3

Psycho

Another old classic! Woo! Have not watched, but really, I feel like that’s almost a crime by now. I HAVE to watch it. Soon, I’m planning to. Sadly, It’s old, and I grew up with the internet, so I’ve been spoiled oh so dreadfully, and knows all the bloody details and plottwists of this oldie but goldie. But I still want to watch it! It must be a classic for a reason - right? Also, I’ve never seen the full version of the famous shower scene, and that’s just embarrassing. Shame on me.

Official synopsis:

A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

//Warning: It’s a horror classic! It’s gotta be scary. Then again, it DID come out in 1960. Be careful about this one! Sorry, I have no idea, have never watched it.

Hannibal (the TV series)

It’s gross, it’s scary, it’s aesthetic, there is a danish elegant man eating people in snowy Baltimore, and you really shouldn’t pay him to be your psychiatrist. Hannibal! I first watched this as a young, edgy teenager, and all the blood and gore didn't get to me at all - I just enjoyed the cat-and-mouse game between Will Graham, our main character, very mentally unstable, and a dog-lover, and Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a renowned psychiatrist, elegant, high-society - and also, he talks like a mixture of the bible and an old greek sonet. What I'm trying to get at is that this show is weird. Good weird. But also, now no longer an edgy teenager myself, it’s really gross. A man’s leg is cut off and served to himself. That’s gross. I didn’t like that, and I definitely covered my eyes. Other than that, it’s a very vivid show, with great focus on presentation and symbolism. I would love for someone to analyse each episode, because there's so much attention to detail. It’s honestly impressive. And after having watched many, many shows about crime and murders, I must say, this show has THE most buckwild, creative, never seen before ways of killing people. How the hell do you come up with a murderer using people’s different skin colors to make a mural? I don’t know. It’s disgusting, but man is it different. I’m halfway through season two, and there is a lot to unpack! Also, have to mention, very homoerotic - that’s a plus. Don’t think I could’ve stomached all the blood, otherwise. I hate blood, and wow is there blood in this show.

Official synopsis:

Explores the early relationship between renowned psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter, and his patient, a young FBI criminal profiler, who is haunted by his ability to empathize with serial killers.

//Warning: Yeah. You read how many times I wrote ‘gross’. Just trust me on this one, it’s gross. It’s good, but maybe don’t watch it. You don’t need to introduce your brain to this.

The Haunting of Bly Manor

Ooh boy. Ooooh boy. This series is very good. VERY good. I’m watching it with my mom right now, I think we’re at episode 7, and wow are we hooked. It’s spooky, it’s haunting, it’s thrilling, it’s mysterious, and wow is it scary. We both agreed to go together, the first night we watched this, and our dog had to be taken out on his night-walk. She didn’t want to go alone, and i didn’t want to stay back at the house, alone. So we went together, and I was so freaked out that I nearly peed my pants, when some kids screamed in our neighborhood. It’s so very much what I want a ghost-story to be, but it’s also a lot more, and much greater for it. I love all the characters, they’re all so well-rounded, and most of them are good. The big manor is spooky, and the woods surrounding it are foggy and dark, and yes, this is really a great series for autumn and halloween. It’s the second series made by Mike Flanagan. There are some similarities between the two shows, and surprisingly, some of the same actors! I think that’s very interesting, and it also made me very confused, as I watched the first episodes of the Haunting of Bly Manor, and could not, for the life of me, figure out where the hell I had seen these people before. It made it even more eerie in a way, and I appreciate that. I love this show, and I think I’ll be very sad when we’re through with it. I guess the natural thing to do, will be to follow up with Flanagan’s previous horror series, The Haunting of Hill House! Also, there’s lesbians in this one. Very nice. I appreciate that. Also, surprisingly - I love the children! They’re so cool and brave, and it would be very nice if especially Flora could go with me, the next time I’m going to a haunted house. Such a badass.

Official synopsis:

After an au pair’s tragic death, Henry hires a young American nanny to care for his orphaned niece and nephew who reside at Bly Manor with the chef Owen, groundskeeper Jamie and housekeeper, Mrs. Grose.

Warning: It’s spooky. It’s the perfect halloween series, so of course it’s very spooky! This gif I chose is spooky, and I promise the show itself is worse. But if you can handle dead people creepily staring in the background, and maybe has someone to watch it with, I think you’ll be fine!

Alright! We made it! Another spooky, aesthetic, autumny list, for us to enjoy this crispy season! Woohoo! Also, I’m sorry if there’s any spelling mistakes or whatelse, I hope you enjoyed reading anyway! Thank you! Now go drink some tea and relax, you’ve earned it. I recently tried chili-tea, and damn, that’s another recommendation from me! It was amazing!

Hope you have a great Halloween, it’s close now. Watch out for the cold weather, remember to bundle up, and don’t let the impending darkness get you down. Light some candles! And also, watch some of these spooky tv-series and movies with your family and friends! And have a great fall! <3

Love, Julie

[moraygrotto]

mini fic~

this was inspired by this art by @voreadbhar !!

A/she invites the B/lue L/ions to a dinner of stir fried fallen soldier.

content warnings are (obviously) cannibalism and some referenced gore

It was the first thing Ashe had ever seen Dedue and Felix agree upon— "I cannot help but find this barbaric, as I do many aspects of Faerghus' culture," and "Eating human is fucking disgusting; I'll just go to sleep hungry," respectively. All the others had sat down at the dinner table, taken up their silverware, and accepted the meal in front of them. Here was the prince Dimitri, Ingrid, Sylvain, even the sweets-inclined Annette and Mercedes, and of course, their beloved professor. Given the situation, Ashe was satisfied with the turnout.

"Thank you for cooking, Ashe," said Byleth. "It's always a treat to hear you are on dinner duty."

Smiling sheepishly, Ashe looked down at his food. It looked and tasted like... well, meat.

"They're right!" Mercedes chimed in. "You're such a talented chef, Ashe."

Ashe looked up at her. "So you like it?"

"Yes!"

A chorus of affirmations followed, some grunted through full mouths.

Ingrid gulped, and grinned at him. "Yes, this is amazing," she said. A streak of sauce was smeared across her lip that she seemed not to have noticed. "I mean," she continued, "who knew, right?"

Sylvain smirked. "That an Adrestian could taste this good?"

This earned a covered chuckle from Dimitri. He gave a soft cough, setting his knife down before speaking— "Felix would have liked this. Dedue, too. They both enjoy food prepared in such a manner, if I'm not mistaken."

"Yeah," Sylvain said, "But if it's not within their comfort zones, we should leave them be."

"Of course."

Annette gave a nervous chuckle. "I can go check in on those two later this evening to make sure they've found something to eat. More for us now, though, right?"

There was another round of agreements, and the sound of forks clinking against dishes resumed. Ashe gave a soft sigh, reassured by his companions' words.

As for himself, he was still quite hungry. He impaled a gobbet of glistening sautéed flesh on his fork, and popped it happily into his mouth. If anything, this food was made more desirable by the fact that it once lived, once kept allegiance to a country, once had complex thoughts, once had a name. It was special.

Uniqueness wasn't all, he confessed to himself; for the sake of his sanity he would not deny it— some sadistic corner in the very back of his mind wanted to destroy this once-was person. He loved that a life was now sliding down his throat. Some of the edgier knights of legend killed without mercy— why couldn't Ashe be among them?

He glanced up at Dimitri, whose cheeks were slightly puffed out with food. Was filling the bellies of Faerghus' finest warriors really senseless slaughter?

His thoughts had begun to drift, when a subtle edge of onion caught his tongue, followed by the moist, savory squish of white meat. He really had done a good job cooking; no modesty could negate the evidence from his own tastebuds.

Frying and dressing the meat had been easy, but he had relied on intuition alone in mixing the seasonings. Paired with some fresh, leafy vegetables, however, said intuition had proven itself very successful.

Dabbing their mouth with a napkin, Byleth looked up at Ashe. "This truly was a genius idea," they said. "Respectful, even." They smiled and patted their belly. "Better here than in some mass grave."

"Or trampled by an animal," Sylvain said.

Ingrid frowned. "Or simply left to rot."

Annette furrowed her eyebrows. "The Empire doesn't collect its dead?"

Setting down his fork, Ashe shook his head. "There wasn't any identifying information on the carcass."

"Some of the bodies," Dimitri said quietly, "are so gored that they aren't even identifiable by appearance."

"Alright," Sylvain called out, "this discussion is too morbid."

"Yeah," Annette said, staring down at her food. "It's kinda turning my stomach."

Mercedes nodded firmly. "I'd like to enjoy what I'm eating, not fret over it."

"Let's change the subject," Byleth said. "Ashe, I'd love seconds, when you have the chance."

"O-Oh, of course!"

"I'd like seconds, too!" Ingrid said immediately, looking down at the tiny amount of food remaining on her plate. "Once I finish this, I'll want more." She stifled a burp.

"Yes, gladly!" said Ashe. "I made plenty, so there's more than enough to go around." He paused. "Lemme have just one more bite first."

Mercedes giggled as Ashe quickly chewed. "Even the chef can't resist his creation."

He swallowed. "It's true," he joked, "it's hard to tear oneself from a really good meal. I'm delighted to be the one to have made it."

"You did good, Ashe," Sylvain said, grinning.

After tossing back a sip of water, Ashe rose and headed to the kitchen. Inside, his sautéed meat and vegetables sat on the oven in large pans. He gave one pan a stir, and picked out a piece small enough to pop whole into his mouth. Finding it still warm, he took two potholders to bring it out to the table.

Dimitri had not asked for seconds, but his plate was empty when Ashe arrived. Knowing the magnitude of his prince's appetite, Ashe stopped first by his setting. "More, Your Highness?"

"That would be lovely," Dimitri replied, voice full of unspoken gratitude.

He placed a potholder down to protect the table, and tipped the pan slightly toward Dimitri in invitation. "Please take as much as you want," Ashe said warmly. "I want everyone to be nice and full by the time this meal is over."

After serving himself, Dimitri began eating again at once, and Ashe took his pan up to move to the next recipient. In this moment, his comrades were not the illustrious Blue Lions, sharing a meal as polite folk do. They were a pack of predators, feasting heartily on their latest kill. Setting his pan down by Ingrid's plate, Ashe had never felt such a strong sense of belonging.

"Here you go," he said merrily. "Eat up. You've earned it."

[somegirlsnerdywords2]

Anime i’ve Watched

That begin with a N (Part 2)!

Yep this is how i’m going to bring over all the anime and manga i’ve watched and posted about on the old blog. It’s not so detailed but it will have to do. Anything new I watch or read from this point on will have their own posts.

Net-juu no Susume  (Recovery of an MMO Junkie):

Genres: Game, Comedy, Romance, ONA 

Synopsis:  For the first time since graduating high school, 30-year-old Moriko Morioka is unemployed—and she couldn't be happier. Having quit her long-standing job of over 11 years, Moriko quickly turns to online games to pass her now-plentiful free time, reinventing herself as the handsome and dashing male hero "Hayashi" in the MMO Fruits de Mer. With the pesky societal obligations of the real world out of the way, she blissfully dives headfirst into the realm of the game, where she promptly meets the kind and adorable healer Lily. Befriending each other almost instantly, the two become inseparable just as Moriko herself becomes more and more engrossed in her new "life" as Hayashi. Eventually, Moriko adopts the reclusive lifestyle in its entirety, venturing out from the safety of her apartment only when absolutely necessary. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Moriko, a timid 28-year-old corporate worker named Yuuta Sakurai has also logged onto Fruits de Mer from the other side of town. Coincidentally bumping into each other at the convenience store one night, both write off their meeting as no more than just another awkward encounter with a stranger—however, fate has more in store for them than they think. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2017 with a total of 10 episodes

My Thoughts: The male lead wears glasses! In case that’s something anyone but me cares about... Aside from that I can’t remember much about this one which is never a sign of an amazing anime so it’s up to you friends! Will you watch it or leave it?! 

Nijiiro Days:

Genres: Comedy, Romance, School, TV Short, Shoujo, Slice of Life

Synopsis:  Nijiiro Days follows the colorful lives and romantic relationships of four high school boys—Natsuki Hashiba, a dreamer with delusions of love; Tomoya Matsunaga, a narcissistic playboy who has multiple girlfriends; Keiichi Katakura, a kinky sadist who always carries a whip; and Tsuyoshi Naoe, an otaku who has a cosplaying girlfriend. When his girlfriend unceremoniously dumps him on Christmas Eve, Natsuki breaks down in tears in the middle of the street and is offered tissues by a girl in a Santa Claus suit. He instantly falls in love with this girl, Anna Kobayakawa, who fortunately attends the same school as him. Natsuki's pursuit of Anna should have been simple and uneventful; however, much to his dismay, his nosy friends constantly meddle in his relationship, as they strive to succeed in their own endeavors of love. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2016 with a total of 24 episodes. Each episode running about 13 minutes in length. 

My Thoughts: Love the manga, which I keep meaning to finish because it is a completed title... and I should probably finish it before manga gets even harder to find online with the way things are currently going... 

Anywho, the anime! Pretty good. The episodes are about half that of a normal anime but you have a 24 episode count so it’s basically the same as having a 12 episodes run with the usual running time!  I’d watch it is you want more content after the manga, but keep in mind that the anime does not cover the entirety of the manga! 

No Game No Life:

Genres: Game, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Ecchi, Fantasy

Synopsis:  No Game No Life is a surreal comedy that follows Sora and Shiro, shut-in NEET siblings and the online gamer duo behind the legendary username "Blank." They view the real world as just another lousy game; however, a strange e-mail challenging them to a chess match changes everything—the brother and sister are plunged into an otherworldly realm where they meet Tet, the God of Games. The mysterious god welcomes Sora and Shiro to Disboard, a world where all forms of conflict—from petty squabbles to the fate of whole countries—are settled not through war, but by way of high-stake games. This system works thanks to a fundamental rule wherein each party must wager something they deem to be of equal value to the other party's wager. In this strange land where the very idea of humanity is reduced to child's play, the indifferent genius gamer duo of Sora and Shiro have finally found a real reason to keep playing games: to unite the sixteen races of Disboard, defeat Tet, and become the gods of this new, gaming-is-everything world. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 7/10

Finished airing in 2014 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: I have a laundry list of things i’m meaning to watch, read or do. Watching the No Game No Life movie on Netflix is one of those things. Anyways! I recall this one being alright, nice art/ animation/ character design and an interesting premise but too short and underdeveloped. One of those animes that may have benefited greatly from a longer run or second season. 

No.6:

Genres: Action, Sci-fi, Mystery, Drama

Synopsis:  Many years ago, after the end of a bloody world war, mankind took shelter in six city-states that were peaceful and perfect... at least on the surface. However, Shion—an elite resident of the city-state No. 6—gained a new perspective on the world he lives in, thanks to a chance encounter with a mysterious boy, Nezumi. Nezumi turned out to be just one of many who lived in the desolate wasteland beyond the walls of the supposed utopia. But despite knowing that the other boy was a fugitive, Shion decided to take him in for the night and protect him, which resulted in drastic consequences: because of his actions, Shion and his mother lost their status as elites and were relocated elsewhere, and the darker side of the city began to make itself known. Now, a long time after their life-altering first meeting, Shion and Nezumi are finally brought together once again—the former elite and the boy on the run are about to embark on an adventure that will, in time, reveal the shattering secrets of No. 6. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2011 with a total of 11 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Just read the manga and watch this as extra, I can’t remember if the anime covered the entirety of the manga’s story but either way check out that source material first! The manga series is also completed which is a huge bonus. High point: The relationship between the two leads. 

Noragami:

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Shounen

Synopsis: In times of need, if you look in the right place, you just may see a strange telephone number scrawled in red. If you call this number, you will hear a young man introduce himself as the Yato God. Yato is a minor deity and a self-proclaimed "Delivery God," who dreams of having millions of worshippers. Without a single shrine dedicated to his name, however, his goals are far from being realized. He spends his days doing odd jobs for five yen apiece, until his weapon partner becomes fed up with her useless master and deserts him. Just as things seem to be looking grim for the god, his fortune changes when a middle school girl, Hiyori Iki, supposedly saves Yato from a car accident, taking the hit for him. Remarkably, she survives, but the event has caused her soul to become loose and hence able to leave her body. Hiyori demands that Yato return her to normal, but upon learning that he needs a new partner to do so, reluctantly agrees to help him find one. And with Hiyori's help, Yato's luck may finally be turning around.

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2014 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Yes! Watch it! Love it! And also read it. Big downside: The updates for this manga are slow and the story is unfinished obviously. Upside: Two whole seasons of anime goodness, and if we’re really lucky we’ll eventually get another? Ok maybe not... but a girl can dream! Also this anime has one of my all time favourite opening themes! Amazing! 

Noragami Aragoto:

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Shounen

Synopsis:  Yato and Yukine have finally mended their relationship as god and Regalia, and everyone has returned to their daily life. Yato remains a minor and unknown deity who continues taking odd jobs for five yen apiece in the hopes of one day having millions of worshippers and his own grand shrine. Hiyori Iki has yet to have her loose soul fixed by Yato, but she enjoys life and prepares to attend high school nonetheless. Taking place immediately after the first season, Noragami Aragoto delves into the complicated past between Yato and the god of war Bishamon. The female god holds a mysterious grudge against Yato, which often results in violent clashes between them. It doesn't help that Bishamon's most trusted and beloved Regalia, Kazuma, appears to be indebted to Yato. When lives are on the line, unraveling these mysteries and others may be the only way to correct past mistakes. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2015 with a total of 13 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Another amazing opening theme! Seriously this series really knew how to pick them! Also have crushes on a solid chunk of the cast... so there’s that. 

[natsunoomoi]

Holy crap. So like with the previous post I was thinking about Fushigi Yuugi again and kind of checking up on what was up with Byakko Senki cuz I haven’t checked on it in awhile and it looks like it’s on hiatus right now and she’s working more on Arata Kangatari, which is cool cuz I thought she finished that, but I guess not and she just took a break to like finish Genbu and do Byakko or something.

But also I was scrolling through her Twitter to find that she is really into this Chinese movie “Legend of Luo Xiaohei” and so I was checking that out cuz so ironic that Japanese mangaka that got her big break writing manga about an ancient China setting is interested in a Chinese movie. So just looking through her Twitter thread and apparently she found out about Luo Xiaohei from watching a CM while watching Modao Zushi. LMAO It’s amazing, but this situation just feels like an ouroboros eating itself because I have a high suspicion that her work on Fushigi Yuugi imported into China back in the 90s was probably a huge influence on Chinese creators and artists to write their own stories about their culture and helped to popularize the xianxia and wuxia novel movements in more modern times. On top of that MXTX said she was inspired by a D. Gray-man fanfic and while she mentioned that title specifically, I think in the periphery Fushigi Yuugi itself and more recently Arata were probably an influence too. Growing up a number of my Chinese friends also said they got into anime overall because of Fushigi Yuugi because it was an anime and work from Japan about their culture and arguably done pretty damn well. 

In terms of the danmei movement as well, I’m pretty sure Fushigi Yuugi was included in what started the movement as the movement was influenced by Japanese BL that came in via Taiwan, and the beginning of Fushigi Yuugi had the whole thing between Nuriko and Hotohori even though that kind of went nowhere, Nuriko dies to everyone’s depression (I have several friends who refuse to watch the rest of the series after Nuriko dies because it’s not the same), and that whole ship goes off a weird deep end with Hotohori marrying a woman that looks like Nuriko. Also, the exact reasons for Nuriko being in the harem and all that. There was a whole lot of shipping in the 90s from Fushigi Yuugi and it was one of the first series that had a male cast that was almost entirely ikemen and I think the actual first reverse harem. A number of shows probably simultaneously popularized the female gaze in mainstream anime, but Fushigi Yuugi was definitely one of them. Like literally one or two years before there was a lot of manly men and guy’s guys kind of anime characters, but beautiful ikemen, no, not really. In 2021, there are some things about the series that are a bit problematic, but it’s influence on the world is pretty significant. It was one of the first shows I’d seen that had any kind of reference to homosexuality or transgender in it and although it’s not necessarily portrayed well, the fact that it was there and that Nuriko was such a beloved character it started a conversation and helped us to get to a time where the topics she represents can be more discussed. I’m actually not even sure what pronouns would be appropriate for Nuriko because of her reasons for what she did and in Japanese the pronoun problem is actually really easy to get around because you just don’t have a subject or speaking in 3rd person is totally normal. But still, without her the minds of thousands or even millions of fans around the world would not have been opened as early to LGBT topics. Her existence, even problematic as it might be, allowed people to consider and love a character of a different sexual orientation or gender identity than their own and just open their minds to just not being a homophobic, biphobic (cuz relationship with Miaka?), or transphobic piece of shit.

Then also Genbu Kaiden and Uruki’s powers. Yeah.... I mean, also kind of with the earlier discussion, the idea of dual cultivation I don’t recall even being brought up much before in most media, but such ideas were also banned and repressed in China at a certain point. Documentation shows it was more of an ancient practice that suddenly became known about again. The book I was talking about that has it more explicitly written is banned in China has its only original surviving copy in the Japanese National Library as it was one of the books brought to Japan by scholars escaping persecution in China and bringing with them books to escape one of the many episodes of mass book burning. According to my Chinese lit professor who had us read an English translation of that book as a part of our curriculum anyway. Supposedly the translator of said book had to go to Japan to read the original in order to write the translation. There’s apparently a number of ancient Chinese texts like that because book burnings were a thing at different points in Chinese history, so if you are a scholar of Chinese lit if you want a complete picture of your field for some texts you do actually have to come to Japan to do your research. But yeah, that power mentioned in that very book Watase-sensei gave to Soi, and also the story of Fushigi Yuugi takes place in that very library that contains that ancient copy of a banned and would have been lost to the world book. If you’re asking why a “dirty” book would be something a scholar would grab to save, ancient lit scholars do regard it as a rather well-written piece of literature even though the content of it is basically taboo.

But also the Fushigi Yuugi Suzaku Ibun game is a hot mess when it comes to this same issue because if you romance Nuriko you can save her from death and my friend Hikari said she wasn’t sure if she was happy about fucking with the universe like that. (I’m not either.) Nuriko’s death was such a huge impact on the story and everything. Also, notably, most of the Suzaku Shichiseishi died, but Nuriko had the LONGEST tribute. Like Chiriko and Mitsukake’s was like a tag on of a few minutes. Hotohori’s was too even, but it was addressed more in the later manga chapters the publisher pressured her to write and in the OVA series afterward.

Also, like Fushigi Yuugi other than the Neverending Story was one of the original sucked into a book holy shit how do I survive stories. Idk if SVSSS is influenced by it in that way, but it’s fair to draw the parallels because of the similar theme. It’s just canonically Taiitsu Shinjin is not behind the the system in the book and in a number of ways Shen Yuan is more competent than Miaka. Miaka gets a lot of shit though and when I re-watched FY a second time I actually found the gripes people generally have about it make up only a small part of the series. People just talk it up so much that it seems like a huge thing when it’s not. Plus the technical canon is only the original TV series because that’s where Watase wanted to end the story and that is an emotional rollercoaster that makes you cry so good. But like there’s some other kinds of parallels as well like how toward the end and like the last two episodes you hate Nakago up until the exact moment you find out why he’s an absolute asshole, and characters straight up criticizing him about how he’s an asshole the whole damn series just gives the same kind of feels that SY gave criticizing the original throughout SVSSS. Can’t say for sure, but Fushigi Yuugi has a lot of clout in a general sense.

But yeah, Watase-sensei said that she was really surprised by the animation quality of Chinese animation these days and she thought Japanese anime was going down in comparison. Same, yo. Same. But still, her work was probably a huge contributor to the movement that allowed MDZS to exist because her art is damn beautiful, Chinese influenced, and she had one of the first works in Asia to like bring the subject of LGBT issues into the mainstream after years of oppression from mostly Western influence because in pre-modern Asia no one gave a shit before and there’s a significant amount of classical novels that address some form of LGBT issues at least in Japanese lit and like even academic documentation that notes Confucius saying that doing it with a guy was better than with a woman. And the author of the work that probably was very influential to BL back in the 90s watches MDZS. She noted that there wasn’t any in the actual anime, which is true, but I think she helped that series to exist and she watches the anime so it’s kind of exciting.

I hope it influences her to go finish Byakko, but OMG I want her to finish Arata too because I like Arata. I should try to find time to read more of it because the anime is too short and the wiki descriptions of what’s happening are so damn confusing and incomplete.

[neshai-esper]

How you heard the call of the egyptian gods? You said that they looked for the contact with you, and I'm interested.

To find out if the divine is trying to contact with you, you have to understand the methods how they prefer to message to you and plant signs in your life. It's not always like they just show up in front of you and starts to talk to you, but in a very mysterious, delicate manner.

Let’s check out my little journey with Set, to illustrate and examine a good example about these methods. If a deity is interested in working with you, usually he were already there in your life earlier, observed you and might have plans about this. It means that you have to examine your past, review your past to try to find the tracks of the actual deity you facing with. It’s quite amazing how they can see the future and plant informations-, experiences in your life even in the form of very small moments just for later, when you’re ‘mature’ enough and ready to deal with them.

In Set’s case, I’ve always felt a strange feelings flowing thru my chest and body when I heard His name even in my younger ages (4-6). At those times I was unaware about what does it really means, but later I noticed that whenever I heard a name of a deity and got this kind of feeling in me, it meant something deeper (-or higher), which were generated by our higher-self, and because this connection is already exists, even if my limited human mind unable to complete the full picture about us.

It’s good to know that there is no differences between a deity and his name.

So if a deity’s name is able to generate feelings, emotions inside you, it’s worth to find out why and try to unbox what your feelings are really means and where are these came from? For example, if you hear a name of your mother, the feeling of safety, warm love and intimacy will fill up your chest, your heart. Why? It’s because you can connect to her memories which are generates similar emotions in you. Our soul doesn’t forget (nor lost connection with higher or different dimensions and reltionships there), but in the moment when we’re born here, we’ll lose lot of memories. This doesn’t true in deities’ case.

If a deity is showing up in your life, it has reasons and usually, it’s not because he decided to pop up just in the last two minutes, but way earlier. Sometimes it’s because you have business with him in your life, and both of you agreed that you can work together or keep in touch for whatever reasons, so they’ll send signs to you to make sure you’ll notice him, but this is just an example. To find out your personal relationship with a deity, you have to talk with him (or her) by yourself and explore it.

Back to the example of Set and mine...

So I got a name what always put a huge effect on me as many times as I hear. I also noticed my deep connection and attraction to the storms and chaos since my young age too (ah, I still remember the good ol’ times when I sat on the windowsill, let my legs hang down and seeing, hearing the beauty of thunder and lightning around 30 meters above the ground). I also felt myself a foreigner, but not just in my country, but the whole planet. My favorite animals were exactly the same animals what are His sacred ones (leopard, hippo, crocodile for example, I also felt myself deeply connected to these). With that being said, plenty of small signs were in my life which indicated that  we might have the time to get in touch with reasons.

Set showed up in the last year many times, and two kind of approach of his were very intense and harsh. Let me to skip this part, and put the focus on a more common method of the communication and signs.

I’ve got a dream with Him. His appearance wasn’t the same how you can see Him on the pictures and ancient arts, but His vibes were very familiar, and this figure’s behavior also (so I had to think about a lot and try to analyze the energfies what came from the dream, what I sensed). When I woke up, thinking about who were this guy in my dream in the ancient chamber (two times), Set’s name started to pop up again and again in my mind.

This is where the whole thing started yet again. He didn’t showed up now the way how He did in the last two times in the form of those acts, but from the backseat. If you find yourself thinking about a deity, can’t forgetting his name and you have urges to do researches, watch pictures about him and stuffs like that, it’s already a very strong sign of that he wants your attention, and wants you to submerge in him.

With your thoughts, you feed them, and as far as you think on them, they became a part of your life in a different way, and can make an impact on you. Same happened in my case. Even when I had a strange fear from Him after my first two experience with Him no matter how close I felt myself to Him, I hesitated to conact with Him, but I started to hear His name and see Him in my mind 0/24, and it became more and more intense and ‘excruciating’. Then I had to jump.

I very often hear the name of different divine entities, but if one of them will start to ‘haunt’ me, it has a reason.

In short, what kind of sign might be a form of a calling from a god or layed down traces to get your attention (which is also an aspect of the calling)? - dreams - feelings towards the deity or a name of a deity (as I mentioned above, there is no difference between a name of a deity and him) - repetitive motifs/symbols/names in your mind - traces in your environment (so the epithets of a deity; a simple example, people usually connect white feathers to angels, while some people if they see a Raven, they think about Thor and so on) - communication with them in several forms

These are just a small part of their arsenal, tho. If you start to do researches about all of these above and finally found a name (or if the name already in your mind) while you analyze yourself and your whole life too, to get a better understand of your whole situation, you might find many tracks. It’s all about your senses, sharp mind and effort you put into your case to find out if anyone is calls you and how could you find out who or why. It’s a beautiful and interesting ride, and probably not the first one (but hey, it’s just my opinion based on my experiences).

// Bonus: When I found out my Egyptian Horoscope (shortly after my first dream about Set), I found out that my horoscope is Geb, and belov the description said that this horoscope is the best combination / matchup on the side of Set and vica versa.

[bolbianddolanhouse]

Book 3 FAQ!

Need to catch up? Heres all the previous FAQs 1 * 2 Heres the master post of all three books 1 * 2 * 3

Wow...you would think that with the whole pandemic that I’d get these chapters out faster. But alas this year got the best of me too. I’ve been a lil vulnerable in the tags with y’all and the check-in messages really touched me. So thank you very much to everyone that has checked up on me and enjoyed the chapters! I appreciate all of you :3 So lets roll out the questions!

Q: Who is Iwata based off? A: Iwata is based off my self-insert, which is also me. I know that sounds a lil narcissistic but it’s that real life reference that you’re a spitting image of your parent. Iwata was designed to look and act very similar to his mother based off that. What made him a little more original and not a copy of my self-insert is the tropes I added. I mirrored the trope of that of the relationship between Steven and his mom in Steven Universe; where he adored, then hated but then came to terms that he is not his mom but someone better. A whole journey of self-discovery and self-worth.

Q: The representation is amazing! How did you come up with these queer characters? A: Glad you liked them! Like I’ve said in previous FAQs and in the tags, all these characters were dreamt and I just build upon them in writing. So yes, most of my characters were created queer in my dreams but I make them more in depth by setting up how they discovered they’re queer. I did a bit of research on coming out stories and self-discovery epiphanies to have these characters more relatable so a fellow queer reader feels seen in a way. There’s already too much hetero works out there, I just want to gay it up in a respectful way. 

Q: The culture mixing is really good and consistent, how do you do it? A: For starters, I am latina. But the culture mixing stems from my knowledge about other cultures through language. I’ve been studying Japanese for almost a decade now and Chinese for about 4 years, so it’s no surprise that I’m referencing them in my work. Maybe what I depict isn’t what other half-Japanese half-Latinx families do, but it’s what I’d do if I started such a family. Plus there’s some overlap within those cultures and it makes it easy to put into writing.

Q: So. much. drama! Why is this book more dramatic than the previous two? A: Book 3 is were main on-going plot gets picked up more and shows signs of resolution. In book 2, it was to focus on not only Lili and the family dynamic but to remind the reader that life moved on with little resolve for the self-insert character. Iwata has a HUGE role in the resolution but in his own special way. And I’m not saying the answer is love...but it’s leaning there. 

Q: You reference specific food and snacks in this AU/ what are your favorite Cheetos? A: Like I said, I’m latina! Of course I write in the food of my home culture. Mainly the home cooked meals my mom would make for me and my siblings. It might not seem like much to the reader, but those simple meals add to the narrative of being home and traditions that help them embrace their mixed heritage. The reference of Cheetos are all over this AU because they’re my favorite hot chip. Naturally, my favorite Cheetos are the Hot con Límon with chamoy. 

Q: Love that there’s no canon character deaths in this book so far, but are there any major deaths planned? A: Just one but it’s not a tragic, hero fallen type death. It’s a natural death but it’s gonna be a tear jerker. That death won’t come until the WAY end of this AU, so I’m not gonna spoil anything yet.

Q: Can’t believe you predicted Dabi’s true identity. A: It was obvious tho. I didn’t really predict anything canon if you’re an anime only for BNHA. In this AU (without spoiling too much) there’s no Endeavor redemption and Dabi doesn’t cause that big drama on live TV. So if you’re an Endeavor hater like me, you’re gonna love what I have in store for them in the next book!

Q: I love Tenya being a dad and loving husband in this AU! Will we see more dad moments? A: Glad you like those snippets of dad Tenya! I love writing them for my own indulgence since there isn’t enough love for this character in the fandom. Plus I see a whole lot of consistent readers are Iida-stans and that makes me want to write more married fluff whenever I can.

Q: Beizu is best boi/Who is Beizu based off of? A: Beizu is the genius trope in this book. I made his character a more chill version of his mom but with that ‘who is my dad’ trope. Beizu is part of a trio that’s to mirror the agent trio of Ita, Jin and Mimi. The third member is yet to be revealed but they’re a BIG plot device in the coming book. But Beizu is one of my favorite OCs, maybe I’ll do a ranking of my OCs when everyone is introduced. 

Q: The villains and Hawks plot has me SHOOK! What’s going to happen to hero society when this case gets solved? A: Without spoiling it, the truth is going to expose the corrupt higher ups in hero society. The kids in the household has a part in taking down hero society as well but in their own, special way. Iwata has the biggest part in closing the case (but it’s spoiler if I say how), Lili and twins help tearing down minor things like education systems and laws. I will say though, the case gets resolved after the trio retires because Ita gets to return to America and found an heir to the company before they could draw to a conclusion. Which is a happy ending at the end of the storyline, no major deaths!

Q: Confirmed weddings? A: Yes :) because Lili and Iwata deserve good things and love. The twins have it easy in the coming book. Lili’s comes first and Iwata’s comes later than expected (can’t say why yet, gotta keep reading :3). I guess I can say that all of them get married but Lili’s and Iwata’s are the only queer ones. All the spouses that marry into the family take the Iida name, so Lili and Hanaka don’t change family names when they get married! Y’all already know those wedding chapters are gonna be lavish and take up most of the chapter, you’ll love them.

Q: But are the kids Joji stans? A: Oh jeez...they are the same way we like 80′s music. It’s pleasant to listen to but kinda cringe when you see your parents dance to it. I don’t really portray it, but the family digital library has all of Joji’s music in a playlist called ‘Sad hours Soundtrack’. If you ask Mr Muffins 2.0 who last listened to the playlist, they’ll snitch who and how many times it has been looped. That’s how Tenya knows who needs cheering up.

Q: I love the little references to their childhood, what else can you tell us about their pre-book childhood? A: As I said a few times in the tags, I cut a ton of stuff that isn’t relevant to the plot. Most of it was their childhood and how they manifested their quirks. Lili really liked to scream before she learned to talk, a very fast learner and at 3 years old got her engine quirk and later that year showed signs of a second quirk. Iwata was very quiet child, hardly cried or gets upset but latched on to mom a lot. His first words were in Spanish but struggled a bit with Japanese before entering kinder. Tensei was born first, then Hanaka followed 10 minutes later. Hanaka’s fire quirk manifested after the first breast feeding when she was getting burped by mom in the hospital. Mom likes to believe Tensei came out first to warn everybody that Hanaka can breathe fire. Tensei didn’t manifest his metal quirk until the age of 7, making him a very late bloomer. Though very different in personalities, Hanaka and Tensei get along and get very creative when it’s playtime. Up until the age of 5, mom would place Hanaka in kindling to get the BBQ grill or bonfire started. Hanaka has been known to randomly burst into flames as a baby, so Tensei had to sleep in a different crib for his safety. Tensei spent more time reading as a child because everyone was focused on managing Hanaka’s flames, thus making him a very studious boy.

Q: Not an AU question, but how are you doing?/ We don’t mind waiting for the chapters! Please take your time. A: I’ve been getting check ins and validation in my asks for the inconsistent schedule. Too many things came at me this year, both good and bad. I was doing well in speech and debate that I went to nationals and prepared myself for some serious competition, leaving no time to do chapters. Then I fell in and out of depressive episodes during lockdown where I’m from. In the summer my grandmother passed away from the virus in Mexico, then my beloved dog Mr Muffins passed away of old age. Those deaths hurt me and my family the most that I was having a hard time trying to cope plus trying to be responsible by adhering to CDC guidelines (I’m in the immune-comprised group). In my want to get over my grief, I trained and received my certificate in ordained ministry (yea I know that’s not the best first step, but I just needed to feel like I’ve achieved something being cooped up at home). I’ve very grateful that theres some readers that see the tags and check up on me. All your kind words gives me a little strength to write and finish every chapter at my pace.

Q: More art please? A: Yes :3 I have one coming up real soon! After the end of this book is where I’ll be releasing some art as a sort of place holder.

Q: Is the the estate drama eluding to the ending? A: Yup! And it will show up every now and then in the next book.

Q: This is a really good self insert AU! There’s complexity to your character and others...how do you write these interactions/relationships really close to actual ones? A: Thanks for the complement :3 When I first started this AU, I was in the middle of my semester of a creative writing course. Near the end of book 2 was when I finished the course work for it and by then you could see the progression in writing. ALSO, I’m a communications major as well! Writing these relationships and other social things were things that I remembered learning in my interpersonal communications class. I was a bit on fence on whether or not to start this AU because I didn’t think my writing skill was at all that good. With some encouragement from my classmates and friends, I pushed myself to write this whole AU out. I don’t plan on stopping until I finish the storyline, plus I hate leaving things unfinished.

And that wraps up this FAQ! Hopefully I got everyone’s questions since most were check-ins for me. But expect the last chapter for book 3 in the next few days. After Book 3, I’m going on a lil hiatus until the end of February. I have so many life events happening in the upcoming weeks that I’m gonna need time to recharge before resuming this AU. Y’all know I bounce back as promised, in the meantime, I have some art things queued to remind y’all that Book 4 is in the works. Only 2 more books to go! Thanks again for reading and I’ll talk you y’all again later in the tags~

-Love, Palma-sama

P.S. Heres the end of Book 3 for your connivence :3 other links are at the top of this post! 

[foxstens]

talking abt anime aesthetics

it’s interesting bc as a visual medium, of course the aesthetics of  anime are very very important. and yet i don’t really see people talk about it. like idk abt anyone else but oftentimes i’ll check out a show just because i like the way it looks based on a gif, but it’s nearly impossible for me to force myself to watch a show if i strongly dislike its character and/or colour designs. sometimes i might even drop a show just because i can’t stand the way the characters’ eyes look 

and its an interesting thing bc i can’t really tell what counts as ‘good’ art and animation. i mean i do know that people might pay attention to how fluid the movement is or how background characters look and then judge the quality based on that

but personally i don’t really care about those things? like i only recently started even being aware of them, and yea sure i do find it nice when i see a crowd of individually drawn characters or something but a crappy cg car  probably won’t even faze me, let alone make me drop a show.

i’m quite flexible when it comes to backgrounds too, since in most cases i’ll probably spend more time looking at the characters than at landscapes or buildings n stuff.

so basically character designs are the most important thing to me aND MY GOD DOES THAT MAKE LIFE HARD. because i do not know what counts as ‘good’, i only know what counts as ‘appealing to my eyeballs’ and there’s so many shows that i would love

love

but i can’t watch them because the main character is a fucking potato. like i was hesitant to watch tamako market because i wasn’t the biggest fan of tamako’s design and even now after i’ve watched it i still don’t love it, and all of that is just because of her eyes. (altho she is far from a potato)

then there’s something like the currently airing case files of jeweler richard in which the ladies look amazing but every man other than richard is just butt-ugly. and that unfortunately includes the main character. and it hurts me because i love seigi but i cannot properly appreciate him because hes just so ugly

or take something like urusei yatsura. which is very old and very important and very beloved, and which, while i’m not sure i would love, i would still very much like to watch. but i can’t because i hate the main girl’s eyes.

and this is a problem with a lot of old anime, because i don’t think they necessarily look worse than current anime, but i just despise a lot of their character or color designs. 

and this is why i’m incredibly reluctant to watch stuff like lupin iii or akira or trigun but i will absolutely watch 70 modern ‘cute girls’ shows with identical characters because at least they’re visually appealing

on a slightly different topic, a quite small thing that i really tend to appreciate in anime is when, for a line or so, a characters’ lips kind of match what they’re saying, instead of just using the standard flaps

it’s such a small thing and i haven’t come across it too often but i saw it in karakai jouzu no takagi-san which looks great in general but it’s a rom-com and so there aren’t many opportunities for it to show off visually, apart from it being consistent, or some clever use of lighting, or things like extra detailed lip-flaps sometimes

and if it pops up in something like one of the heaven’s feel movies, which are the most impressive anime movies i’ve ever seen, it still stands out, because the staff behind those movies obviously poured their heart and soul into every frame of those movies and they still spared a thought for the lip-flaps

so yea visuals are probably my favourite thing about anime.

[princettegil]

How A Stolen Book Changed My Life

(Also known as "Dragon Knights Saved My Life") It started on a day somewhere between late 2006 and very early 2007. I was 16 and in high school and convinced my parents to stop by the library in town instead of the one nearest my house. I was looking for some manga and I knew they had some. It was a paltry little offering, just a handful of volumes in a short shelf. A few random Yugioh volumes, some Dragon Ball Z, a few stray volumes of Naruto. Nothing caught my eye in particular so I decided to just pick at random. I grabbed a volume of Yugioh, another of some shoujo dream something or other and 2 volumes of a manga called Dragon Knights, volumes 22 and 23 respectively, the only ones they had. I recall flipping through the pages trying to determine which held more interest as I sat in the car while my family went into Walmart to do a little shopping. I don't recall much about the shoujo dream manga except that it had 'dream’ somewhere in the title and the Yugioh volume was just something to flip through to compare to the anime I had already seen. I had high hopes for that shoujo manga but it sadly disappointed (didn't help that it was volume 2 and I'd never even read volume 1.) So I read through character profiles and 'the story thus far’ in the Dragon Knights manga, having a hard time fitting faces from the older volumes artwork in the profiles with the newer style artwork in the books I had. It was going to be a 26 volume series and I had borrowed volumes 22 and 23 having never heard of nor read the earlier books. I was at a loss to the storyline even with the summary in the front of the book, none of the “main” characters seemed to be around much in these 2 books. But one caught my eye, a character named Gil. As it turns out I just happened upon 2 of the 4 books of the entire 26 volume series that focuses on this character! And I had no idea how that happenstance would change my life. Needless to say I fell in love with this character. I began to draw him, make up stories in my head with him, want to know more about him (ahh the trouble of loving a side character in a little known series!), read fanfiction about him. I wound up finding every Dragon Knights related website and forum I could searching for more information. I was obsessed. I tried my best to get my hands on the other volumes he featured in first before eventually trying to collect the entire series. I fell fast and I fell hard. This was my new favorite character, my new obsession to draw and trace and print and read and write and search about. I wanted any and everything Gil! But these were library books, they had to be returned in 2 weeks. But… I couldn't give them up now! Not when I had fell in love! There were no bookstores where I lived. My parents didn't have a credit card to order books online. The library was my only connection! I had never stolen anything in my life. I loved libraries! I knew how frustrating it was to want a book that someone borrowed from the library but never returned! But… this felt like fate! This was my soulmate made from ink! And so… I didn't return them. I kept them. Marked out the barcodes with Sharpies to match the book covers. Since I was the one who always checked the mail on my way home, I destroyed every letter from the library about fines so my parents would never know. I stayed nervous that they would still find out somehow though. That they'd be mad that I'd stole and that they'd have to pay hefty fines. Within two years though, another letter from the library arrived. My gut sunk with fear. They were going to get me now and lock me up in library thief jail! But instead the letter mentioned National Library Week and came with an amazing note: in celebration they had decided to forgive my fines. I was free! $50 in fines was something I no longer had to worry about! The books were mine and my parents would owe nothing for them or my sin! But the fire Gil sparked in me rose still, being an artist type this eventually led me to DeviantArt and posting a bit of my art and finding others fanart of my beloved Gil. I went onto a Dragon Knights forum and a Dragon Knights guild on Gaia Online. I was too shy and new to the series to speak up much but I remembered some of the recurring usernames from site to site. Time passed, I graduated, I moved to DC, started art school, wound up broke, lonely, depressed and severely in debt, I moved back to KY, I started community college, I used my tuition grant money to finally get internet at my home. I eventually caved and followed a few of my friends in joining Tumblr. I went there cause my friends had (for the time) abandoned to their Facebook's to congregrate on this new site and because my newest obsession, Magi, had lots of dedicated blogs and information located there. So I joined and then realized one of the recent Dragon Knights 'sites’ I had been following was actually a Tumblr blog! So I quickly followed it as my steadfast Gil obsession had never really lulled. Some more time passed and I graduated college and moved a few hours away to start my first real job. It was then that things went horrifically, wonderfully, horribly, wrong and so, so right! I started having anxiety attacks and a fellow member of the Dragon Knights (and Gil) fandom whose name I remembered over all those years had started messaging me right about the same time. This person's elder sibling had gone through similar things and so they were the first to reach out a helping hand and understanding heart full of advice and comraderie. And they continued to reach out. We became friends. I became friends with a few other Dragon Knights peeps as well. And then I fell in love with this helpful fellow fan. And then things went to hell. I started to become increasingly depressed, having more and more anxiety attacks. I began to self harm for the first time. I constantly planned out my own suicide. Through all of this, my new internet friend was there. Sometimes my episodes were because of him. I was new to the feelings of love and jealousy and obsession (with real people at least) and the hurt that comes with living alone, with not knowing where you fit in the world, with not knowing how you fit in this other person's life and what to do with all these new overwhelming feelings while also trying to find a new job and pay the bills and prove I could do this thing on my own. My emotions were a swirling rollercoaster ride from Hell but somehow, some way, he rode through them with me. He rode through them with cute little drawings of Gil, and fun games to distract me from my pain, comforting words, and plans to meet at a large anime con. We met. I was still in love but he was not. It hurt to be turned down but his presence was something I still loved having in my life. It was something that, through all the emotions and hurt and blood and suicide attempts, was still somehow there. He rode the rollercoaster hell ride with me and was still with me at the ending gates. I wound up moving back home, getting counseling, getting meds, and slowly working on getting back on my feet. I went through a few more jobs shakily. But I learned how to reach out when I needed too. Learned that boundaries were not a thing to be feared. That I was not alone. That there were people who cared about me. That I was not a monster. I went through a lot those few years. My sexuality changed again and again and even my gender changed in the end. (I still credit the friend I made via love of the Dragon Knights series on helping me through all that as well.) And now, here I am. 28 years old. Now identifying as transmale, pan-romantic and somewhere between asexual and demi-sexual ( as far as I know of at this moment.) I still have the occasional anxiety attack. There's still a scampering from the brain raccoons and all that the mischief they bring every now and again (from paranoia to depression and overthinking and dissociation.) But for the most part I've come to realize that I've grown a lot. I've changed a lot. I actually like most of how I am now. I'm happier. I'm more accepting of myself. I'm still hopelessly in love. And… I'm alive. You see, during that year I was on my own I tried to kill myself no less than 3 times and scarred my arms many, many times more than that. But I'm alive still. And through it all the person I thank most of all for that, the person who taught me how to breath, the person who unknowingly stole my heart, the person who showered me with art of our beloved Gil, the person who literally SAVED ME from myself - I met because I stole a couple books from a library over 10 years ago. A lifetime obsession, inspiration for art and stories and character building, a breath of life into discovering myself and who I am, a love that's still as deep now as it began, a friendship I thank the gods for every day, a true lifesaver in ever sense of the word, and even the namesake for my gender transition journey - ALL OF THIS AND MORE because I stole a couple of books from a library when I was a wee nerd.