#for a bit as a kid i believed those were actually OP's original experiences and recordings LMAO

[apollos-boyfriend]

Hi there I really like your creepy posting stuff and I really want to see some of the creepy pastas for myself but I’ve never watched or interacted with any creepypasta stuff besides slender man. Is there any good series or sites you know to get into it?

i always Really struggle to answer questions like these bc i have been here for So Long that i just. do not know where one would begin. izzzyzzz has a few videos on the creepypasta iceberg [1] [2] [3] which might be a helpful introduction to a lot of names? [marble hornets] is a staple in terms of slenderman lore, having been one of the core bases/inspirations for the modern mythos.

tbh i think the way most people got into them back in the day was through creepypasta readings on youtube. but also i don't know how Popular of a market that is these days

[raeloganthesonic06fangirl]

I’d love to hear your critiques on Dangerous Currency! It sure disappointed a lot of people, including myself. Everything felt so rushed, a lot of things weren’t satisfyingly concluded, and it seemed some plot points and devices were pulled out of thin air! And then there’s Darkwing’s infamous line to Negaduck about him not having friends!!!

For collector's sake, I would like to procure a physical copy if only for the reason that this is the [non]canonical resurrection of QuackerJack and as much as I don't much care for the overall drama, I think as a collector trying to gather as much of the little available merch of my fave dude as much as possible, this would be considered a piece to get regardless of any negative opinions I have. 👀

But, let's say some positive things to spice things up a bit:

Panel composition and color pallets are surprisingly solid. There's a good handful of the panels and splash pages I wouldn't mind having an 18x24 poster of with a nice simple black frame just chilling on my wall or something

This has good composition from an artistic standpoint, not gonna lie

The Slime induced mutations are pretty well designed. I can definitely tell what the creative direction was in figuring out how to effectively "upgrade" everyone who got touched by the Slime

As horrifying as QuackerJack's specific transformation is (resurrecting him from a doll's form into a mobile QuackerJack-in-the-box where his entire lower half is now a spring attatched to a wooden box... Like, I'm pretty sure that's going to mess his brain up a bit more in the long run), it's surprisingly on brand.

Liquidator getting water taps as arms with temperature control, you've just given him unlimited power, he's seriously OP and no one ever really takes advantage of that when writing him...

Megavolt just looks so supercharged, like he can knock out the power grid with a sneeze.

And Bushroot looks like flourishing untamed wild plant, like, if he slapped you, you might get a face full of thistle thorns.

The backgrounds and color balances are honestly pretty good and solid, and I just really enjoy the sense of dizzying grand scale world that's currently warping apart by all the chaos, just look at these two pages specifically

The atmosphere is actually well done despite how rushed the story is. I really wish this story had had more time to be developed, because it has some snips of some decent concepts, but I think they should have spent more time in world building before pulling some of those plot points out of nowhere, surely they could have set those in place in a few issues before the crossover began..?

Don't much care for how, despite them making us experience "Toy With Me" and how they made that one bit that we try not to acknowledge as the "official canon" by proxy since the comics were a "continuation"... I don't like how they just dialed QuackerJack back to how he was acting early on in the comics, like, that this entire experience of virtually dying and presumably traumatizing the heck out of his ex-girlfriend (I am not going to let that go, Claire didn't deserve to open her door to see that), and now that he's been brought back from being a glorified taxidermy, he didn't hesitate to jump in on that whole business without maybe questioning why he's breathing with lungs again or maybe take a moment to acknowledge that he's been turned into an actual eldritch abomination

((Also, missed opportunity to shoehorn Claire's involvement somewhere into this mess, like, what's the point of having this character exist if you're going to dump her in the bin after one story? I'd think she'd at least have a few choice words to say about her ex-boyfriend jumping back into the crime life after the stunt he pulled on her porch))

I mean, not a one of the Fearsome is going to be like: "Hey, QuackerJack, man, remember when you kidnapped us and held us hostage against our will like a few months ago and almost got us kill during your rampage against the corporation, like, remember when you terrorized us and we were legit in fear for our safety? Yo, what was that about man, can we talk for a second about boundaries and consideration?"

Also, him working with Negaduck after all that was set up for him having such an aversion to hearing the name, that's just... What? W H A T?

I'm supposed to believe that this is just water under the bridge now?

That QuackerJack wasn't ready to strangle Negaduck if he got a chance?

You're going to just have him fall back into that little lackey routine and be like "Oh, hey, sure boss, whatever you want, tee-hee."

I wanted a multi-page brawl, I really honestly wanted to see QuackerJack coldcock him in the face, just deck him good, one singular suckerpunch to the jaw, stand over him and say: "... Am I mean enough now, Negaduck?"

And then, only then, can I begin to accept a return to status quo.

Heck, just let the whole crew get thier hits. Negaduck was especially mean to everyone in "Just Us Justice Ducks" and "Life, the Negaverse and Everything". Heck, he bailed on them during "Jailbird" too. I just want them to stand up to him for once and not back down at the first glare he gives them.

Disclaimer: I know I sound like I'm particularly salty about Negaduck's treatment of the Fearsome in general, but honestly, he's one of my favorite characters from the original series when I was a kid, especially because he usually had some slapstick downfall by the end of his episodes, which helped balance things out. But the comics really made him cross a line that was a little hard to step back over from, that being, of course, the unwarranted shredding of Mr. Banana Brain for no reason at all. So I just cope by taking the mick out of him, in good fun, of course.

[pinehutch]

Niche Interests

A little while ago, @mia-ugly tagged me to talk about 10 niche interests of mine. I don’t really know what counts as a niche so I’ve been making occasional notes about this over the last week. 

The hardest part of this for me is either that I’m not very interesting or more likely, that I’m a generalist. Like, I would give myself a solid B in many, many areas that could be considered “niche” - I love learning. 

But here are some things that I can and will reliably nerd out over if someone else brings them up!

1. Curly hair care. I’ve got naturally curly hair and didn’t really know how to look after it until my early twenties. Now I know many things about it, including where to get good curly hair products in Canada. Genuinely, if you have curly hair and want to chat about it you can always message me or send me an ask and I’m happy to try to help. (These days I am really loving Inahsi Naturals and Ecoslay;  yes I have drugstore and grocery store recs as well.) 

Also, more seriously: I would also encourage any white or other non-Black person who is frustrated with their own curly hair to also spend some time reading on natural hair movement to try to learn about the history and politics of Black hair in particular. If it’s within your means and you’re already buying specialised products for textured hair, I encourage you to to look into Black-owned businesses. 

2. Canadian Poetry in English, especially 1960-present. I could narrow this down further but c’mon, how many people genuinely want to hear me go on about those slim volumes that I accumulate? But like, I grew up on my mom’s hand-me-down volumes of Canadian poetry from Confederation to the 1980′s; at age 16 I was co-oping for a prof at the local university as part of building a collected works on a Canadian poet and painter, and clamouring to go to lit conferences; in university I showed up with a good chunk of the curriculum already read; etc. Total nerd. 

3.  Edible plants of Ontario. I don’t actually forage because I don’t have access to land where I think it’s appropriate for me to, but I grew up on ~80 acres of mixed forest in central Ontario, and my grandfather liked to show us what was safe to eat. I will never turn my nose up at ramps, and I think I may have remembered my dad’s secret morel spot he took us to as kids, to check out next spring. The list of what else is out there is long and still lodged in my brain. 

4. Fat acceptance, fat positivity, and a bit about plus-size fashion: in the early-to-mid 2000′s I discovered the fatshionista community on livejournal and it changed my life, which I say without hyperbole. I was looking for tips on finding “cute clothes,” and what I found was a pathway into learning about intersectionality. The people who ran and were highly vocal in that community did a lot of hard work in those years trying to dismantle not only internalized and external fatphobia, but also ableism, racism, and queerphobia. I’ve spent over fifteen years now consciously trying to dismantle fatphobia in myself and in the people around me, as a part of the work. (I’m not as well-grounded in the fashion side of things anymore, but I try sometimes.) 

5. History and development of the English language. I’m definitely just an armchair expert, but holy shit do I love this awful language, and how it came to be and continues to become. I minored in linguistics in university, and I used to be able construe Old English on the fly. I believe wholeheartedly in linguistic parity and I don’t mean that English is better than other languages; this is just the one I understand best. 

6. (This one is really boring I’m not even going to bold it)  public sector procurement law and practice in Canada. It’s not a field I’m in anymore, but I was for a while. How (literally, how, not just on what) do your governments spend your money? 

7. Ghost stories, yours and mine. Tell me your spookiest stories, please please please. My favourite thing to do in October is cram my eyeballs full of the entries in the Jezebel scary stories contest, in part because of the conceit that the stories are ‘true.’ I’ve always been interested in the unseen or barely-seen in general, including 20 years with an active interest in modern witchcraft (and a trailing one, still). 

Actually, that’s a good segue to

8. Divination, kind of. I’m not an expert or even any kind of practitioner, anymore, but I know a little bit about a lot of different methods and their histories and application. Enough that I could quickly find my way to good research if I wanted to incorporate some of these things in a work of fiction, and I am always keen to listen to other people talk about their experiences and practices. 

9. Okay, I didn’t want to admit it but: Dragon Age (all media types). I definitely did not intend to become someone with a high degree of fluency in a fantasy video game world but here’s how it happened: about seven years ago I started experiencing chronic fatigue, joint pain, and stiffness. By February 2014 there were days when I couldn’t walk. I was diagnosed (quite quickly) with rheumatoid arthritis and my immune system and I are still in a bit of a fight about it. On one of those days when I couldn’t leave home, I picked up Dragon Age: Origins and started a playthrough, and it turned out that gaming was exactly the right amount of distracting but not intensive that worked for me when I was in pain, most of the time. But I’ve played the games, read the books, own the encyclopedias and the TTRPG books, have read codices and wikis and reams of meta. My DA fervour is pretty low these days (it’s been six years since a new game came out, after all), but it may yet come back. (What I love about it is mostly to do with characters and setting: it rewards close reading and a historiographical lens.) 

The best part about all of this is that I’ve never really been arsed about dragons, as such. 

10. (This feels like cheating but) vegetarian food, and the role of meat and animal products in food cultures. (Also, like, the politics and culture of food in general.) First-off, I should say that I’m not a vegan or vegetarian unless you want me to select my entree for your wedding. I don’t eat meat most of the time, but I do eat dairy most days, eggs a few times each week, and eat fish or seafood semi-regularly. I’ve been meat-averse for most of my life, though there are times when I’ve craved it and continue to. As a result, I tend to plan and cook mostly veg meals; it’s just second nature now. I tend to keep a general awareness of how to Make Things From Plants because it’s also just useful knowledge to have - blender ice cream with coconut milk and peanut butter and cocoa powder is just more convenient when it’s 35C outside than cooking custard, you know? 

I do think that the plant-based eating movement has a huge, huge problem with classism, ableism, fatphobia, and racism, and so I try to keep my own interest in eating in veg-adjacent ways as an interest for me, not as a cause or goal. 

Tagging: @mareebrittenford @taksez @glowcrizzle @thisnewdevilry @19thcenturyfox @kungfulola @horse-badorties @fullcuntact and anyone else that is keen to talk about their niche interests. 

[talesofafangirlwithadvr]

June Picks!

And just like that we’re at the end of yet another month. I seriously do not know where these months are going. I think they’re going by faster now since we’ve been socially distant. I hope everyone is staying safe out there and can enjoy the start of summer while also being smart. It’s good to know we can always escape into TV and movies at home. Without further ado, here’s my monthly wrap up. 

You know spoilers are coming....

DC’s STARGIRL

I gave some quick thoughts a few weeks back when the first episode of the latest DC TV show premiered on the CW. I really liked this episode and it got me pumped for the series, but since then I feel most of the episodes have dragged for me. Because this show has the DC streaming service feel, it makes you want to binge all the episodes, which is something you can’t do when CW airs it on a weekly basis. Most of the action occurs at the beginning or end of the episode, which serves as a great cliffhanger, which works well in this streaming format. Due to this format, the middle can drag...a lot. Going in I didn’t know much about Stargirl or the JSA. (My main knowledge comes from that special the Justice Society had in that one Smallville special all those years ago. There it was a bit of an overload of heroes, unlike here.) I love Pat and Courtney’s relationship. Every episode they bond more and I especially liked when she was complaining to him about how the other teammates don’t listen to her. He understood that really well. I am also just loving Luke Wilson as Pat. I think he works well for the role. Feels believable. I’m ALWAYS a fan of a new generation of heroes. While it was slower getting the team together, now that we have the core group I am especially excited. The latest episode (6) was one of the strongest for me and I am very excited to see this up and coming team train and get stronger. I’m also interested in learning more about the villains. I think it’s interesting how we are also meeting a lot of the villain’s kids who seem to not know their parents’ true identities. I wonder if we’ll be able to turn any of them. (Feeling it for Icicle Jr.) For our team, I’m really loving how it’s three girls and one boy. I think that’s a dynamic we don’t often see, especially in a group of superheroes. I’m still working out who to ship, but I’m really loving Rick. Can’t wait to continue watching. I hope we get more of these epic stance moments.

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

Let’s continue on this superhero thread with another one of my favorites, which wrapped up its 5th season (crazy it’s already the 5th!) at the start of the month. I’ve said this before and I will continue to do so, Legends is THE BEST SHOW IN THE ARROWVERSE. It has been the most consistent and that’s not only because of a strong cast, the freedom to do basically anything they want with the plot and also being a mid-season show. I think where the Flash and Arrow often get tripped up is having too many episodes to fill, which forces story lines to be dragged out and filler episodes. With a 13 episode season you don’t get that.  WARNING I’m going to jump into season 5 spoilers now!!

So, some of my overall thoughts for this season: 

The Wave-rider has always been a revolving door for characters. This show probably has the most turn-over than any other show I watch. And it works, but for this season especially it felt like a lot of coming and going as I look back. 

It was sad to see Ray leave. Not only is he one of my favorites, but he was one of the core crew that was left. He brought great humor and heart to the show. I loved his bromance with Nate over the seasons. I wish he could have come back for the finale. While I like that he left with Nora (because they are adorable) it just felt too fast (and that was with me knowing how many episodes he had left). 

Charlie’s exit. I know she had a large part of the plot with her sisters, especially in the second half of the season, which means she’ll be missed even more next season. When she said she was staying in the finale I was like WHAT! It just felt so sudden and I didn’t see it coming. 

The lack of Sara on the ship this season made me feel like she had other projects in the works. When she became blind I was like op this is it for her character. Now of course, I see how that worked into the overall story line, but with her abduction at the end of the season (meaning another absence) I’m curious if she is working on other things. I do love seeing Ava at the helm though. She makes a great captain. I just wish the two could be co-captains on the screen more often in future seasons to come. It hurt me too much to see Ava’s reaction to when she knew she was going to lose Sara. 

At first I REALLY missed the original Zari. She’s the one we knew for a few seasons and now she was gone. That’s the main reason why I had difficulty liking Behrad right away. I do appreciate that they didn’t drag out the plot of discovering something in the timeline had changed. I liked how Nate had some memory and got that message from Zari. When Zari 2.0 showed up I missed our original Zari even more, but the more episodes she was a part of, she grew on me and I suddenly was worried to lose her. I was completely fine with having both Zaris on the Waverider (ha, ha, ha, but seriously). I think Tala did a great job of bringing two different incarnations to the character and seeing how Zari would have grown up if she didn’t have such a tragic backstory. 

I can seriously go on and on about this season, but I think it’s best to leave for another post. 

THE 100

If you follow me or have read other posts on my page you know I’m a 100 fan. If I’ve had strong feelings about an episode (positive or negative) you will probably see a reaction post. I haven’t watched this past week’s episode yet, so this will mainly relate to the first five episodes of season 7. I’m having a love/hate relationship so far, which honestly I’m not shocked about. The first few seasons of this show were definitely the strongest, but I’ve remained a loyal fan and supported it throughout. When the first episode of season 7 aired a few weeks ago, I instantly felt it wasn’t going to be a strong ending. I kept saying that the true ending happened when our characters went on the ship to look for a new planet and “ended book 1.” Since then the feel of the show has shifted and that’s especially true with this final season. It’s always been a sci-fi show, but now with the anomaly and this jumping multiple portals and planets it feels VERY SCI-FI. Like at times I don’t 100% understand how what they’re doing is possible. But I’m okay with that. I’ve watched Doctor Who and felt the same way and still had a good time. Going into this season, I thought the anomaly plot was going to be the one I disliked the most. But for me now it’s what’s saving this season. I am loving that story line over the one we’re having at Sanctum (where they are FAR too many new characters that I don’t care about). I absolutely LOVED the Octavia/Dioyza/Hope backstory episode. There were so many great parallels to Octavia’s own childhood and I was able to appreciate how much her character has developed. After seeing this episode, I instantly grew to really like ‘adult’ Hope as well as her dynamic with Gabriel and Hope. (It hurt me so much when Echo killed the man who was helping them get back.) I can’t wait for Hope to find her mom. (I saw pictures of the three of them together again, so I know it’s going to happen.) Speaking of not liking new characters, I DO like Levitt so far. That could be mainly for the fact that he’s also a fan of watching the 100. I was NOT expecting to see Bellamy at the end of episode 5. It brought me so much joy. I hope we don’t have to wait so long for the next time. (Because, come on-we know he’s not really dead.) I am upset that Bob is barely in this season. It’s not fair to him or the character. Even thought the Sanctum plot is bothering me I am loving the scenes Murphy is in. Talk about character development. He better make it out of all this at the end. I also enjoyed Raven’s story line with the radiation. I agree with a few people’s posts I saw about her not having a large plot last season and not being the Raven we know. I’m happy to see her being one of the main characters again. We might not get the ending we deserve, but I hope it’s one that isn’t horrible.  

MARVEL RE-WATCH

What’s one way to spend your quarantine/social distancing? Why ranking all 22 movies in the MCU and then re-watching all of them (one a day) and re-ranking them with your new thoughts. With seasons ending early and less being on TV now was a fantastic time to do this. (Plus, I knew a few other people doing it so I felt inspired.) For some of these films, I think I had only seen them a few times and it was hard to remember what happened in certain ones over others. (I kept thinking stuff that happened in Captain America Civil War was actually in Captain America Winter Soldier.) I really enjoyed the experience and highly recommend it, whether you’ve watched these movies a countless amount of times or only once. Watching them in order of their release really made me appreciate all the Easter Eggs and planning that went into it. I longed for some movies and was not excited for others (I’m looking at you Guardians Vol. 2). It also made me feel a deeper connection to Iron Man (which made the ending even tougher-and I knew what was coming). The nostalgia was strong and I’m so happy to be a part of this fandom. 

Sneak peak at my re-ranking that is still in the process:

Top 3)

Avengers Infinity Wars

Avengers Endgame

Spiderman Far From Home

Bottom)

Guardians Vol. 2

Thor the Dark World

Iron Man 2

AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER

Avatar was released on Netflix this month and something in me said now was the time to watch it. (That’s right, I haven’t watched it before). The hype for this series is crazy! I remember it being on Nickelodeon as a kid, but I had never watched it. I didn’t know much about it other than the main character had an arrow on his head and was the last airbender. (Yep, so not a lot.) Currently, I’m still very early in-I think about episode 9-but I already feel very invested. I like that the episodes are only about 25 minutes long. They’re quick watches, which allows me to watch a bunch without feeling guilty. After watching the first two I already felt like I wanted to learn more about this world and its characters. I think it’s really interesting how the elemental bending is used and how some characters can do it while others can’t. I also like how the avatar gets rotated within each bender and how the one before Aang was a fire bender seeing as how that is our main opponent in this first season. Coming into the show I was told by a friend that this is some of the strongest character development he has seen. That was such high praise and I cannot wait to witness it for myself. One of the reasons I love watching TV/movies and reading is because of the characters. I love bonding with them and feeling like I know them. I can already hypothesize who will change the most (my mind automatically goes to Prince Zuko), but I’ve been really good about spoilers, so that way I can witness it myself. Because I’m still so early on I can’t say much, expect that I’m enjoying it and will keep you posted on how my journey with Aang, Katara, Sokka and Zuko go. 

VIOLETTA SEASON 2

I was ECSTATIC when I found out that season 2 of Violetta had FINALLY come to Disney Plus. It had felt like FOREVER since I had finished the first season (of 80 episodes. You know a show is good if after 80 episodes you’re like where is the next season of 80 more episodes!), but it was really only a few months. It feels great to be back at the Studio with Violetta and the crew. There’s a few new faces this season both with the students and the faculty. It always takes adjusting with new seasons/characters, but some of these characters I really don’t like. I know that’s good because you’re not necessarily supposed to like them, but I really want some of them gone. (I’m looking at you Jackie.) But with a show that has so many episodes, a lot of the story lines often get dragged out, so I don’t know when that will be. Again, Violetta has found herself in a love triangle (just like every other teenage girl, lol). This time Diego opposes Leon and is much different than Tomas in season 1. Where Tomas was passive and always wore a face of uncertainty/confusion, Diego is bold and won’t take no for an answer. At times I feel he borders stalker territory. 

So far, I’m up to episode 20 and am getting more into it. I was missing out on the performances/ songs and now there’s starting to be more, which has me excited. I’m hoping not to watch this one as fast because I know most people say it is the best one, plus who knows when season 3 would appear on Disney Plus. For anyone unfamiliar with my first post about Violetta earlier in the year should check it out if they’re looking for a telenovela full of drama, misunderstandings love triangles, angst and music that will get stuck in your head. Definitely worth the watch! 

WORLD OF DANCE

My favorite dance competition TV show is back and I could not be more excited!! There’s just something about World of Dance that puts me in such a good mood and I can’t wait for Tuesday nights. I’m just upset at myself that I watch the latest episode too soon and then have to wait another week. This season the judges switched it up by coming to the contestants last audition with the producers...or so they thought. I loved seeing their reactions when they walked into the room and Ne-Yo, Jennifer Lopez and Derek Hough were there. It was priceless. While I don’t have a dancing bone in my body, I still am able to appreciate this talent and love watching the contestants perform. What I really like about this show is the range of ages and types of dancers from soloists, duos, trios and groups. I like how each competes within their group until the final episode when they have won their category. The talent is already so strong as they finished the call backs (which was a new feature this season too). Some of my favorites are below. I can’t wait to see what happens for the rest of the season. I just hope the pandemic didn’t interrupt the filming. You can catch up on all episodes by watching NBC on demand!

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST....

BEECHAM HOUSE

Ending strong with yet another Masterpiece Classic, Beecham House. This series, which aired earlier in the UK, premiered about two weeks ago here in the states on PBS. While I’ve heard that there will not be a second season and the outrage of that makes me worried for how this season will end. (After watching Sanditon earlier this year you really don’t know what to expect.) Despite knowing this already, I will continue to watch the show and enjoy what we have. Which I am so far. While only the first two episodes have aired, I already feel very invested. The first episode, specifically, leaves a lot of questions unanswered, which is understandable because they want to draw you in to watch the show. I was making a lot of speculations, but refrained from going into too much spoiler territory. (Surprisingly, I’ve been good! That’s impressive for me!) Some of my questions have already been answered in the second episode (but of course, there are more to go) and I was happy how I guessed. There’s so many characters and it feels like we’re gaining more with each episode. Despite, there being so many, I am able to keep up and like seeing new characters interact with one another. I also enjoy seeing a lot of familiar faces from Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) in a very different kind of role compared to Downton and Leo Suter who has been in a lot of my recent Masterpiece watches (Victoria, Sanditon). I love how he plays such a different character in each project he’s in. Really shows his range. With four more episodes to go I can’t wait to continue learning more about what’s going on in Beecham House and what their futures will be. I don’t know if the US numbers will help a chance for a second season, but I hope so! 

Speaking of my previous Masterpiece watches: I really enjoyed World on Fire overall. It ended with some big cliffhangers and I am very excited it got a second season!! 

What are you watching? Any requests of what I should tune into next? 

[prorevenge]

Go ahead and undermine my credentials and hard work. I'll just make sure people know who you really are.

Backstory

I'm 25(M) and I work in the IT department for my company. Our IT department branches out into 6 smaller departments (Technical Support, Programming, Web Development, Computer System Analysis, IT Security, and Network Engineering). Each of these has their own boss and the boss of these all answer directly to the Director of the IT department. A couple weeks ago, I was called into the Director's office when I came into work. She’s an incredible person and mentor.

She told me that she had some good news and bad news. The bad news was that she was offered another job at a much larger company as the IT director at one of their branches in Chicago, so she’d be leaving in a couple of months. The good news was that the position for IT director at our company was open, and given my performance and reputation around the office, my immediate boss (the head of Computer System Analysis) had put my name in for consideration for the job! Each of the six department bosses in IT had to put one name in for consideration, so I have at least five other people who are competing for this job, plus any potential outside hires (It’s four now, but I’ll get to that). After our little chat, I weighed the pros and cons of the job if I get it and I decided to just go for it! I might have a pretty good shot at getting the job, since I'd consider myself a fairly likable person, a hard worker, and fairly good at my job. But there are others who are also very good candidates and I'd still be okay if I didn't get the job. It’s an honor to just be considered.

Now let me tell you about the target of my revenge. For the sake of this story, let's call this guy "Gabe". As the head of Technical Support, Gabe had the power to recommend anyone in his department for the position, but he picked himself. Now I already knew him and what he's like because a year ago I also worked in Tech Support for a short time. I was originally hired to be in the Computer System Analysis department, but I volunteered to help out in Tech Support since we were a bit short-staffed at the time. Gabe is an obnoxious, self-absorbed, arrogant, and uptight dick who doesn't listen to anyone who he feels is "beneath him". He's either in his late 30s or early 40s, but either way he has at least 10 years on me. He's a little on the chubby side, receding hairline, and a neck-beard. All he needs to achieve his final form is a fedora. Back when I worked for him, he gave me a lot of crap for so many little things. From not filling out repair tickets right to completing a repair slightly out of order, he always had something to complain about. But other than that, he seemed fine to me. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have done what I did or gone as far as I did. But then this happened:

I was just doing my work and minding my own business, as one does. I stood up to go refill my water bottle at the water fountain and guess who follows me? If you said Gabe, then congratulations. You get a cookie. Gabe walks up to me while I'm filling up my bottle and starts a conversation.

Gabe: Hey OP, what's goin' on? How are you?

Immediately I knew somebody was wrong. He's never this friendly. But I had no easy way out of this, so I rolled with it.

Me: Hey Gabe. I'm good. How're yo-

Gabe: So I heard that (Head of CSA's name) put your name in for the Director's job.

Me: Yeah! I'm really excited to interview! It's an honor to even be considered.

Gabe just laughs and puts on his normal expression of smug and gassy

Gabe: Listen to me. If you think they're gonna pick you, a lazy new kid who can't even write a fucking repair ticket correctly, over me, a team manager who's had 15 years with this company, then you're out of your goddamn mind.

I was shocked. I couldn’t believe those are actual words that a coworker, much less a coworker with a higher position, said to my face.

Me: What the hell? Why would you say that? I did nothing but good work for you last year and you know it.

Gabe: It was mediocre at best! When I become the IT director, I’m gonna crack the whip. Why anyone would think someone like you is a worthy candidate for one of the highest positions in the company is beyond me. So I’ll make sure my new department heads have better judgement than (Head of CSA’s name)

He walked away smugly and I just stood there, both shocked and honestly quite hurt. The only part he got right was that I was relatively new, being there for two years. But I also realized in that moment that I couldn’t let this kind of person be the Director. But, again, I’m just a kid to them, so what can I do?

Planning The Revenge

That same day, I went down to the building's cafeteria to take my lunch break with my girlfriend (she works in the Marketing Department). I told her about the promotion and what happened with Gabe. She made me feel better by talking me down and that was super nice. But what happened next was even better. A few of my friends from IT walked by to congratulate me as well and they sat down. A couple of them are from Tech Support and the rest are from the other departments. My girlfriend welcomed them to sit down with us and we made it a little party. We talked and then I told them about what happened with Gabe. The ones in Tech Support all groaned and, surprisingly, so did the rest of them. I was intrigued and I asked them to elaborate, and all of them have their own Gabe horror story.

Turns out that his usual condescending remarks aren't the worst of it. They had stories about him ripping into an intern for not getting his coffee order right, one story about him making transphobic remarks about an HR rep (really sweet guy. Makes incredible babka.), one of them has a couple of recordings of sexist and rape-y comments towards the female department heads in IT, and he's even come to work intoxicated on multiple occasions. Although that last part wasn't really news to me, since he reeked of alcohol frequently.

Now at this point, you’re probably asking the same question my girlfriend asked: “Why don’t you tell somebody?” Well I’ll tell ya. Our communication policy is kinda shit in IT. Rather than report a dispute or an issue immediately to HR or the Director, we have to give it to our immediate superior, which in this case would be Gabe for a lot of them. You really think Gabe’s gonna rat himself out to the Director? As much as I love my boss and think she’s going a wonderful job, that’s the one policy that she has that I don’t agree with.

At this point, we had all kinda bonded over our mutual hatred for Gabe. We had all agreed that Gabe would be an absolutely terrible boss and we needed to stop him. We were the Avengers and this was our Endgame (which is funny since Endgame would come out the next day). Just then, my genius girlfriend said something that I couldn't believe I didn't figure out sooner. She said "Y'know, this time next week, you're going to be face to face with the CEO, an HR rep, and your Director for the interview. That's your opening. You can air out all of his dirty laundry right there." The rest of our faces lit up, realizing this too and we were ecstatic. This was our chance and we weren't going to waste it. Gabe is a terrible human being and would be an even worse Director. He had to go. But I'd need proof first. So that's what I got.

Revenge Time

Along with rewriting my resumé and brushing up on my interview skills, I spent the next week being something of an investigative journalist. I asked my previously mentioned coworker to email me those recordings he had of Gabe’s rape-y comments (which by the way were absolutely sickening to listen to. I think the worst one was “I’d love to raw her over the trash can like the dirty whore she is.”), as well as spending time interviewing members of the Tech Support team as well as some of the other department heads. Almost everyone had some form of bad experience with him, ranging from unprofessional to downright abusive behavior. The head of WebDev even said that she was always uncomfortable whenever they were alone in a room together. By the time I was done, I had 3 voice recordings of Gabe, 4 pages of quotes from people around the office, and the stories I had originally heard at lunch that day when we began planning. I really wanted to prove his whole day-drinking thing, but I was afraid that going that far might cost me my job. But what I wanted to do was sneak into his office, open his drawers, and hopefully find empty liquor bottles or something to that effect. But what I had would just have to suffice.

Then the day came. We were in the Endgame now. I showed up to the work the day of interviews in my finest suit, my resumé, and literal pages of evidence to make my case. I walked into the office and saw my competition along with a bunch of other people who I didn’t recognize. Those were the outside hires. I was getting pretty nervous, especially when I saw the interview committee in the conference room through its glass walls. The CEO, my Director, and an HR Rep. I took a few deep breaths, checked when my turn was, and then I sat down to do my work, just waiting to make my move. A few of my coworkers came by my desk to wish me good luck, and that made me feel a lot better about it.

I waited and waited for my turn and then saw Gabe walking up to me from the conference room, so that means his interview must’ve just finished. I pulled out my phone and went to voice memos and began recording, just in case I got anything more out of him, and oh boy you bet I did.

Me: What’s up, Gabe? How was your interview?

Gabe: Great. Obviously. The job is as good as mine. You might as well not even try.

Me: I’m still gonna try my best, man. Who knows? I might even get it.

Gabe: Yeah keep dreaming.

He starts to get up in my face and I can smell his lunch on his breath. Too many onions. He then starts hissing at me.

Gabe: You’re absolute trash, kid. They’re not gonna pick a kid with two years of experience with an undergrad degree over me. I’ve been at this company for far too long and got my undergrad degree and my masters from Princeton! Don’t think for a second that you have the upper hand. You’re nothing to me!

I held my breath while he ranted and then he walked away to talk to another one of my coworkers who had their interview already. Coworkers around me just looked at me both shocked and confused once he walked away. I grabbed my phone, stopped the recording, and played it back. That was it. That was the final piece. I waited for a couple more interviews to finish, until they finally called me in. I grabbed my bag and my phone and walked into the conference room. As I walked, I could feel the eyes of some coworkers on me. They knew my plan, and I think they were counting on me to pull this off. Once inside, we all shook hands and exchanged formalities before sitting down and letting the interview begin. Not all of it is relative to the story, so let me just skip to the end.

CEO: Given the amount of internships you've done and how much time you've put into the company, you may have a good chance. However, we've just interviewed people with almost triple your experience. How do you stand out from the rest.

Me: Well, if I become the new Director, I already have some ideas for policies I'd like to put into place.

Director: Oh really? Would you care to give us an example?

Me: Don't get me wrong. I believe that you have done an amazing job as Director of this department, but there are some things that I think can be improved upon. For instance, our policy when it comes to HR.

HR Rep: Could you elaborate on that, please?

Me: Certainly. In the IT department, when we have any disputes or grievances to settle, we need to report them to our direct superior. Not the Director, but to the lower department heads. My goal is to streamline communication, so workers can report issues directly to the Director or go straight to HR.

Director: Alright, but can you tell us why the current policy is an issue?

I started smiling. This was it. This was my opening.

Me: Funny you should ask. Recently, I heard stories from a bunch of my coworkers about our head of Tech Support, Gabe. He's been very rude to his staff and to others on multiple occasions. In fact, I think "unprofessional" is a bit of an understatement from the stories I've been hearing.

Right then, I reached into my bag and pulled out the long list of stories and quotes I had gathered from the past week and handed them to the CEO.

Me: I care about my coworkers, so I did some digging. I really feel like this is something that you need to see.

I watched as the search committee read the quotes and stories. I watch their expressions turn to shock and disgust, which I totally get. I felt the same way when I heard all of this.

HR Rep: This is a... conflict of interest. From what I know, Gabe is also your competition for this position. How do we know that these stories aren't fabricated so that you could get an advantage? Because offenses like these could result in immediate termination. I hope you have a way to prove these very serious accusations.

Me: I had a feeling you'd say that. You are free to interview any of the people I quoted, but I can just save you some time and show you this.

I pulled out my phone and opened up the email that my coworker had sent me and all four of us listened to this neck-beard's disgusting and upsetting quotes. But I wasn't done there. I also pulled up the most recent one. The conversation between me and him. My Director just looked down at her desk and then they looked at each other. I was the one to break the silence.

Me: I'm sorry you had to hear all of this.

CEO: Could you please email those recordings to me? I would like to address this immediately.

Me: Of course. You are free to keep those papers too.

I forwarded the email to him along with my recording.

Director: Thank you for this information, OP. We'll let you know our decision when the time comes.

Me: Of course. Thank you for your time.

I shook everyone's hand again and that's when the HR Rep spoke up.

HR Rep: Can you please ask Gabe to come back? I would like to address this immediately as well.

I'm ecstatic at this point

Me: I would be happy to.

I leave the room and notice my friends in Tech Support just staring at me. My girlfriend was also sitting at my desk, since we planned on going out for lunch after my interview. I didn't want to give anything away, so I kept a straight face and walked past them and towards Gabe's office. I walked in and sighed.

Me: The interview committee wants to see you again.

Gabe just looked up from his computer and just gave me a cocky smirk, as if to say "I told you so." He got up and pushed past me towards the door. I followed behind him towards the conference room and we parted ways when he went in and I walked towards my desk. I wanted to see exactly what happened. I watched what unfolded through the glass walls. I saw Gabe's face turn white and his expression turn from smug to terrified. He turned his head to me and I had this shit-eating grin on my face. I just waved and then left my office with my girlfriend to have a nice lunch.

The Aftermath

I was feeling pretty good about the whole day. I got my revenge, did fairly well in a job interview, and had amazing chicken parm for lunch that day. I felt so good, that I decided to take the rest of the day off. I went to the zoo, saw a really cute koala bear. The next day, I came to work dressed down since interviews were over, and then patiently waited for the committee to make their decision. When I walked into the lobby of the building, my two friends from Tech Support ran over and trapped me in a bear hug.

Me: Well this is new. What's this for?

Friend 1: You did it!

Me: I GOT THE JOB?!

Friend 1: No! We wouldn't know even if you did. We're talking about Gabe!

Me: I stopped him from getting the job?

Friend 2: Oh you did a lot more than that. But you'll just have to see for yourself.

Both of them drag me to the elevator to go up to the IT floor. When we get there, they dragged me through the main office and over towards Gabe's. When we got in, all I found was an empty room with a desk in the middle of it. My jaw dropped. Apparently I collected so much evidence for Gabe's misbehavior, not only did I eliminate him from gunning for the Director's job, but he was also fired from the company and potentially blacklisted since everything I submitted for evidence against him was put on his permanent file. I'm not sure if he was blacklisted or not since I'm not entirely sure how that works, but he's definitely gone for good. I asked them about the details of what happened after I left. They told me that Gabe was so mad (probably at me), that his face was bright red. After he left the conference room, he spent the rest of the day packing up and drinking in his office, so I guess my day-drinker theory held up. He left in shame, and we won't see him again.

I was so excited. Gabe was gone and it felt like the office was a brighter place. People were so excited that a few people outside the Tech Support department brought in a bunch of desserts, from cheesecake to brownies. They were delicious, but I think what them taste better was that I did something to cause this rush of joy. I think the best part of this whole thing is that only a couple of people know that I had something to do with this. The rest of them? Totally clueless. I'm not the protector that IT wants, but I'm the protector that IT needs. Now enough humble-bragging. It's starting to make me feel like a douche.

In hindsight, I don't know what would've been more satisfying. Doing what I did or getting the job fair and square and firing Gabe. But if there's one thing I learned in life, you will do things that you are proud of that you will enjoy and you will do things that you're not so proud of but will really enjoy. This doesn't apply. I am both very proud of this and I really REALLY enjoyed this. This might come back later to bite me in ass, but for right now I think I'll enjoy it. But now the Director has to pick a new head of Tech Support. Either that or she'll give that job up to the next Director. It's been almost a few days since the interviews and we're still waiting on the results. Even if I don't end up getting the job, I still gained something from this. I have a better bond with my coworkers and got rid of the asshole in my office. If enough people like this story, I'll update you on if I got the job or not.

Moral of the story: Don't shoot an unfamiliar gun. You don't know how strong the kickback's gonna be.

TL;DR: I was considered for a job promotion but was demeaned by a superior who was also up for the job. I found out bad things about him and presented them during my interview and got him fired and possibly blacklisted from getting another job.

(source) story by (/u/KyuubiBlade)

[daleisgreat]

25 Years of Sega Saturn & Virtual Boy - Flashback Special!

After the deluge of wrestling-themed entries for WrestleMania month this past 30 days, I have been pining to do another videogame anniversary special. Looking up which platforms have major milestone anniversaries this year, I noted six that stuck out. Four of the platforms (NES, Xbox 360, PSone, PS2) I have an extensive history with and they will get their own respective flashback treatment from me when their anniversaries draw nearer later this year. The other two platforms have all had lackluster or outright abysmal degrees of retail success and both I have only had limited histories with and never played on a consistent basis. Nevertheless, the time I did have with them I considered unique and I do have some fond memories of my experiences with each platform. So let us get on with this flashback special as I celebrate the 25th anniversaries of two consoles that each hit in 1995: Sega’s Saturn and Nintendo’s Virtual Boy.

I want to begin with the platform I have played the least of these two, the Saturn. Yes, I played my Virtual Boy and its daunting 14 game library more than the Saturn. In 1995 I was still lagging a generation behind on the latest consoles. All my family had was an NES at this point and I recently got a GameBoy for Christmas of 1993 so in 1995 I was getting a lot of mileage out of my GameBoy and my parents were still hitting up garage sales for bargain price NES game for me. By the time the Saturn and PSone hit in mid-1995, I was a year away from getting a SNES which I desired more so the Saturn and PSone were not even close to making my wish list. I read about them looming in magazines like Game Players and Electronic Gaming Monthly, but truth be told I was not all that excited for the future of disc-based platforms and the advent of polygonal graphics that were about to come into fruition with 32-bit consoles. As a naïve 12-year old, the first major 3D polygonal games that hit on SNES and Genesis in the early 90s like Star Fox and Virtua Racer looked butt-ugly to me, and from trying out demo kiosks of PSone and Saturn at stores the impatient kid I was back then was furious at this newfound ‘feature’ of the latest systems having loading times. Combine that with my family having no desire to chunk down several hundred dollars for another gaming system and I was left with no cravings for the Saturn and PSone when they both hit in 1995. I had no clue of Sega’s surprise Saturn launch announced at the first E3 in May of 1995. For the unfamiliar, it was when going into that E3 it was known that both the Saturn and PSone were slated to launch within days of each other in September of 1995, but at Sega’s press conference they said right then and there the Saturn is out right now at a handful of select retailers. In 1995 the Internet was only around for a few years and not even the slightest bit ubiquitous. Computers were still a couple years away from coming down to more reasonable family friendly prices, so at this time I got all my gaming news from my monthly subscription to Game Players.

Here is the podcast special on the Saturn I originally recorded way back in 2008. Check it out if you want to know even more about the history of the Saturn and its games. I wound up largely ignoring both the Saturn and PSone for the first few years they were out, maybe occasionally trying out an occasional store kiosk demo and that was about it. I remember the magazines at the time putting a lot of hype into Sega’s arcade ports, and console exclusives like Panzer Dragoon getting cover stories of having mind-shattering graphics, but I was not buying it at the time and stubbornly remained loyal to my 2D sprites. For the Saturn, I finally got my first real experience with it in April of 1997. I remember shortly before this time the Saturn was being pushed aggressively on TV with a special 1996 holiday bundle packaging it with Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop for $199. I had no idea at the time why this ridiculous deal happened was because Sega was getting killed in sales at this point in the PSone/Saturn/N64 era and they were desperately trying to play catch-up with a hell of a value considering several months earlier in 1996 it was clinging onto its dooming launch price of $399.

Flash forward a few months later in April of 1997 and my hometown got hit with a huge flood that forced a mandatory evacuation of the entire town for a couple weeks until the waters receded. For a couple days our family stayed at a nearby air base hangar. I believe we were planning on hunkering down there for several days until a couple days in my uncle from St. Paul surprised us and showed up and ‘volunteered’ on taking us in and refused to leave without us coming with him. My siblings and I were delighted to get out of the crowded hangar and spend time with our cousins for what ended up being a week before we were able to get back home. My cousin Royce, who was within a year of my age at the time wound up getting that Saturn three game bundle for Christmas a few months earlier and we played those three games along with the demo disc that came with the system almost every day. We must have played through Virtua Cop at least a few times, and I remember finding it a big step up from previous light gun games I was accustomed to. Daytona USA at the time did not really click with me, and while I was impressed with the graphics at the time I did not come around to checkpoint-racing games yet and was more turned off by their enforced time limits back then. On the demo disc our family got a lot of fun competing against each other in the home run derby mode available in World Series Baseball. The standout game of the pack was easily Virtua Fighter 2. It blew me away and for me it was the first game that proved not only for fighting games, but for games all together that 3D polygonal graphics and gameplay could be viable and damn fun. I knew I was a couple years late to the party by this point, but by 1997 polygonal graphics were no longer the crude, non-textured blocks and rectangles on the SNES and Genesis, but actually had some depth and style to them. I loved Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat at this point, but Virtua Fighter 2 proved to me that 3D fighters could coexist with 2D ones.

That week with my cousin was my proper introduction to the 32/64-bit era. It would be over a decade though before I got more serious hand-on time with the Saturn. Not many friends of mine had the Saturn back home, or if they did we rarely busted it out. My friend and former podcast co-host, Matt has a mammoth collection, and I only recall us turning to the system once or twice all these years to play the charming platformer SCUD. Another friend and podcast co-host of mine, Chris also has a Saturn in his equally mammoth game collection, and until 2008 I only recall us powering it on a couple of times to play the fun co-op action platformer, Three Dirty Dwarves, which had a nonsensical, grungy vibe to its destruction. In 2008, we were a couple years into doing our videogame podcast and we loved doing console retrospectives, so we decided it was time to do one on the Saturn. I just uploaded it to YouTube and integrated it into this article for your listening pleasure! Chris knew about my limited Saturn hands-on time at this point so we decided to spend literally a whole afternoon, about four to five hours of ‘research’ playing a good chunk of his Saturn collection. About 10-15 minutes for each game for a quick refresher for what each game brought to the table. There was one though we played for about two hours straight. That was the rare Panzer Dragoon Saga Chris had a copy of. I knew about it being a collectible at this point and heard the acclaim for it being an ahead of its time RPG and professed to Chris to hope to spend a little more time with it to see what the hype was all about. I remember digging its rail-shooter action the first two games established while simultaneously mixing in RPG style mechanics and exploration. I think we both got wrapped up in it, and stuck with it a bit longer than anticipated. Suffice it to say, those opening hours stood out to me all these years later and I can see why Panzer Dragoon Saga became a hot commodity.

Jeremy Parish did an excellent line of videos with deep dives on every individual Virtual Boy game released, including Japanese exclusives. Here is his take on the Wario's exclusive Virtual Boy game as of yet to be re-released, Wario Land. In my TurboGrafX-16 flashback, I wrote about how I procured the system at a gaming community meet-up event. At that same event there were several gaming systems hooked up for play throughout the night, and one of them was the Saturn. One of the highlights of that night was someone bringing enough multi-taps and controllers that we were able to get plenty of rounds of eight player Saturn Bomberman in. I am a fan of classic multiplayer Bomberman, but never played more than four players before, and was surprised to see the Saturn pull off an eight player version with a micro-sized map and characters in order to fit everyone on screen. It was a Bomberman experience that nothing will likely ever stack up to. I dug up a photo from the event of all of us gathered around the TV so you call can see the tech in action!

Sadly, I never got anymore hands on time with the Saturn after this. It is one of the few major consoles that I do not own. For years I remember seeing the system for sale at our local retro games shop for around $30, but I always hesitated on it. The games I enjoyed on there Sega released better sequels on other systems, and I later got to check out some of its top ranked games like the Capcom fighting games, Guardian Heroes, Nights Into Dreams... and acclaimed shmups like Radiant Silvergun on enhanced re-releases on the Xbox 360 and PS3. There remains games exclusive to the Saturn that I always wanted to try like Die Hard Arcade, World Series Baseball ‘98, Fighters MegaMix, Burning Rangers and Shining Force III, but with retro game prices continuously going up, the time to start a Saturn collection has come and gone in my book unless I happen to stumble upon a steal of a deal. I do have one Saturn game in my collection however, and I will give props to Matt once again who gifted me his extra copy of Bug!. While Sega pulled the plug early in America on the Saturn, it comparatively fared much better than Nintendo with the Virtual Boy. It launched in America in August of 1995, and sold so poor right out of the gate that Nintendo could not have abandoned the platform any faster. Its last game, 3D Tetris, hit North America in March of 1996, only seven months after it launched and with a total of a meager 14 games officially releasing stateside. I remember seeing the hype leading up to the Virtual Boy’s launch in the magazines, and like with the initial wave of polygonal graphics, I was not sold on the concept of virtual reality. However, a couple months after that same flood hit in 1997 our local Wal-Mart had unsold Virtual Boy inventory it was desperate to get rid of by selling the system itself for $20, and games for $5 each. This was one of the first times as a kid I recall my dad abstaining from his garage sales-only videogame rule and realized the steal the system was going for. We walked out of that Wal-Mart with the system and the copy of Mario’s Tennis it came bundled with, along with copies of Golf, Mario Clash and Nester’s Funky Bowling.

I was in the midst of spending summers on a farm at this point in my childhood for several years, and that was the summer of Virtual Boy with my siblings. I played the crap out of all four of those games. I abided by the recommended break alerts that popped up every 15-30 minutes seriously because I recall the gaming mags at the time reporting on the Virtual Boy causing eye strain after consistent use. Even with all that heavy duty play of the Virtual Boy that summer, somehow I am the only one in my family that does not have glasses. All four games we had were solid, but not mind blowing. Mario Clash I thought was a nice, fully-featured take on the classic original Mario Bros. arcade game that fleshed out that style of gameplay with about 100 stages and got so difficult early on I did not come close to finishing it. Golf was a good simulation of the sport, but it only had one course so I did not revisit it that often. I remember enjoying Mario’s Tennis a lot, but this being the debut version of that game it was more of a tennis sim with Mario characters, and had less of the wacky mini-games and power-up attacks associated with the franchise today. My siblings and I played a ton of competitive Nester’s Funky Bowling. There was not anything that funky about it other than the occasional cheerful animation from Nester and his twin sister Hester whenever you scored a strike or spare, but it was a functional enough bowling game that we had plenty of fierce rounds of over that summer. After that summer we and I got our fill of those four games and the Virtual Boy found itself in the closet for many years. Eventually I randomly dug it out and found the tripod busted, and the pack that hooked up to the back of the controller that contained the plug-in for the AC adaptor was missing. With no means of powering on the Virtual Boy, it sat in a bag forgotten in my closet for well over a decade. I will thank one Jeremy Parish for renewing my interest in Virtual Boy with his excellent line of Virtual Boy Works videos. For those that are unfamiliar with him, Parish is one of most credible members of the retro gaming press, with him hosting the renowned retro-game podcast, Retronauts since 2006 and going on to write countless books and producing chronological video series on nearly every 20th century Nintendo platform. He averages one video a week, which usually highlights one or two games and does a deep dive into its development history and then proceeds to review the game. A few years in he has already covered almost all the games released from the first years of the SNES and the first two years of NES and GameBoy.

Throughout 2019 Parish took a detour from those three systems to focus on going through the entire VirtualBoy library, including its several Japanese exclusives. His surprise love for the platform shined through his thorough coverage for each game. It is a well-produced series and fantastic history lesson for this blink-and-miss-it platform that I highly recommend checking out by click or pressing here, especially now to learn about the first major attempt at a virtual reality platform with VR now having a modicum of success with the PlayStation VR and the Oculus Rift having made legit waves these past few years. Virtual Boy Works inspired me to track down a few more Virtual Boy games to my collection which were surprisingly going for not that much on eBay. I wound up getting Galactic Pinball, TeleroBoxer, Virtual League Baseball, Vertical Force and Wario Land. I also tracked down a replacement AC Adaptor hub and tripod stand which resulted in my Virtual Boy powering on once again! I tested out all these games briefly. I love me some videogame pinball, and Galactic Pinball has some nifty 3D tricks up its sleeve. TeleroBoxer is like Punch-Out meets Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots or Real Steel for the younger readers who need a more contemporary reference. Vertical Force is a competent shmup, and I wish I put more than a few minutes into Wario Land because it is a legit top notch platformer and went down as one of the few highly rated games on the system. I swear to one day make it through Wario Land! Thank you for joining me on this two part 25th anniversary special for the Saturn and Virtual Boy! Got a favorite Virtual Boy or Saturn memory of your own? I would like to hear how it compares to my tale so shoot me a line on Twitter over @Gruel. If you enjoyed this journal-style flashback special, than I encourage you to check out the links below to the specials I wrote for the Dreamcast, GameBoy, Genesis, TurboGrafX-16 and yes, even the 32-X. Thank you all once again for indulging me!

My Other Gaming Flashbacks Dreamcast 20th Anniversary GameBoy 30th Anniversary Genesis 30th Anniversary TurboGrafX-16 30th Anniversary and 32-X 25th Anniversary

[twilightvolt]

My Favorite Anime OPs and EDs from 2010-2019

No one asked for this, but i’m doin’ it anyway cuz there’s so many songs out there that i’ve never heard anyone talk about. like, y’all sleep on Yu-Gi-Oh! apparently. lmao

Going by release year, here’s all the OPs and EDs i can remember that i luv (and still do to this day). i may or may not have gotten all the years right. hell, i’m not even sure i got the OP and ED numbers right.

It’ll go by: Song Name - Artist (Name of Anime and Which OP/ED it is) an asterisk means i REALLY like it above the rest.

Hopefully this’ll help introduce you to some new jams you missed out on! ^  ^

2010

Going My Way! ~Road to Tomorrow~ - Masaaki Endoh (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds OP5)*

Close to You - ALvino (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds ED4)

Future Colors - Plastic Tree (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds ED5)

Gravity 0 - Aqua Timez (Star Driver OP)*

Never Give Up! - Sonar Pocket (Digimon Xros Wars OP)*

Period - Chemistry (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood OP4)*

Rain - SID (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood OP5)* THE. FEELS.

Uragiri no Yuuyake - THEATRE BROOK (Durarara!! OP)* Y’all remember this one? Lmao

Trust Me - Yuya Matsushita (Durarara!! ED)

Ice Cream Syndrome - Sukima Switch (Pokemon Zoroark: Master of Illusions ED)*

My Soul, Your Beats! - Lia (Angel Beats OP) WAIT HOLD ON, ANGEL BEATS WAS THIS DECADE? I THOUGHT THAT WAS 2009 OR SOMETHING. DAHEQ?

ChAngE - Miwa (BLEACH OP12)

Calling - FLOW (Heroman ED)*

SHIVER - the GazettE (Black Butler II OP)

2011

Samurai Heart (Some Like it Hot!) - SPYAIR (Gintama ED17)* And on this day I realized….SPYAIR is lit.

New World - Twill (Digimon Xros Wars OP2)

Masterpiece - Mihimaru GT (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP)

Boku Quest - Golden Bomber (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED)* I luv watching the actual ending sequence. It fits my cyber aesthetic to a T.

BRAVING! - KANAN (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP2)

Setsubou no Freesia (Longing Freesia) - Daizystripper (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED2)* I’ll be completely honest, this song has been my favorite anime theme over most, if not all others, ever since. It’s kinda held a special place in my heart as it’s got memories of what transpired during 2012 that i don’t think i’ll ever forget. From the summer trip we took down south to me creating my very first OCs, Takuya and his Charmander partner Drake, on paper, i’ll luv this song with all my heart. ^  ^

Lovers - 7!! (Seven Oops) (Naruto Shippuden OP)

Counter Identity - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Soul Eater Repeat Show OP)*

Ai Ga Hoshii Yo - Shion Tsuji (Soul Eater Repeat Show OP2)* WANTCHU WANTCHU, I WANT CHUU~

SHINING STAR - 9nine (Star Driver OP2)*

Crossover - 9nine (Star Driver ED2)

Sky's the Limit - Shihoko Hirata (Persona 4 the Animation OP)

We’re Not Alone - coldrain (Rainbow Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin OP)

One Reason - Fade (Deadman Wonderland OP) I can bet you right now half of y’all forgot about this show. I mean i did. Lol

Mayonaka no Orchestra - Aqua Timez (Naruto Shippuden ED16)

Hacking to the Gate - Kanako Itou (Steins;Gate OP)* THIS SONG CLEARED MY SKIN AND RAISED MY GRADES.

Ranbu no Melody - SID (BLEACH OP13)* That main chorus tho. N o i c e .

LISTEN TO THE STEREO!! - GOING UNDERGROUND (Katekyo Hitman Reborn OP8)*

Core Pride - UVERworld (Blue Exorcist OP)

2012

Mask - Aqua Timez (BLEACH ED30?)

Soul Drive - Color Bottle (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP3)*

Wild Child - Moumoon (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED3)* Whenever I hear this song, I either think of school shenanigans or, if school isn't a thing in their world, a high school AU. Lmao

Unbreakable Heart - Hideaki Takatori (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP4)

Artist - Vistlip (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED4)*

Stand By Me - Stereopony (Eureka Seven AO ED)* Ok I know some people don't wanna remember AO, but hear me out here. Lmao 

Brave Blue - FLOW (Eureka Seven AO OP2)*

Key Plus Words - Shihoko Hirata & Yumi Kawamura (Persona 4 the Animation OP2)

Harukaze - SCANDAL (BLEACH OP15)*

Crossing Field - LiSA (Sword Art Online OP) I like making SAO jokes as much as the next guy, but let's be real here. Crossing Field was still a pretty good song.

STAND UP! - Twill (Digimon Xros Wars Hunters OP)* Hunters sucked, but the OP slaps.

Kyomu Densen - ALI PROJECT (Another OP) This show gave me a temporary fear of umbrellas, but this OP is good.

Complication - ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D (Durarara!! OP2)

Light My Fire - KOTOKO (Shakugan no Shana III Final OP)

Mite Mite Kochichi - Memoiro Clover Z (Pokemon Best Wishes ED3)

2013

Dualism of Mirrors - Petite Milady (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL OP5)

GO WAY GO WAY - FoZZtone (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED5)

Challenge the GAME - REDMAN (Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL ED6)* I swear to god, this should’ve been the final OP rather than Wonder Wings. I really don’t like that song.

Oh, and if you wanna hear more of the lead singer's voice, he's the lead singer of GIRUGAMESH. They didn't do any anime songs while they were still active afaik, but totally check it out if you like J-Rock.

Sakura Mitsutsuki & Genjyou Destruction - SPYAIR (Gintama OP13 and Gintama: The Final Chapter OP)*

After Cherry Blossoms (all quartets lead to the?) - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta OP)*

Non-Fiction Compass - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Yozakura Quartet: Tsuki ni Naku OP)

Sayonara Memory - 7!! (Seven Oops) (Naruto Shippuden ED)

BLOODY STREAM - Coda (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Battle tendency OP)* I mean, how could i NOT put this song on here? Lmao

Be An Arrow! - Rica Matsumoto (Pokemon Best Wishes! OP2)

Natsumeku Sakamichi (Summerly Slope) - Daisuke (Pokemon Best Wishes DA! OP)* While the Black & White series was absolutely terrible, I can thank it for spawning some nice OPs.

Egao - Ikimono-gakari (Pokemon Genesect and the Legend Awakened ED)

Take Your Way - Livetune adding Fukase (From SEKAI NO OWARI) (Devil Survivor 2 the Animation OP)* I swear I will never get tired of this song.

Be - Song Riders (Devil Survivor 2 the Animation ED)*

Watashi no Bara wo Kaminasai - ALI PROJECT (Rozen Maiden 2013 OP)

Moshimo - Daisuke (Naruto Shippuden OP)

Burn My Dread ~Spring of Birth~ & More Than One Heart - Yumi Kawamura (Persona 3 the Movie #1 Spring of Birth OP and ED)*

Eden - Aqua Timez (Magi: the Kingdom of Magic ED)*

Out of Control - Nothing’s Carved in Stone (Psycho Pass OP2)*

HERO -Kibou no Uta- - FLOW (Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods ED)

2014

Silhouette - KANA BOON (Naruto Shippuden OP16)* Everyone rise for the weeb national anthem.

BelievexBelieve - Bulletrain (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V OP)

ENAMEL - SID (Black Butler: Book of Circus OP)

Masayume Chasing - BoA (Fairy Tail OP15)

STRIKE BACK - BACK-ON (Fairy Tail OP16)*

Burn! - Bulletrain (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V OP2)

DAYxDAY - BLUE ENCOUNT (Gintama OP)* Before Polaris, there was this. lol

Goya no Machiawase - Hello Sleepwalkers (Noragami OP)* I swear Noragami has great taste in OPs. lmao

Fate is in Our Hands - Lotus Juice (Persona 3 the Movie #2 Midsummer Knight's Dream OP)* Y'all know Lotus Juice makes EVERYTHING badass.

One Hand, One Heartbeat - Yumi Kawamura (Persona 3 the Movie #2 Midsummer Knight's Dream ED)* I swear I literally feel like crying every time I hear this song. It's just that powerful.

Unravel - TK from Ling Tosite Sigure (Tokyo Ghoul OP) Ok, lemme explain. I used to hate this song cuz I thought TK's singing voice was whiny as hell. But after a long, LOOOOONG time, it finally started to grow on me. I think it's because of all the song covers I've listened to and, after understanding the meaning behind the lyrics, I appreciate this song a bit more nowadays. 

V (VOLT) and MEGA V (MEGA VOLT) - Yusuke (Pokemon XY OPs 1&2)*

daze - Jin ft. MARiA from GARNiDELiA (Mekakucity Actors OP)

Monochrome - Dancing Dolls (Soul Eater NOT! OP)

2015

Saigo Made ii - Aqua Timez (Gintama ED15 i think?)

Kyouran Hey Kids! - THE ORAL CIGARETTES (Noragami Aragoto OP)* IN THIS HOUSE, WE JUST WANNA HOLD YOUR HAAAAAAND~

Getta Ban Ban (Mad-Paced Getter) - Tomohisa Sako (Pokemon XY OP3)*

XY&Z - Rica Matsumoto (Pokemon XY&Z OP)*

Raise Your Flag - MAN WITH A MISSION (Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans OP)*

Hello, World! - BUMP OF CHICKEN (Kekkai Sensen OP)*

Sugar Song and Bitter Step AKA the song everyone makes fan animated parodies of it’s opening sequence - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Kekkai Sensen ED)

Kirifuda (Trump Card) - Cinema Staff (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V OP4)

Speaking - MRS. GREEN APPLE (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V ED4)* before Great Escape from Attack on Titan and Inferno from Fire Force, there was this OP and ED. both of which i feel are better songs. lmao

Tweedia - Rei Yasuda (Pokemon Hoopa and the Clash of Ages ED)*

Diver - KANA-BOON (The Last: Naruto the Movie ED)*

Butter-Fly 2015 - Kouji Wada (Digimon Adventure Tri. OP)

Sono Chi no Kioku ~End of the World~ - JO☆STARS ~TOMMY, Coda, JIN~ (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders OP2)

Lapis Lazuli - Eir Aoi (Arslan Senki ED)*

Clattanoia - OxT (Overlord OP)*

L.L.L. - MYTH & ROID (Overlord ED)

Nazo 2015 - La PomPon (Detective Conan OP41)* Hearing this brought back memories of hearing the original during my childhood back when Cased Closed was still a thing.

Just Fly Away - EDGE of LIFE (Gundam Build Fighters Try OP2)

Flyers - BRADIO (Death Parade OP) Like Another, this was one of those where i wouldn’t have touched the show itself if my anime club didn’t watch it.

X.U. - Hiroyuki Sawano (Seraph of the End OP)*

Hikari - ViViD (Magi: the Kingdom of Magic OP2)

2016

DiVE!! - Amatsuki (Digimon Universe: Applimonsters OP)*

Ai - Ami Wajima (Digimon Universe: Applimonsters ED2)

The Day - Porno Graffitti (My Hero Academia OP)

HEROES - Brian the Sun (My Hero academia ED)

RAGE OF DUST - SPYAIR (Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans OP2)*

Believe in Myself - EDGE of LIFE (Fairy Tail OP21)*

CRAZY NOISY BIZARRE TOWN - THE DU (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable OP)

Chase - batta (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable OP2)* Screw the haters. This song is a bop.

Great Days - Karen Aoki & Daisuke Hasegawa (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable OP3) As you can see, i luv all of Jojo Part 4’s OPs. lmao

Kaze no Uta - FLOW (Tales of Zestiria the X OP)* Zestiria may have been the most uninteresting experience i’ve had in the Tales series, but at least it’s OPs are straight fire.

Dream Lantern, ZenZenZense, Sparkle and Nandemonaiya - RADWIMPS (Various themes from Your Name) I'm still miffed that they didn't kiss at the end. >:v

Re:Re: - ASIAN KUNGFU GENERATION (Erased OP)

Brave Shine - Aimer (Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works OP)*

Starting Over - Mr. Children (The Boy and the Beast ED)* Mamoru Hosoda never ceases to make me smile and/or cry, huh?

GO - BUMP OF CHICKEN (GRANBLUE FANTASY the Animation OP)

KINGS - angela (K Project OP) i don’t even know how i remembered this one. I watched K at my local anime club years ago cuz one of my friends suggested it. I barely remember what it was about, though. ^  ^’

Vision - Kusou Linkai (Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V ED5)

Light of Hope - Unknown Number (Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V OP5)

Pendulum Beat! - SUPER DRAGON (Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V OP6)*

2017

Peace Sign - Kenshi Yonezu (My Hero Academia OP2)* SURE IT’S POPULAR, BUT IT’S POPULAR FOR A REASON.

Datte Atashi no Hero - LiSA (My Hero Academia ED3)

Little Pi - Ange☆Reve (Digimon Universe: Applimonsters ED3)

Perfect World - Traffic Light (Digimon Universe: Applimonsters ED4)*

With the Wind - Hiroaki “TOMMY” Tominaga (Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS OP)* I’ll be honest, this one took some getting used to, but now i luv it!

Fake Town Baby - UNISON SQUARE GARDEN (Kekkai Sensen and Beyond OP)

Tonari Au - THE ORAL CIGARETTES (Sakurada Reset ED)*

Rain - SEKAI NO OWARI (Mary and the Witch's Flower ED)* I really liked the movie and I just luved the fantasy vibes given off by the instrumentals in this song.

Baton Road - KANA BOON (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations OP)* Y'all say Boruto is trash, but at least the theme songs still boppin'.

Boku wa Hashiri Tsuzukeru - Melofloat (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations ED3)

FEED THE FIRE - coldrain (King’s Game OP)* Thank you Fire Force for introducing me to this wonderful band. ;w;

2018

PAiNT it BLACK - BiSH (Black Clover OP2)* Never thought I'd ever find a band actually named bish. Lmao

Black Rover - Vickeblanka (Black Clover OP3)

Guess Who is Back - Kumi Koda (Black Clover OP4)* Now, if this ain't a bop fit for a triumphant return like "SURPRISE BISH I'M BACK." then idk what is. Lmao

Gamushara & Tenge Tenjou - Miyuna (Black Clover OP&ED5)* i’m mainly referring to Gamushara, but i luv Tenge Tenjou too.

ODD FUTURE - UVERworld (My Hero Academia OP4)*

Make my story - Lenny code fiction (My Hero Academia OP5)*

The Future is Now - Straightener (Digimon ReArise OP)* Yes, I know I'm cheating cuz it's a video game, but it's an opening sequence much like an anime, so yeah.

Breath - Porno Graffitti (Pokemon the Power of Us ED)

Katharsis - TK from Ling Tosite Sigure (Tokyo Ghoul OP3?)*

Here - JUNNA (The Ancient Magus Bride OP)

Renai Circulation - Kana Hanazawa (Bakemonogatari OP4) Imma be honest, i found this song through those Coldplay mashups and other memes. Lmao

I Wanna Be - SPYAIR (Gintama Shirogane no Tamashii Hen OP)

Hana Ichi Monme - BURNOUT SYNDROMES (Gintama Shirogane no Tamashii Hen ED)*

2019

Hana ga Saku Michi - THE CHARM PARK (Black Clover ED7)* I SWEAR NO ONE’S COVERED THIS SONG YET AND I’M SAD. I LUV THIS SONG.

Inferno - MRS. GREEN APPLE (Fire Force OP)

Veil - Keina Suda (Fire Force ED)* This ED gives me feels and i luv it. ;w;

MAYDAY - coldrain (Fire Force OP2)* This sounds like a song i’d hear at Hot Topic and i feel blessed. lmao

Nounai - Lenny code fiction (Fire Force ED2) I swear this anime doesn’t have a single song i don’t like. I’m not kidding. lmao

WILD SIDE - ALI (BEASTARS OP)* IN THIS HOUSE, WE DO NOT SKIP THIS OPENING I STG.

Le Zoo - YURiKA (BEASTARS ED)

Nemureru Honou (Sleeping Instincts) - YURiKA (BEASTARS ED2)*

Kawaki no Ameku - Minami (Domestic Na Kanojo OP)

Polaris - BLUE ENCOUNT (My Hero Academia OP6)* THIS IS THE BIGGEST BOP SINCE PEACE SIGN OML

Touch Off - UVERworld (The Promised Neverland OP)* This show was too creepy for me to continue, but I luv it for what it is. Also NAA NANANANANANAA NANANAAAA~

Sangenshoku - PELICAN FANCLUB (Dr. Stone OP2)* Sorry, but Good Morning World didn’t totally do it for me. I luv this OP way more tbh.

Suisou - Megumi Nakajima (Hoshiai no Sora OP)* The bits before the chorus are just so good.

1•2•3 - After the Rain (Pocket Monsters 2019 OP)

Dark Crow - MAN WITH A MISSION (Vinland Saga OP2)

MOTOR CITY - Kenichi Asai (No Guns Life OP)

Game Over - DATS (No Guns Life ED)

[lunawings]

King of Prism SSS episode 7 commentary (Leo)

So this episode is the opener for what I know as the theatrical “Part 3″ ... and boy what an opener.... By the time it was over I was like “T-That was only the first one... BUT IVE ALREADY FELT SO MANY THINGS..” 

Having this as the first episode of the three has been pretty difficult because it’s just such a rollercoaster. I’ve actually been hesitant to see go Part 3 more just because I know I have to get through this episode right off the bat. And not because I think it’s a bad episode OH NO ITS JUST... SO MANY... FEELINGS.......... 

I got to go to the midnight showing for Part 3, and I honestly think that has an unfairly high influence on how I feel about the episodes. Part 1 and Part 3 I saw at the midnight showing and I loved them. Part 2 and Part 4 I saw at 8 am when I was exhausted and miserable and I ended up thinking Part 2 was weaker than the others, and Part 4....................... uhhuhh we’ll get to that later, anyway--

So when I translated the original story about Over the Rainbow crossdressing for Miss Kakyoin, I honestly did it just for that two second reference in episode 3. I had no idea this was also going to happen. So when the first second of Part 3 opened on the theater screen with this I was like OH. MY. GAWD. YES. YESSSSSSSSSSSS. I’m gonna cry already. (Little did I know what was coming up later in this episode....)

Also this was the point where I began to realize some of these episode are taking place in the past/out of order. Because SSS starts off in the summer, but the Kakyoin Fest usually takes place in May. So either this is a Rainbow Live retcon, or this episode is taking place in May. (But I suppose there’s no particular big reason that can’t be possible. Well one small one maybe...) 

So this is Rinne’s first appearance in SSS, right? (Outside of her silhouette in the OP.)

So... I don’t really think it’s a spoiler to tell you she will appear again, under.... vErY DiFfeRent CircumStanCes........ 

And I just wonder if like, when we get to that moment, someone who is watching only SSS who has never seen Rainbow Live or Pride the Hero is gonna be like “Oh that’s the girl from the beauty contest.... wait..... WAIT WHAT IS HAPPENING.... “ 

Oh lord. 

Anyway. 

This scene is a whole lot of fun in cheering because we all have our green out and are cheering to Freedom, then it... stops.... then it starts again ahahah.... 

I love Taiga in the background here. It’s clearly intentional. 

I wonder if he actually believes what Kazuki says here or not. But you know what. I don’t think it matters because I think this scene has about zero influence on how he reacts next. I mean, if Taiga actually realizes Kazuki’s just doing this to save face, well then.... hell yeah he’d want to help defend Kazuki-senpai’s honor! And if he believes him and thinks crossdressing and winning a beauty contest is an honor for Edel Rose.... hell yeah he’d want to follow in Kazuki-senpai’s footsteps ahah ha.......... yeah see it literally doesn’t matter........... For Kazuki-senpai!!!

Yeah see this is definitely post-episode 3 Taiga. He definitely changed in that episode after becoming honest about his feelings for Kazuki. So this is the only stupid little thing that makes me question when this episode is taking place since the Nebuta Festival is in August ahahah ha.... (Well maybe he realized long ago.)

Wait woah woah what’s going on here with the subtitle. I thought I saw someone else’s screenshot of this and it was an upside down “A”? Is it just my computer? Is it really like this?

BTW I actually never had any idea what they were saying here before, neither did I pick up that it was probably a reference to μ's because in the theater you just cannot see anything on that newspaper because it’s on screen for like half a second.

If I had, maybe I would have realized that..... 

......Both Kakeru and Shin’s outfits seem to be a reference to the original Love Live! I had a little subconscious inkling in the back of my mind that I knew where Kakeru’s outfit was from and it probably wasn’t Pretty Series. But Shin..... Shin..... for the longest time I kept trying to think what coord this was. Because it does look like it could easily be a PriPara coord, doesn’t it? But after other folks started pointing it out, yeah it does look like they were trying to rip on the “Bokura wa Ima no Naka de” outfits goddamn it hahaha.... Well, it makes sense because there are people who worked on both Love Live! and Rainbow Live. 

But yeah I swear if they had only made the skirt plaid I would have gotten it. The plaid skirts are such a big point of that outfit for me. 

But still anyway, if anybody can think of a Pretty Series coord which is similar to this (or can make one on the 3DS).... um.... hit me up................ now..........

OH COME ON MINATO you can do so much better than this.... For Miss Schwartz you actually found a look that worked for you.... 

I mean sure he looks like someone’s mom but isn’t he. 

The moment when I was like “Welp, maybe Taiga’s straight after all.” Such a mystery, this kid. 

MINATO AND YU OMG

This moment goes by so fast I literally missed it my first two showings but OMG it’s my favorite joke in this episode and one of my favorite visual jokes overall I crack up uncontrollably every single time. Ahhhhhh you poor boys....  

Welp someone hasn’t watched PriPara but I think we already knew that from Kakeru’s “Glowstick Cage”. Still, I really think you’d be able to figure out this is clearly a catch phrase but WHATEVS

I think my reaction echoes most of the community’s reaction as being “are they gonna say the thing--THEY SAID THE THING” 

As much as I want to feel bad that Leo feels like he has to do this, it’s just too funny. And not to mention adorable. 

How “masculine” Leo somehow ends up being EVEN CUTER than natural Leo, I will never be able to explain but OH LORD HE IS. (I guess just, the more he tries to fight it the stronger it is....)

He’s not lying. 

................ no..... noooooo.......... *buries face in hands*

So. Okay. Okayokay. Sorry we gotta pause here oh boy. 

Ever since the Pride the Hero era, Tsurugi was always my favorite member of The Shuffle. Especially since I realized that even though we could see him failing the training machine in the first movie, he still made the group. It was my headcanon that it was because Kokoro, Mondo, and Mitsuba helped him rise up and overcome his challenges until he finally made it. I saw him as the Otoha of the group. A sweet lovely boy who somehow got mixed up in all the corruption of Schwartz Rose AND SOMEHOW he survived. 

And then this happened. 

His feminine personality. It was all an act. IT WAS A LIE. Just created to add the right appeal to The Shuffle. AND I FELL FOR IT. 

...............

I guess Joji isn’t the only liar in Schwartz Rose. I guess, Schwartz Rose just naturally attracts that kind of people huh. 

Well, from this moment on Tsurugi was not my favorite anymore. 

For the record, my favorite member of The Shuffle nowadays is Ace. And probably subconsciously has been since episode 5? But I actually didn’t come to realize that for.... a few more episodes...... So we’ll talk about it then.

Right now we have to talk about.... wait... wait no no no no no no no

You ever have one of those moments when time just kinda stops and everything just kinda... spins around you........... that was this moment for me at the midnight showing....................

Sorry I have to interrupt again to mention this. They revealed here Leo’s dad supposedly designed all these characters.

Well OK, but the thing is in this universe supposedly PairChams and stuff are actually real. 

So how can they be designed by Leo’s dad?

Welp, my theory on this is Leo’s dad either was a prism star, or just has a lot of prism sparkle in him, and he secretly just draws exactly what he sees. 

I think the phrasing is a little weird here. It’s more like Leo didn’t even particularly realize he was a boy. (Or what his gender was at all.)

(Yes they are wearing mini-Fortune Party CRs.)

(Yes this is also our Young of Prism reference.)

.......I really like this episode but...... this part is just so hard for me..... it’s just...... a bit too real............. but I applaud them for it the same time but.... it’s just.... it’s hard.............

People take out yellow and cheer for Otoha here, but at first I was just so distraught after the proceeding scenes it took me until maybe my 4th or 5th cheering show to actually join them.... just trying to get the energy and to come out of it and like oh it’s Otoha.... oh where are my concert lights.... oh where is yellow..... oh it’s over...... ................. (ahh it’s just.... so sad........)

Okay so now that we’ve gotten this far, I can finish my train of thought about the order that the boys joined Edel Rose.

I think it’s safe to assume Yukinojo was probably first. His episode revealed that he liked prism shows since he was really little, so he probably entered his first year of junior high? I think Kakeru was already in junior high when he found out about prism shows so he probably transferred in anywhere from 2012 - 2014.

Yu and Minato I think probably joined at the same time in April 2015. Because when we meet them in the first movie they are both 1st years (in junior high and senior high respectively) and we know from Minato’s episode he was never in the junior high division. 

Then Leo joined sometime not too long after that, and finally Shin.

Taiga is the only mystery, because his flashback only features Kazuki and there is nothing to particularly date it. In my head I’m gonna throw him in there after Kakeru but before Minato/Yu though. 

......Anyway.

Leo’s reactions as he meets each of the boys, and vice versa, are just... SO INTERESTING to me and reveal so much about him and the other characters. So I’m sorry but. We’re basically gonna take this frame-by-frame....

Oh gosh oh no oh to think that because of his experiences in life, Leo is just so conditioned to the point where this is the first thing he says directly to any of his new friends I just I.... *chair squeak* excuse me I need a moment.

*walks out of the room*

*comes back after several minutes*

Oho gosh okay okay sorry where were we

AND HIS FACE when he realizes Kakeru called him cute and clearly meant it as a compliment I just I *chair squeak* I may need another minute we’re like ten seconds into this scene and it’s already just--

OHHHH MANNNNNN

I’m pretty sure Leo’s extreme reaction here isn’t because he’s upset at not being called cute. It’s because, once again, Leo is just so conditioned because of everything he’s been through. He took one look at Taiga and probably saw him as the exact archetype of a person who usually bullies him. 

But he was wrong. 

Taiga, the actual purehearted softie that he is, had absolutely no idea his words would have such an effect on Leo. And once he realizes, he PANICS, and says absolutely anything he has to in order to fix it as fast as possible.

TAIGA

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH 

I’d also like to note what makes this scene even funnier is that Taiga is using a Tohoku slang word for “cute”. (This is a younger Taiga who hasn’t quite lost his northern dialect yet. Also sort of a northerners bonding moment for the two of them maybe?) 

So Taiga being attracted to Leo is a thing I guess. But.... but does it really count as being gay with Leo, like I mean.....?

Well.... Taiga being asexual is probably ruled out at least.

Anyway.

Out of all of them, Leo’s encounter Minato might just be my favorite.

First, Minato reaches out his hand intending to shake Leo’s. 

But Leo, probably being just.... so desperate for human contact at his point, sees this and actually reaches up and grabs Minato’s hand with both his hands instead. 

If you remember, Leo being too touchy-feely with other boys was one of the reasons he was bullied. Probably moments exactly like this.

But Minato....

He doesn’t flinch. His expression never changes. Instead he’s just like, oh you remind me of my sister. Like it’s the most normal thing in the world. 

And he probably thinks that’s kinda nice that it will be like having his beloved sister around. 

shfsfshl;dsaSDJGSOGSAG+J

Yu doesn’t care who Leo is as long as he thinks he’s cool. 

Sounds about right. 

Gonna say the obvious here but YUKINOJO WHAT ARE YOU DOING 

How he just immediately powers down and goes into kabuki practice mode when nothing has been happening for 30 seconds..... 

I have things to say about this encounter too but we’ll get to it later. 

My favorite comedic line in the episode. 

Yukinojo is somewhat oblivious about gender norms himself eheh. 

I love the juxtaposition of this line with this scene. It’s not a coincidence surely. 

Leo kind of just made a fool of himself here, but the other boys had almost no reaction. They were all just kinda like “huh”, and instead of “this Leo kid is a weirdo” it’s “Yukinojo what did you do” hahahah. That, is acceptance. That is Leo finally finding a place where he can belong.......... Until.....

Oh boy I’m sorry we gotta go on another tangent here. A dark one. 

Throughout SSS it’s pretty clear that Shin’s arrival had a big impact on everyone, but it probably had the biggest impact on Leo.

Edel Rose was the first place in his adolescence where he was able to find acceptance. 

And I think it’s safe to say, that without Shin to bring everyone together, Edel Rose probably would not have survived.

And if that happened.....

Leo would have nowhere to go. 

I really shudder to think about what might have happened.

And I don’t think it’s a huge exaggeration to think that Shin joining Edel Rose... may have actually saved Leo’s life. 

So when you really stand by and take all of this into perspective. 

All of a sudden how attached Leo is to Shin. His over-protectiveness, his jealousy. It.... it starts to make a lot more sense. 

So from this moment on I decided I won’t fault him for it anymore. I can understand.

Oh gosh okay I know it’s hard to come out of that with this, but....

Y.. yay Christmas Party! This is going to come up again in SSS, but since people are going to be talking about it now I’ll talk about it now. 

The Christmas Party is an event which happened in detail on the Prism Rush Main Story and was the first time the boys all performed together as a group and debuted Dramatic Love. 

And yes, at the same time it is also an analog to the real live Music Ready Sparking concert, which was the first time the voice actors all performed  together in real life. Those are the outfits they wore in the real concert, and the same pose they used for promotional materials.

They actually re-drew it for the anime in the performance outfits instead of the concert T-shirts. 

(The outfits aren’t a secret anymore, and no need to sell T-shirts ahah....) 

WHAT. THEY FIXED IT. Okay I SWEAR in the theatrical version of this there is a continuity error here where Leo has his pigtails in this back shot, but his hair is down from the front. I paused here to take a screenshot so I could mention it then I was like wait whaaaaaaaaa. This is the only time I have noticed a blatant change between the theatrical version and the TV version. (Other than the new endings.) It makes me wonder if there’s anything else I missed. 

PFFT. 

I guess “yes” isn’t the worst translation, and who am I to talk since I don’t translate “IIZE” at all. But it drains the flavor out of it whenever I try. 

If you’re not aware, “IIZE” was the scoring system in the boys’ PriPara from Idol Time, DanPri. The joke is that it’s like a masculine version of “iine” which was the scoring system in the regular girls PriPara, and still is in PriChan. Probably the most literal translation of “iine” is “likes” since that’s what they call the like button on Facebook/Twitter. But yeah it’s a bit of a journey to understand this I suppose.

Iize = burly likes 

? ? ?

He’s just.... he’s just so weird........... Tsurugi why...............

(Yes, Mirei hair and Bunny Magician coord from Prism Tours. Sorry I’m skipping over pointing out some of the PriPara references on purpose since this post is just so long as is.)

PFFFFFFT okay okay. Okay. OKAY. Okay. 

I know this is probably just in here for a throwaway joke but OHHHH lord.

We saw Alec compete in a beauty contest on Prism Rush before in the Street Beauty No. 1 event, but not on purpose as Louis basically tricked him that time. To think he’d come this close to doing it on purpose, and in his Mom’s clothes?...... ohhhhhhhh wow

If this really almost happened, then I guess Alexander’s riding the same train as post-episode 3 Taiga nowadays isn’t he ahah. 

And finally we get to the prism show. But oh gosh, I have to say I do not like his initial outfit. First of all it’s supposed to be a boys’ outfit but it’s.... not.... I guess they were trying to go for a Peter Pan thing or something, but it just registers strongly in my head that Peter Pan is usually played by a woman and like. I just wish they would have made this outfit a bit more masculine to highlight the change that’s gonna happen. The least they could do is take off the earrings. 

Not to mention form-fitting stuff does not work for Leo. It highlights how small and child-like his body is, and they even do a butt shot and just NO no please no why. STOP. Okay, my only criticism against this episode is that. Had to say it. 

When you need a character to clarify this you’re doing it wrong. 

But anyway, moving on. 

This. 

When we got to this moment, I just.... I felt.... such a great vicarious weight lifted off my shoulders. It just felt so good to finally, finally see this. It’s been a long time coming. 

Okay, let’s go back. Way back. 

During the first movie, when we first met Leo. In the bath scene he introduced himself using “boku” (a male pronoun). He was presented as wanting to be more boyish, and Yukinojo’s little protege. And I said OK, and I accepted this for face value. For a while. 

But then about a year passed, and this CD came out. 

And I went woah. This was the first point when I began to realize things might not be quite as they seemed. Leo is just straight out wearing girls’ clothing here. As oblivious as he is, nobody can be quite that oblivious. 

So the whole theme of their duo song is mutual respect, and it clearly introduced for the first time the irony of Yukinojo and Leo’s relationship in that although Leo looks up to Yukinojo, in truth Yukinojo wishes he could be more like Leo because Leo is the feminine ideal he’s striving for as a kabuki actor who does female rolls. 

Well okay, but the thing is. 

Leo supposedly wants to be more masculine, but... but....

When he first meets Yukinojo, that’s not the reason he attaches himself to him. 

Leo picks the most feminine member of the group to model his ideal after. Not someone rough like Taiga, or built like Minato. He picks Yukinojo. Yukinojo. 

And that’s when you start to realize.... Nothing Leo has said has ever matched up with what his actual actions are. 

Sure, he talks a lot.... but....

What has he actually done to try and become more masculine since King of Prism started? 

Even when he purposely sets out to dress masculine in stories on Prism Rush (like in his initial PR story for one), he always ends up picking out feminine clothes somehow. 

Although he once introduced himself using “boku” to Shin, it’s pretty much exclusively become “watashi” over time hasn’t it?

His Pride the Hero subplot was enjoying his (arguably) feminine hobby of clothing design. No masculine quest subplot there. 

And we even got to the point where SSS opened with him wearing a frilly pink shirt in one episode and pigtails in the next. 

The more time Leo spends at Edel Rose, a place where he is accepted, the more he slowly opens up and starts acting like himself again. 

So if you’re thinking this came from nowhere, you haven’t been paying attention. 

Still, I was really worrying about what was really going on inside him a lot before this episode came up. And then. Finally. FINALLY. 

This episode should be seen by not just King of Prism fans. Not just Pretty Series fans. This episode should be seen by everyone. 

GAHHHH I’M JUST.... SO HAPPY.............. 

I LOVE YOU TOO

I think just looking at these screenshots and taking it all in is making me tear up more than in the theater. 

Okay so. When I saw Leo’s coord for the first time, my immediate thought was Laala’s first PR....

If you think maybe something else is a better fit though let me know. 

So I actually think this score for Leo is fair. He only did two non-connecting jumps, and as this episode revealed he is the least experienced member of Edel Rose. (...Like I said before Shin... Shin is a special case........) I really like how their shows are actually accurate to what their skill level would reasonably be. 

But it also just makes Minato’s higher score more of a mystery. 

I love, love how this contest has progressed from year to year. Rinne -> Kazuki -> Leo -> ??? 

It may take us until we get to the next generation to get another winner, but someday I hope we see one.... 

YES this is obviously PriPara ahah but in canon it might be “Prism Land”? Ahah.

Okay, the end! 

The post is over!

The end!

Why are you looking at me like that?

It’s over!

Thanks for reading!

.............

.....................

Okay. Since you’ve somehow stuck with me THIS FAR, I’m going to talk a little more about how this episode effected me personally and why it’s important to me. 

The depiction of bullying was just so frighteningly accurate, and I feel like other people who have been through something similar would probably agree.

5th grade really is the year. 

It’s right around that time when gender rolls really seem to solidify. All of a sudden lines are drawn. The girls become more girlish and the boys become more boyish. 

It was around that time that I also noticed, that I didn’t like the same things that other girls my age liked. Other people noticed too. 

My gender issues weren’t as profound as Leo’s, but I just wasn’t interested in things like clothes or boys yet. I still wanted to watch cartoons and play in the dirt and stuff.

Going into middle school, I also tried to pretend. But it didn’t work. 

And I didn’t have any friends for a long time. 

But then something happened to change that. I got more involved in music. Specifically marching band. Music and performing brought me together with a rag-tag group of people from different grades who didn’t know my past, all working together to put together a performance. That sort of activity (music, sports, etc.) builds bonds between people that surpass normal friendship. And eventually, through those sort of bonds, I found myself around people who accepted me even though I was a bit different. Gradually, I learned it was okay to be myself. 

So just watching Leo make friends though prism shows.... just oh my god.... that’s me. 

I kinda joked about Leo being my self insert character in King of Prism before, but man. Watching this episode. It just got so... SO much more real.

*deep breath* 

*exhale*

Wow. Okay.  

[destiny-smasher]

Off the Hook

(copied from my Twitter thread here) So, yea! @SplatoonNA 2 has ended its run of content! A solid two year run! At this point it's possible I've played it as much as I played the original game, maybe even a bit more. But compared to a lot of people I've known since it's release, I'm definitely more of a casual fan. It's a fun game oozing with aesthetic and has one of the most solid gameplay foundations I've ever seen -- EVERYTHING about the game's mechanics culminates into a multi-layered experience where single, co-op, AND versus are designed to facilitate fresh shooting gameplay. EVERY single second of playing Splatoon multiplayer entails making choices. The story/Octo exp. have so many great level designs. Multiplayer and its ranked modes require different strategies. Salmon Run is THE most hardcore co-op I've ever seen. It's such wonderful game design. With that being said, now that #FInalFest #Splatpocalypse is over and the 2nd #Splatfest cycle has come to a close, I want to talk a bit about the single most important aspect that has impacted my life regarding the game: #OfftheHook

Rewind back to when these two were first introduced: I was unconvinced that I would enjoy or care about them as much as the Squid Sisters (who are actually, like, cousins? I think? nvmd) But two years later and these two warm my heart in a way VERY few fictional duos do. What's most interesting to me about this is that while there IS a decent amount of in-game banter between the pair over the course of the past two years, they have SO MUCH less actual character development/narrative than other couples (they are a couple don't at me)

Honestly, a lot of my affection for them has grown from the way the in-game presentation leaves enough context for us to read inbetween the lines regarding how well they know each other, how much they care about each other, how much they respect each other despite competitions. Seeing their interactions both before and after the #FinalFest, brief as they were, really solidified how these two VERY opposite personalities have had a positive influence on each other, even if we haven't necessarily witnessed it firsthand. I think this is part of what makes them so valuable in the mainstream (?) media -- they are a power couple who is ALREADY happy, proud, living their best lives for and with one another. In the current climate of the world, that's inspiring to see, whether you're 15 or 33. We still don't know much on the details of their backstories but we definitely know that Marine comes from a very bad place and Hime comes from a very privileged one, and their relationship seems to have helped them both grow into better people. Everything about their designs, their personalities, their CONCEPT as a BAND and how they function/perform their roles within it, everything about them embraces that sort of "opposites attract" aesthetic and I am all about it. While Callie and Marie are cute and great and I like them, I ADORE Pearl and Marina, because they went the extra mile to not only flesh them out as characters but ensure everything about their presentations, personalities, etc. embraces that "opposites attract" concept. 'well cool that's great and inspiring but yea lots of things do this so whatevs' Yea, you're right, but lots of media do not do this while also basing their entire core visual, gameplay, audio design SPECIFICALLY AROUND two sides battling against each other. EVERYTHING about Splatoon is about ___ vs ___ From the hosts welcoming you when you boot up the game, to the different modes you play, to the way everything is presented, to the AUDIO stylings of Off the Hook, to the core concept of the Splatfests themselves. And at the end of the day, it is fucking NICE to see the end result of ALL OF THIS ___ vs ___ be embodied by two characters who represent that who LOVE EACH OTHER no matter what and who make each other better because of those differences and not despite them. Yea, the Squid Sisters did this but to such a simpler, more surface level degree. They were the beta. Off the Hook is the fully realized version of it. If you don't believe me just LISTEN to Squid Sister songs versus Off the Hook. LOOK at the character designs. Read the dialogue. The fact that Off the Hook has hosted actual real life concerts - IN THE REAL WORLD - isn't just some indication of "people be horny for pop idols" (I mean that IS a thing, separate discussion I ain't educated enough on to get into), it's because they KNOW they have a good thing

Splatoon isn't just for kids, it's also for adults who are nostalgic for the aesthetic of BEING a kid, and the fact that Hime (20) and Marine (18) are young adults -- INBETWEEN kids and adults -- cannot be a fucking mistake, either. Anyway, this is all to say, I am so impressed in a way I rarely am in that the Squid Research Lab was able to take the mechanical design philosophy of Splatoon 1 and EXPAND upon it, fucking OWN IT 100%, make sure that everything about Splatoon 2 embodied the concept. Green versus Pink, Pink versus Blue, Gold versus Silver, Ketchup versus Mayo, Chaos versus Order, we can have fun arguing over the most mundane preferences or the most basic, broad-sweeping aspects of existence, but at the end of the day we CAN be better for it. We CAN be made better, we CAN grow, not despite those differences but BECAUSE we hash them out, because we argue, make our cases, see the other side's passion, etc etc. It's my favorite message/theme any piece of media can discuss and Splatoon 2 causes such an emotional reaction from me because the CRAFT of it is so passionately detailed and embraces this theme in every. fucking. layer. of itself. So yea, #Pearlina is a goddessdamn inspiration to me that I will probably carry with me for a very long time, and Splatoon as a franchise is so fucking impressive for how young it is. I hope the years to come incite as much warm fuzzies as other long-time Nintendo series have. The fact that the final artwork we got shows the pair swapping the iconic components of their attire -- their headgear -- is just such a beautiful and fitting sendoff that wraps a lovely bow on the whole thing. As far as I'm concerned, they are now engaged, will happily wed.

[novarasalas]

Second Look Review: The Feud

*This post is very graphics heavy. Use caution. Sorry*

Nnnnggggg…..

…..I hate game shows.

And you know what I hate more than game shows?

1970s game shows.

…..yay, this episode.

But I’m gonna power through it, because there’s a lot of throw backs and references here that you may not have noticed the first time around. There’s also some good plot happenings, too.

But really….

Pictured: my two moods watching this episode.

So the first reference people got almost immediately is in the Garfle Warfle Snick logo.

It’s a classic 70s design. While the asterisks and colors of the GWS logo aren't present in the original Dating game logo, they do feature in the set.

That’s Farah Fawcett, by the way.

The first game is called Pictation. It’s obviously a play on Pictionary, which had it’s own game show in 1997. The original drawing game show, however, was “Win, Lose or Draw”.

This is an episode from 1987, featuring Burt Reynolds, Annie Potts, Dom Deluise, and…

Betty White!

And now Keith is lucky enough to play.

The hair tie is to keep his emo bangs out of his face while the pacifier is to bite down on in frustration.

I know this from experience, as I was in art school starting in 2005, which was a prime year for emo kids, and they made us play Pictionary one afternoon.

Everyone’s pretty much already said it, but yes, I can confirm, Keith is a good artist.

None of us were that day, though.

Several instructors pulled all of their students into one room and broke the news that we’d be playing a game. As socially awkward and socially anxious weirdos, the news also broke us. Half the students didn’t even participate, the other half were doing what Lance is doing here: yelling random stuff that doesn’t even come close to making sense.

And we were terrible at this game. All of us.

After the 3rd round, a cry came from the back of the room:

“hOW Are wE SO BAD aT ThiS???!!!”

I wish I knew, random art kid.

What I do know is that Keith is doing far better than I did. I mean, he didn’t start crying, not even a little bit.

In the end, Team Voltron loses, giving Team Galra a chance to steal. That’s a game mechanic from The Family Feud, and it’s the only one, even though the episode is titled “The Feud”.

It’s more in the overall design of the set, really.

….

I’ve never liked “The Family Feud”. I claim legacy on that: back in the day before remote controls were standard, my sickly grandpa would drag himself out of his chair to turn the t.v. off because he hated Richard Dawkins so much.

Richard Dawkins was the original host of the show, and he was one in a line of 70s game hosts that always made me feel like I was about to be sexually assaulted.

...can’t imagine why I’d ever feel that way.

To be fair, he’s not kissing those women without consent. They asked them before the taping if they were ok with it. But still….ick. And Richard Dawkins wasn’t even close to being the worst in terms of smarmy game show hosts.

Back to the episode at hand though.

(This is a great loop, btw. I suck at gif making myself, so thanks op.)

Everything about Team Galra is delightful. I just wish there was more of it.

With a steal and a win, Zarkon chooses Lance to play.

Zarkon is so thrilled to call Lance dumb. It’s hilarious. Also, Lance fans, please enjoy this endless loop of that moment.

I kid, I kid. I like Lance. We’ll talk more later.

I don’t know what Faces from the Past is referencing, but that isolation shield seems awful lot like The Cone of Silence from “Get Smart”.

What is The Cone of Silence? It’s a class A security procedure, used to transfer top secret intel between two agents.

Demonstrated here:

The next game is more familiar.

It’s the Garflator, or otherwise known as...Password!

...wait….is that…?

Yes! It’s Betty White again. Also seen here in an episode from 1963.

Doing this research, I found out that Betty’s done a lot of game shows in her time. That’s news to me, because I still don’t like game shows.

After the dumb one is the smart one.

And everyone knows it.

Pidge plays miniature golf here.I don’t think it’s in reference to anything else, though maybe you could see a game from The Price is Right if you squint.

And then Pidge gets things done about, by calculating a shot that takes out the camera and the crazy, demi god like creature known as Bob, tackling him to the ground.

The ambition, drive and self assurance that Pidge has is amazing and no one talks about it nearly enough. I want to be her when I grow up.

So now it’s down to a vote: who ever gets voted for the most gets to leave while the rest stay for eternity. It’s kind of like a reverse “Survivor” situation, really.

And now everything gets very heartwarming as they vote for each other, but one stood out to me: Lance, voting for Keith.

Lance: He’s our leader, plus he’s half Galra, so I think he’s, like, the future.

That….was so sweet. I mean it. That face, those words. I didn’t expect Lance to say that. He’s come so far since those first episodes where he was just an unmitigated asshat to Keith. It’s growth. It’s good.

Keith, what say you?

Keith: I just don’t wanna be stuck here for eternity with Lance.

Oh no! Keith...hahah...Lance gives you something so heartfelt and that’s what you go with? Aw man…

Really, though, his ire’s not directed at Lance, not really. It’s more like he’s just done with everything that’s happening, he’s frustrated, and Lance is the only one he’d take anything like this out on.

But buck up, kiddos, your love and friendship won the day!

And lastly, one more reference, this time directly from The Price is Right:

At the end of each show, host Bob Barker would turn to the camera and say “Help control the pet population: have your pet spayed or neutered.”

Bob Barker has fought for animals rights for decades, and while I don’t necessarily agree with everything he’s done, good things have come from his work. I’d link some info on it here, but...I can’t. Channel you’re inner essay writer and go find those sources.

So, that episode was a trip. In all, it more reminded me of “Let’s Make a Deal”, where costumed contestants would be chosen from the audience to play games for cash and prizes.

Bob himself is most like Bob Eubanks, as played by Q from Star Trek. I believe the showrunners even mentioned Q while talking about Bob in this episode

That’s Bob Eubanks up there. He was the host of “The Newlywed Game” and “Hollywood Squares”.

Q, on the other hand, is:

“He is an extra-dimensional being of unknown origin who possesses immeasurable power over normal human notions of time, space, the laws of physics, and reality itself, being capable of violating or altering them in unpredictable ways with a casual thought or hand gesture. Despite his vast knowledge and experience spanning untold eons (and much to the exasperation of the object(s) of his obsession), he is not above practical jokes for his own personal amusement, for a Machiavellian and manipulative purpose, or to prove a point. He is said to be nigh-omnipotent, and he is continually evasive regarding his true motivations.”

This is him:

So...I still don’t like 70s game shows. But, I gotta say, not everything is terrible about them.

Gene Gene the Dancing Machine is fun. This is from “The Gong Show”.

Fun, if your definition includes “pure chaos”. 

The uh….energetic...host there is Chuck Barris. He’s the creator of “The Dating Game”, “The Newlywed Game” and “The Gong Show”. His shows seem to have pioneered the whole look and feel of most of these 70s game shows, and thus is my sworn enemy.

…

Don’t even think of talking to me about “The Match Game”.

In summary:

I actually had fun with this episode, as much as I don’t like the aesthetic.

And apparently Josh Keaton said that this episode foreshadows something and I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS AND I’M SCARED SO VERY SCARED.

Next up: Wow! What a call back! -and- Kolivan’s been having a bad time.

[jow99]

Burgundy and then bugger ...

This morning we didn’t set an alarm but still woke up relatively early. Coffee in bed and then we went for a run by the canal. We finished the run in town and bought a fresh baguette for Jose.

Back at the campground we had to go for a swim in the river as we had not yet ventured in and we leave tomorrow. It was chilly but not too bad. There was no one else around and we got to see 3 swans up close taking off and landing. The sound their wings make is incredible.

After breakfast it was a few chores and a chill out before we headed into town to catch the bus to Dijon. This afternoon we were being tourists - you can’t be in Burgundy and not go wine tasting. We first went to like a co-op where we got to try wines from different wineries and then we went to a winery. Burgundy only produces 3% of Frances wine. It is a comparatively small region and they have very archaic rules which means its not cheap. We did however buy a very nice bottle of Grand Cru which we plan on sharing with our friends Sheryl and Matt tomorrow on Jose’s actual birthday.

Back in Dijon we had plenty of time to catch the bus back but it left in a different spot to where we got off so we got there with plenty of time to make sure we knew where we were going. We found a bus stop with the timetable on the wall for the bus we wanted so were feeling pretty relaxed and went across the road for a glass of rose until it was time for the bus.

Back at the bus stop I was getting a bit nervous as there were all these other buses parked so I didn’t know how our bus was going to stop to pick us up or even be able to see us (we were the second stop). Finally the other buses started to pull out and one of the drivers called us over to ask where we were going. Turns out, despite all signs to the contrary we were in the wrong place and our bus - the last bus of the day (there are only 3 a day) had left.

Long story short we paid for a cab back. We couldn’t believe how cheap the bus fare in was, 3.30 euro total for both of us for a 30km trip. Well we certainly fixed that on the way home.

We got back to the campground around 8.30pm. The original plan had been to cook but I was a bit over it so we went to the restaurant by the river. I’m so happy we did. This is not a big town and the restaurant had a Ricard (as in the aperitif) sponsored soirée complete with DJ, 80s music, smoke machine and disco lights (which given its pretty much daylight until 10pm were a bit of a waste of time). So needless to say the town was out in full force and the kids were having a blast. It was one of those unexpected, totally fantastic experiences that you could never plan.

[zombiiesque]

Nocturne Alchemy Seth's Dinosaur Collection - PART TWO

Originally published on 6/28/2016

Hi y'all! I'm back at it again today. And crossing my fingers I don't get pulled away from the computer, so I can get this up for y'all. It's a gorgeous day out, and we haven't had any rain yet. I swear, we've been waterlogged here in Florida ever since hurricane season started.

So I think this review will be a little shorter - I'm sure you're all breathing a sigh of relief. Hey, I can remember when the internet was ALL TEXT, no graphics, no photos, just....text. Yep, true story. We've come a long way. Anyway, so today I'm covering the second release, which is when the Prehistoric collection name came about. There were six perfumes in that release. Of those, I have four - I'm missing Ankylosaurus and Caudipteryx. I actually had a full bottle of Ankylosaurus, and I traded it away (I think for Pumpkin #6, actually, if I'm remembering correctly!). I definitely have some regrets over that, I'm thinking I might want to try to get that one again if I can. Also, I'm kind of doing a *headdesk* moment over Caudipteryx - y'all, it's a chypre! Umm, why did I not get a bottle of this? Probably because I was too obsessed last summer over picking up my beloved Pteranodon and the others I didn't get in the first round, so in playing catch up I wasn't paying attention too closely for the note description of Caudipteryx. Anyway, so I have four perfumes to cover for you this afternoon, and two of them are quite complex, so let's just dive right in, shall we?

As a side note, if you missed my review of the first release, you can click here and it will take you to it, it has some pertinent notes about these perfumes. I want to go ahead and mention this again, though - these perfumes were designed to be "hatched" or layered, to bring out the complexity of the notes. They might seem a little flat or linear to you if you wear them alone, although of course you are welcome to do so. This is especially relevant to two of these I'm reviewing today, Giganotosaurus and Deinonychus. In addition to that, the notes again state that bits of resin may occur with aging, and it will enrich the perfume even more.

Deinonychus: Resinous Amber Accord, Limestone Amber, VA Cemetery Musk Accord, Sri Lanka (Ceylon) Sandalwood, Hungarian White Cedarwood, Kobalt SL (Vanilla Orchid of Cairo) and a drop of Egyptian Temple Oudh.

Okay, might as well get the two super complex perfumes out of the way right off the bat. No need to be intimidated, Niki, you got this girl! Haha. Erm. Well, see, when I know that something is particularly special, I get nervous about writing about it. I worry I'm not going to do it justice, so I won't properly capture what it's like for you. I'm going to give this a try though, as always! Hah. Deinonychus was a blind buy for me. Right off the bat, I knew I was going to get bottles of this, Giganotosaurus, and Velociraptor (BECAUSE IT'S VELOCIRAPTOR!! EEE. More on that later.) Okay, so looking over the notes, I see my beloved Egyptian Temple Oudh. Hnnnnngggggg I cannot express my love of this enough. It's eye-rolling good, life changing, and if you're into it? Great for a mediation perfume oil, it will totally take you out of your normal life and put you into that special place. Anyway, that's just one component. The other one that caught my eye was Cemetery Musk. Now, I've had some experience with this, it's also an accord used in my beloved Snow Amber, Underlord Akhenaten, and it looks like it's been in a few other LCs that sound pretty amazing, Zombie Grave Edition and White Zombie. Hmmm. Anyway, how to describe this musk that I like so much? It's sort of a sweet, dry, clean musk? Maybe sort of a light golden feel, or even a sort of gauzy white. It's deceptive, I mean it's a light and clean musk, but it packs more of a solid punch than say NAVA'S Egyptian Musk. As a note in these three scents that I have, it sticks around for a long time, which is what I mean by deceptive. I'm okay with that, I love that smell. So if you wear Deinonychus alone, it's a little more complex than some of the Dinosaurs. That's neat. You still won't get all of the nuances unless you add another oil, but I definitely get the Cemetery Musk right out of the gate, and I'm picking up the ambers in the undercurrent. They're so lovely, I really enjoy that sort of "freshness" of NAVA amber. It's quite distinctive. I've worn Deinonychus alone for an entire day, and it's pretty amazing, actually. I put it on in the morning, and then I made a trip to Clearwater. As I was walking around in a shop, something like 6 or 8 hours later, I got this lovely, smoky scent drifting up at me. I stopped dead in my tracks and tried to figure out what it was - bingo, Deinonychus. The Egyptian Temple Oudh just kicked in and the Cemetery Musk took a step backwards - HOLY WOW THAT IS AWESOME. I mean, I'm not kidding. So let's talk about layering. (I know, this is long. But it's complex and wondrous and it deserves a full review.) When you hatch Deinonychus, it's quite a changeling. Not as drastic as Giganotosaurus is, but depending on what you layer it with, you'll get more of the other notes - the Kobalt vanilla, the cedarwood, and the sandalwood all make appearances but if you layer it with a vanilla heavy perfume, Kobalt comes out even more to play. Honestly the two stars of this always remain the Cemetery Musk and Egyptian Temple Oudh, but layered all of the aspects come out and it is glorious. I'll give some examples below. By the way, the cedar in this is not at all pencil shavings - if you've not had the please of smelling Diamond, which you totally should by the way, you won't recognize it, but it's a light, sweet wood here, almost juicy, absolutely lovely.

TL;DR: CEMETERY MUSK PARTAAAYYY. Umm. Let me try to be a little more concise. Hatching Deinonychus, it's quite multifaceted, but the stars are always Egyptian Temple Oudh and Cemetery Musk. The vanilla, sandalwood, ambers, and cedar all make appearances.

Layering recommendations: So now, let's talk about how to make certain notes sing, shall we? If you layer Deinonychus with the aforementioned Diamond, it becomes a Cemetery Musk (CM for short), Egyptian Temple Oudh (ETO), and Cedar party, with the sandalwood, vanilla, and amber as supporting cast. The woods in Diamond are so beautifully done, and they really go so beautifully with this, it's quite a stunning combination. The guy loves this particular combination. And let's say you layer this with one of NAVA's superlative vanillas. Crystal, Crystalline, Kobalt, Kobalt Dark, Ember Vanilla, OP Pakhet, Phantasm Kiss. Wait, let's hold off on Phantasm Kiss, that one is special. All of these other vanillas though, then it becomes a CM, ETO, and Kobalt party, with the ambers, sandalwood, and cedar as supporting notes. Now let's get to Phantasm Kiss. Wow. This is a good one, because it's got both vanilla AND ETO. So this really showcases how incredibly multifaceted Deinonychus is. You already know who's at the party here, I'm sure you're following along by now. So it's also especially lovely with Santalum, Santalum White, or Santalum Ombre for the same reason. You might try it with Ambre Ombre to really bring out the two lovely ambers - it's actually kind of jaw dropping good with Ambre Ombre, or White Ambre Ombre, if you want something a little lighter. Umm, let's see, what else? Oh, you could easily do Egyptian Musk, Crimson, or Kashmir with it. As far as LC suggestions? Sky's the limit. It goes well with almost any of the Oudhs I think. I don't think I've tried it with Labyrinth, but I've tried it with ETO, Copal Oudh, Samar Oudh, Inferno...Snow Amber, Holiday Egyptian Gold Amber, Embalmed Mummy, Underlord Akhenaten, Underlord Bastet, Blood Moon, Holiday Egyptian Gold Vanilla and Sandalwood, Under the Moon - really the possibilities are endless. This is such a workhorse of a scent, it's amazing.

Giganotosaurus: Resinous Amber Accord, Limestone Amber, Patchouli, Cedarwood, Ginger, Rosewood and Hungarian Teak.

Oh, girl. You had me at patchouli and rosewood. I was curious what the rest of it would smell like, but I knew I was getting a full bottle of it. Little did I know that I would blow through a half a bottle in six months! I actually saved this review for last, because as much as I love Deinonychus, I love Giganotosaurus even more. I have tried this with errydangthing. I mean it. And it's a total chameleon! With some perfumes, it turns light, feminine. With others, it deepens, becomes more earthy, woody. But I have not found anything I didn't like it with. It's been blowing my mind and I can't get enough. And the more I age it, the more delightful it becomes. I can't believe how the different facets come out with different blends. This; this is the reason I am such a fangirl for NA. I swear, they're magicians. They truly are. Now, you can wear this alone, or with another Dinosaur (see my note at the end of the review for more about this) and it is lovely. As it dries, it changes. More facets come out. At first, I get patchouli and amber, and hints of some lovely wood beneath. The rosewood comes out, and then the teak and cedar, and they are all playing together, as if they are creating a symphony. It's lovely, and sort of a yin and yang, both masculine and feminine, how in the world? I don't know, but when I do my layering experiments, this is further reinforced. It seems to somehow smell different with every perfume oil, even the SL vanillas - for instance, it's a little darker and more earthy/woody with Kobalt Dark, and sort of lighter and feminine with Crystalline. I don't know how to explain it other than telling you it's magical. I could keep going, waxing poetic, but I'm probably not very poetic, and I think you get the idea at this point. My initial plan last year was to get a backup of Cryolophosaurus, but I fell so hard for Giganotosaurus, I ended up panicking and getting a backup of that instead. Seth, you sir are a genius. First, you (and Bastet!) get me to dip my toes into the magical water of NAVA gourmands, and now this? I'm struggling for words here.

TL;DR: The most magical of all the Dinosaurs, in my opinion. This is extremely versatile and smells quite different depending on what you layer it with. It also is lovely and long lasting worn alone.

Layering suggestions: Oh boy. Here's where it gets crazy. I don't think there's anything I wouldn't recommend you try it with, because why not? I haven't had a bad experience yet. Tonight I'm wearing it with the incredible Byzantium Amber, and it's so lovely, sort of feminine. One of my favorite options is Labyrinth, a patchouli oudh, or Patchouli Ombre. Those are both rather heavy, earthy blends, and Giganotosaurus lifts them both, making the patchouli more wearable for those of you who might be a little nervous about a patch-heavy scent. Speaking of patch-heavy, Hessonite. Child. I understand Hessonite packs quite a punch, but please, try adding a dab to Giganotosaurus, you will thank me. So, everything else under the sun. Mummy Crypt. Holiday Egyptian Gold Amber, White Ambre Ombre, Santal Ombre, Black Raven, Bastet Amber, Gabriel, Pyewacket Cat, Anticipation, Carter, Enigma, Holy Grail, Cecilia, Horus Haven 2, Egyptian Temple Oudh, OP Baba, OP Hathor, Ozymandias, Under The Moon - okay seriously, just try it with everything. Hah!

Protoceratops: Resinous Amber Accord, Limestone Amber, Crystalline (Egyptian Vanilla Orchid stigma Resin), Kobalt (Vanilla Orchid of Cairo), Crystal Absolute (Vanilla Musk), Vanilla Cream, Vanilla Ice Cream Accord, Vanilla Caramel, Bastet Amber and Egyptian Sugar accord.

Okay, I almost passed on this. Almost. I was looking at the notes and thinking, I can't wear that. It will come off as too sweet on my skin, I tend to make foodie blends too foodie. This is one of the reasons I love NA. Always expanding my horizons. I read a review from another blogger, and she said it was not overly foodie, so I though huh - maybe I can sneak in a bottle of this last minute. I somehow managed it, and Protoceratops showed me that I can start to branch out a little on foodie blends. This is...delightful. If you wear it alone, it's kind of an ice cream, waffle cone, buttery vanilla. However! The ambers lift this up and keep it from going too far into foodie territory. It's a little more light, and clean. Not overly caramelized, like some foodie vanilla blends do on my skin. And that Bastet Amber is the icing on the cake, I LOVE that stuff. It's incredible, so there are a melange of ambers in this to lift this up. And do you see what I see at the end of the notes? Vanilla Ice Cream Accord? WHAT IS THAT? I needs it. I do. Because although this is lovely and light, I'm catching whiffs of that, and it smells delightful. So, around the time that this was released, they very kindly included a sample of Bastet's Ice Cream Accord. There was no plan at that point to release a full bottle of it, but it was an instant hit. It's SO good. It's definitely a foodie blend, but I actually slather myself in it! Unfh. It's like vanilla ice cream in a fresh baked buttery sugar waffle cone. It's like walking into an ice cream parlour and being hit with that delightful smell. Anyway, not a review for that, but just so you know, if you want to emphasize the ice cream aspect of this Dinosaur, that's your best bet. They ended up releasing three versions of Bastet's Ice Cream Accord over the holidays last year. Anyway, back to Protoceratops. If you wear this alone, when you first put it on, you get a good whiff of the ambers - Bastet Amber really brings these to the forefront in this blend. As it dries down, it starts getting more creamy, and the waffle cone starts to come out a little bit. Yum. The amber is still there, so it never gets that overly foodie aspect. It's quite well balanced. This is pretty lovely alone, but when you pair it with other blends, it's really a star. Mmmm, that sugar is lovely, like a crust of sugar, that shows up when layered.

TL;DR: Lovely, lovely creamy vanilla ice cream with a sugared, buttery waffle cone. Lifted away from the foodie category by the addition of Bastet Amber, it's perfectly balanced - if you are nervous of foodie blends, this is a fantastic option for dipping your toes in.

Layering suggestions: Go crazy. This one is easy! Any of the vanillas go well with this. If you're lucky enough to have a bottle of the now discontinued SL Moonstone, that's a great choice, as it's a little more foodie, but it also easily goes with Crystalline, Crystal, Kobalt, or Kobalt Dark. If you want to ramp up the ambers more, add some Bastet Amber. I like it in the summer with Santalum White or White Ambre Ombre. I've worn this with some of the Tea Service blends and it's fantastic, like Coconut Milk or Sweet Santalum Milk. I have paired it with tea blends too, Black Oudh Jack, Underlord Bastet, Luxor Lemon, White Tea Vanilla. Try it with OP Pakhet or Tawaret. I've worn it with any number of fruit blends too - Ophelia, Egyptian Peach Blossom, Black Crystalline Black Fig, Raphael, Fig Noir Ombre, (I have a lot of NAVA fig!) Ichabod, Black Crystal Candy Apple. I like it with Vamp, Victorian Candy Cane Crystalline, Selket Anti-Venom Rez, Coconut Cockatoo, Adele. Offbeat but also works: Anticipation, Nag Champa Seahorse, California Redwood Crystal Musk, Holiday Egyptian Gold Amber, Halloween 2017. If you have a coffee blend, such as Seth's Secret Sweet Vanilla Bean Black Coffee, Protoceratops adds a lovely cream and sugar element. Over the top? Sure, Bastet's Ice Cream Accord, Spooktacular, Orb, Poison Pumpkin, or any of the 31 Pumpkin Library! This one pairs so well with all kinds of blends.

Velociraptor: Resinous Amber Accord, Limestone Amber, Black Musk Absolute, Black Amber and a drop of aged viscous Velociraptor Kashmir red musk.

Oh, sir. OF COURSE I HAD TO GET YOU. Anyone who knows me knows my fondness for Jurassic Park. So no matter what the notes were, I HAD to have him. Hah! Well, remember our friend Utahraptor from the first collection? Velociraptor has emphasis of the Black Musk, rather than the Kashmir. This is absolutely glorious. Yes, you still smell the Kashmir, because of course, there's no way that Kashmir is going anywhere without getting noticed! But it's not the star of this show, and that's okay, because NAVA's take on Black Musk is perfect - it's not too heavy, it's balanced in just the right way. Often, black musk blends can be too overpowering for me, but never with NAVA. The amber in this is definitely noticeable too, with the addition of Black Amber. This is lovely to wear alone, but when you hatch it with something else, it really comes to life! This one is not shy. It's definitely as potent and long wearing as Tyrannosaurus and Utahraptor, so bear that in mind when applying. If you don't mind that, slather away - I do!

TL;DR: This Dinosaur is the opposite of Utahraptor, in that the Black Musk is the star, but don't worry, both Kashmir and Black Amber show up as well.

Layering suggestions: Oh, this is fun. Try it with any musks, I actually love this with Egyptian Musk, and of course it's beautiful with SL Kashmir. I like it with the SL Vanillas, but I also like it with Santalum, Myrrh Ombre, Ember, OP Osiris. I love it with the Oudhs like Egyptian Temple or Copal. Absolutely amazing with Kadmium Amber or Eternal Egypt Decade. Try it with the Holiday Egyptian SLs like Frankincense, Myrhh, Gold Amber, or Gold Vanilla and Sandalwood. I also like it with the Nag Champa Seahorses - all three, but particularly NCS Kashmir. I've worn it with Pandora Enigma, Egypt 1, Mummy Crypt, Blood Moon.

Something that I forgot to mention in the previous review and I need to edit is that these are lovely when you pair them together! And I've done this several times with different combinations. Pteranodon with Protoceratops or Deinonychus, Velociraptor with Utahraptor, Diplodocus with Giganotosaurus, Protoceratops with almost anything! Hah.

Another thing to mention, if you have eNVie Saphir, many of these are stunning when hatched with Saphir. Definitely worth experimenting with - I have Saphir, Ambre Saphir, and Encens Saphir, and they all do well with the Dinosaurs.

Phew. So, that wasn't quite as wordy as part one, but it was still wordy huh? I certainly hope my layering suggestions gave you some ideas for hatching these! I think some people may not be aware that these were designed with that in mind, although I do think they are lovely alone as well. None of them, alone, seem to be a single note, because of the ambers. Anyway! We are now two days away from the grand reopening, and I'm at the edge of my seat. Have a lovely evening folks!

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

BnHA 49 - 50 | Hinamatsuri 11 - 12 (FINAL) | MSO 12 (FINAL) | Boueibu HK 10 - 11 | Rokuhoudou 11

BnHA 49

“Tsukauchi…All Might…” – Come to think of it, what is Tsukauchi doing at this moment in time, anyway?

“…the ones who are smiling are the strongest.” – This reminds me of what Atro Spyker said in Rokka no Yuusha…“If you want to be strong, smile! He who can smile, even when he's so sad that he wants to die, when it's so painful that he wants to give it all up and run away, is the one who becomes strong.”

Why is there a person wearing a LLENN cap in the crowd, anyway? Is that intentional?

“What is with that pitiful back?!” – You can really see parallels between Bakugo and Izuku now between Endeavour and All Might…hmm.

Gran Torino in his prime…looks like Knuckleduster from Vigilantes somewhat.

Interestingly, the word daikokubashira (central pillar) comes to mind with all this talk about pillars. Normally I’d use that word in conjunction with a nuclear family and apparently the word can be used in a more literal sense with a house. However, in both cases, All Might is the pillar to the structure he made with society itself. Now that he’s pretty much done for, it’s like a Jenga game’s end. Everything falls apart. (Hey, I have a post on this topic in progress! Probably shouldn’t have mentioned all this…)

Hypertrophy.

All for One looks…normal when he’s dead. I thought he was creepy when he was still up and about, but now I’m no longer afraid. Ha…haha…

Hey, it’s Uwabami! Haven’t seen her in a while.

Oh, the guy in the ED is Eraserhead with his hair slung back.

Hinamatsuri 11

One more episode until we have to say goodbye to this show…I really liked it while it was around.

Isn’t Rairaiken the name of the Chinese restaurant Anzu works at…?

Wait, so Nitta’s sister knows karate?! What?! Why didn’t anyone mention that earlier?!

This scene with the ashtray reminds me of Nitta’s senpai, although I forgot what the senpai’s name is…wasn’t he in the previous episode though? I really do have a terrible memory sometimes, huh?

“Is he really just a regular nice guy?”

It’s basically the Ember Island Players all over again! Hahaha…

Hina’s shirt says doutoku. The only kanji combo I could get for that means “morals” or “morality”.

What’s up with the line about yaks, anyway?

Hina’s shirt says sugosugi = “too awesome”. Then it said “haha”, which could mean her mother…but I think it’s more the English meaning, out of context.

I’d read in an interview on Seiyuu+ that “Anzu is an angel” and that Nitta wanted to keep Anzu instead of Hina, but I never thought it meant either so literally…

“Reality (Hina) is coming home.” – LOL!

What…? Hina’s gone missing, in the mountains? What if Ikaruga took her??? Oh dear…

Boueibu HK 10

Well, there ain’t nothing more manly than sleeping in nothing but your birthday suit on a futon…right? (kidding)

I laughed so hard at Kyoutarou sneezing. The “person’s drowning” trope for fanservice at least goes back to 2004 or so – DN Angel (the anime, I believe) did it, I definitely remember that.

Poor Kyoutarou is being used as a demo dummy in this set of illustrations, LOL.

Everyone’s using the phrase nechatta, which holds some interesting implications. You see, the meaning of chatta means either completion…or the fact the action being done has negative implications. In this case, it’s both.

I think Kyoutarou called Karurusu “Karuru” or “Karu” or something.

Turtle-kun is so smol, I wanna cuddle him!

Hey, even the subs use “Martha” now…I’m so confused, still.

The word the old men want is “monster” (kaijin), but then the other word they thought of was katsukare- (pork cutlet curry), so I can see why the word was bent out of shape like that now. Notably, Karurusu didn’t age at all…

Taishi’s using the word yancha (naughty), which basically confirms he was a delinquent when he was younger. Just in a very roundabout way.

Notably, Nanao hasn’t stopped drinking tea after all those years, and Karurusu seems to have a very very long lifespan if he comments on it like that…

Inago = locust. Ichigo = strawberry. The former is correct (it’s in katakana, so there’s one stroke’s difference between na and chi).

Wow…spoilers told me I should’ve seen that coming, but watching old men transform is not my gig, so thank goodness I was spared from that ordeal…

Hey, we’re back to our old tradition of dark skies for the finale…although we didn’t have that in s2, eh?

They don’t even have voice roles for smol!Ata, Ryoma and Kyoutarou! That’s unfair!

The reason we all call the show “Boueibu” is because the staff did it first…so here’s (the next ep preview) just some extra proof of that.

MSO 12 (FINAL)

Noticeably, Yamo uses the word taoshite (to collapse), so literally his demand is to “make me collapse”…it’s a bit weird to translate it like that, which is probably why the subbers went with a different translation.

What did Mohiro ever do to be hurt like this, anyway? He doesn’t deserve to be hurt, Yamo…dangit. This is why you can’t be MVP anymore.

More montages…*sigh*

What the-orbefjvpenfp, Hyoue?! Don’t ruin the moment, regardless of whether it constitutes yaoi or not!

So…uh, somehow demons are talked about in terms of code? Y’see, this is why you need a good garbage collector.

I love how they were just called “The Hyoue Squad”, even though this show is called “Mahou Shoujo Ore”.

Gah! Anime-original characters steal the spotlight again…well, there goes my hopes for a good MSO ending, eh?

To think that Michiru’s male form is voiced by Kisho Taniyama – the guy who voiced Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs) – though…I still don’t match those voices with each other in my head, y’know.

…and somehow they were in Tokyo Tower. Of course, because Tokyo is the centre of the universe (sarcastic).

The thing about this show is that it’s so off-the-wall it doesn’t quite make emotional moments work, even ones like Yamo’s final handshake…sure, it kind of hit me in the feels because I’ve known this series for longer than some people, but not really…if you get what I mean.

I think Astral was thinking about this during one of the other episodes, but…they’re only bringing the topic of who Ore is to Michiru now??? Wuh???

The experience of this show wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be in the beginning, but it wasn’t the most perfect thing either. I would rather they have done more filler with Saki and Sakuyo instead of coming up with anime-original characters to fill the gaps, but I’m also fine with what we got in the end...it’s a complex set of feelings that I don’t think I’ll ever get over. Anyways, that’s another show over and done. See you next time!

Rokuhoudou 11

Demi-glace.

Gotta love Sui’s Gendo poses! By the way, ponzu is some kind of citrus sauce.

This isn’t a particularly standout OP, but I might miss it for a week or two after this show’s end…I don’t want this show to end, actually. But as they say, be careful what you wish for.

(I still have no idea why they say “girls be ambitious” in the OP when the main stars are dudes…)

You might’ve noticed the one I like best from Rokuhoudou is Tokitaka. His voice, his hair, his caring nature (as demonstrated here with the old people), his ability to cook great food…*sighs dreamily* what a man he is!

You might not know this is you haven’t read the character pages for the show, but Tokitaka runs a pottery class. That’s why Osada and co. call him “Sensei”.

“Nagae”? I’ve never seen Sui refer to Tokitaka by his last name before! This is really something!

Oh dear, more Hotel East Side…notably, Osada is using very polite words (keigo) since she’s not really familiar with Sui.

There’s a shot where the light from the window streams on to Sui and you can’t tell if he’s wearing a kimono or a business suit…ooh, that must be symbolic in some way, y’know?

Mirin is a type of alcohol.

Rokuhoudou keeps surprising its customers…I wonder if I, as a blogger, can keep surprising people that way too…then I’d be set for life.

So that’s how Tokitaka uses unused stuff from his classes (using them at the Rokuhoudou)?! Wow, didn’t see that coming!

Osada looked like she was gonna cry, and that almost made me cry for a second!

“My father built East Side Grande.” – *spits out half-eaten food* Holy shiitake mushrooms! Rokuhoudou is best enjoyed with food, but if I keep spitting it out, I’m going to have to clean up around here…(kidding)

I didn’t even realise half the episode had gone so quickly! Yipes!

Hinamatsuri 12 (FINAL)

“It’s snow big deal.” – I get the feeling it was meant to have a pun in Japanese, but I don’t hear one when I listen to the audio…

Oh, there’s no Utako at the end of the OP! I kept skipping it, so that’s why I never knew…

Interestingly, the yuki is in kanji and the rest is in hiragana, which probably means it has to be a riff on the show’s name and not referring to any particular snow festival in particular.

Wait, forcible shipping? C’mon, they’re 13! That just lowered my opinion of the show somewhat.

Doesn’t this remind you of when Mao got stranded on the island and then made Hina go “Feed me”? She was on the ball after all…

Geez, that kid on the left (either Kengo or the other guy) is sadistic…

“Although you’ll be getting a roe deal.” – This was a pun on ikura (salmon roe)…although I can’t tell exactly how the pun works…

Is this Namahage Town, or what? What is up with all the namahage puns? Can someone tell me???

Wait, if credits are appearing here, then why is there half an episode left…?

Montage time…*sigh*

Why did a shot of Anzu appear (LOL)?

The yakuza guys are still watching that documentary?! What (LOL)?!

The horse seems to be called Eiyon Size…or something like that.

Hey, I think it was pretty accurate for “Oi, get your hands off her!” or “Oi, young man, don’t touch her!” in Chinese…or something like that. It is pretty garbled though…

LOL, Atsushi’s screaming in English though…”Mayonnaise is Atsushi!”

The monk’s name is Shinyhead (LOL)!

Ehh? Ain’t this the same scene from the beginning? Aw man, don’t make it like DN Angel…

“Watashi no smartphone ga!” Gets me every time, man.

In the end, Pruny Shinyhead just wants money, eh?...Haha.

Wait, so Pruny Shinyhead is like Mao like the boss man to Hina, huh?

That’s an actual plane company written on the side of that plane! Lufthansa! (The writing gets cut off when it’s at its most visible, though.)

So…in the end, we don’t discover what happened to Hina and Anzu three years later. Read the manga…I get it. *sigh*

BnHA 50

Noticeably, the sign says “stop!” in katakana.

I read on the wiki Shouto’s sister is called Fuyumi. That makes sense if she has an ice quirk like her mother (fuyu = winter).

“I can’t accept it. Not like this…” - Once again, you can see Bakugo in Endeavour…

Yap! (Yahoo!) News, LOL. The site doesn’t even bother parodying the purple or other style things about Yahoo!, though.

They…actually told us what happened to Ragdoll and Best Jeanist? That’s kinda sad, y’know?

Jiro’s parents are rockers? Well…that makes a lot of sense, actually.

Didn’t Brian the Sun do…yep, BnHA ED 1!

I’ve never seen a kid embarrass their dad before. It’s amazing…and so fresh.

Wow, Bakugo’s mum is…really something else. She’s got exactly the same temperament, I wonder how that family functions…

Midoriya’s shirt says “dress shirt���, LOL!

Inko’s feelings for Izuku resonated so strongly with me, I nearly cried…nearly.

I just realised…that computer in the flashback is a Windows 10. It’s got the menu and everything!

Wait…there’s an extra bit after the credits! The credits are way too long! Keep watching, keep watching…

Tartarus…? Like Alcatraz or something?

Hmm…in a lot of stories, the mentor dies. Here, the mentor doesn’t die. Good point, All for One.

Boueibu HK 11

Can I stop screaming “No duh!” every time they say “This is bad!”?

Manza the delinquent is exposed!

They’re attaching –san to the end of people’s magical aliases! Fabulous, if I do say so myself.

“We’ll stand up again and again!” – Uh, Karurusu? Kyoutarou’s sitting down…(LOL)

And…skip the transformation sequence again…and skip the purification sequence again…*sigh*

Notably, the kanji word on the wall not too far away from the pictures is “hope”.

*screams* My LOVE! boys! They’re back! (I knew they were coming because spoilers said they would, but this…this is wonderful…)

“…fail to realise…”

This entire conflict…it really is Kin-chan all over again.

This pink pigeon…is adorable! Like Turtle-kun last episode!

You can clearly see a purple hand (paw?) taking Kamopapa away, which is clearly Wao, that scoundrel of a lemur.

*voice caught in throat as Karurusu cries* Karurusu…don’t cry…

Does this mean the thing Ata wanted all along…was a handshake?

The next ep preview says "Danger is approaching King Kamopapa! Now isn't the time to be arguing!", by the way.

[poweredbydietcoke]

Favorite books of 2019

A *very* late continuation of my annual tradition … finally got a push to finish this in case you’re looking for book ideas while we find ourselves with plenty of extra time during quarantine. I read a little less in 2019, maybe because I’m working on something new (and have a new kid) or maybe just because I’m getting lazy as I get older? 48 books total, of which 4 were tree books and 23 were audiobooks—I did spend more time in transit last year (yes, it’s possible to listen to audiobooks and talk to ATC at the same time!), but it felt more productive. 

Without further ado, my favorite books. (affiliate links get donated to charity at the end of the year). I’ve included some highlights from Kindle books, but many of my favorites this year were audiobooks, where I haven’t found a great solution to highlighting (especially those I get from the library on a variety of crappy - but free! - services).

Destiny Disrupted, by Tamim Ansary - this was probably my favorite book of the year. I liked it so much I cold-emailed the author and invited him over for dinner, and we had a wonderful time with he & his wife and a bunch of friends. Fundamentally, the book is a history of the world told from the point of view of Islam; the point he makes, quite compellingly, was that there are really two (and probably more) different histories of the world, with the same facts, that just depend on your narrative. This is starting to play on a lot of things I’ve been trying to understand recently, including Ben Hunt’s Epsilon Theory and specifically, his idea of the Narrative Machine, and all of the theory of Common Knowledge that includes. And he does all this with an easy-to-read but well-researched writing style. If you like this one, I’m still working my way through his next one, The Invention of Yesterday, and so far so good.

A ruler can never trust a popular man with soldiers of his own. One day, Mansur invited Abu Muslim to come visit him and share a hearty meal. What happened next illustrates the maxim that when an Abbasid ruler invites you to dinner, you should arrange to be busy that night.

On the Sunni side, four slightly different versions of this code took shape, and the Shi’i developed yet another one of their own, similar to the Sunni ones in spirit and equally vast in scope. These various codes differ in details, but I doubt that one Muslim in a thousand can name even five such details.

Let me emphasize that the ulama were not (and are not) appointed by anyone. Islam has no pope and no official clerical apparatus. How, then, did someone get to be a member of the ulama? By gaining the respect of people who were already established ulama. It was a gradual process. There was no license, no certificate, no “shingle” to hang up to prove that one was an alim. The ulama were (and are) a self-selecting, self-regulating class, bound entirely by the river of established doctrine. No single alim could modify this current or change its course. It was too old, too powerful, too established, and besides, no one could become a member of the ulama until he had absorbed the doctrine so thoroughly that it had become a part of him. By the time a person acquired the status to question the doctrine, he would have no inclination to do so. Incorrigible dissenters who simply would not stop questioning the doctrine probably wouldn’t make it through the process.

If a man commits a grave sin, is he a non-Muslim, or is he (just) a bad Muslim? The question might seem like a semantic game, except that in the Muslim world, as a point of law, the religious scholars divided the world between the community and the nonbelievers. One set of rules applied among believers, another set for interactions between believers and nonbelievers. It was important, therefore, to know if any particular person was in the community or outside it.

Range, by David Epstein. Thomas Layton recommended this to me (he was reading a derivative work on how to coach basketball while applying this theory), and it was fun. The fundamental thesis is that you can split environments into “nice” and “wicked” learning environments. In nice environments, feedback is quick and accurate, and rewards specialization early (eg golf ... you can practice every possible shot by yourself). In wicked environments, feedback is delayed (if available at all), and the rules — let alone the situation — are fluid. This rewards “range”, or a variety of experiences (Epstein uses tennis as an example, but much of life is even more obvious). The return of the Renaissance Man (or Woman) — yay!

When I began to write about these studies, I was met with thoughtful criticism, but also denial. “Maybe in some other sport,” fans often said, “but that’s not true of our sport.” The community of the world’s most popular sport, soccer, was the loudest. And then, as if on cue, in late 2014 a team of German scientists published a study showing that members of their national team, which had just won the World Cup, were typically late specializers who didn’t play more organized soccer than amateur-league players until age twenty-two or later.

A recent study found that cardiac patients were actually less likely to die if they were admitted during a national cardiology meeting, when thousands of cardiologists were away; the researchers suggested it could be because common treatments of dubious effect were less likely to be performed.

Whether or not experience inevitably led to expertise, they agreed, depended entirely on the domain in question. Narrow experience made for better chess and poker players and firefighters, but not for better predictors of financial or political trends, or of how employees or patients would perform. The domains Klein studied, in which instinctive pattern recognition worked powerfully, are what psychologist Robin Hogarth termed “kind” learning environments. Patterns repeat over and over, and feedback is extremely accurate and usually very rapid.

...

In wicked domains, the rules of the game are often unclear or incomplete, there may or may not be repetitive patterns and they may not be obvious, and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both.

When younger students bring home problems that force them to make connections, Richland told me, “parents are like, ‘Lemme show you, there’s a faster, easier way.’” If the teacher didn’t already turn the work into using-procedures practice, well-meaning parents will. They aren’t comfortable with bewildered kids, and they want understanding to come quickly and easily. But for learning that is both durable (it sticks) and flexible (it can be applied broadly), fast and easy is precisely the problem.

Programs like Head Start did give a head start, but academically that was about it. The researchers found a pervasive “fadeout” effect, where a temporary academic advantage quickly diminished and often completely vanished. On a graph, it looks eerily like the kind that show future elite athletes catching up to their peers who got a head start in deliberate practice.

Hilariously, predictors were willing to pay an average of $129 a ticket for a show ten years away by their current favorite band, while reflectors would only pay $80 to see a show today by their favorite band from ten years ago.

In the spring of 2001, Bingham collected twenty-one problems that had stymied Eli Lilly scientists and asked a top executive if he could post them on a website for anyone to see. The executive would only consider it if the consulting firm McKinsey thought it was a good idea. “McKinsey’s opinion,” Bingham recalled, “was, ‘Who knows? Why don’t you launch it and tell us the answer.’”

There was also a “perverse inverse relationship” between fame and accuracy. The more likely an expert was to have his or her predictions featured on op-ed pages and television, the more likely they were always wrong. Or, not always wrong. Rather, as Tetlock and his coauthor succinctly put it in their book Superforecasting, “roughly as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.”

Deep Work by Cal Newport - this was an easy listen while on a couple of long runs in Palm Springs during Indian Wells weekend, and definitely worth it. Like classics such as How to Win Friends And Influence People, there’s not a lot fundamentally groundbreaking here, but he articulates some really fundamental principles well enough that you stop and take notice and ask, “I know that ... why am I not doing that?” Now I just need to review my notes...

Age of Ambition, Chasing Fortune in China - Evan Osnos. I think Scott Cannon originally recommended this book to me, and it was fascinating. It’s a bit of a long, slow read but a lot of insight into China’s evolution over the last few decades. I’m not sure what I’ll do with this knowledge (or the many other China books I’ve read recently) but it feels important for the coming decades. If only I could learn Mandarin like Matt MacInnis 

Every country has corruption, but China’s was approaching a level of its own. For those at the top, the scale of temptation had reached a level unlike anything ever encountered in the West. It was not always easy to say which Bare-Handed Fortunes were legitimate and which were not, but political office was a reliable pathway to wealth on a scale of its own. By 2012 the richest seventy members of China’s national legislature had a net worth of almost ninety billion dollars—more than ten times the combined net worth of the entire U.S. Congress.

But unlike Zaire, China punished many people for it; in a five-year stretch, China punished 668,000 Party members for bribery, graft, and embezzlement; it handed down 350 death sentences for corruption, and Wedeman concluded, “At a very basic level, it appears to have prevented corruption from spiraling out of control.”

The Central Propaganda Department let it be known that reports that suggested a shortage of happiness were not to receive attention. In April 2012 my phone buzzed: All websites are not to repost the news headlined, “UN Releases World Happiness Report, and China Ranks No. 112.”

Over the years, the risk of being blamed for helping someone was a scenario that appeared over and over in the headlines. In November 2006 an elderly woman in Nanjing fell at a bus stop, and a young man named Peng Yu stopped to help her get to the hospital. In recovery, she accused Peng of causing her fall, and a local judge agreed, ordering him to pay more than seven thousand dollars—a judgment based not on evidence, but on what the verdict called “logical thinking”: that Peng would never have helped if he hadn’t been motivated by guilt.

At one point, Chinese programmers were barred from updating a popular software system called Node.js because the version number, 0.6.4, corresponded with June 4, the date of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

he vowed to punish not only low-ranking “flies” but also powerful “tigers.” He called on his comrades to be “diligent and thrifty,” and when Xi took his first official trip, state television reported that he checked into a “normal suite” and dined not at a banquet, but at a buffet—a revelation so radical in Chinese political culture that the word buffet took on metaphysical significance. The state news service ran a banner headline: XI JINPING VISITS POOR FAMILIES IN HEBEI: DINNER IS JUST FOUR DISHES AND ONE SOUP, NO ALCOHOL.

...

It didn’t take long for the abrupt drop-off in gluttony to affect the economy: sales of shark fin (de rigueur for banquets) sank more than 70 percent; casinos in Macau recorded a drop in VIPs, and Swiss watch exports dropped by a quarter from the year before. Luxury goods makers mourned.

Economists point to a historic correlation between “world’s tallest” debuts and economic slowdowns. There is no cause and effect, but such projects are a sign of easy credit, excessive optimism, and inflated land prices—a pattern that dates to the world’s first skyscraper, the Equitable Life Building. Built in New York at the height of the Gilded Age, it was completed in 1873, the start of a five-year slump that became known as the Long Depression, and the pattern repeated in decades to follow. Skyscraper magazine, a Shanghai publication that treated tall buildings like celebrities, reported in 2012 that China would finish a new skyscraper every five days for the next three years; China was home to 40 percent of the skyscrapers under construction in the world.

Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright & Bradley Hope - Mike Vernal told me to drop most things to read this, and he wasn’t wrong. A well-written account of the 1MDB scandal that I’d only vaguely followed, and tries to put it into context when it basically can’t … something like $5.XB stolen over the course of a few years.

Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky & Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain - I put these two together, both recommended by Robert MacCloy, because they’re quick and fun. I listened to both on audio and they were both “mindless” but interesting…sort of the inside baseball of both the hospitality and restaurant industries. Don’t use a UV light...anywhere.

Smokejumpers by Jason Ramos - recommended by one of our fire captain neighbors at Oxbow and figured it would be good to understand a little more about wildland firefighting … this took me down a long digression of firefighting books that were interesting but if you want one, this one’s fun.

American icon by Bryce Hoffman - great audiobook that Scott Cannon recommended about Alan Mulaly’s turnaround of the Ford. The single most memorable part — after a couple of years working on turning the company around, a reporter asked him what his priorities for the next year were, and he responded with the same three things he’d said from the beginning. The reporter said something to the affect of “I can’t write about that again, it’s boring, you need something new!” And Mulaly responded “when we’ve got these three things done right, then we’ll have something new. We haven’t finished them yet."

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou - my wife raved about this book after she listened to it, and it was all the rage, so I did too…and it lived up to the hype! Fascinating but managed not to be a tabloid-y gossip-y tale of excess so much as a “yeah, each individual step was only a little over the line, and look where it lead them.” A surprisingly poignant reminder about how “fake it til you make it” in Silicon Valley can be idealized until it’s not. This is the next generation in a line started by Barbarians at the Gate and continued by Smartest Guys In The Room.

[seven-oomen]

Lol, glad to be of service on the plot detail.  Can not wait to find out precisely how I helped, and congrats on finishing the chapter.  Very, VERY excited for the new one, though if previous experience is anything to go by, it’ll probably show up right about when I have to clock in.  But that will give me something to look forward to during my shift. :D  That game sounds awesome, but so intense.  The other person I know paying it said she only made it about three hours before she had to pause for a while due to emotional overload.  And I’m well used to that authorial tendency towards “sorry not sorry” when it comes to reader reactions. XD

Oh god, I love the idea of them as potentially competing players.  Huge chunks of the unaffiliated/unaffected Houses would get caught up in the rumors and romance of it all.  Chris in the stands getting all kinds of weird looks because he keeps rooting for both teams (uh…no pun intended?).   And yeah, I like Defense Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic for Chris.  Oh god I can see all of them excelling at the dueling club.  He and Noah take Muggle Studies and develop a minor fascination with muggle weaponry.  Ooh, what would their Patronuses (Patroni?) be?  Would Peter be a wolf Animagus instead of a werewolf given their representation in the books?

And I love all the kids reacting to new siblings.  (Jackson will always be the baby, even when he’s not, lol.)  Hmm, I can’t decide if I like the idea of going more fantasy or sci-fi for the nursery (Fables sounds amazing, though, and I feel I need to find some copies.  But perhaps slightly dark for a nursery.)  Part of me feels they could give it sort of Hobbit-y feel, with rolling hills and towering forests, but add woodland characters in from lots of other series, too, scattered throughout the trees (and Ents, and Groots).  Maybe a fake tree in one corner with one or two of those hanging chair things.  But part of me just keeps screaming “OMG OUTER SPACE!!!"  She could paint galaxies and nebulas across one wall.  They could put glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and have a mobile of Star Wars ships over one crib and one of Star Trek ships over the other.  Gah, I can’t decide!  And Malia (or Peter) would totally need to make them each one of these wolf lovey blankets.  In the correct colors for Peter’s coat, possibly out of the yarn with his fur, so the scent could comfort them.  I actually found a number of geeky hats, etc, that she could make for them (I may have gotten a bit carried away.  Again.  In my defense they’re adorable.)  Now I’m also curious how the kids set up their own rooms in the new house.  Also curious where Ben’s deductive skills might later lead him.

You are very welcome for that image.  It is a lovely one isn’t it?  And can you imagine some of the poses they’d do for photo ops (especially with how shameless Peter is?)  I also think one of the kids would manage to convince them to go out into the Preserve in those costumes to get some  nicely atmospheric shots for Malia’s blog.  At least one of those ends up on one of the walls of the house (nursery if more fantasy themed, living room/den otherwise)  I just wish I could have found better pics than Google was providing.  I refuse to believe there are that few guys that do Red Riding Hood.  I know I’ve seen it at cons before.

Ugh, I have SO MANY FEELINGS about slow dancing together, and singing to/with each other.  Just.  All the yes.  Gimme.  Which reminds me, I was listening to one of the Guardians Awesome Mixes the other day, and it occurred to me that "O-o-oh Child” would actually work fairly well for the playlist, or as a lullaby they sing to their kids (maybe a hand me down from another family member, sung together before everything went to shit, then separately as a tiny point of connection, they start using it again when the newer kids come along.  Maybe they even catch one of the older kids singing it to one of the babies?  Idk, I’m apparently having feels.)

Omg, yes, go to bed, lol!  Sleep is helpful and useful, especially when sick.  (I say, as though I’m not terrible about it as well.)  Enjoy your day off, and the probable many hours of gaming it will entail.

This is the section I changed:

The condom breaking on Noah and Peter had been one hell of a spectacle between the three of them. After what happened with him they’d been on edge and actively trying to avoid another accident. Anu, however, had other plans for them and had caused another pregnancy scare. They could only hope that they wouldn’t have to face reality once again. When Peter had told him he had three heartbeats and his scent had changed, he’d freaked out beyond belief. Merlia had bought him a pregnancy test and Talia had offered to have a talk with his father when it came back positive. He’d declined. He really didn’t want to tell his father that he was currently pregnant. And if Peter and the wolves were to believed, with twins. His father would carve his babies out of his stomach before he allowed him to carry to term. A protective hand rested on his abdomen and he looked up to find Peter staring at him, smiling.

Originally I had written that Chris wasn’t worrying and that he didn’t know he was pregnant just yet. Thanks to our back and forth, I realized, wait a second that’s a really big plot hole and I need to fix that.

I think Malia not telling Stiles was a plot hole as well, but I didn’t catch it on time and it’s not glaring in this case. (I think, I hope.) Whoops.

I’ve finished the game by now and I am very torn on it. On the one hand, I was very emotional but it just got darker and darker as it progressed and we are forced to spend time with a character we don’t like. And the way they wrote that story just doesn’t work for me. Which is really sad because the first game was my favorite game ever. And my Joel cosplay was one of the first cosplays that let me be a dude. I realized I was trans and got comfortable with that fact through cosplay. And Dean Winchester and Joel were fundamental cosplays for this. (I’m also planning a really dope Peter Hale cosplay. I’m so excited. Lemme show you some pics of what I want to do with SFX)

So this game, it’s very intense for me and I couldn’t finish it because of its story. I watched the rest on Youtube and I agree with many that it’s not a bad story, it’s just not likable. And you’re not meant to like it, but when I play games I play them for the story and to know this story is so unlikable. It kinda kills me inside.

But it definitely drives me to write a really good likable story myself. Even if it gets dark, I want people to say yeah, ok. I get it. I understand why these characters did this. But I’m happy this ended well and my favorite characters got a happy ending together. That’s what I want Once upon a Time to mean.

"O-o-oh Child” would actually work fairly well for the playlist, or as a lullaby they sing to their kids (maybe a hand me down from another family member, sung together before everything went to shit, then separately as a tiny point of connection, they start using it again when the newer kids come along.  Maybe they even catch one of the older kids singing it to one of the babies?

I loved this suggestion so much, I once again put it in the story. It’s gonna be sweet but also heart wrenching. I can’t wait to see your reaction.

And once again, I adore all of this. I just have a lot I wanna say, also in regards to your reviews and I’m trying to figure out what things I can talk about.

This story is rather full of men who are uncles, in fact. But not men who are from U.N.C.L.E., that's a different fandom entirely. Am I getting a bit slap happy? Quite possibly. Oh well.)

This had me hollering, thank you for that. I honestly don’t know what my uncle obsession is in this story. It just fits? But this was funny, my god.

"Please..." Melissa muttered. "Uncle Chris, you patented the kicked puppy look" Did you mean for that to be Derek?

Yeah, the lines were supposed to be :

"Please..." Melissa muttered. 

"Uncle Chris, you patented the kicked puppy look" 

I missed that one in the edit, but I fixed it! So there was a space that I missed. New line, new character saying something.

Had a moment of delayed reaction to noticing that Peter says "I've made these", not "I've had these made" (was too excited and reading too quickly the first time), and like, made as in carved himself?

I was wondering why that hadn’t come up yet, hahaha, but I see. And yeah, he carved it himself with his own claws. I thought that had a deeper meaning and that’s where the wood carving headcanon came from.

I think that’s everything that I can address right now. I’m definitely writing everything else down.

And I will definitely share a sweet little flashback today and find a good FC for John Hale. (Nathaniel, Talia, Merlia, and Peter’s dad.)

I’m thinking:

But if you have any suggestions feel free to let me know ^^

[motorcyclegirlfriends]

Also, people view Chyler as like a LGBT champion(and I do find her amazing, don't misunderstand), but her and Melissa are really close. She's said in an interview her kids call her aunt Melissa. So like, if people really champion Chyler that much, shouldn't people trust her judgment of Melissa a bit more. Like she's actually speaks to her and knows her personally.

But if you confront these fans with that, they’d likely come up with a reason that Chyler actually hates Melissa now. 

Off the top of my head, they’d say something like… 

“Chyler didn’t defend Melissa on social media, so she must be angry with her. These tweets that happened after SDCC-

-were created by the Supergirl publicist. You can tell by how they copied the two girls dancing together from her past tweets about their sisterhood, before she realized what Melissa is really like. The emoji of the girls doesn’t even make sense here lmao the Supergirl publicist is so bad at their job omfg”

or alternatively, closer to what I’ve actually seen regarding this-

“Chlyer probably doesn’t even know about the SDCC event. Or she only heard it from their side. She would probably agree with us if she knew what really happened, but she might never know how Melissa really is.”

There’s been a general tendency to frame the actors of Supergirl who are on good terms within this fandom against the actors who are not, at all logical costs.

And so as soon as the fandom has issue with an actor, even if they all previously were perceived as having an amicable or close relationship with the other members of the cast, the fandom will suddenly act like the “good” cast members hate this cast member. 

For instance,

David

When the musical recap first dropped, people were making posts that put thoughts into David Harewood’s head, proposing that he was embarrassed by Melissa and Jeremy.

The infamous letter to Melissa’s publicist even said “[…] save for Katie Mcgrath and David Harewood who appeared uncomfortable […]”

And that’s what most fans on that side of the debate seemed to believe.

But then David tweeted-

Which just speaks to how flawed many fans’ interpretations of the meaning behind the cast’s actions are.

So now he’s on the other side of the line, and the fans have moved from acting like he’s super close with Katie and Odette and they’re all against Mel and Jeremy, to acting like the ‘good guys’ actually hate him too.

Mechad

Mehcad’s fallout is weirder, because it felt like some fans initially didn’t want him on the ‘good side,’ though I do remember seeing post that were pro- Katie, David, and Mechad vs the rest of the cast before they turned around.

I’d been kind of avoiding people who were overreacting to the event by the time the anger spread to Mehcad, but looking back at Mehcad’s tag, people thought he said “Zitta” ( “shut up,” in Italian) in response to Katie saying that art can be interpreted in many different ways (referring to supercorp). And then I think? I remember seeing more criticisms, based on that belief, of Mehcad speaking Italian? Don’t take my word for it.

But he really rather clearly was saying “take that.” (Watch this. Op thought Mehcad said “Take that” then “zitta zitta”, but in the second instance he was actually saying “take tha take tha” quickly. Look away from the video when it says “Zitta zitta” and listen for the “t” sound in the beginning of the phrase.)

Because this is such a big leap to me, I do wonder if those who believed it wanted to be angry with Mehcad. And the originator of this idea didn’t appear to speak italian, so it’s not as naturally occurring a mishearing, which makes me wonder if they were looking for it to be negative.

Then Mehcad responded to someone’s comment on instagram (I’m not sure if he’s said anything else about it) and people had a somewhat less ridiculous reason to “cancel” him.

Note: “I’m a member of the HRC so I can’t be homophobic” is an incredibly misleading simplification of what happened

A piece of the comment he responded to, relevant sections to his response bolded:

“You don’t get to decide if we the queer fans you supposedly support can or cannot be sad over this because even tho you supported the community at some point it doesn’t come as genuine right now when we see things like that horrible interview in which only katie mcgrath was demonstrating to be a real ally in defending the fans views, that’s how you treat your fans who have supported you through this years and helped this show get bigger! […] 

So next time try to educate yourself before speaking […]”

His response:

“don’t post to my page again if you’re going to be rude. I don’t supposedly support anyone. I’m a member of the HRC. I’ve consistently supported all human rights. Race and preference included. You don’t know me. Do your research.”

Essentially, he was responding to accusations that he is ingenue in his support of lgbt+ rights and accusations that he is uneducated about lgbt+ issues.

Kind of, ‘I don’t supposedly support queer ppl, I actively support them.’

He wasn’t saying “I am a member of the HRC so that gives me a free pass,” he was responding directly to an accusation that he isn’t a real ally.

Side note: My own issue with “only katie mcgrath was demonstrating to be a real ally in defending the fans views” - 

Not only did Katie initially laugh at the musical recap (before remembering the wlw fans that she, more than anyone in the cast, has had contact with. These fans have followed her and interacted with her since her “breakout” so she’s likely the most sensitive to their possible reactions), but Mehcad also supported Katie’s affirmation that fans can read what they want from the show with his “take that”, and also showed a visible reluctance to support Jeremy when he said that he debunked Supercorp.

Which makes the anti-Mehcad upsurge kinda sad because he seemed to be on Supercorp’s side, in a way.

Side note, similar to the Mehcad situation:

“Melissa said ‘I can’t be homophobic because I was on Glee’” is again, incredibly misleading.

There is of course some question of the validity of the note, but assuming that it’s real, this is the actual quote from Melissa’s publicist (not Melissa herself. Honestly I guarantee that she hasn’t even read the letter):

“You’ve indicted people who are genuine ambassadors of acceptance, compassion and equality and have proven as much, not on only Glee but on SUPERGIRL and in their own personal lives.”

Her publicist said this kind of within the context of ‘advice’, saying things such as, “However, as an activist, it’s very important that you take a step back before inflicting public scorn.”

My read was that it wasn’t an argument against Melissa being homophobic, but an argument for the writer to think about what she’s doing. To consider that she’s punishing people who want to help and have tried to help, for things they didn’t do.

(Of course, someone who wrote a letter “on behalf of LGBT women” would feel "disrespected and patronized" by advice and criticisms from someone with professional experience in public relations)

(I also wonder if the publicist kinda knew that Glee wasn’t enough, considering her phrasing of “not on only Glee.” But I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t realize that Glee isn’t exactly highly regarded in lgbt+ spaces. It’s not a discourse straight people are usually familiar with.)

But putting the words “I can’t be homophobic because I was on Glee” into Melissa’s mouth is ridiculous and a move made only to further tarnish her image on this website.

Melissa

Before any of this, a lot of Supercorp fans wanted to put Melissa in the “demon” category. 

Any news that was ambiguous in meaning was read in the worst possible light until there was a backlash in the form of a more positive interpretation (usually from Supercorp shippers who like Kara), and they’d back off for a bit.

Now I’m not sure if this was in response to Melissa beginning to date Chris Wood, or because of an urge to prop up Katie Mcgrath as the one who deserves more attention than the lead. Maybe both. (Maybe neither, I’m open to alternate interpretations.)

Chris

Chris had a falling out, but they never put him on the good side. He was neutral/in waiting for the bad side because of who he plays.

But they couldn’t “strike,” so to speak, because Chris Wood himself hadn’t actually done anything. There was likely some degree of anti-Chris posts, but there were also regular reminders from the some bloggers that, “Chris Wood is not Mon-El, don’t send him hate.”

Then, I think it was his first (?) video interview about Supergirl in which he very clearly liked Mon-El and Karamel, and that was enough reason for him to be considered evil incarnated.

And so the “Chris Wood is not Mon-El” posts died down in response to the idea that ‘he endorses Mon-El’s behavior.’

(My read of Wood is that he knows that Mon-El isn’t like… Doing the Right Things, but sympathizes with him and thinks he is getting better. Over sympathizes. He thinks it’s interesting or compelling or whatever, like a lot of people do. As a society we have way too much sympathy and interest for man-children and their ‘accidental misogyny’ turned ‘okay person’. But it’s not an uncommon reaction to this kind of character, across the board. 

At this stage in the recognition of this trope’s problems, it’s the kind of issue we should work on, not one that we should completely renounce people for enjoying.

I mean, I’m not exactly the biggest fan of the guy and have some degree of issue with other things, but Mon-El’s actions are still not Chris’ actions. I’ll criticize him for things he actually does, thanks.)

But when Melissa started dating Chris, it became impossible for people to say things like “Save Melissa from having to act along side Chris” or “She looks so pained in her scenes with him, compared to with Katie” because we all knew that she definitely likes the guy. 

And sort of accusing Chris of abusing Melissa and forcing her to stay in the relationship, they had to accept that she enjoys his company. (That would be a step too far. But I do wonder if it might have escalated to that point in the future.)

So she couldn’t 100% be on the good side, because she didn’t hate the people on the bad side. But she also couldn’t be on the bad side, because then Katie would have to hate her. And then there goes Supercorp.

…But then Odette came on the scene, just as Melissa participated in saying that Kara and Lena are only friends.

And with the announcement that Lena and Reign are somehow connected, fans who were frustrated with not being able to condemn Melissa are given free ‘reign’.

This is why people are shipping reigncorp, because they have new blood who couldn’t possibly have done anything to upset fans yet, and they can easily divide the cast into people they hate and people the love.

But the only person who is truly safe is Katie Mcgrath, not only because she has a lot more experience with wlw fans and knows what not to say and because she doesn’t have any social media to say the wrong thing on, but because she is their favorite. 

And so no matter what happens, she is always going to be on the good side.

So the argument that Chyler loves Melissa and is a good judge of character will not work.

But if tomorrow, Melissa Benoist said she loves Katie Mcgrath, and Katie Mcgrath said Melissa is a really good person, the fans might suddenly shift Melissa to the good side. 

Because they see the world in black and white, but their fave is more their moral compass than anything else.