#for context a tweet i made in the middle of the night blew the fuck up and brought the attention of anime fans who've been

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[sienna27]

TWD Spoilers - How it’s Gotta Be (8x08)

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Huge fucking sigh to open these comments.  WHY?  ! Because we were RIGHT back to the fuckery of last season wherein nobody that we wanted to see was on the GOD DAMN SCREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

FUCK!!!!!

Seriously, no joke, Rick had about seven minutes, five of those were at the end.  Carol and Daryl (SEPARATELY, I’ve had enough of that bullshit) had maybe six to seven.  Tara and Rosita had probably seven to eight minutes because they got that extra little opening scene together.  And I actually remember when they were filming this episode because Norman would be randomly tweeting in what was the middle of the night EST, and I’m now wondering what the hell they had him doing all that time, because I can’t believe it took them like nine days to film that tiny bit of on air time that he had.  I’m sure he showed up just to watch some stuff that he wasn’t in, but still.  I was honestly shocked that the core cast had so little screen time after this whole season finally turning that stupidity around.  It’s like the producers just can’t learn and retain information about the things we don’t want.  

Now bullets on random things, then some commentary.

Tara being funny and sarcastic.  Missed that.  It kind of reminded me that I just genuinely miss the show being ‘enjoyable’ where our little core group was a family that spent actual time together.  

So glad they offed Oceanside Grandma.  One more needless, named, character removed.

If they’ve always had these magic exit tunnels under Alexandria then maybe they could have used them the last time Negan showed up to huff and puff and blow the walls down.  Just saying.

Also not disappointed that they demolished Alexandria and totally fucked up both the Saviors compound and the Kingdom.  The only way we’re going to downsize the cast is to downsize the damn communities.  It does annoy me that The Hilltop set is the only one currently, completely, intact, because it is my least favorite location (besides Oceanside) but one thing at a time.  I believe I said a few episodes back that I’d be fine if they ended this season on the road finding a new camp to settle in.  I’m still fine with that ending because the show was/is always at its best when it’s the core group out in the world, just surviving.  

Maggie getting teary after shooting that Savior was very out of character so I’m chalking that up to pregnancy hormones, but it better not happen again.  She did what needed to be done there and yes, she should have been ‘regretful’ that it came to that, but again, actual tears, didn’t work for me.  It made her seem ‘feminine weak’ if that makes sense.  Also, if she was going to kill a random Savior it should have been that douchebag Jared who had demonstrated (to her) that he was dangerous (we already know what he did before they ever got there), but yeah, kill the Red Shirt who did nothing to anyone instead because that makes no sense.  Just like killing the Red Shirt Hilltop guy in the car.  Literally NOBODY cared that you shot that dude in the head!  I don’t even think he had a name until Maggie mentioned it for burial!   But whatever, this is the kind of crap that is annoying.  Opportunities to get rid of the detritus, and they just leave them there.

I muted most of the Negan/Carl crap at the gate because I don’t want to listen to Negan talk anymore.  And God knows I don’t want to hear that whistle.  I was actually SO pleased with Rick saying to him later on, “don’t you ever shut up,” because that’s exactly what I was thinking too.  Dude, just shut the fuck up.  And that episode with Negan being so pervy in the trailer with Father Gabriel (remember he talked about dicks like constantly) ruined the character for me.  Not that I was a big fan of the character to start, but he’d lost whatever cool factor he had and just ended that whole thing as coming off as a pathetic tool.  So all I could think even seeing him onscreen tonight was ‘God he’s such a tool,’ and how much I want him off my show.  Unfortunately he didn’t die but Christ I’m just done with the war.  I don’t even want to watch 8B if this shit isn’t going to be wrapped in the first episode back.  

And I already knew that Carl was leaving because that was the only way to interpret the season premiere.  Really based on Rick’s devastation it was either him or Michonne and I didn’t  think it likely that they’d kill off their only other black heroine right after they killed Sasha, so that ruined any surprise Carl’s death might have been.  Which in retrospect made that whole foreshadowing thing kind of dumb.  Though I guess not everyone really thought he was going to be offed because he’s in the core cast, but to me it seemed obvious enough that they did blow the suspense. MUCH in the same way that they blew the suspense in the premiere itself by pre-releasing most of the scenes in the official trailers.  I don’t know who is in charge of that shit, if it really is AMC pushing them to release more to be ‘tantalizing’ but Jesus they need to stop.  I don’t seek out any spoilers and I still end up seeing most of these twists coming because they SHOW us, they’re coming.  It’s just a bad way to run a series and I don’t understand their angle in doing it.  

Anyway, back to Carl’s death, not to sound like a douche, but he was never a favorite anyway so I had no emotional reaction.  They spent too much time making him a little brat the first couple of seasons, then they turned him into a borderline sociopath/total dick to both his mom and his dad, before it finally became Farmer Rick and the Semi-Redemption of Carl.  But by then I was just eh, about him because again, too much time making him act like a little schmuck to really get on board with being a fan.  I’m sorry for Rick’s sake that he’s dead, or will be, because clearly this will break his heart and Andy will SHOW us that broken heart, but that’s about it.   

Also, side point here, super annoyed that yet again they have Carol off saving the Kingdom rather than being with Team Family when someone dies!  I mean WTF?!  That’s HER group, she’s been with Carl from the beginning, and yet again removing her from the trauma of the moment, makes her connection with them, LESS.  It genuinely irks me.  I guess Carl could maybe live long enough for her to reunite with them in time to say goodbye but I sincerely doubt it.  That’s going to have to be an FF thing. 

The only good thing to come out of this episode was Daryl getting his vest back, (actually ripping it off of Dwight was good) and this image right here below of him and Judith.  And I do understand that only about 72 hours have passed in their world, but seriously if Carol and Daryl aren’t back on screen together by say, the end of the first episode of 8B, I’m out.  I do genuinely believe the plan is to put them together this season, but they’ve used up ALL of their goodwill on dragging it out.  They’re already going to lose a percentage of viewers for killing off Carl (he has a vocal little contingency) so why would they continue to piss off this portion of the fandom when ALL they have to do is give us a proper, CANON, scene with them kissing/confirming they are now together, and they know that we will all then stick with them to the end?!  It’s just so STUPID to not knock that out!  I don’t know.  I mean obviously I know it’s just a TV show, but stupid, pointless, things irk me in any context.  And denying us that one moment (and again separating Carol from the group) when it would engender SO much good will, is utterly baffling.  It’s the basic fucked up principle of any ‘will they or won’t they’ couple ever, in that they drag it out to the very last minute, and then complain that viewership fell off after they put X characters together.  NO!  Viewership fell off because you WAITED to put X characters together until nobody gave a fuck about your damn show anymore.  This goes back to Moonlighting and The X Files and Bones, and Castle and honestly, every damn show.  They all do it this exact way, and everytime the viewers gets sick of it and say fuck it, then the producers are all, ‘oh no wait, look, look, kissing!’  Too late.  We’re done.  I don’t want to be done, but they’re working my last nerve.  

So anyway, finish up here with the sweet picture of Daryl and Judith.  More of this would be good also.

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[stvlti]

11 Questions

i was tagged by @privatekururugi, @espiadimonis, and @transguynoriaki a while ago. each gave me a set of 11 questions to answer, so i will answer these 33 questions. i’m not gonna tag anyone in particular, but if you see this do feel free to have a go at any or all of these sets of 11q’s.

from @privatekururugi:

1) Do you have any specific diet you go by? (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Paleo, etc.) i used to be pescetarian, but then the deficiencies it gave me caused some pretty bad dental / gum problems, so i started eating a bit of lean chicken and pork on the side again... (yeah i know supplements exist, but even my nutrition major of a friend thought a pescetarian diet won’t yield deficiencies, and also supplements are fairly expensive. get off my case)

2&3) Do you have any siblings? If so, how close are you? nope, i’m an only child

4&5) What’s your favourite book and why? (I might want to read it lol) hmm. i still really like 1984, it was the first dystopian classic i read and the concept of Newspeak, tampering with historical authenticity on such grand scales, etc. just blew my mind. so even though i still dislike its weakass character-writing (p much anyone besides Winston has no personality, no distinct personal motives, etc), it’s got a soft spot in my heart. next to that i also liked A Clockwork Orange for the philosophical discussion of the nature of right and wrong (although in hindsight the story is a bit didactic); To Live by Yu Hua (the ill-fated episodes and tragic ends are made all the more absurd by the subtle and simply narration style, but it really is a humbling and informative experience for us readers of a different era and socioeconomic background); and of course, my favourite fable, A Little Prince.

6) Would you describe your personality as dominate or submissive overall? what the fuck kind of question is this. well i’m opinionated as heck, so i’m not submissive “personality-wise”. and that’s all i’ll say on the matter because i’m p sex-indifferent lol, if that’s what this question was trying to get at.

7) What are your dreams usually like at night? oh man. i usually don’t dream normal dreams; as in, most dreams i have is either one big adventure / story, or some bizarre situation that would have been questionable at best, fucked up at worst, in real life context. when i start dreaming about mundane everyday life problems or situations, like failing a test or being stuck with a friend i’ve cut off from my life years ago, that’s usually when i’ve got some kind of stress going on in my life.

(i’ve been trying to restart my dream journal tag actually, but i got stuck on my second entry trying to recall the specifics lol. maybe i should release entry #3 from the drafts first.)

8) Is there anything you’re currently anxious about? well, yeah. my future. my job prospects. being homeless once my parents decide to sell their house off for retirement because the housing prices are through the roof here. pick one.

9&10) Are you looking forward to Thanksgiving? Will you be contributing anything? we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving!

11) Whose your favourite Death Note character (if you have one)?  Light Yagami, even though he’s a slimy fox.

from @transguynoriaki:

1. What kind of music do you listen to?

hmm, i only listen to really slow music or something dark or rock-ish, nothing in between!! muahahaha!! 

okay that’s generalising it; i do love The Honey Trees and The Novembers, which are on opposite ends of the “slow” spectrum (one’s dream pop, the other’s infused with shoegaze and other distortions + some screamy vocals and loud noises at times), with Lana Del Rey and her decadent sounds smack in the middle lol. but yeah i certainly have a taste for the more atmospheric stuff, so aside from the fuzzy feelings of The Novembers’ stuff and the grandness of Lana’s string instrumentals i also like the darker chill vibes you get from The Neighbourhood, some of The Weeknd’s older stuff, etc. 

and I also really enjoy MCR, Muse and the like - i.e. dramatic sounds, that’s the good shit to me haha.

i also like more conventional pop acts like Lorde... and my fave local singer, Ivana Wong, of course!

2. Do you prefer to keep your living space neat and tidy or do you like a certain amount of mess?

i do prefer order and routine in my life, sadly if i can’t do that on a structural level you think i can do that with my desk?! lol. in an alternate universe, maybe.

3. What was the first ship you remember really shipping?

hmm probably TerraxBeast Boy from CN’s Teen Titans. i was lukewarm / indifferent to other canon pairings i’ve seen in media up until that point; but i guess i was more persuaded by the storyline than their characterisations as looking back there are glaring trust issues in their relationship (and that’s an understatement)

4. Do you have a certain show or book series that holds a lot of nostalgic value for you? If so, what was it?

hmm, i guess Courage the Cowardly Dog? (i was a weird kid but shush) and Teen Titans of course. as for books, hmm... ASoUE is definitely one of the ones that just takes me back to middle school. i even bought the Beatrice letters files thingy. tbf the whole Lemony Snicket universe did teach me a lot about cryptography, which i guess if me or a friend of mine were to do an L rp and solve cases it would help a lot (*cough* not saying that’s what’s happening right now because i’ve got other stuff i’m investing my time into. i guess my friend’s gonna make themselves scarce as well hahaha *cue Mariah Carey’s i can’t read gif except it’s L*)

5. What is your favorite type of food?

Italian and Japanese are my fave cuisines! i guess that means i love richly-flavoured foods and creamy stuff. ooh, love those sauces.

6. Was there ever a fad or activity from your childhood that you could never understand or get into?

i wasn’t a gamer at all. we didn’t own a single console and i wasn’t allowed to get a handheld. the most i had was a Tamagotchi. so i guess it’s not so much i never got that ‘fad’, just that i was never given the opportunity to discover the really good games. i’ve only ever played a bit of Mario Kart or Cooking Mama on my cousin’s NDS so yeah. didn’t see the appeal in the more light-hearted games like that.

(now that i’ve played Undertale i’m kinda wanting to explore more PC games though. i heard Papers Please is good, and PJ (@kickthepj)’s been recommending Hyper Light Drifter a lot, and the art looks amazing, so yeah... too broke to get them though... and even if i had the money and time to play them i’d be allocating it towards other stuff you know?)

7. What’s your favorite time of day?

well i got 2 fave time periods. the first one’s the witching hours between midnight and early morning, when the world is quiet and you could do anything and nobody would know. the other one is early morning, just after sunrise, and the air is clear and slightly chilly, and it’s also really quiet but you can just hear the birds tweeting somewhere.

i’m more likely to be awake for the first time period described here though... ._.

8. What’s your favorite type flower and why?

hmm i'm not really a flower person. i’m just gonna steal Luke’s answer and say cactus flowers haha (well i do like cacti, they’re some of my favourite plants; i even named my IG/Twitter and Pokemon Go usernames after the plant; also some of you might remember that i had a pet cactus for 8 months)

9. What’s your favorite cliché/trope in fiction?

lovers running out of time...

10. Did/do you do any extracurricular activities when you were in school and what were they?

(wow Luke that’s a lot on your resume!)

i did bits and bobs throughout school, but perhaps my longest commitment was my Clarinet lessons. started when i was in Year 2, carried on until i obtained a Pass in Grade 8 ABRSM certificate in Year 10. i had to quit and give up on a diploma there because i was starting the IB diploma programme in Year 11...

this commitment is only rivalled by the dance classes i took. i did ballet from a young age until i was about 12~13, quitting just before en pointe shoes were introduced; i had also been in Chinese dance lessons from Year 1, so after quitting ballet i just focused on that until Year 10 as well (again, quitting to focus on my full-time diploma).

i also did Taekwondo as a child and obtained a black belt qualification by age 12. i quit once i did though, because again i couldn’t afford to juggle so many commitments the older i got and the more demanding my studies became.

perhaps the proudest extracurricular i’ve done is in my senior years of high school: i started and chaired the student committee as the editor in-chief for the school’s first student-ran and seasonal (now monthly) publication. it’s not student-ran either anymore because i guess the kids that came after the classes of 2014, 2015, and 2016 just dgaf about slightly more demanding extracurriculars that require organisation as long as they can earn their credits elsewhere (yes i’m salty, i’m allowed to be okay, it was my brainchild but apparently kids these days don’t care about having their voices heard if it means having to negotiate diplomacy with the adults in charge. god, how do they expect to survive in uni or in a workplace?)

11. What’s your favorite piece of work that you’ve ever created and what about it do you love so much?

hmm. i think for sure the prose poem i wrote about Light’s death in the anime. idk, the flow and the imagery is just a good concentrated example of what i could be capable of given the right tone and context. (of course, i’ve been trying hard to branch out in genres and forms, so that sort of language isn’t always applicable. but yeah, it remains my fave as a showcase of my best writing abilities ^_^)

and from @espiadimonis​:

1.If you could have one piece of death note merchandise of any kind, what would it be?

oh man! i’ve been pining after the Hot Topic official DN poker card deck for quite some time! i’ve checked Blue Banana while i was in the UK, but it’s not available there, and it’s not at Tokyo Toys either (they do sell a DN playing card deck, but it’s a lot cheaper in design :/)

2.What’s your favourite 3D animated movie?

does Lego Batman count? if not, then i guess Zootopia.

(there’s a reason these 2 are listed in my bio fandoms list like...)

3.What superpower would you like to have?

i used to always choose levitation / flying, but lately i’m not so sure. i’ve heard a lot of compelling arguments for other powers haha.

you know what, i’d trade for something as simple as better control of my own brain. i don’t care about mind control over others; i just want to be able to harness the best parts of my lightning fast thought processes and out-of-the-box thinking on my best days without being constantly tripped up by executive dysfunction like that on a metacognitive level.

4.Favourite piece of clothing?

my soft furry hoodie, which i’m wearing right now! <3

5.Who’s your favourite Sailor Scout?

i don’t have one, sorry! i was 4 when it aired on TV, so i don’t remember much from those years except the Sailor Moon t shirt i got courtesy of my aunt because it was all the rage back then... i’m sorry, but i have more vivid memories of Pretty Cure and Sugar Sugar Rune!

6.Do you prefer potato chips chocolate?

it is a good combo for sure! we are talking about Royce’s chocolate potato chips, right? (if you haven’t tried it get some next time you or a friend/family goes to Japan! we can buy it locally from like Citysuper or something, but i doubt they export it to any countries beyond East Asia haha)

7.What song makes you feel melancholic?

oh, Six Billion did last week. it left me feeling cold all over. an effect from the combination of the layered vocals and the instrumentals i guess. (is it in minor key? i’m sorry i can’t tell anymore, it’s been far too long since i’ve had any musical training. but if it’s in minor key it would explain why.)

there’s also some of the stuff off The Novembers’ catalogue... mostly 終わらない境界 from To (melt into), which was my daily commuting soundtrack at a time when i had brainfog on a regular basis, so yeah, anxiety and all that fun stuff :/

8.Which dn character would you invite to Spaceland(the amusement park)?

Sayu or Matsuda? they deserve a lot more than the hand canon dealt them. hmm maybe Rem too? but she wouldn’t be able to interact with a lot of the stuff there :/

9.What’s the funniest movie you ever watched?

i guess The Lego Batman Movie? i’m sorry i know i keep bringing this film up, but it’s comedic genius for a “kid’s movie”.

10.You can only choose one pokémon! Which one do you choose?

Blissey was gonna be my go to answer. she’s a tank, have you seen her? but is she really my fave mon? debatable. idk man. i really liked Vulpix/Ninetales as a kid... but dark and ghost types though!! okay i can’t choose, next question 

11.What made you happy recently?

i went to another poetry event last night and i met up with a friend i haven’t seen since September :P