#fun fact I colored this at first to look like he was from the 70s

[starfiresky]

Did a little redesign of Riku and his oversized car key ✨

[morlock-holmes]

I recently found this article about Robin DiAngelo and it's really stuck in my head now. This woman is so instructive about the underlying psychological processes animating us in the early 20s, and it's totally unintentional, which makes her fascinating to me.

Partway through her presentation, DiAngelo asked us, “What are some of the ways your race has shaped your life?” She told us to give our answers to each other and added that if we were white and happened to be sitting beside someone of color, we were forbidden to ask the person of color to speak first. It might be good policy, mostly, for white people to do more listening than talking, but, she said with knowing humor, it could also be a subtle way to avoid blunders, maintain a mask of sensitivity and stay comfortable. She wanted the white audience members to feel as uncomfortable as possible.

In our group of three, Southern, who is white, went first. Like Woods, she was already steeped in DiAngelo’s ideas; Southern had led two church book groups in discussing “White Fragility.” She was fully persuaded that, as she said to me afterward, “we’re all racist in that we’re swimming in a culture that is racist,” and that “we don’t think, as white people, of white as a race that comes with all kinds of conditioning.” Yet, in the moment, in response to DiAngelo’s question, she struggled. She couldn’t articulate much of anything about how she’d been shaped by being white.

I went next. I, too, was ready for everything I heard from DiAngelo. In fact, I knew this very question was coming. Just the day before, I’d been to a session she ran for a fractious city department that agreed to let me watch as long as I didn’t describe the event; the department’s equity team had brought her in to spur white self-awareness. But I had failed to speak about my whiteness as formative. That is, I noted that my color gave me infinite advantages, but the words, while sincere, were passionless. I emphasized instead that three of my five nonfiction books were about race, that I thought about race constantly, that back in junior high my best friend was one of the few Black students in my school, part of an experimental busing program in the early ’70s, and that the way our friendship ended still haunted me, that I’d betrayed him badly.

At some point after our answers, DiAngelo poked fun at the myriad ways that white people “credential” themselves as not-racist. I winced. I hadn’t meant to imply that I was anywhere close to free of racism, yet was I “credentialing”? And today, after a quick disclaimer acknowledging the problem with what I was about to do, I heard myself offering up, again, these same nonracist bona fides and neglecting to speak about the effects of having been soaked, all my life, by racist rain. I was, DiAngelo would have said, slipping into the pattern she first termed “white fragility” in an academic article in 2011: the propensity of white people to fend off suggestions of racism, whether by absurd denials (“I don’t see color”) or by overly emotional displays of defensiveness or solidarity (DiAngelo’s book has a chapter titled “White Women’s Tears” and subtitled “But you are my sister, and I share your pain!”) or by varieties of the personal history I’d provided.

This is like some fucking 70s EST or scientology brainwashing shit.

Like, look at the list of responses to this question:

If you deny that being white shaped your life, that's White Fragility;

If you are too eager to show solidarity, that's White Fragility;

If you share personal history, that's White Fragility

If you talk about times when you were made aware of racism, that's White Fragility;

It seems like pretty much every single thing a white person could possibly say in response to that question is "White Fragility".

DiAngelo is clear that we're all inherently racist, but I want you to attend to the emotions that the author, Daniel Bergner expresses. He and his white colleague are eager to participate, and they know, and have heard, that their participation will be racist, but their primary emotions are anxiety and shame.

They are convinced that they have somehow shamefully failed at a very important task, despite the fact that DiAngelo is very, very clear that there is no way to succeed.

More than that, they feel shame at their desire to succeed, and anxiety at the idea of not trying to succeed.

Honestly as you keep track of the article watch how good DiAngelo is at subordinating people:

The surge of attention, DiAngelo told me, made her at once leery and hopeful. She worried that the posts were “performative,” the book “just a badge.” Yet, she said, “there’s a sense of scales falling from people’s eyes,” mostly because of the killings of Floyd and, before that, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, but also, she believed, because of the work she and her antiracism colleagues have been doing. She felt a similar mix about the ASAP emails from corporations. “The very urgency itself says you don’t have a very deep understanding of how hard this work is, and how long it takes and how ongoing it needs to be,” she said. “Racism is not going to go away by August, so how about we do it in August?”

Being too excited to start being antiracist is evidence of how bad you are at being antiracist!

This woman is a terrifying menace.

What struck me reading both White Fragility and this article is the way that this way of talking and thinking distracts extremely heavily from concrete action. Everything pulls into an increasingly subjective, and religious realm, and the question of what we're actually trying to do recedes back into the fog:

Singleton spoke along similar lines. I asked whether guiding administrators and teachers to put less value, in the classroom, on capacities like written communication and linear thinking might result in leaving Black kids less ready for college and competition in the labor market. “If you hold that white people are always going to be in charge of everything,” he said, “then that makes sense.” He invoked, instead, a journey toward “a new world, a world, first and foremost, where we have elevated the consciousness, where we pay attention to the human being.” The new world, he continued, would be a place where we aren’t “armed to distrust, to be isolated, to hate,” a place where we “actually love.”

Bergner, and basically everybody he interviews, have gotten so excited to tell us whether this is a good idea or a bad one that they have forgotten to explain what "this" actually is.

I want you to do something brave. For a moment, forget that you and I think that it is utterly asinine to devalue "written communication" and let's agree with Singleton, putting emphasis on it is an example of white supremacist thinking.

Let's also pretend that we are teachers. What are we doing differently?

What specific classroom policy are we putting into place?

Are we eliminating all written classroom material?

Are we allowing social studies students to choose whether they prefer to give reports orally or as a finished written document?

Are we doing exactly what we were doing yesterday but trying to keep in mind that we shouldn't assume that a student is stupid just because they struggle with reading?

You'll notice that the range of options goes from "Insane radical thing that the school will never do" to "Something so obvious that basically any sane person will agree that it's a good idea"

You'll also notice that it's like pulling teeth to get anybody to actually put things into concrete terms like that (None of the people interviewed for that article is capable of doing so).

Hell, you know what I didn't notice until just now?

During a training in January 2019 run by [Darnisa] Amante-Jackson , which Chislett recorded, Amante-Jackson...went on to present “some characteristics of whiteness,” prominent among them “an obsession with the written word. If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist.”

During a later session a white employee causes a giant stir by... wait for it...

Refusing to write on a poster during a brain-storming session.

This is the powerful hypnosis these people are working; you and I can listen to them talk about "obsession with the written word" and it doesn't occur to them or us to ask why so much of their anti-racist workshop revolves around the written word, revolves around demands to use the written word, and grinds to a halt when people refuse.

[spottheantisemitism]

"what if the X-men were black?" is a racist, antisemitic and anti-intersectional screed that 2013 tumblr fell in love with

Published in 2013 this made rounds of OG tumblr and made Bobby of Pencilscratchins draw all her Jewish X-men characters as brown.

Erik because he has Romani heritage (which is realistic and based and accurate to some comics).

Anon go kick rocks with your colorism! YOU read holocaust testimonies!

Also fun fact Nazi Germany did not understand black and brown the way Americans do so it was based on ethnicity and not color, a brown Jew and a pale white passing Jew were seen as one and the same to the Nazis

Guess which article she linked

It's this one!

But said Kitty was Latine because "the quintessential X-girl of the 70s shouldn't be white"

Kitty already is a queer woman of color because she's Jewish. Jews are POC. Bobby what the hell? Are you implying she's only coded non-white because she's Jewish or Mutant? what the hell?!

(BTW Bobby left Tumblr around Covid but if you send her hate asks because of this essay you'll end up on spot-the-antisemitism blocklist for harrasment)

Where did she get this "Jews are white and should be race lifted?" stuff? Why from Orion!

Top paragraph is fine!

antisemitism is written the gentile way that supports a racist eugenicist, off to a bad start.

Sexism is not covered? OH explain Storm's arcs of misogynoir or Jean's and Maddy's arc of going insane because she has the power of a god but is forced to be housewife and marry her sweetheart and have kids

Ableism is not explored? I'm sorry what about XAVIER'S ENTIRE ARC OF ABLIEST SELF HATRED AND OVERCOMING IT IN THE PREQUELS? The first class all being rich talented codedly disabled kids going to a prep school for the gifted. Disabled people really liking non human passing characters like Nightcrawler (and hating Xavier since he's too assimilationist to many). I'm sorry why do people fall for such blatant lies? the mentor of the X-men is literally canonically disabled and Orion has the GALL to claim ableism is not explored.

_ Genosha is half fall of south Africa Apartheid and half the establishment of the state of Israel hence why the metaphor is so messy and problematic

_ Yes that number is deliberately "like the holocaust but worse" because Morrison likes their holocaust appopriation

_ Why didn't you mention it's an allegory for Gay conversion therapy torture because Bryan Singer is gay?

_ Yes Legacy Virus is Mutant Aids good job on your media literacy finally kicking in Orion

It's racism AND antisemitism but your "antisemtism doesn't exist in america" ass doesn't get that

I do hate "mutie" as slur and the way Kitty thinks it's comparable to antisemtic and anti-black slurs and USES them to make a point, so yeah something Orion and I agree on.

The sequence used is of Stevie Hunter the human ally character who like Xavier started teaching after she became disabled. She IS used as prop here to say Kitty is right in calling her the n-word (Claremont is racist sometimes).

But Orion can't tell her apart from Storm. Buddy if you can't tell the ONLY two black women in this comic apart, you're the racist.

OK they're both props but it proves you never actually read the comics or you can't tell fictional black women apart neither of which is a good look

(Cole also points out the Kitty and Magneto are not White but Jewish he is dogpiled and called a fake fan for this (see below))

Keep Shyminksy out of your mouth you racist fake fan

OH NO! I hate this!

So you decided to go with the colorist idea that the man is darker and the innocent girl in need of protecting is lighter. Gross colorism worthy of a Hollywood action movie where the black guy dies

"Local black man can't related to white disabled teens facing ableism and makes it about racism so he can relate to it" is giving gamergate chud energy to me

If you can't see why a Russian man is almost killed by a mob of xenophobic red blooded Americans and HAVE to make this about anti-black racism that's on you and your misunderstanding of the way Russians were hated during the cold war.

Oh you are race swapping x-men while shitting on Psylocke who the result of basically the same idea? How hypocritical

Dwayne McDuffe does have a point but your quote does not utilize his point in any way.

Then DON'T raceswap Wolverine if he becomes the angry black man. Think before you can X-men racism and tokenism WORSE with your race-swapping

NO THEY DON'T strawman rejected

Ah yes! Magneto, famously a very white man whose childhood was full of white privilege/ Sarcasm

One of the co-authors of the website has the gall to double down on calling Magneto white:

"as a REAL fan you're fake fan, antisemitism doesn't exist and Holocaust survivor Jews are white" - this racist defending his token black friend's racist screed because some guy called Cole DARED call Orion on his bullshit

*"I didn't like that the X-men were about white passing and invislbe disability so I made about anti black racism" also "judiasm is just a religion" canard

**Again leave Shyminksy and Morrison's good takes alone

***Yeah you get Luke Cage, that's how you get the racism of bad Luke Cage comics. You ain't inventing the racist wheel here

Orion I hate your take, I hate your misunderstanding of antisemitism and ableism that makes the two main factions tick, I hate your self centerness, I hate your racist and antisemitic co-writer making excuses for you and I REALLY hate that this did to the 2013 X-fandom what Lily Orchard did to the 2019 Steven Universe fandom and we can still see people using your bullshit arguments today

Oh and Cole? thank you for your service you're the real hero of this story, hated and feared for daring to call out the establishment

[henrysglock]

Does Brenner really asks Henry "what changed your mind? Is there someone else"? Are you serious? Is that actual dialogue?? I'm just shocked, how is no one talking about how weird Brenner is with Henry? does it just flies over most peoples heads?? What the hell

That is straight out of the plays I saw. Both of them. Verbatim.

Henry decides to leave HNL because Patty asked him to come back to do the school play. He tells Brenner he wants to leave, and the scene more or less goes like this:

"I'm leaving." "I'm sorry to hear that. Can I ask why?" "I've decided I don't want to do this (read: make contact with the Shadow) anymore." "What changed your mind? Is there someone else?" "...No." "What, you think you can be normal? Go to prom with some stupid girl?" (Taking pages out of byler's playbook, I see)

And if I recall correctly, that's when Henry starts trying the theater doors to get out. Brenner goes on to tell Henry that he's all Henry will every have, etc. Brenner also, at one point, refers to Henry as "my boy", to which Henry whirls around and storms back towards the stage while growl-yelling "I'M NOT YOUR BOY". (And god it's so fucking good in person.)

Brenner very much treats Henry like a misbehaving/unfaithful wife. It had me gasping even the second time I saw the show and knew it was coming. I expected their dynamic to be clear, but I didn't expect it to be this blatant.

(Right down to love triangle blocking and shared color palettes! Slay. I hate it.)

More "fun" freak facts: Brenner kisses Henry on the head twice during his first stay in the lab:

When he's trying to trauma-bond Henry to himself by forcing him to lose control and kill a rat, only to present himself as a sole possible source of comfort for Henry. After Brenner cups Henry's face in his hands to take readings of his pupil sizes (1.9 and 5.9 respective to left and right eyes...1959...), Henry turns to sob into Brenner's shoulder about it, and Brenner hugs him/kisses his hair and tells him that what he did was "very good". (All of this while Henry's displaying, and I quote, "traumatic mydriasis", which is consistent with strokes and major head injuries. No medical treatment for Henry, just kisses and petting from Brenner.)

When Henry's having his grand mal seizure after displaying images of Dimension X. Brenner doesn't give him proper seizure care, he just cradles him, pets him, and kisses the top of his head. While Henry's half-aware post-seizure, Brenner asks him if he'd like to make contact with the Shadow. Henry agrees, but then as soon as he's slightly more aware he looks to a doctor behind him and literally asks for help. He looks back and says "Help..." Brenner also massages Henry's shoulders while he's ball-gagged in the '70s, and tells him he's been "such a good boy these past few years", which means he's fit to meet the children, which are referred to both as his and Brenner's children, but also as his siblings.

This means he kisses/caresses Henry more than Patty does. Period. Point blank.

Brenner also has some choice lines about Henry and killing. Henry's being forced into killing this whole time, but Brenner turns it around on him and says, verbatim, "You liked it more than you thought you would". It's 10000% giving "You actually wanted it/You were asking for it" irt being, uh, forced into doing something that you didn't want to do. (Especially irt the Shadow and all of its rape coding...Yikes!)

Brenner also massages Henry's shoulders while Henry's ball-gagged and belted to a chair in the '70s, all while telling Henry he's "been such a good boy these past years", which means Brenner has deemed him fit to meet the children...the children which are referred to both as Henry/Brenner's children, but also as Henry's siblings.

Yeah. They're considered Brenner and Henry's children ("You're as much a father to these children as I am"), but they're also Henry's "brothers and sisters". You do the math on that one.

Lots of freak vibes all around.

[autisticrosewilson]

hey dude, i was wondering if you had any specific headcanons for the styles or types of clothes that anyone in wilson family likes to wear? really interested in your input for this

*heavy breathing* boy do I!!! I already know I won't be able to fit everyone in one part so we're doing the girls first

Tara:

There are layers, her fashion has evolved over time and I've separated it into three tiers.

Starting at the bottom, tier one was when Slade first took her in. She got most of her clothes from thrift stores and bargain bins, and she kept many of the clothes she collected while homeless. She had a kind of skater girl style when she did let Slade buy her new clothes because she strayed towards second hand stores and hand-me-downs. Often wore several layers regardless of temperature because of her chronic fear of the cold. Rarely do her clothes fit, every shirt she wears is for a band she's never heard of or the world's stupidest slogan that she could barely read, and her sneakers are basically falling apart but she gets really good at sewing to patch the holes.

Tier two is maybe a couple years into her stay with Slade, she's settled in a little and she's more secure with herself. I think she starts finding her style by borrowing clothes from the other girls, particularly Rose and Sunny, and when she gets a good grasp of what she's looking for Slade is maybe too willing to let her pick out whatever she wants (He just wants her to stop wearing 6 layers in 70 degree heat). She still wears jeans no matter the weather, but they're customized and they actually fit her! No more belts on the very last loop to keep her pants up. Her tops are usually colorful, light weight, and flowy. She starts getting really big on star motifs (fun fact Tara means star in some languages!) but because she shares clothes with Rose many of her outfits also have floral designs. Poppy likes putting bits and bobs on her laces too!

Tier three is where I see her now that she's older and she's been with the Wilson's for years. She's grown closer to the other girls and she's figured herself out. I imagine that she's 20 or so by now, just starting college. By now the line between her closet and her sister's is very fine, but she still has her own style. She's become more fond of skirts and dresses over the years, always with tights and flowy sleeves, and she's gone all in on the celestial and flower themes. Unfortunately for Sunny, her and Tara have the same shoe size, which means Tara is almost always in a pair of heeled boots these days. Not pictured are the statement earrings and rings she's grown fond of, often borrowed from Tanya since she still can't justify getting them for herself. I feel like all the girls have a charm bracelet and every charm represents one of them, Tara's charm is a chess piece!

Rose:

Unlike Tara, I don't think she ever ends up packing her old clothes away, I think she just stops wearing them to go out. As she grows up she has a reputation to maintain and so much of her early style (14-16) comes from her mom that it feels too private.

Tier one is a lot of florals and pale colors, and because Cambodia is so hot most of her wardrobe was shorts, skirts, dresses, and tank tops so a shopping trip was needed immediately. She also had mainly sandals, both because they went well with her clothes and because she hated socks as a kid. Look at my username I don't have to explain myself. She took to wearing a lot of her mom's old jewelry when Lili died, which is really sad but also she was dripped out. Pink and purple were her favorite colors and she definitely had an absurd amount of rose print. Not pictured for the sake of not bringing up bad memories is her pink cheetah print era 😔 she was a victim of the early 2000's, and she will not be the only one in this post.

Tier two, I'll say she's about 15-17. I don't know if grunge academia is a thing but Rose actually invented it. She was mostly away from Slade for this, on account of him being a constant reminder of her mom's death, so this was when she was staying with Joey and going to school. This is also around the time she would've met Eddie so he probably introduced her to a lot of new music and movies, and half of her closet was graphic T-shirts she stole from him. Still preferred skirts and shorts but could occasionally be coerced into a pair of jeans, usually the compromise was tights or leggings though. This is also about the time she started really doing stuff as Ravager so I think it was the start of her straying towards more alternative aesthetics to shape peoples perception of her, especially being around the mostly older Titans who she wanted to take her seriously. Started playing around with hairstyles but was too scared to cut her hair because it was another thing that reminded her of time spent with her mom and she didn't want to mess it up. Put away most of her mom's jewelry to keep it safe, but keeps one of Lili's necklaces.

Tier three is where I see her now, 18-20 and not exactly on good terms with Slade, but she doesn't want to hunt him for sport either. She's got a support system both in and out of the family and she's made a reputation for herself both as Rose and as Ravager. She has begrudgingly started wearing jeans, but they have to be baggy and ridiculously soft or she'll want to bite someone the whole time she's wearing them. She's grown a fondness for chunky belts and stupid custom tshirts that make middle aged women on public transport uncomfortable. Honestly wears a lot of men's clothes because her shoulders are buff and she needs pockets on her pants. She's slowly been snipping away at her hair, and the guilt is lessening every time. Not pictured are the decorative eye patches she has, as if Lilian Worth's daughter is walking out of the house with accessories that don't match her outfit. Her charm is a sword <3

Sunny:

I literally made all of this up we literally only know A Name.

So like Tanya, Sunny was already an adult when she joined Slade. And in my version of her story she comes from an affluent family, so she has both the means and the desire to follow all the trends. Considering my very vague timeline, this means she'd be deeply entrenched in the fashion of the early 2000's. Tier one is a very tame showcase of this. Sunny was the cool older sister in all the movies, she wore velvet track suits with uggs and she wore almost exclusively Chelsea boots. Tank tops and bell bottom jeans and baby tees made up a lot of her wardrobe, but she's still Sunny so her style was a lot darker and desaturated than what was popular for the time. Not pictured are the chunky belts and sunglasses worth more than your car. While she didn't grow up in America, she's well traveled and she likes to keep up to date on the cultural climate of places she visits.

Tier two is her really going in on her edgier aesthetic, after growing up in a strict Catholic household - and a famous one where every move she makes is scrutinized - I think this was her attempt at rebelling. It wouldn't be Sunny if it wasn't dramatic and more opulent than needed, but it was a valid attempt at appropriating alternative culture before it was cool! Definitely got called a poser a lot, on account of being rich. Believe it or not this is her definition of "Mall Goth". She got flamed on Myspace for it. Nonetheless she is still serving cunt I fear. Not pictured is the makeup she slept in the night before and the glitter in her hair from a house party she doesn't remember.

Tier three is not quite "Mob wife" but it is something adjacent. I think whether she likes it or not she always ends up dragged back into her family affairs, it was only a matter of time before she had to start playing the game again. I think she dresses more feminine out of spite for all the wealthy old men she has to deal with now, who look down on her for being anything other than a wife and mother. But she's also opted for showing her wealth more plainly with vintage jewelry and real fur coats, she makes a point to only wear things she bought with money she earned herself instead of taking anything from her family. The great thing about running away to be a mercenary is that even in platform heels and leather skirts she's still the most dangerous person in the room, with an easily confirmed higher kill count and skills none of the old gangsters could dream of matching. Her charm is a bow and arrow!

Tanya:

Not sure how I feel about this one compared to the others, I had specific criteria for the boards that due to my very specific vision I couldn't meet but it gets the point across well enough.

Tier one, Tanya was already an adult with a degree and a job when she joined Slade but she was still pretty young. The thing about being a prodigy to the extent she was is that you tend to mingle with people older than you as a rule. I think she was pretty new to her position at this point, still figuring out how to handle things in her mother's absence. Tanya is someone whose been living as a black woman in these socialite, academic spaces since she was born, she's more than used to people talking down to her and she was operating on a sort of "they won't like you anyway, might as well be yourself because you're still smarter than all of them" mentality. All this is to say that her last name was Spears and it was the early 2000's, she was wearing chunky belts, LOW waisted jeans, baby tees, and neon track suits under her lab coats. Not pictured are the big ass hoop earnings and foundation a few shades too orange for her, serving cunt most of the time does not exempt you from a few flops.

Tier two, she actually invented the office siren trend so everyone say thank you miss Spears. For meta reasons this was me trying to figure out how to get her to tier three, but for character reasons this is like her mid twenties, she's cutting back on mask stuff to focus on her job because Starr labs is struggling to compete with bigger companies like Wayne Tech or Lexcorp and some people in this family have real jobs, Slade. Also she wanted to distance herself from...past mistakes (like wearing skirts over jeans). Monochrome colors, kitten heels, and a button up with just a few too many buttons undone to be business casual is what she was wearing at this point.

Tier three, she's inching towards her thirties and a lot of her time is spent helping people in more civilian ways. While she still talks to her old friends and family in the mask game she's mostly hung up the cape aside from all hands on deck situations. Which isn't to say that she's compromised her own style, just that she's prioritizing comfort, since she spends most days either on her feet in the lab itself or working late in her office for hours, no more heels or push-up bras around here. Corduroy pants, flat shoes, and long fur or leather coats is what's characterizing her fashion these days. Also her and Karen Beecher having the exact same hairstyle is,,,,something so I think when she's older she gets goddess braids. Her charm is a star!

Poppy:

If you're getting war flashbacks to 2010 you can't imagine what I went through to find these

So Poppy was homeless for a while, and before that she was in the Dark Side Club, which didn't treat their prisoners especially well. Most of her clothes came from thrift shops and lost and found bins. The pictures I found are definitely in better shape than Poppy would have been, but I was working with Pinterest. She still tried to keep her own sense of style, like her love for pink but often it was just a matter of what she could reliably steal. Her jeans were about four sizes too big and her shoes were practically disintegrating, many of her clothes were often singed as well due using her powers. She typically kept her hair short too, in order to avoid her hair getting anymore singed. Dyeing her hair pink was an impulsive decision she made while watching Tara bleach her hair in the bathroom of a public gym, she'd snuck off to go steal a box of cheap dye from the drug store across the Street and Tara sighed, but helped her do it anyway.

Tier two sees her a little more settled into her new life, and while Tara strayed away from the new excess of wealth, Poppy had NO such reservations. She did take this time to start indulging in more of the hobbies she'd always wanted but couldn't afford, things like making beaded bracelets, and owning a bedazzler. While many of those beads ended up lost in the carpet and between couch cushions, and the bedazzling caused headaches for just about everyone, Slade was mostly just happy she was settling in. A lot of her shoelaces ended up covered in beads and she became very interested in making Kandi, although she didn't have many people to trade it with. This was about the time that Tara became more fond of embroidery and stylized patchwork, which showed in a lot of Poppy's clothes. She also liked customizing her hoodies herself, which often meant vandalizing them with bleach and/or acrylics. She starts growing out her hair too! It's still choppy from all the times it's caught fire but the rich people hair products are helping to the best of their ability.

Tier three is the only possible outcome for a girl introduced to us in pink and black stripes with spikey pink hair. Obviously she's a scene icon. The top left is basically her regular outfit anyway. The fact that her new huge pink and black striped hair is highly flammable is irrelevant, particular since she almost never uses her powers now anyway. She's mainly focused on school and has opted out of mercenary work because she's always been squeamish and fighting with other metas brings up too many bad memories. She still trains though, Slade is very adamant she be able to protect herself. Not pictured is the many layers of unnecessary belts and the pink galaxy pink leggings she wears under at least one other layer. The fact that she is not allowed to wear anything resembling a crop top has yet to stop her, and she is a regular fixture of the principal's office. Her real nemesis isn't even one of the many people she's fought it's the security guard that always makes her take off her 50 pieces of jewelry before going through the metal detector, second only to the administrator who always dress codes her. Honorable mention to the gym teacher who routinely hunts her down while she's trying to vape and watch anime with her friends in the bathroom. The unfortunate downside of being athletically gifted. Her charm is a cat!

[celtrist]

Do you like redesign characters?? I was curious of how the hazbin hotel and helluva boss characters would look like in your style

Nooo, I took a class concerning the subject but I'm by no means an expert and haven't redesigned any characters before. I have, however, a BOATLOAD of characters both fan and original, most of which tend to be designed by me. Not all, but I think most of them are. Most of them are also in my wips because I am very lazy in getting around to doing bios and such. I also have some designs on my website.

I have thought about doing some hazbin redesigns, but it just never panned out. I don't actually know how well I'd do as I don't think I'm crazy astonishing at designing. I have moments, but I'm not usually churning anything out like the hellaverse characters. Because for all my gripes with them, I do admit they are relatively strong in different aspects. I do like the official designs well enough, but I've also liked a lot of redesigns I've seen. The only thing with a lot of redesigns, and this was sorta the "spin" I was going to take with it, is that they're not always animator-friendly. Another "spin" I was planning to take with the redesigns is to have them work within the show as "next season" designs. That would mean nothing TOO drastic could be changed (like Husk's wings would remain), but things like clothes, colors, and maybe some smaller features could be changed. Generally just something where it could be plausible for the characters to have that changed look.

If you know Batman the Animated Series a bit, they had a huge design change between seasons. While I wouldn't be looking to change up the whole art style of the show, I would be open to possibly doing some bigger design changes like that show did (like changing Husk's body shape to be more portly or adding a radio embedded into Alastor's chest). Their approach was that it was the continuation from the previous seasons and no one commented on the new looks all the characters had. I think the idea was that no one actually changed their style or anything, but I've never watched the show so maybe they do comment on new attire and faces.

I was planning to more or less act like the designs were going to be what the characters looked like for that next season. So they'd have to be animator-friendly and still work, for the most part, with the pre-established designs. Again, this means that Husk's wings wouldn't just disappear randomly and I couldn't go crazy and give Charlie like snakes in her hair in the first episode of that next season when the last episode of the last season she didn't have any. I never laid out the rules perfectly as I know with Niffty, I'd definitely want to bend that rule by giving her another pair of arms, but I also didn't go through with doing any redesigns.

Two similar routes I'd kiiiinda go with probably involve my two favorite redesigns of the cast: I've mentioned @/cholvoq but they really nailed a lot of the characters down and I love all the little details the characters had (Vox's old TV head being his chest is such a killer design choice for him). @/kaledya has some good redesigns too! You might have to look on their Twitter to see the full lineup, but they actually were rewriting Hazbin Hotel to their own version which uses those redesigns! Alastor in particular looks much closer to a man in his mid-30s to 40s than he does in canon. Same with Husk, he's actually super old but he looks around the same age as Angel within the official series when he's in fact in his 60s-70s. They also have some fun fan characters (I love Serenity, she's so fucking cool in design and I love how she relates to Alastor story-wise ;3;)

And then there's just a bunch of other redesigns I've seen that I've loved as well, but those are the two that came into my head and would be what I'd take some inspiration for my own designs. Granted, would I like these designs canon? Mmm, I'm so used to what we have that although cholvoq has one of my favorite Alastor redesigns, I don't know if I'd want that to be canon (I honestly don't think he'd work as well as a full deer anthro! It's not as unique as him being a kemonomimi. Hell has a lot of anthro characters, so him only being part animal makes him stand out and might relate to his death better I think). It's fun to imagine. Maybe someday I'll get around to it but I have lots of other stuff to worry about before stressing over whether I should keep Alastor red or put him in sepia tones lol I will critique, but I know between Viv and myself she probably can pump out a more appealing character design than I ever could. I wouldn't say designing is a strength of mine. Not a weakness, but not a strength either.

EDIT: Adding on these designs, I really like them too. I've seen the Vaggie one before (Vaggie's official design is boring to me, but I gotta acknowledge that HAS to be a personal thing. Not an actual critique because everyone else says she's relatively fine), but never saw the other ones and I like these ones! This goes with a lot about what I was saying about "next season" redesigns. Again, there's a lot of redesigns I like, but I can't point them all out or we'll be here all day.

[singlesablog]

The Closet, Part 1.

“Everything She Wants” (1984) Wham! Columbia Records (Written by George Michael) Highest U.S. Billboard Chart Position – No. 1

Not since Warhol painted his silkscreens of Mao Zedong in the early 70s had a project as blatantly propagandistic as Wham!, and their second album, Make it Big, appear on US shores.  It was a record with its intentions splashed across the LP cover in large, unironic text above the image it was selling: the nubile duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, hairdos perfectly coiffed, all done up like doe-eyed fashion models in high-end sportswear.  Even the colors of the album were strategic: red, white, and blue.  Wham! was clearly setting their ambitions straight for the Reagan 80s, and toward US domination.

Andy Warhol, "Mao", 1972, Silkscreen.

Like the Reagan 80s, the ideas behind the first single, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”, were as fun, retro and catchy as his signature jelly beans.  I wasn’t terribly impressed with the song (first heard over the piped-in radio at the Chick-Fil-A I worked in at in the mall) until I saw the video.  There he was: George Michael, costumed in short shorts, wearing a white sweatshirt that screamed Choose Life, hugging himself as he ponied and swam about in a sea of neon colors.  It was then that the song really took off for me: George, Andrew, Pepsi and Shirlie, all having a romp, signaling that the New wave was over, and that something much bigger was ahead of us: pure, unadulterated fun.  Of course I zeroed in on George, his Greek curls laboriously blown out into a perfectly feathered mane and dyed into the colors of artificial sunshine, and in the pivotal video moment, hugging himself tightly with fingerless cotton gloves, two gold-hooped earrings glittering for the camera.  I am telling you, those earrings on George Michael were the gayest thing I had ever seen (not the straight “one” earring, but two), and thereby an annunciation: looking at him, right there on regular TV, I felt reborn.

Make it Big would spawn five top ten singles in the United States (if you count “Last Christmas”, a one-off that would appear as a double A side with “Everything She Wants” in England) and included three US number ones.  “Everything She Wants”, which followed “Wake Me”, “Careless Whisper”, and “Freedom”, would be the last to be released from the album, and it was unique in that it did not seem to be cut from the same cloth as the other singles, which were in essence modeled after Motown.  It was a song that also did not depend on a video to sell itself (not that they didn’t make one).  I was in the bathroom blow-drying a crest into my swing bang when I first heard it on the radio, and I know I must have frozen mid-bang.  Something was very different with this track.  First and most importantly it was entirely built on a synthesizer, from the Linn drum bongos that open it (George’s rough demo sample was kept for the final product) to the beautiful synth notes; in fact, like “Last Christmas”, the entire song was written and performed on one instrument, a Roland Juno-60, and both songs would be performed solely by George without any other musicians to sweeten it. He wrote and arranged it overnight, with no thought of it being a single until everyone responded to it so well. According to engineer Chris Porter: 

"I think this was when George started to realize that if he wanted to, he could do everything himself. He could [just] cut out all these other people and their ideas."

Back in my bathroom, frozen in place, I wouldn’t have perceived any of this.  What I was perceiving was something even gayer than George hugging himself in “Wake Me Up”: this new George had a voice speaking directly to me.  “Everything She Wants” is a song about a man in an unhappy marriage, an unhappy 80s marriage, to be precise, because the female in question is fixated upon perfection through consumerism.  George in the song is projecting the role of the long-suffering woman, and in an act of pure subversion instead plays the hard-working husband who has to pretend that he is fulfilled by having a wife.  He is, in essence, bitching about having to play it straight, and in my mother’s bathroom I understood completely that a song dripping in sarcasm about being in a marriage was the queerest (and possibly most liberating) thing I had ever heard in my life up until that moment, the peak, the essence, being when he sings the lines: And now you tell me that you're having my baby I'll tell you that I'm happy if you want me to But one step further and my back will break If my best isn't good enough, then how can it be good enough for two?

Not only were these priceless, hilariously bitchy lyrics (the song is punctuated with his backing vocals screeching “work!”, “work!”) it directly expresses the reality of a gay man suffering miserably in the closet, and delivers a pungent commentary about the reality of living in the shadows of straight conformity.  The most delicious thing about it was the era it was tucked into (with its new rush of bubblegum pop)—if the song had a real message, it was sure to be lost in all of the neon fun.  The import was not, however, lost on me. 

Looking gay, as Wham! did, does not make you gay.  Making fizzy, lush pop songs, in and of itself, of course does not make you gay.  Being a male pop duo does not make you gay.  After taking over the world, hit after hit, the final No.1 for Wham! in “Everything She Wants” definitely, definitely made me gayer.  In sound and vision, it would mark the beginning of George Michael as a real solo act, on the precipice of joining the ranks of the biggest pop stars in the world.  Soon, George would have all the fame he could ever desire; sadly, it would prove to be the biggest closet of them all.

Last Christmas, 1984

Written in 1983, recorded in August of 1984, Wham’s “Last Christmas” would of course be announced as a December release (George had performed the song alone in a studio fully decorated for Christmas with engineer Chris Porter to set the mood).

In the UK there is a long history and competitive spirit surrounding a Christmas No. 1 , which meant the hit should be the last to chart for the year.  Famous examples of a Christmas No. 1 in the UK would include The Beatles’ “I want To Hold Your Hand�� (1963), The Human League's “Don’t You Want Me” (1981) and Pet Shop Boys’ “Always on My Mind” (1987).  In 1984, during the filming of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, which was produced for famine relief in Ethiopia by Bob Geldof, one can see George Michael lamenting that the song they were recording would surely keep the Wham! track from going to No.1, and he was right.  “Do They Know It’s Christmas” won the year, with “Last Christmas” coming in as No.2.  He had smiled shyly when he said it, but one could tell he was over it.  If George Michael was anything in the 80s, it was ambitious.

In 2006, Michael released a Greatest Hits, Twenty-Five, featuring four new songs, one of which, “Understand”, would serve as a sort of apologia to “Everything She Wants”, imagining the couple 30 years later, and seeing the relationship more from the woman’s point of view.

George always insisted that “Everything She Wants” was his all-time favorite Wham! song, and he performed it regularly in concert.

[p-artsypants]

Blurb #14

I'm going to try to share 70 blurbs from my WIPs and unfinished fics to celebrate reaching 70 posted fics! To help with this endeavor, please feel free to send me a word or a fandom you know I write for, and I'll share the blurb. IDK if I'll get 70 prompts, but let's try it! Send as many as you want!

Some time later, he awoke again. This time, he was in a different room and on a bed.

The softest bed he had ever laid on, with a warm, soft, not-itchy blanket.

His stomach screamed for food and his throat felt dry. He sat up, his head throbbing, but he was no longer restrained.

The room was small, and had no windows, but it had smooth walls colored a warm tan. A light fixture was on the wall, bathing the room in a soft light, able to sleep in. There was several black boxes in the corner, one of which had glass on the front. Was it a looking glass? A headache started to form as he studied the items, and he decided he’d know later.

Next to the very soft bed was a table with a pitcher of water and a cup. He helped himself.

As for his dressing, he wasn’t naked anymore, but he wasn’t wearing any clothes he recognized. It was a long tunic, with no pants, no undergarments either. And the back was open as well. Was this normal clothing in the future? He couldn’t seem to recall what the others were wearing.

The door opened softly, and the doctor John came in. Though, he didn’t recognize him at first in this lighting.

“Hiccup,” said John.

“Uh,” started Hiccup, “hello?”

John smiled calmly at him and pulled up a chair, then he gestured at his head.

“What?”

John wiggled his fingers, asking him to move closer. He had something in his hand.

Hesitantly, Hiccup leaned towards him, as the doctor moved in with a white item. He wrapped it around the shell of his ear and then stuck it in his ear hole.

It felt odd and Hiccup touched it and moved it around until it felt at least a little more comfortable.

“There, is that better?”

Hiccup startled, suddenly aware that he could understand this man.

“I can—I can understand you!”

John continued to smile. “Technology has come a long way from your time. This earpiece translates my native tongue into yours instantly.”

Hiccup’s eyes widened. “That’s amazing!”

“And there’s far more than that. I’m going to start easing you into this change, but I know you’ll be discovering more and more everyday, just as science develops more everyday.”

Hiccup nodded in understanding.

John took out a black rectangle. “This is a phone. Nowadays, almost everyone has one. When phones were first made, they allowed one person to hear another’s voice over a long distance.”

“Like a horn?”

“Sort of, but just for one person. I’ll demonstrate.” John pressed the surface of the phone and it lit up several different colors and pictures. A few taps, and the device made a loud sound and then:

“Hello?”

“Hi Helena, it’s John. Hiccup is awake and I’m showing him what a phone is.”

“Oh! How fun! Is he there?”

Hiccup piped up. “Hello!”

“Well hello dear! Did John give you the earpiece?”

“Yes! And I can understand everything you’re saying!” He spoke almost a little too loudly.

“That’s wonderful! John, I’ll be there in a minute! He looks good, yes?”

“He’s doing much better. Much more alert and stable.”

“Wonderful! See you in a minute!” And the line beeped.

“That’s amazing! How far is she? Is she in the next room?”

“Oh no, Helena is at the other facility, looking after your dragon, in fact.”

At the mere mention, Hiccup sat up straighter, anxiousness setting in. “Toothless! Is he awake? Can I see him?”

“Not yet, but soon,” John assured. “You are still very weak from your thaw, and too much excitement will cause stress on you. The more calm and relax you stay, the sooner you’ll see...did you say his name was Toothless?”

Hiccup shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

John nodded. “Well, you can tell us later. For right now, we don’t want you talking about the circumstances under which you were frozen. We fear it’ll upset you too much.”

Hiccup shifted his gaze. “I...would rather not talk about that right now either.”

“When you’re ready.” He raised the phone up again. “Now, like I said, you can connect with another person anywhere as long as you have their contact number.”

Hiccup had so many questions about just this one thing, but he knew he had much to cover.

[thefallenangelsgang]

Seeing as I just got tagged again in something similar by the lovely @victoriouscabaret, I probably should wrap this one up lmao. Unfortunately I'm about to show y'all how horrifically baby I am (as if the incessant Gen Z style posting and vocabulary wasn't telling enough 😭)

-------------------

Do you make your bed?

NO. The most I do is straighten the sheets (because I have yet to meet a sheet or life hack secure enough to beat my slumbering form. It's actually comical how easily I can pull a sheet off the corners) and shake out my blankets when they have more than the usual amount of cat hair on them. Sheets and pillowcases go on after wash and blankets get dumped in a pile on the foot lmao.

Favorite number?

Anything devisable by 5. Looking back on it actually a miracle no one diagnosed me with OCD sooner. I have childhood memories of compulsively counting things by fives and I have an abnormal interest in the way time breaks down by fives. The fact that you can use the analog clock face to do 5s multiplication tables is also a fun fact that still amuses me to this day. That probably only marginally has to do with OCD though.

What's your job?

I'm a student in university for History and Theater and maybe Poli Sci (except for this last semester, which I took off to reign in the burnout I've been nursing since I was way too young to be experiencing burnout on that scale). I have a summer job as a Housekeeper at a local nursing home. It is far from my first pick but the pay is very good for my area and it puts the compulsion to sterilize everything to work relatively well. When I'm on campus I work in the Theater's Costume Shop.

What I want to do is a different matter. My dream will always be to Act but the stressors are a lot and I am far from marketable to a common audience. I am aiming for a day job in Museum work (exhibit design or educator) with contract night work in Theater Tech (lighting, sound, or costume design) or even finding a way to fully do tech work in a stable manner.

Can you parallel park?

Yes but in nothing bigger than a small SUV and only in spots that are obviously much bigger than my car. I refuse to putz around with tight spots. I'll walk my disabled ass if I have to.

Do you think aliens are real?

I have no strong opinions. I am never going to say "absolutely not" cause history is full of hypotheses being disproven. This is also my rule when dealing with the concept of god and cryptids. Oral histories and folklore meets phenomena our brains have trouble comprehending and I am never going to say something is impossible just because our meaty overlords (that being the brain) fills gaps.

And also shit gets weird in the Appalachian Mountains. Between the chemical poisoning from generations of mining operations, waste sites, the dense vast forests, and unmapped cave systems, I'm never going to 100% say "that cannot happen."

Can you drive a manual car?

This is the one that babies me significantly. No. Though I am interested in learning!

What's your guilty pleasure?

I love taking pitch black showers. In the cooler months (before every day gets up to 70°F+) I like them piping hot. It drives my father up the wall because he's a 5 min shower kinda guy and I need to take 45 minutes in the sensory deprivation chamber or I am a bitch.

Tattoos?

None yet. I want some, I've got plans for at least 4, but I am weary of getting them right now. It's a pipe dream, but I filmed a short film that will be hitting major film festivals in 2025. I don't want to commit to the map of the Shire thigh piece I want or the vertebra on the back of my neck on the minuscule chance something big happens. The other 2 are smaller but I'm struggling with placement because I do want them to be hidden.

Favorite color?

Deep jewel tones. bonus points if the word "velvety" describes them. Real slut for royal blue and forest green. Also the washed out sort of khaki green color.

Favorite types of music?

Folk, both traditional and the stylized modern stuff, and Alternative, mainly from the 2000s to the 2010s. I am also into Musical Theater. Anything with a solid rhythm pattern or an emotional sound can very quickly become my favorite.

Do you like puzzles?

Logic games, yes. I don't find traditional puzzles all that relaxing. I am okay at Sudoku and word games. I have the white man hubris that i would kill at escape rooms despite never having done one.

Any phobias?

Spiders. IRL spiders I can mostly handle. They gotta be fuzzy though, those smooth bitches are not friend shaped. The reason I hate smooth spiders is because any kind of fake spider or spider-adjacent creature from any kind of visual media, but specifically very large cgi spiders in film and video games, are my main trigger. Giant painted spider in a fantasy book? no thank you. Spider in video game? Please god let there be an arachnophobia mod/setting. Spider-like creature done in CG or with practical effects? Tell me when this bit is over I feel like I'm going to be sick.

I genuinely think this stems from my childhood fear of real spiders (I was much more weary of them as a tot) and my parents showing me LotR at way too young an age. Shelob was not a suitable visual for a 7 year old to see in the dark.

Favorite childhood sport?

I played Basketball in middle school. I was not very good handling the ball outside of passing but I was very good at seeing and widening openings. I usually played one of the wings on offense and covering the wings on defense.

I was a little terror on defense but you had to be in my area. For some reason the local girls basketball scene was full of teams who fought almost ridiculously dirty. Nearly got in a fist fight with a girl on the court because she was literally two-handed shoving me while we were running a play and I gave it right back. She did not take it well. To highlight how normal that was, the Ref clapped his hands and simply said "Okay girls, fight club is on Tuesday" and didn't do ANYTHING else.

Not to mention my very first year, the girls team only had 5 people on it (that is the MINIMUM number you need). I was a 4th grader playing full games with our only breaks being the hard baked ones (half-time and the short breathers between quarters) and our Time-outs. We once had a difficult game where we were neck and neck with the other team and in the last quarter (so we were in no position to just forfeit) and the Refs saw my tiny ass and the rest of my poor teammates absolutely dying and started using their timeouts (which is a rare occurrence, refs only do that if they have a call to discuss). I think we won that game too.

I miss it from time to time but I'm no longer as spry or are there teams that play that kind of game around me.

Do you talk to yourself?

All the time. Too much probably and some of it barely makes sense lmao. I'm sure it drives my family up the wall.

What movies do you adore?

Oh boy. I don't even know where to begin. The Sound of Music has been a favorite since I was a child and my eyes just recently been opened to the majesty of The Birdcage and To Wong Foo. The LotR movies are up there. Rocky Horror, A League of Their Own, It's A Wonderful Life, and White Christmas.

Essentially anything that celebrates something that society tries to ignore for various reasons (Dumplin' is another example), or is nostalgic to me (Bedknobs and Broomsticks! I can't believe I forgot that movie!), or is made with so much love it bleeds out of the screen. I have a soft spot for old Hollywood films that feature some of the greats of dancing at the time.

Coffee or Tea?

Tea. I despise the taste of coffee. I'll drink espresso on occasion and have suffered through a heavily doctored cup of joe when I need the kick of caffeine but I am a tea person through and through.

I don't like anything particularly bitter and prefer fruity and herbal flavors. I REALLY like mint tea.

First thing you wanted to be growing up?

Labor and Delivery Nurse like my mother. We would visit her before bed when she was on night shift and I remember the nurses station of that unit like it was yesterday. Those are some of the only pleasant memories of a hospital ward I have and I've been in a LOT of hospitals and a LOT of different units over the years.

-------------------

Tagging some people I want to know more about <3 (no pressure though!)

@helena-bug (shhhh I know we've known each other over a decade stfu lmao)

@fablewritesnonsense

@just-another-wasteland-merc

@tcustodis

[roboticchibitan]

5. teapot you'd buy

(there are so so so many I'd buy but there's a limit to adding pictures, alas)

6. definitely cursed

(i can't tell if the very cursed baby is a real teapot or a drawing, i hope you can tell me)

7. more work than tea is worth

(crab!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

8. you have to pay me to take this hone

Image description below cut due to length.

I am absolutely fascinated by the cowboy bathtub revolver teapot. What a combo! He's got his gun in case anyone jumps him while he's in the bath. No stagecoach robbery while this man's getting clean! Also, I'm pretty sure you're not the only person who's shown me an anatomical heart teapot and been like "I want it."

The first cursed teapot reminds me of one of the bad guys from Farscape. I'm pretty sure the baby pot is not a drawing but it might be AI art, which is against the rules, but you clearly didn't send me AI art on purpose so I'm not going to give you a hard time. The last cursed teapot.... yeah that's really cursed. Very cursed. Cursed indeed. So cursed.

I like both of your "more trouble than the tea is worth" teapots. The grape vine one is pretty, though it looks like it's not meant to be used because who wants to grip that handle? And the crab one is just fun.

Ok so fun fact the lips teapot is actually a Marilyn Monroe teapot from the 70s. I've been sent it multiple times because it is, indeed, very weird and uncomfortably sexual. The M&M teapot is also making a weirdly suggestive face, so I sense a theme here. Also, that M&M's eyebrows are in the wrong place (the lid isn't lined up perfectly}.

Image description:

9 photographs of teapots.

Photograph 1: a red anatomically correct heart teapot.

Photograph 2: A teapot in the shape of a cowboy in the bathtub. The handle and spout of the teapot are molded to look like a revolver. The bathtub is too small for the cowboy to spread out in, so his knees stick out of the water. Bubbles cover his nether bits and a cowboy boot sits on the side of the tub.

Photograph 3: a teapot in the shape of a head in a helmet. The handle is a naked man who is making contact with the head at his hands and one knee, as if he is trying to push the head.

Photograph 4: a silver teapot with a silver baby doll's head and body parts sticking out of it, as if the baby is wearing the teapot as a onesie. This photo is the one that may be AI generated.

Photograph 5: a marbled teapot in the shape of someone sitting in the fetal position. The material of the teapot is flesh colored and the handle is shaped like a spine. The spout is a golden metal tube protruding from the mouth.

Photograph 6: a blue teapot with a handle and lid handle in the shape of a grape vine. Right where the hand would go, a cluster of grapes hangs down.

Photograph 7: a blue and brown teapot in the shape of a crab. The lid is very small and shaped like a fish.

Photograph 8: 1970s Marilyn Monroe teapot, which is a white teapot with a spout that has very plush lips on the end and a mole on the body of the teapot near the spout.

Photograph 9: A tea for one set in the shape of a red M&M that is making a suggestive face.

End ID.

[justabigassnerd]

okay I know you don't write for marvel anymore (unless you do, idk), and this isn't an ask, but just imagine the shock Steve and Bucky must've felt when they see a flat screen tv in color for the first time.

Like we get the scene were Steve runs out into New York for the first time since he and Bucky left to fight in ww2 in the 40's and is shocked to discover that its not the 40's anymore and he has, in fact, been out cold since then and its now the late 2000's, early 2010's and things are completely different.

Because, according to my grandfather, tv manufactures didn't start messing with the idea of color tv's until the 50's, and color tv's weren't very common in most homes until the late 60's early 70's because of how much they costed (I found an article that said a color tv set from a company called Westinghouse that started selling color tv's in New York costed $1,295. the article went on to say how in todays money that would've costed somewhere around $10,000).

So just imagine when one of them walks into the avengers tower or somewhere, whether it be after Steve first woke up and had calmed down or after Bucky was saved from HYDRA and is no longer trying to kill people and they see a fucking flat screen tv... just... the pure fucking time shock.. cuz the last time they both had a good look at their surroundings it was in the 40's when tv's were big, heavy boxes that were in black-and-white, but here they are now sitting Infront of a flat screen tv that's in color!! JUST. JUST THE PURE SHOCK OMG. Imagine how old they must've felt!!!!!

OMG ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY FOUND OUT ABOUT COMPUTERS TOO HOLY SHIT!!! Cuz those didn't come out until the 70's!!!

Anyway have a good day/night and sorry for the long rant lol.

omg don't apologise for the rant because I never really gave this much thought when I was in my Marvel era

but you're so right they surely lost their shit seeing a tv in colour like if I were Steve running out into Times Square when he first woke up I'd be requesting to be back in a coma or some shit bc that would be too much for me to handle right off the bat

Bucky would've 100% been so confused and shocked seeing it all too especially after HYDRA and probably not until after Endgame bc there was so much shit going down he probably barely got a chance to process things but I just know Bucky geeked out at least a little because tv's are not only huge and now in colour, but they've got streaming services so you have damn near every movie/tv show at the press of a button (not to mention if Bucky found the movie version of The Hobbit)

oh and computers? basically portable tv's that you can do more stuff on? they'd be so shocked and awed by them. I think computer's would also kinda scare them a little so they stick to pen and paper to take notes

I actually loved giving this some thought this was so fun, if y'all ever wanna just talk to me about anything fandom-y I'm so down fr

much love <3

[nicoleanell]

DEAR FESTIVIDDER,

Welcome and thank you in advance!! As I say every year (or every-other-year when I partcipate) these are just some thoughts, but feel free to focus on different characters/storylines/etc. I'm excited to see anything you're inspired to make from the sources below!

I also tagged all the fandoms so you can see how often I reblog stuff about them, consider it a vidding vision board. :D

If you're checking out any of these sources for the first time, content warning for some blood/gore in Renfield (played for comedy) and blood, jumpscares, animal death in Midnight Mass.

Film (Safety)

Renfield (2023) - Listen. Cinema peaked when Robert Montague Renfield decorated his little apartment in bright '70s colors and kitty cat bedsheets to Lizzo, and then peaked a second time when Ben Schwartz snorted a centipede. This movie is bloody camp nonsense but somehow also an earnest abuse recovery/revenge fantasy, and it gave me Emotions and a crush on Nicholas Hoult. His giant sad eyes and self-empowerment arc mean the world to me.

Television

Abbott Elementary - Wholesome sitcom in the vein of Parks & Rec following teachers in a Philadelphia elementary school (as a child of two public school teachers it hits close to my heart). I'd kinda like to see an Ava vid, she's so entertainingly terrible but then has great moments of growth as well. Or one centered on Janine, Janine/Gregory, or just any kind of fun ensemble thing!

The Afterparty - Murder mystery comedy with the twist that each episode, a character gives their version of events in the style of different genre parodies. Honestly I'd be fine with just a season 1 vid because I liked it more than season 2. (With the exception of S2 giving me the Sapphic Wes Anderson Movie of my dreams.) S1 had just about a perfect ensemble (Yasper being a highlight) and great execution of the Rashomon-style premise.

The Bear - Drama/dramedy set in the chaotic back-of-house world of a Chicago restaurant. I love how real the environment, relationships, and characters of this show feel. I adore Ayo Edebiri so I'd especially like a vid centered on Sydney, her ambitions and anxiety and passion, but again anything that inspires you about the show would make me happy! I love everyone in this dysfunctional restaurant fam. I don't really ship Syd with Carmy so I'd prefer not an explicitly romancey vid.

Midnight Mass - There's a venn diagram between Catholic Trauma and Vampires that Mike Flanagan seemed to crack like nobody else ever has lol. After Hill House (which I got an incredible vid for a couple years ago) this is my favorite of his horror-drama miniseries, I really love the mood and themes it explores about faith/religion a source of both comfort and harm. Pretty much a "do whatever you want with this source" request!

Web Series/Internet Content

Dimension 20 - There's a lot of source here and even I haven't made it through all the older intrepid heroes campaigns yet (not to mention all the side quests). I've basically seen everything from A Court of Fey and Flowers onward. Favorites include Neverafter, A Crown of Candy, and I'm really enjoying the current Burrow's End series. But honestly if there's any season or mini-season or general vibe YOU especially love and would like to focus on, feel free to do so! And if you want to incorporate stuff like art, minis, fan sources, or just rely on the player dynamics, go for it. I love basically everybody but special shout-out to Lou Wilson.

Amaury Guichon (the chocolate guy) (Youtube/Tiktok/he also had a Netflix show) - Guichon is a French-Swiss pastry chef known for making elaborate, edible chocolate sculptures, and posting usually wordless montage videos of his process. I'm just kinda curious what a Chocolate Guy vid would look like! Watching his videos and the work that goes into each piece is so fascinating, and he has a really charming and pleasant vibe. Love the technical skill, the commitment to the bit, and the fact they often look like they taste good on top of it!

[reasoningdaily]

Like most Americans, I spent the 60s, 70s, and part of the 80s in awe of Bill Cosby and his total domination of popular culture. He was the first African American to star in a dramatic television series, I Spy, a show my family in Buffalo, New York, always watched. Cosby cut a striking figure on-screen then. He was funny, smart, and even elegant—all those wonderful things many white Americans didn’t associate with people of color. In fact, as I thought of going public with what follows, a voice in my head kept whispering, “Black men have enough enemies out there already, they certainly don’t need someone like you, an African American with a familiar face and a famous name, fanning the flames.”

Imagine my joy in the mid-80s when an agent called to say Bill Cosby wanted me to audition for a role on the The Cosby Show. Cosby played an obstetrician, and he sometimes used models to portray pregnant women sitting in his office waiting room. It was a small part with one or two speaking lines at most, but I wanted in.

I was in the midst of an ugly custody battle for my only child. I needed a big break badly and appearing on The Cosby Show seemed like an excellent way of getting Hollywood’s attention. I’d appeared in one or two movies already, but my phone wasn’t exactly ringing off the hook with acting jobs.

Cosby’s handlers invited me to a taping of the show so I could get the lay of the land and an idea of what my role required. After the taping I met all the cast and then met with Cosby in his office to talk a bit about the hell I’d been through in my marriage. He appeared concerned and then asked what I wanted from my career going forward. He seemed genuinely interested in guiding me to the next level. I was on cloud nine.

I brought my daughter to the next taping I attended. Afterward, Cosby asked if I could meet him at his home that weekend to read for the part. My ex-husband had primary custody of my daughter at the time, and I usually spent my weekends with her. Cosby suggested I bring her along, which really reeled me in. He was the Jell-O Pudding man; like most kids, my daughter loved him. When my daughter and I visited Cosby’s New York brownstone, his staff served us a delicious brunch. Then he gave us a tour of the exceptional multi-level home.

Looking back, that first invite from Cosby to his home seems like part of a perfectly laid out plan, a way to make me feel secure with him at all times. It worked like a charm. Cosby suggested I come back to his house a few days later to read for the part. I agreed, and one late afternoon the following week I returned. His staff served a light dinner and Bill and I talked more about my plans for the future.

After the meal, we walked upstairs to a huge living area of his home that featured a massive bar. A huge brass espresso contraption took up half the counter. At the time, it seemed rare for someone to have such a machine in his home for personal use.

Cosby said he wanted to see how I handled various scenes, so he suggested that I pretend to be drunk. (When did a pregnant woman ever appear drunk on The Cosby Show? Probably never, but I went with it.)

As I readied myself to be the best drunk I could be, he offered me a cappuccino from the espresso machine. I told him I didn’t drink coffee that late in the afternoon because it made getting to sleep at night more difficult. He wouldn’t let it go. He insisted that his espresso machine was the best model on the market and promised I’d never tasted a cappuccino quite like this one.

It’s nuts, I know, but it felt oddly inappropriate arguing with Bill Cosby so I took a few sips of the coffee just to appease him.

Now let me explain this: I was a top model during the 70s, a period when drugs flowed at parties and photo shoots like bottled water at a health spa. I’d had my fun and experimented with my fair share of mood enhancers. I knew by the second sip of the drink Cosby had given me that I’d been drugged—and drugged good.

My head became woozy, my speech became slurred, and the room began to spin nonstop. Cosby motioned for me to come over to him as though we were really about to act out the scene. He put his hands around my waist, and I managed to put my hand on his shoulder in order to steady myself.

As I felt my body go completely limp, my brain switched into automatic-survival mode. That meant making sure Cosby understood that I knew exactly what was happening at that very moment.

“You are a motherfucker aren’t you?”

That’s the exact question I yelled at him as he stood there holding me, expecting me to bend to his will. I rapidly called him several more “motherfuckers.” By the fifth, I could tell that I was really pissing him off. At one point he dropped his hands from my waist and just stood there looking at me like I’d lost my mind.

[petrichor-edje]

My dad just had me watch The Abyss and I have many thoughts (both my dad and I are somewhat experienced rec divers (70+ dives)) and I really enjoyed this movie although my mom did accuse us of being divers who liked to watch stories about horrible things happening underwater and made fun of us

Anyway thoughts below

- very first shot of Lindsey, we see her stiletto touch down on the deck of this ship with perfect balance good for her

-mustache navy man so afraid to admit a woman knows more then him that he hides symptoms what could go wrong

- the entire exploring the downed sub sequence my dad and I are arguing about wether or not they are using a line for navigation because we can’t see it

- finally spot the line they are using and I’ve never dove a line before but I know enough to know they are doing it poorly

-also why does it look like a fancy curtain pull no wonder it broke

- alien thingie shows up and all the equipment loses power(?) or malfunctions and this means the sub crashed because of one of them

- if the guy who fucked up his mix didn’t get hurt in the initial convulsions he’s probably going to be fine

- there’s a storm coming and the navy guys fucked off to fuck around with nukes fuck them seven people died because you wanted to play with a bomb (6ppl on rig +guy in crane)

-this situation would be less stressful if someone turned off that goddamn music

-“raise your hand if you think that was a Russian water tentacle” single best line in the film

- Lindsey should have been allowed to slap him in the face

- man with psychosis has gun and nuke all signs point downhill

-the plan is to nuke the aliens genuinely can’t tell if he’s delusional and expects them to survive this or if he just doesn’t care anymore

- SUBMARINE FIGHT!!!

- if they had normal regulators instead of those stupid full face helmets they could have buddy breathed back to the rig just fine

- Lindsey I know your plan involves drowning but you coulda swam halfway back with the time you spent underwater kissing jfc

- fun fact apparently a guy survived for like forty minutes in a similar condition to what happened to Lindsey and came back fine

- I am so fucking mad with the scene where they are trying to revive her they try for like thirty seconds and give up and nobody was doing compressions for the first part of the scene and then THEy TaKe thE OXyGEN OUT??? When they think she’s dead??? It’s been like thirty seconds and there is no reason to take it out? Even if she’s dead there’s no way it could make the situation worse and if she’s alive it’s kinda fucking important?????

- then there’s that tender conversation and all I can think about is where they got dry clothes from because you know everything on that rig is now damp and salty and also curly hair is a bitch to dry

- now bud is going down in the liquid gear which has made it’s reappearance after being mentioned once an hour ago

- the worst part about the whole descending sequence is that there’s not even anything to be mad about because it’s a terrible idea but there is literally nothing else that can be done there is no better option

- I do love the bit with the colored wires tho because it is seriously hard to differentiate color at depth and it was super relatable

- but he literally just guessed because at this point why the fuck not 50/50

- and then he’s dying and I’m crying and it’s very sad but it’s also okay because he did what he needed to do to give everyone else a chance and he’s made his peace with that but somehow that’s the saddest part

- and then alien

- I love the aliens stupid little blinky eyes so cute when they blink

-was worried that at the very end when the alien ship brought them up and I saw the hatch to the rig open that that were going to just explode because of the pressure differential

- glad that didn’t happen must have been alien magic *shrugs*

[rabbitcruiser]

(Inter)National Lego Day 

Construct creative builds with this beloved, versatile toy, enjoy the hilarious LEGO Movie or visit a LEGOLAND theme park with your family.

Lego – have you played with it? These little plastic colored bricks have been sparking creativity and joy in both children and adults of all ages for almost 70 years! Small but mighty, Lego bricks inspire creativity, and thanks to their ingenious design, they can be used to make virtually anything you can imagine, from cars to dinosaurs, houses to aliens – if you can dream it, it can probably be built out of Lego.

As such a versatile toy that appeals to all ages of people, it’s not surprising that Lego is now recognized as the World’s Most Powerful Brand, towering over Google, Nike, and Ferrari to claim the top spot in 2017, but as with most gigantic companies, Lego started from humble origins and International Lego Day marks the very beginning.

History of Lego

International Lego Day is held on the very same day that Danish carpenter, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, first submitted his patent for the original Lego brick in 1958. Like no other brick that had come before this toy brick would have a sophisticated interlocking brick system, making it strong, versatile, and less likely to fall apart when simply knocked over.

Not one to mess around, Godtfred made sure not only to patent the design for his single Lego brick, but also to patent the concept of multiple bricks being used together in a building system, and this protected his design from being ripped off by competitors. Although this day is often seen as the birthplace of Lego as we know it, the company itself was in fact founded by Godtfred in 1932, creating a variety of wooden toys, and taking the name Lego from the Danish words “LEg GOdt” which translate to “play well”.

Ahead of their time, Lego was one of the very first toy manufacturing companies to buy an injection mold machine with which to create plastic toys, a move which shortly led them to create the very first plastic Lego brick in 1949. In the 17 years from 1949 to 1966, Lego grew exponentially into a global company that was retailing in 42 countries. They now boasted a product range that now contained 57 Lego sets and 25 Lego vehicles and with factories that were producing more than 706 million Lego elements each year – but the company didn’t stop growing.

In 1967 the LEGOLAND Band was established and in 1968, the very first LEGOLAND opened its doors to the public, attracting more than 625,000 visitors in its first season. Today there are 9 LEGOLANDS across Europe, Asia and the US, with a further three due to open in the next few years.

Nowadays Lego is a truly global enterprise, its strong brand identity, and still unique simplistic design, keeps it a favorite amongst children, while its history and versatility make it even more collectible to adults.

International Lego Day Timeline

1932 LEGO founder starts a woodworking shop in Denmark

In a small woodworking shop in Billund, Ole Kirk Christiansen makes all types of furniture and household items. But his favorite creations are toys for his sons, so he eventually names his company LEGO–a combination of two Danish words meaning “play well”.

1946-1949 Plastic bricks are first sold by the LEGO company

A wood shortage following WWII makes manufacturers look for alternative ways to create products. Christiansen gets his hands on the first plastic-injection molding machine in Denmark and starts selling the Automatic Binding Brick, the predecessor to today’s stackable blocks.

January 28, 1958 LEGO patent application is submitted

With Christainsen’s son, Godtfred, at the helm, the company submits their patent application for the tubes and studs that would add stability and connectivity to the plastic blocks. This anniversary coincides with International LEGO Day each year.

1976 LEGO minifigures are introduced

Realizing that the sets might be more fun if a human dimension was added, the company releases the iconic yellow-faced humanoid bricks.

2014 LEGO feature film is released

When watching his son play with LEGOs, a Hollywood producer gets the idea to make an animated movie. It is a huge hit and grosses more than $450 million, with more films coming in the following years.

10 super-fun facts about Lego

In 2016 LandRover set the World Record for the largest piece of Lego construction with their huge 43-foot-high replica of Tower Bridge. This monumental structure used 5,805,846 individual pieces of Lego which would have stretched all the way to Paris in France if laid out end to end.

If Lego Minifigures were to be classed as a population, they’d be the largest population in the world! With more than 4 billion of them in total.

There are so many Lego bricks in the world, that it’s estimated that they outnumber people 80 to 1.

Despite the first Lego brick having been made in 1958, you could still interlock one with a Lego brick-built today – the design hasn’t changed a bit!

In 2009, James May created a house entirely out of Lego! The house took more than 3.3 million bricks to make and even had a working toilet, a bed, and a shower!

Lego is now so popular that 7 sets are sold every second.

Although Lego is played by both girls and boys, women and men, they still have a bit of a way to go before they reach gender equality with roughly 86% of their Lego Minifigures being male.

If you were to collect all the Lego bricks in the world and stack them together then they would be 2,386,065 miles tall!

Although Lego makes toys they are also classed as the world’s biggest tire manufacturer, making over 400 million tires each year to keep their fleet of various lego vehicles rolling.

Although Lego was the first to patent the Lego brick that we know today, they didn’t technically invent them. The story has it that the salesman who came to sell Godtfred his first plastic injection mold machine was carrying an example interlocking brick in his pocket which had been designed and patented by Hilary Fisher Page. Godtfred improved on the design by perforating the brick and adding tubes on the bottom to help tighten the connection.

How to celebrate International Lego Day

Whether you’re five or sixty-five, you’re never too old to celebrate International Lego Day. Here are a few things that you could do to celebrate the day:

Play with Lego! Perhaps the most obvious thing to do on International Lego Day is to play with Lego of course! Grab your old lego set, or buy one especially for the day and sit down for a few hours of relaxing and creative fun. If you now have children yourself then make a sculpture together and take a moment to remember how many generations have grown up with Lego by their side.

Watch the Lego Movie! Lego has become so iconic that it even has its own movie dedicated to it. In fact, there are now two! Fun for all the family, cozy up on the sofa with some popcorn and watch as Lego figures come to life in stunning animation.

Visit LEGOLAND. And finally, for perhaps the most immersive Lego experience, pack your bags and take a trip to one of the many LEGOLAND theme parks. Be wowed by the impressive Lego structures and ride the exhilarating roller coasters for a day you’ll never forget.

Source

[nemo-of-house-hamartia]

Ok, PART 2 INCOMING.

just like before, this is going to be long, so it's going to be underneath the keep reading lol

ENJOY

-KODOMO NO OMOCHA

When I tell you that if you were an Italian teen and were watching this anime, YOU FOR SURE HAVE HAD YOUR HEART CRUSHED BUT THIS. CRUSHED. BECAUSE ERIK WAS *EVERYTHING*. Also, there are people who wanted Sana to end up with Ayato and people WHO LIED THROUGH THEIR TEETH. Gods, I remember the huge amounts of feelings this anime caused me because I was more or less the same age as the protagonists, also starting to nurse my first IRL crushes toward another classmate and this anime HIT HARD in the feelings fml.

-TOKYO MEW MEW

I loved this Anime so much as a teen because it was SO BEAUTIFULLY drawn and it was so colorful and adorable (but I don't know why, I found Ichigo to be insufferable. Like, I loved her design, because YES, the design is beautiful, but she as a character was insufferable, and I very much prefered Zakuro and Mint tbh. But I loved the mangaka's sense of fashion for the girls, it was just UGH so prettyyyyyy!!!

-KERORO GUNSO

ok this is probably one of THE MOST ridiculous manga I have ever read, but dear gods, I remember laughing SO MUCH. SO MUCH. I loved the design Keroro and the Platoon had, they were so cute, and Keroro is just SO STUPID but SO ADORABLE, you cannot help but find him endearing (though, poor Dororo, he is trying to keep this freaking squad from sinking lolol), and the story was just overall hilarious. To this day, one of my favourite still <3

-URUSEI YATSURA

MOVE.THE.FUCK.ASIDE. BECAUSE LUM IS MY PRINCESS. LOOK AT HER. JUST LOOK AT HER. SHE IS *EVERYTHING* AND SO MUCH MORE,BUT BOY OH BOY, I NEVER UNDERSTOOD WHY SHE WENT AFTER ATARU SO MUCH. Each time she gave him an electroshock I was like "YOU GO GIRL. THAT MOFO DOESN'T DESERVE YOU.* But then again, Mendo nor Rei were actually suitable partners for her, despite both of them going after her fml. Probably her best match was Benten, and fml I adored their relationship (the whole Oni vs Gods of Luck thing they had going on was my everything).

-RANMA 1/2

If I had one OTP, that one is Ranma and Akane, because DEAR GODS, I just cannot. The whole premise of this manga is something else entirely, and I will ALWAYS recommend everyone to read it because it's so worth it. Rumiko Takahashi did such a splendid job with the story and the characters (though my fave must be Kodachi and Ryoga. Like, I am sorry, but Ryoga is such an idiot, but such an adorable one, it's impossible not to love him, and Kodachi is THE QUEEN, with the whole rhythmic gymnastic thing she has going on. ADORE. But Happosai I would gladly burn with a torch. I HATED HIM so much. so much fml). Also fun fact, this was probably the first manga I ever bought, when I was 7-8 years old, always courtesy of my grandparents <3

-TOKIMEKI TONIGHT

NGL, Tokimeki Tonight holds a special place in my heart. I didn't discover it until they printed the manga in Italy in 2002, but ever since then it held my heart. I have a huge soft spot for the 80s style of drawing of the manga (70s and 80s Shoujo are just so beautiful, I adore), and Tokimeki Tonight is no exception. Plus, the story is SO CUTE and Ransie's family and their adventure are just so entertaining (I adore her mom and dad: like, a vampire and a she-wolf together? perfection!!!). This is another manga I would warmly recommend because it's just so super cute. Cheesy and humorous, exactly as I love it lolol.

-NANA

This is not a manga. This is not an anime. This is a WHOLE ASS MASTERPIECE. A MASTERPIECE. Gods, Ai Yazawa is the reason I am so conscious about fashion for my ocs, because, if you have read ANY manga she has written and drawn, you know why. Anyway, this story is just a literal wrench to the heart, from beginning to end, and this is without taking into consideration that it's not finished and will more likely remain incomplete😥😥😥 (and dear Gods, Hachi, you are such a freaking idiot, but I love you anyway. But if I ever catch Takumi, that bastard is going to get the snip snip from me. Bastard.)

-BERSERK

I have only one thing to say about Berserk: this manga/anime is TRAUMATIC. Like seriously, Kentaro Miura was not shy in traumatizing his characters and whatnot, but let me tell you something: if you ever want to approach Berserk, read about ALL the trigger warnings, because the story truly dwell in profound dark themes. I usually am able to read manga in one-go, but with Berserk I had to take several pauses because sometimes it was A LOT. That being said, Casca an Guts are my precious babies and deserve ALL THE SAFETY IN THIS WORLD. GRIFFITH, YOU BASTARD, I AM GOING TO TEAR YOUR BALLS AWAY FROM YOU. *starts wailing in a corner.*

-SHAMAN KING

I actually had to thank a dear friend from high school for discovering this manga. I remember we were in the same school but different classes, and she was always reading it, so one day she suggested me to read it and I WAS HOOKED. The whole concept is AMAZING, the story is HILARIOUS (when it's not too busy squashing your heart with absolute glee) and the characters are *perfection*. I honestly adore Rei and Bason (once more, emotionally constipated short king with one hell of a temper), especially Bason in his spirit form. He was adorable lolol.

-OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB

Ok this is another one I ABSOLUTELY recommend because it's downright HILARIOUS, and the drama/comedy/ shoujo thing that is going on is just *chef's kiss*. Tamaki and the Hitachiin twins are SUCH HUGE DORK AND IDIOTS, OMG, but they are so adorable. Though, my man there is Kyouya, the KING IN THE SHADOW. Honestly, if you want something light and hilarious to read, this is PERFECT. And the anime is SO WELL DRAWN. SO WELL DRAWN. I adore.

-SUGAR SUGAR RUNE

THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF THIS MANGA IS JUST SO PURELY ADORABLE. CHOCOLA IS SO CUTE, HER MOTHER CINNAMON IS SO BADASS and fml when I read the manga Glacier was *definitely* my type fml. ALSO, MOYOCO ANNO'S ARTSTYLE IS *FANTASTIC* and I absolutely *adore* the fashion style she has for the EVERYONE. I ADORE.

-OJAMAJO DOREMI

I might be biased, because I used to watch it with my baby sister, so i have many fond memories connected to this, BUT THIS IS PROBABLY THE CUTEST AND MOST ADORABLE ANIME EVER MADE. It's just so cute, the story is adorable, and I absolutely adored Momoko and Onpu, they were my babbus. And the Italian theme songs were ALL SO CATCHY AND BEAUTIFUL. Cristina D'Avena, you will forever be THE SINGER FML.

-VAMPIRE HUNTER D

And nothing. this is THE Dhampir. D is THE MAN. Honestly, if I were to start blabbering about Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, I would spend DAYS going over and over EVERY SINGLE MINUTE DETAIL, because dear Gods, this is Yoshitaka Amano style animated, and for my eyes is a FEAST each time I watch this movie. I just truly can't express into words what it means to me and the influence it had on 13 yo Nemo back then, the way it shaped my love for vampires and gothic atmosphere. Also, D is so freaking handsome, fml, between him and Vincent Valentine I would probably become incoherent lol.

-CLAMP SCHOOL DETECTIVE & MAN OF MANY FACES

I put these two together because the characters and the setting are the same, and I read them in tandem when I was younger, so to me they are kind of indivisible. The chapters in the manga are all self-conclusive, but the stories are just so cute, with the Nokoru, Suoh and Akira helping all "damsels in distress" around CLAMP Institute campus, they are just adorable (and I LIVED for their brief cameos as adults in X-1999. *inserts Leo DiCaprio gif pointing at something* I honestly enjoyed them thoroughly!

----------------------------------

Ok for now I am done with Part 2!

I will upload part 3 in the next few days lolol

Ok imma make a list of my fave animes and manga from when I was growing up., because I can. And if you are an Italian that grew up in the late 80s/early 90s watching TV, you'll find a crapton of those cartoons that were aired on Bim Bum Bam (so, Italia 1, Canale 5 and Rete 4 lolol) and on the smaller television channels (especially the one from the 80s ).

It's going to be A LONG ONE, probably divided in a couple of reblogs, because I am not kidding you all, I DEVOURED manga and anime when I was a child/teen lolol

As usual, they are in no particular order of preference: I am just writing them down as they come to my mind.

So without further ado, you will find the list beneath the "keep reading" lolol

-LADY OSCAR

When I say that this story shaped me as a person, I am not exaggerating. I always LOVED reading shoujos, but I never felt like I could relate to any of the heroines. I felt like I was never sweet enough, or feminine enough. Then, Oscar François de Jarjayes came along and dear gods, it was EVERYTHING my heart desired. I wanted to be her so badly: brave, strong, just and never afraid to be who I am. This story is my everything.

-X-1999

(the way Seishiro and Subaru's story had me BY THE THROAT even as a teen,I just cannot begin to explain. Gods, it was so twisted, but so SO GOOD. Seishiro and Subaru were just MY EVERYTHING. And do not let me start with Kakyou and Hotaru, my heart was WRENCHED. tbh, it would be fair to say that everything connected to the Sumeragi just grips my heart , especially after reading Tokyo Babylon. Gah, my heart).

-SLAYERS

RINA WAS MY EVERYTHING. Poweful, Sassy, independent, reckless and with a short temper??? like HELLO?? I connected to her so much fml (and child me shipperd her hard with Zelgadis, fml.). The Italian Theme song was just SO BEAUTIFUL, it was one of the many reasons I adored this anime so much.

-ROBIN HOOD

*takes deep breath* ok. I have a lot to unpack on this because I have this CLEAR core memory from when I was still in preschool and was watching this anime at my grandparents' home and I was just lost for Robin. COMPLETELY lost, and while I am known to have a penchant for being rather theatrical, now I am totally serious. fml this cartoon had such a huge influence on me, that I am still feeling it to this day, even in the way I design characters (like, I never realized how much Maid Marian actually resembled Dottie dear gods.)

- MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM WING

I usually do not care much for the Mecha genre tbh, it was never my favourite, but Mobile Suit was one of the few that I actually loved. And this was the Anime that made me go "yes, I love men with long hair fml (Duo, you bastard, I had such a huge crush on you. So yes, I am looking at you) and I love magnificent bastards (Treize I hate that I love you so much)", so I already knew there was no going back lol).

-SAILOR MOON

I talked extensively yesterday about HOW MUCH I love Sailor Moon, but dear gods let me reiterate. Sailor Moon IS my childhood. The amount of time I played pretend in school with my group of friends cannot even start to be counted. Adore. just ADORE.

- CHOBITS

(prepare yourself because you will see A CRAPTON of stuff from Clamp. They were my go to, along Rumiko Takahashi, Naoko Takeuchi and Ai Yazawa).

-CARD CAPTOR SAKURA

(this story was *everything* and i coveted so badly her card deck. like, the amount of time I redrew the card of Fire, Water, Light and Darkness because fml i adore Mokona's style so much, especially the one she had during that period of time).

-TSUBASA RESERVOIR CHRONICLE

(I am still trying to recover from THE HUGE HEADACHE this freaking manga caused me, with all the cross referencing and whatnot, but fml I was *living* for all the characters from Clamp´s previous work being included everywhere. It was amazing, I adored it so much).

-MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH

I WANTED TO BE UMI SO BADLY. SO BADLY. BLUE HAIRED HEROINE, ELEGANT, CONNECTED TO DRAGONS, WITH ONE HECK OF A RAPIER AS SWORD?? WHY YES. YES. And Emeraude, oh gods, the way I loved Emeraude and Zagart's story. Just let me sob in silenceeeee).

- GODCHILD

What can I say about this, aside from the fact that this was my descent into the Visual Gothic Genre?? It had everything! fucked up story-lines (Victorian Gothic literature was filled up with that), the AMAZING pencil of Kaori Yuki, and Cain. ESPECIALLY CAIN.

-DRAGON BALL

(Z/GT, you name it. Mandatory watch with my lil bro, as soon as I got back home followed, of course, by a fight between me and him because we couldn't agree on who was stronger, Vegeta or Goku - and I still stand by my man Vegeta, idc. Also, Freezer's saga lasted FOREVER. A WHOLE SUMMER OF WATCHING IT, AND IT WAS NEVER ENDING.).

- NARUTO

this is THE MANGA. The one that, alongside The Crow caused me and my husband to meet and fall in love. We were both following Shippuuden as it just came out and was airing in Japan, and my hubby had a Sasuke fpf. Aside from this though, I just love Kishimoto's work so much fml.

- LITTLE POLLON

A whole ass anime about the daughter of Apollo, busy trying to prove herself a Goddess and making SO MUCH CHAOS?? My cup of tea as a child (I was probably 4-5 when I watched it) and my own personal gateway to Greek Mythology lololol

-WOLF'S RAIN

DO NOT SPEAK TO ME ABOUT THIS ANIME, I AM STILL CRYING THINKING ABOUT IT, DEAR GODS. THIS ANIME FUCKED ME UP IN SO MANY WAYS, I CANNOT EVEN START TO COUNT THEM. FML. But dear gods, the way I adored it and tickled all my wolf spot in the brain. BEAUTIFUL.

-GALAXY EXPRESS 999

I have the fondest memories of this anime, because I used to watch it with my grandpa who actually happend to be a train conductor. He always made sure to record it on the VHS when he had shifts where he would not be able to be home and watch it with me, so this has anime has so many memories conneced to it. Also, I loved Maetel, she alway looked so elegant to me (infact, I had half an idea of drawing Dottie as her for halloween, but didn't have the time lolol). Hilariously, this anime would subsequently be the one to open the doors for me to Captain Harlock lol.

-INUYASHA

I CANNOT START BLABBERING ABOUT INUYASHA, BECAUSE OTHERWISE I WOULD HAVE A 50K ESSAY LONG TO PRESENT HERE. But I remember approaching it after I read Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2 (Rumiko Takahashi is a fucking genius, I will take no other opinion on her. She carried this side of the manga industry on her shoulders alone fml), and I fell SO IN LOVE with the Sengoku Era and with the whole youkai mithos that I just tuned on MTV whenever I could just to watch it fml. Also, this cemented my love for the "Magnificent Bastards with long hair" that Gundam Wing started (am looking at you, Naraku, Sesshomaru and Inu-no-Taisho fml) (also no, I don't want to hear about Yashahime. I love the characters design they had for the children, but as far as I am concerned in regards to the story, that thing never existed for me and will never exist).

-SAINT SEIYA

I CAVALIERI!! I CAVALIERI!! I CAVALIERI DELLO ZODIACOOOOOOOOOOOO!! *ahem, sorry. I had to. The Italian opening by Giorgio Vanni is so fucking catching, it alwys put me in such good mood. I adored Lady Isabel but also wanted her to end up with Nettuno, I just couldn't find a freaking compromise lol. AND FML, my heart belonged to Ikki. He was such a spunky, arrogant son of a bitch, I loved him so much. But truth is that I also ADORED Seiya's Italian VA (Ivo De Palma, fml, you magnificent man).

-YU YU HAKUSHO

This was the beginning of my love for short kings who are also emotionally constipated TO THE MAX and a bit of a bastard. AND YES, HIEI, I AM TALKING ABOUT YOU. I was never a great appreciator of Yusuke tbh, but I always shipped him with Botan because they were just SO ADORABLE together. But I was just much more interested in Kuwabara being all over the moon for Yukina and Hiei having to deal with it lololol that was so much fun.

-FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST

BEST. MANGA. AND. ANIME. EVER. I have YET to see to this day a story AS GOOD as this one. Like, seriously, the amount of research that Hiromu Arakawa did for this anime is something that needs to be praised. Seriously, if you have never seen this, GO NOW AND DO SO. You are missing out on SO MUCH.This manga shaped me as a writer and artist, tbh: it had such profound impact on me on a creative level (also, Maes Hughes is living a long life with his family after he retired from service, had 3 more children, and they are all living in a cottage by the sea fml).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK I FINISHED PART 1 FOR NOW.

Part 2 will come soon lolol