#honestly the failure is funnier

[greyias]

HELP

I CAN'T BREATH

WHEEZING

[toskarinfr]

MASQUE DE LA MAGE ROUGE [Medium: Success] — hm, that's odd.

ME — what is?

MASQUE DE LA MAGE ROUGE — nobody's caught on to the fact that you're blatantly referencing the Main's posting again.

BULLET LIGER [Trivial: Success] — Isn't it just you fumbling her wording again? Most of the posts here are just slightly unfunnier ways of phrasing Unni's cadence.

MASQUE DE LA MAGE ROUGE [Formidable: Failure] — it feels different in this case, like you've overlooked something.

[La Seule Magie - Heroic 15] Track down that post again.

CHECK SUCCESS

+1 MORALE

LA SEULE MAGIE [Heroic: Success] — the post you are referencing is an edit toskarin posted 3 years ago— with only 7 notes.

LA SEULE MAGIE — you had confused this for another edit she made of a Hollow Ataraxia CG, that had garnered much more notoriety.

-1 MORALE

BULLET LIGER [Medium: Success] — Her phrasing is way funnier than yours. It's to the point where it's SUPER obvious you were just haphazardly copying from memory. It's honestly embarrassing.

THOUGHT GAINED: BLADE OF DEEP CUTS

[nerdyrevelries]

Jo had to try three times to set Teddy up with someone, but she got there in the end.

Little Women saga - Parallelisms (Part 2): Jo-Laurie-Amy & Nan-Tom-Dora

A while ago (like months ago, sorry) I talked about how similar Jo-Laurie and Nan-Tom relationships are. I do not believe that neither Laurie nor Tom actually loved those women. And both Jo and Nan have very maternal feelings towards these men. They were fixations. Really, they were very damaging obsessions that were ruining these men’s lives. And the women, to their misfortune, had to deal with them. Plus, they both had more maternal feelings than anything else towards those men.

I made 2 posts about it (Chapter 41, Chapter 41: Laurie). It is one of my favorite chapters in the whole saga. And you can see that Laurie’s head is a mess. It’s actually very frustrating to see him going back and forth between accepting that he doesn’t love Jo and admitting his feelings for Amy. When you think he finally got it, he goes back to Jo. But in the process, it’s pretty clear he does NOT love Jo or that he ever did. Why? Well, if he really loved her as much as he claimed, then why did he fight so hard to remember her? And why did Amy get in his mind without even trying?

Louisa describes the moments when Laurie/Tom get over Jo and Nan in a pretty similar way.

The moment Laurie gets away from Jo, those feelings start to disappear. Sure, he spent months wailing and feeling sorry for himself, but that was an act. Once he starts working on his opera, he realizes Jo is no the heroine he once thought. He even claims,

That girl is a torment!

At the same time, he begins dreaming of another heroine that casually looks a lot like Amy and that is surrounded by things he experienced with her in Nice. The only reason why he kept forcing himself to think of Jo was because he thought it would be betrayal to forget her. 

But alas he lets her go:

Laurie thought that the task of forgetting his love for Jo would absorb all his powers for years, but to his great surprise he discovered it grew easier every day. He refused to believe it at first, got angry with himself, and couldn’t understand it, but these hearts of ours are curious and contrary things, and time and nature work their will in spite of us. Laurie’s heart wouldn’t ache.

Fastforward 25 years and Tom is going through basically the same.

Tom and Demi go away. At first Tom is still fixated on Nan and even tries to make her jealous through Dora. However, his plan backfires because he ended up enjoying Dora’s company quite a bit. She turned out to be a lovely girl who made him very happy.

LMA even describes Tom’s change in quite a similar way,

surprised to find that his heart did not ache a bit.

And just like Laurie, Tom is so excited to tell Jo he’s engaged. He’s delighted, that boy is on a cloud! (I’m imagining Jo listening to Tom and thinking “I’ve been here before”)

I spoke about Laurie’s proposals before. It’s so different how chaotic Laurie is with Jo. Meanwhile, his relationship with Amy runs smoothly. It brings him such peace. And the same thing happens with Tom,

‘I declare, I feel as if a weight was off me…

Can you imagine? After all those years of chasing the wrong girl, the stress, the anxiety. Then finally, they are truly in love and those girls love them back! That must feel amazing!

Jo offers her opinion (she does know a thing or two about a boy’s fancy):

It is my opinion, Tom, that you love Dora, or are on the way to it; for in all these years I’ve never seen you look or speak about Nan as you do about Dora. Opposition has made you obstinately cling to her till accident has shown you a more attractive girl. Now, I think you had better take the old love for a friend, the new one for a sweetheart, and in due time, if the sentiment is genuine, marry her.’

Here’s the thing about these fancies, it’s not only about the girl they want to marry. It is about their entire life. Tom was throwing away his future just to be near Nan. He hated medicine. Once he gets over Nan, he goes into business and loves it. This is how important it is to choose your partner wisely, because they can lift you up or drown you.

Tom is basically Laurie 2.0 in this regard. They are so similar that Laurie gives him advice later on.

and Mr Laurie gave him some wise advice upon the astonishing gymnastic feats the human heart can perform, and be all the better for it if it only held fast to the balancing-pole of truth and common sense.

(I want to write a one-shot of this conversation)

But in the meantime, here it is. Finally, I finished this post that has been on my drafts since forever.

Little Women saga- Parallelisms (Part 1): Jo-Laurie & Nan-Tom

[keelywolfe]

Just because a twitter chat got me thinking that as hilarious as Crowley is in the pub scene, it's funnier to think Aziraphale would truly be the jealous one. Crowley is more amused by humans trying to chat him or the angel up, what does he care, what, after 6000 years one of them is suddenly going to fall for a bad pickup line or a free drink? Aziraphale just has a possessive side and if he were the one to catch someone in his seat at the bar, I can just hear him in that ice-cold voice he can get:

“I beg your pardon, you appear to be in my seat.”

Crowley glanced up at him and his visible amusement did not soothe any of Aziraphale's irritation. “Hey, angel, this is Roy. He’s—“

“Mm, yes, I’m sure he is. My seat, please.”

The urge to miracle a catastrophic failure to the integrity of Roy’s Pilsner glass was itching at Aziraphale’s fingertips. He was almost disappointed when he showed an unexpected good sense and stood up, drink in hand. “Well. It was lovely chatting.”

Crowley gave him a wide smile with an unnecessary amount of teeth. “Right. Anytime.”

Aziraphale stared at Roy with half-closed eyes and a tight-lipped smile that said anytime should be as close to never as humanly possible.

In a show of remarkably poor survival instinct, Roy gestured to the table as he stood at a scrap of paper Aziraphale hadn’t noticed as his full attention had been on glaring at their uninvited guest. “You’ve got my number. Give us a call, anytime.”

Perhaps it was the increase in heat of Aziraphale’s stare that had Roy making a hasty retreat. Aziraphale stalked to his side of the table and sat in his, HIS chair with enough force that the wood groaned ominously.

Crowley propped his chin on one hand, a truly unholy amount of glee visible in his eyes even through the dark tint of his glasses. “Happy now, angel?”

“Not as much as you,” Aziraphale hissed. He took a sullen sip of his drink, hardly able to appreciate the crisp dryness of the sherry.

The way Crowley pressed a hand to his chest in a mocking gesture of offense did nothing to improve his mood. Honestly, what had started as a lovely outing had quickly became a rather unpleasant affair. He was tempted to simply leave in a huff and realized unhappily that he wasn’t entirely certain Crowley would follow him. He might stay just to be contrary, leave Aziraphale waiting by the car while he sat and finished his drink and perhaps someone, perhaps that Roy would come back and sit himself across from Crowley again and—

“Angel.” That single word broke through his wildly spiraling thoughts. There was amusement, yes, but also a certain well-known and well-loved tenderness couched in that single word that had always held more weight than a simple description. “I’d bet you’ve no idea how gorgeous you are when you’re terribly jealous.”

“I’m not…I would never…” Aziraphale sputtered. He gulped down the rest of his drink, terribly uncouth, but it was the only way to cover his floundering. After a hasty gathering of his thoughts, he set his glass firmly down and said with equal firmness, “I was not jealous, I was simply irritated at that terrible person’s manners.”

“Irritated.” Crowley repeated, one side of his mouth rising, widening his smirk.

“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed stoutly. “I was not jealous. Jealousy implies that I don’t trust you and I like to think I’ve been successful in establishing otherwise. I trust you and I have done for some time now, there is no reason or excuse for any jealousy.”

The amusement coloring Crowley’s expression began softening before Aziraphale was halfway through his little speech and by the time he was finished, it was fully transformed to fondness and. And love, Aziraphale could call it that now, if he wanted. He could, he was allowed, there was no one who could stop him.

“Not a doubt in my mind that you trust me,” Crowley said simply. That tight little knot that had formed in Aziraphale’s chest the very moment he’d seen that man in his seat unraveled, easing an ache he’d hardly realized was there. “The rest of the world, now,” Crowley continued, tossing back the last of his drink, “That lot can’t be trusted in the slightest.”

Aziraphale didn’t think Crowley was entirely right about that but a glance around the pub revealed entirely too many looks being sent Crowley’s way and also a somewhat astonishing, and disconcerting, amount being cast his as well.

Crowley shifted in his seat, preparing to stand, “Another drink, angel?”

“No!” Aziraphale blurted and snatched hold of Crowley’s hand. They weren’t quite accustomed to such gestures yet, enough that he could feel Crowley’s surprise in his grip, and also his pleasure. “No. Not yet. Please. Let’s just sit for a while, can we?”

Silly, really, he could use a miracle to keep Crowley’s chair empty while he was at the bar. But he knew full well it wouldn’t stop a very determined human and simply the thought of another person trying to toss their hat into his and Crowley’s very private ring made him feel cross.

The hand in his own, cool and soft, despite his demonic nature Crowley always felt soothingly cool, tightened, fingers lacing between his own.

“Anything you want, angel.” A thumb skirted over Aziraphale’s knuckles, back and forth, and he didn’t bother holding back his pleased sigh. “Anything at all.”

No one noticed a tiny scrap of paper in the middle of their table igniting and turning to a curl of ash, and even if they had, not a one of them would have known it wasn't the demon's doing.

[o-uncle-newt]

NINE: characters you love to hate, then love to love

I was going to write "characters you identify with" but honestly... do I identify with any of them, per se? Not so much- they're all very sitcommy, in a good way. I've never been the kind of person who wants to see "real people" end up in sitcom hijinks; that just ends up being cringe comedy. I want to see the kinds of weirdos who can handle it, who were written for it.

The Cabin Pressure crew are perfect for this. They're all at least a bit (at LEAST) over the top, and all have something that makes you, occasionally, want to punch them (if gently, in Arthur's case) in the face. They all have a kind of a grandiosity that means that no amount of plot-related deflation can truly diminish them- even putting "Dougie" in a life jacket and making him explain how a whistle works isn't going to change the fact that, once that's all done, he's Douglas again. Of course, Arthur will always be Arthur no matter how often he's called a clot- in fact, he becomes more Arthurish the more that happens, because part of what makes him larger than life is his near-impermeability.

I think that that's kind of the point of what makes the characters so moving, though- they’re given a tremendous humanness that is, very often, linked to exactly the thing that makes them larger than life as a sitcom character. And yet, somehow, exploring those human foibles and feelings never diminishes them as sitcom characters to the point of making things actually uncomfortable (except possibly Kuala Lumpur and Qik for Martin, and those are rare bottom-tier episodes for me anyway).

It’s just pretty awesome- the very thing that makes a character larger than life also ends up being the thing that makes them lifelike. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

For example, let’s take Carolyn. What makes her larger than life is the sheer extent to which she takes being a boss- and, in many ways, a control freak. It’s what makes her hilarious but it’s also part of what is holding her back as a person, in the sense that she doesn’t feel like her crew would be there for her if she WEREN’T a control freak. So this natural part of her personality ends up becoming a barrier to her happiness because of the way it interprets how she sees the world, the lack of trust that she has in people who care about her (of course, except for Arthur, but he loves EVERYONE and isn’t trustworthy for other reasons lol). This of course extends itself to meeting and being with Herc, whose feelings for her she can’t fully trust- and as a result she can’t trust him.

The key ends up being- her journey is not about Carolyn needing to be sweeter or softer. It’s about people realizing that she’s not sweet or soft, people like her anyway (or maybe even BECAUSE of it, in the case of Herc), and she needs to trust that they do. She didn’t need to cut back on any part of herself- she needed to open herself up to more, keep the parts of herself that make her her while also not letting them mislead her into being closed off. She remains the same person, but expanded. And that’s pretty beautiful. The thing that makes her a sitcom character isn’t a character flaw that needs to be fixed, it’s a character trait that can be both used well and misused. Misused is funnier but used well is happier- and both are her.

On a similar note- if there’s a character I come close to identifying with, it’s Martin, which I’m sure is the case for many (though if you identify with Douglas, I’d be fascinated to know you lol). I don’t identify with him all as a human being, though, which is a comfort because, like, oh my goodness that would be depressing! I think that the things that people identify with about Martin are his constant striving and, yet, his constant failure- but his core trait is beyond that, that he wants not only to be doing the thing he loves but to be both GOOD at it and RECOGNIZED as good. This is of course intensely relatable, and the thing that is maladaptive is more the extent to which he goes to achieve this than that actual fact itself. By the end of the show, he’s basically brought to normal-human levels of achievement and competence at his dream and is newly satisfied with it, and that’s something we cheer him on for because it just feels achievable- if someone like him can, surely I can too. (This is, of course, mildly undercut by him becoming the boyfriend of the Princess of Liechtenstein lol.) Whatever Martin goes on to achieve will be BECAUSE of his core sitcom trait of wanting to excel at a thing that he loves, but he will have become mildly less annoying about how he achieves that because of how he’s grown. After all, too, part of how he’s going to achieve it is to take on a sitcom trait (a mask of invulnerability) of another excellent sitcom character, Douglas, even if it came via Rory!

Essentially, I think, the key to Cabin Pressure is that it recognizes not only that the very things that make you laugh at a person are the things that can make them deeper and richer, but that there is nothing about the process of them improving themselves that has to make them less funny, because they’re not fixing their sitcom flaws, they’re becoming better about how they use them. They’re still recognizably the same people.

I could go into a whole ramble about sitcoms that I think do and don’t use this well (Frasier, for example, was very good at this for a while but lost it; Parks and Rec, in contrast, got the principle very well but was extremely uneven at applying it on a character by character basis). But I do want to single out Ted Lasso as a show that really fumbled its attempt at this. I loved S1 and really went off it after that, and part of it is that it decided that everything that made Ted distinctive as a character had to be inherently maladaptive. At a certain point, he became Ned Flanders in the Simpsons episode where it turned out that he was essentially psychologically abused into being cheerful all the time- not only was he less funny, he just didn’t feel like the same person. Now, Ted Lasso was more of a dramedy than a sitcom, and maybe that’s why they thought this was necessary/warranted, but if so they were wrong, IMO.

I mention other sitcoms in comparison, and I guess the real clincher that makes Cabin Pressure special is that it lets all its characters grow, to some degree. There’s a kind of an acknowledgement that a sitcom “rule” is that the main character can’t really change, or the show won’t be the same. It explains, for example, why Frasier doesn’t develop to the degree that Niles does in the first two thirds of the show. And the thing is that JF defied this because he got that a great sitcom character needs to have a funny personality trait, but it doesn’t always have to be (equally) a flaw. Cabin Pressure’s crew will always have those same traits, and sometimes they’ll use them well and sometimes they won’t/those traits will clash with others’, and in the latter cases (and sometimes in the former too!) that will make for funny episode premises. A character growing enough that a particular maladaptive element of their sitcom trait is no longer a big issue is great, but doesn’t make them less them, and therefore they’re still going to be funny even if it’s in a different and more self aware way.

Now, you might ask, how does this all play in with JF’s concept of sitcom graduation, where there’s a natural endpoint? I’m glad you asked! To me, the answer is that this is their graduation from THIS scenario. Martin had definitely graduated from MJN, if not from the crew family; Carolyn had graduated from running a dictatorship where she felt like she couldn’t trust, and even reward, people who believed in her; and Douglas had graduated from his feeling of ironic detachment. But we can feel confident that the sitcom traits that they have won’t stop being relevant, that they won’t stop being them, and that they won’t stop being funny. It’ll just be with a different dynamic and different sets of flaws related to that sitcom trait. There will always be situations where their sotcom personalities will be funny!

And I think that the key example of this was Cabin Fever, honestly. While Arthur, who is the only character who couldn’t completely change, obviously didn’t, the other characters brought up retain all of their key traits from the show, just in a different kind of an environment. It becomes clear the extent to which their sitcom traits were just particularly pronounced elements of well drawn personalities with constellations of related traits, and a Douglas/Herc trivia-ranking rivalry shows all the same Douglas sitcom traits that he always had, just applied in a different way. These people’s stories and never really ended- it’s just that particular page that turned. They’ll always be them, outsized personalities and all.

And maybe that’s why the characters live on so much to the fans. We can plop them into new imagined situations and know not just how they will react in a human, but how funny it will be. They’re not merely human, they’re sitcom characters, and that’s the best part. They’ll never lose that.

[hopeswriting]

found your khr meta and i'm so happy about it. also i saw the discussion about tsuna's refusal to be decimo turning into a gag at the end and i've always headcanon-ed that reborn left to go officially declare his mission a failure to the ninth, job done and over--and then came back of his own volition with the neo primo stuff so he could keep living his life with tsuna without a contract hanging over them. makes me happy

hi nonny, thank you for your ask!

aw thank you, i'm glad you enjoyed them! 🥰 also i'm not actually sure which post exactly you're talking about here lol, but hello, i love this headcanon?? it fits so well with the manga's humor, especially back in the daily life arc when it was still a gag manga, but also it's honestly so in character for reborn lol. both because of the chaos he naturally breathes in the air at all times, but also because, like. if he decides staying with tsuna is what he wants even if it doesn't involve tsuna becoming vongola decimo, then of course he wouldn't just come out and be upfront about it zersfsdf. which makes it even funnier, because it means tsuna only learns about it months down the line at best. and still not because reborn decided to confess about it, god forbid lmao.

anyway, yeah, it makes me happy to think about it too! as far as the manga open ending goes, this one happy ending i can get behind when it comes to their relationship

[simlit]

All odd numbers for Kyrie!😁

What memory would your OC rather just forget?

I think he'd wish he could forget that he was given to the church as a baby. Not necessarily because he wants to reunite or even know his birth parents, he doesn't. But it's a constant reminder that he, quite literally, doesn't belong there. That he was given away as if he was a tool or some material good. It's just a lot to carry around with you.

What is your OC's fatal flaw? Are they aware of this flaw?

Fear of failure. Something that has only recently made itself evident to him (and me lol). In a way, he's a people pleaser. He doesn't want to disappoint those around him. He fears the ripple of consequences that might stem from his domino falling first, and doesn't want to be the person responsible for a larger collapse, so he sort of keeps to his duty as a cog, despite how he might not align with the objective.

How far is your OC willing to go to get what they want?

I would say... not very. He's lazy, certainly, but he's also sheltered, incredibly inexperienced, and lacks the means to get what he wants through pure brute strength, power or smarts. That being said, if the obstacle is something he can overcome, I think he'd be more inclined to actually try.

What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

I made Kyrie almost as a blank slate so that I could easily adapt him to the circumstances of the story. Because CotS is both interactive and filled with characters I didn't create, he had to be someone who could blend well with all types of people, and not have many "hardstops" so to speak, morally or otherwise. But along the way I've tried to make someone who is an "open template" entertaining, and I think Kyrie's almost lackadaisical unbothered humor emerged from all of ~that~. I didn't go in planning him to be such a huge fucking troll, but I'm glad he has his "thing". In a story with so many strong personalities, it would have been easy to get overtaken by the other cast members.

Do you have a specific lyric or quote which you associate with your OC?

"That's abominable." Because it's just so damn funny.

What is your OC's weapon of choice? Have they ever actually used it?

Yes, he has one, and no he doesn't use it. And it's been called into question multiple times in the story, and I still don't think a damn one of them knows the actual truth yet lmao. It's funnier that way. It wouldn't save him from getting murdered, obviously. It would probably just get him murdered faster.

If you met your OC, would the two of you get along?

Absolutely. If he wasn't so hot. Because honestly every time I look at him I just want to punch him in the face so 100% the conversation would go no where and I'd get arrested.

Does your OC have a faceclaim? If so, who?

No he doesn't.

What is the worst thing you have put your OC through story-wise?

I kind of... took his sister. Mean Jade go grr. I have this terrible habit of killing off loving sisters. I leave the bad ones though. Elsera says hi.

How does your OC behave when enraged?

He's one of those awful people who just gets stoic and civil when angry. As Tay said while having the absolute pleasure of being on the other end of it: that's probably worse. He's not been confronted with a situation that would make him exceptionally angry though, i.e. nothing life or death, so maybe that would change.

Does your OC have any illnesses or disorders? How do they handle it?

He doesn't.

What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express?

I think it would be loss. Which I guess is a generic answer, since it's pretty typical of human nature not to handle loss well. But I think when you have so very little in your life that is truly meaningful, then you're grasping at straws and have nothing to distract you from your grief. I think in the story currently, he's in a constant state of bracing. Trying to remain outwardly hopeful even though his body is already starting to reject the premise that things will turn out well, and that putting so much mental strength into denying it, degrades his focus in other facets of his life. Outside of the few moments where he's truly and genuinely amused, I do feel he's starting to lose himself under the pressure he would have, otherwise, been able to stand against without hesitation. I can't really imagine him in a place where he has to accept that loss is real, and I don't know how or if he can cope with it when it does.

What is your favorite thing about your OC?

I love what a huge fuckin TROLL he is. Sorry, it's so entertaining to me. It's one of my main reasons for preferring him with ~certain~ members of the cast. Mostly the ones who are ripe for riling up ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[anghraine]

Honestly, I wish the ... idk, autism discourse or whatever talked more about the valorization of humor and the way it gets propped up as a moral virtue, almost a moral imperative.

It's not that we (autistic people) definitionally don't have any sense of humor at all, or are 100% incapable of understanding it. But there's a well-established connection between ASD and understanding things very literally, often to the point of not understanding a lot of humor or technically understanding some of it but not really "getting" it. This absolutely came up when I was jumping through the formal diagnosis hoops, for instance.

It's not great to often feel fundamentally excluded from something that seems so integral to ordinary human life. But additionally, many allistic people appear to find the alienation and confusion many autistic people feel really funny. So we don't just get excluded, but frequently are specifically targeted.

There seems to be this assumption that if we comprehend why the humor is supposed to be funny, it's on us for not learning to take a joke. And if we're confused, we can't be hurt by it. Neither of these things are true, though. Speaking for myself, I intellectually understand (some) jokes, but most of the time, they still don't click for me the way they seem to for most people, and I still end up pretty baffled by the whole thing.

There are things I do find funny (sometimes much funnier than most other people seem to find them), sure. But most humor and most jokes are just incomprehensible or bewilderingly unfunny to me. And people have often found that "...?" reaction really entertaining and deliberately just kept making jokes (typically at my expense), while defending themselves with, well, everyone needs to learn to take a joke!

So some of us have really negative associations with "harmlessly" poking fun (at ourselves or others) and with framing this as a fundamentally good, necessary thing we're failures at. It is not morally obligatory in any context.

It's not that people can't or shouldn't have preferences for romantic partners/friends/family with strong senses of humor or particular forms of humor. It's important to some people and that's fine. But the assumption that it forms some absolute standard for those roles or makes them better as humans, and other people (including autistic people!) should be imitating that way of engaging with the world is frustrating. And I think it can even be rather cruel.

[featherxs]

been thinking about asuka ren a normal healthy amount ever since she debuted in webtoon and now i realize tumblr is better for compiling all my thoughts on her. so here… are some thoughts, for sure!

first of all… we know so little about her :( the main things are basically: japanese mangaka, creator of peace land, and was present in the group regression in epilogue. mostly she serves as hsy’s foil throughout the peace land arc, and she briefly shows up during the enemy of the story scenario to support kimcom.

but there are a lot of small details that add up to her character, in my opinion… for example, her constellation sponsor is “master of the niten ichi-ryu,” who cannot be anyone but miyamoto musashi himself. this is kind of funny considering how she is unfortunately a wet sock for most of peace land arc except for that scene (…where she doesn’t even use a sword!). what’s even funnier, though, is that miyamoto apparently did ink paintings as well. sometimes i think singshong just gave asuka some random big-name japanese sponsor to cement her status as a leader among them, and sometimes i think about this coincidence. because… is it?! (incidentally, she is mentioned to have/use a katana, but it isn’t specified if she has two. tsk… what’s your dual blades stigma for if you’re not gonna use it, girl?) in addition, her physique and strength were both level 55 during peace land arc, which were pretty high when you compare it to michio’s mid-20 stats. a twitter user got the idea of her being from a family that runs a kendo or judo gym and was going to inherit the dojo someday before she declared she’d become a mangaka, and i haven’t stopped thinking about it ever since.

as for her personality… well, we’re told she’s a leader among the japanese incarnations, but… honestly, does she act like a leader to you…? from what we see of her in peace land, she can be cowardly, easily shaken or attacked, and she put the small people’s lives over her companions’… in short, she’s a little bit pathetic (fond). but then again, that was in peace land, so i guess you can’t blame a girl for being a little shaken up after being confronted with choosing between killing her friends or killing her creations. but we also see her argue with hsy a little over clichés and tropes, and we also see how she spoke out against yamamoto when he declared he’d kill the small people, so that adds up to her being decisive and true to her morals. (also, tangentially related, she calls michio by his first name without honorifics, which is as intimate as you can get. this is cute, personally, because in the ebook he mentions he was a college student before the scenarios, so he could be anywhere from 18-22+ years old, while asuka… is 31. that’s, like, her little brother.)

definitely the most interesting part about her is peace land and her relationship with it, though. because, of course, a creator must have a relationship with their creations! she must have resented her work at some point because of all the critique it got and how it ended up getting canceled so early in its serialization… i wonder how long ago was that before the events of orv, if peace land was her debut manga or her most recent work. if it was somewhere in the middle, then i want to know if she went back to making mainstream content after peace land’s failure just to earn money and if she resented that, too, or if she was prideful enough to try and make more unorthodox manga like it but kept getting shot down anyway. did she lose confidence in her craft… could she no longer find the same joy in creating no matter what she made…

then when tls123 apparently contacted her about it — how cruel must it have been to unknowingly have let someone borrow your setting, thinking your words may have finally reached someone, only to later find out the characters and setting you had put your heart into were turned into cannon fodder for your colleagues. to destroy your own work in order to move forward… what if she considered it for just a moment… after all, if anyone had the right to decide what happened to these people’s lives, it should be her, the one who made them in the first place. but after seeing them with her own eyes, in that panel where the small people are looking up at her, it must have really cemented her decision then. to them, she’s just another disaster here to kill them, but they don’t know she’s technically their god… (maybe that’s also partly why she seemed so agitated when questioning how hsy won over the people’s loyalty so quickly, because who is she to them?)… they don’t know she must have really loved them as she wrote their story. and even if they knew, maybe they would only resent her for bringing this torture upon them anyway… the guilt and resentment and frustration of a failed work but still, still that creator’s love and pride throughout it all. because after all, a writer truly can’t help but love what she has created…

i never really thought about asuka beyond a really stupid fic idea i had for her and hsy, but seeing her in webtoon following the ebook’s revisions really made me appreciate her character more. her feelings towards her work are so complex, even if we don’t see a lot of it, and even worse is that she forgets all about making peace land in the end. she doesn’t just become a character in a bigger story: her narrative has also completely escaped her hands now. but in a way, maybe she’d be happy to know they’re separate from her as she is separate from them, because that means they’re moving forward in their own world line… and not bound by such mortal restraints as the manga serialization being canceled.

man this got long, and this doesn’t even include all the delusions i have for asuka/michio and asuka/izumi. well then, my final message:

[positivelybeastly]

Any concern that evil beast is still technically alive trapped within a pocket dimension or whatever the fuck his plan for arakko was?

"I hope not."

"Not because I wish death upon him. I never wished that. If nothing else, his actions at the end prove that there was still something - enough, of me, in him, that . . . I don't know. I wish it could have gone differently."

"No, I hope he isn't alive because I don't want to think about what that would be like. Trapped, in a pocket of reality all of your own. Just you. Floating, endlessly, in the void. No light, no passage of time. Just you, and the steady, inexorable drum of your heartbeat. Just you, and time to think. About your failures. About the world you can't be a part of anymore. About the people you left behind.

Norman Cousins once said, 'The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.' What would such an existence be, but purely lonely?

I hope he's dead because he doesn't deserve that. No-one does."

I mean, I guess it's technically still on the table since we didn't see a body, but I don't think there's anyone really interested in picking up that plot thread. Jed MacKay, the next confirmed writer for Hank, has expressed his love for 80s Beast on many an occasion, and even said he couldn't get Hank for his Avengers team because of X-Force.

Even if one assumes he isn't salty about that, then I certainly can't see him looking upon this era and this version of Beast with any real affection. Honestly, the people who express that they'll miss evil Beast just confuse me.

What is there to miss? His characterisation, as put to page, is dogwater. It's a load of soundbites with no substance. He doesn't contribute anything that Dark Beast doesn't, and Dark Beast is funnier, more entertaining, and more sympathetic than he is!

If they want to pull a Crossing, say that evil Beast got shunted into a pocket dimension, and they yank him out to merge the two, then I'd be down, but if it's not that exact storyline, I'm not interested. I'm just so very . . . sick, and tired of evil Beast. I can't even go on Twitter and enjoy X-Men '97 discourse without people harping on about it.

Like, look, I get it, gatekeeping is bad, but sometimes I think it's necessary. Sometimes I do just want to pull out a card that says, 'You aren't qualified to talk about Hank McCoy's characterisation unless you've read the following comic series and understand these basic tenets of his character.'

This is why I hate comic book fandom. Media literacy is startlingly low. Maybe it's all the pictures. People don't actually read the goddamn words.

Makes me just want to

But anyway, to your point. I guess the potential is there, and in, like, seven years, someone might pull out another Beast out of a fucking portal and I'll just groan because really, we're doing this again, but I doubt it just because there hasn't been a single writer all across Marvel who's been like, yeah, evil Beast, love that shit, gimme that guy!

Everyone from Kieron Gillen to Rainbow Rowell to Tom Brevoort is just like, "can we knock that shit off?" "I'm pretending it doesn't exist." "Can S.W.O.R.D come back?"

Jed MacKay, open your adjectiveless X-Men run with Hank and Simon cuddling and kissing on the sofa. It's what I, personally, deserve after five years of Ben Percy.

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

Glad you like my Toxic!Junkouma and even found a way to make it funnier :P

It's just an au where the only time Junko gets alone time is in her dreams, and even then kokichi will wake her up cause "he could sense her trying to leave him in her dreams".

Honestly the thing I find the most hilarious is the idea that everyone is clueless, Mukuro has a slight clue but Junko is too embarrassed about this failure to tell her.

Junko trying to despair Kokichi: finally! someone to play mental chess with!

Kokichi pulling out his copy of Suicide Checkers to turn it back around on her with: LMAO you thought

[elapsed-spiral]

So, here we are, the end of the road season two. Mostly just for my own benefit, I thought I'd put my initial thoughts under a cut.

The good

Overall, I think S2 is way better than S1. It's a more confident, polished show that understands its own tone.

S2 is so much funnier than S1.

I seriously did not expect them to dig that deep with Ed and Stede's characterisation, especially the MH issues. It's impressive how they balanced very believable, heart wrenching depictions of trauma with laugh out loud jokes.

The Ed/Stede of it all was really well done. The chemistry is still off the charts, the ups and downs are classic romcom, the failures to communicate never feel contrived.

The settings and costumes and music are all so good/better than S1, imo.

Captain Frenchie!!!

The not so good

I think people have tried to blame too much stuff on the reduction in episode count but I think it's fair to say the pacing suffered, especially from episode six onward.

I found the Olu/Zheng storyline pointless and unbelievable. I think they could have given Zheng beef with Stede and the Revenge crew without it, and it's baffling to me that they threw away Olu and Jim's character development in S1 for it. Olu felt dumbed down and uninteresting by comparison to S1, which is a shame.

I think they really struggled to know what to do with Lucius, AKA previously one of the funniest characters who is now traumatised and not so funny. When there was humour it largely made light of Lucius' trauma which feels off for a show that otherwise takes trauma seriously.

I do not get Izzy's character arc and feel like a lot of that was cut for time. It felt like they really wanted him to fill the funny confidante void left by Lucius. There were just too many leaps in his development and growth for me to buy how drastic a transformation he underwent. And now, post-finale, I do and don't get his death. His dying words were heartfelt but hackneyed.

Not enough close up shots of faces during kisses and emotional scenes, which would be fine if they'd lit the damn show, but they didn't, so I often couldn't see a thing.

Overall, the biggest issue seemed to be that they speed ran the remaining plot, presumably out of a desire to ensure people got a satisfying-ish resolution if they don't get renewed. That's a kind ambition but I fear it hasn't worked.

That feels like a lot of negatives but honestly, I don't really see them that way because they got the important stuff right, AKA Ed and Stede's relationship. I've constantly been surprised by where S2 has gone and I'm so impressed by the quality overall. Here's hoping for S3.

[simcatcher-ts2]

So i said, Vhra died. Immediately after, Iva and her kids circled her. At first i thought it was a sad story of bladder failure, and was all like 'damn they're not nice, circling her up to mock her cause she can't hold it!' turns out, the truth is much creepier (and to my taste, funnier)

They circled her yes, but to perform a happy dance when she passed! i didn't even know sims could be this ill-intended xD poor poor baby...

There was no way i'd let a glitch take my little Vhra away without a fight, so i picked Timu (obviously, the highest relationship she had) to plead for her life!

Iva wasn't that impressed by his show, as her mocking semi-grin tells us

But Grim was, and honestly that's all that mattered to me. Vhra is safe and sound!!

She tried to hug Timu but he wouldn't let her! xD after all he went through for her he was just like 'well listen love, my woman's just behind me and she's not too happy i got you resurrected so y'know... we can keep it casual though right?'

Obviously Iva didn't hear his last words cause she's all like 'my maaaan <333 heroic AND faithful :D'

but everyone is still starving so, time to take things into my own hands! i go around desperately looking for sth to eat for them when suddently, small event cam pops up and:

Timu: you go babe!

She's just back from the dead AND a fight should always end up with one of the sims' death. *sigh* i don't make the rules.

But then Vhra loses and I'm like NO WAY! NOT TODAY, AND NOT LIKE THIS! DAAAMN

she doesn't like you either, so i guess... why not. *sigh* now i'm in for a fight at every occasion they'll have, i know.

his tummy is grumbling so there he goes, leaving his women to fight for him and all.

here is a very pretty pic of Rhan, if you look deep into it with your eyes half shut and all lights out.

For real? That wasn't enough of an eventful night?

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, I SAID YOU'RE NOT DYING TONIGHT.

Rumor has it fire-extinguishers grow on trees and that the first ones ever date back to the Ancient Times.

Rhan is a natural. She took the fire out quickly, as the whole household tried to set themselves into fire while panicking.

Since everyone needed a shower and i only have ONE waterfall (a little space-consuming, so yeah) i took it upon me to dig a bit more into their offshore account and bought them a bathtub. Hop, i thought, four sims in at the same time getting their hygene up :)

Lool. Timu took it upon himself to personnally thank Rhan for saving his tribe.

She responded favorably.

And you won't believe it but...

Here we are again xD Iva feels betrayed, also everyone is a pixel away from general motive failure. As always, dare i say.

Oh lord. Have mercy.

[cosmama]

✧ lets gooooooooo !

summer talks about sm ( some more ).

so one thing that kind of makes me head tilt is how the fandom kind of constantly needs to take sides on what 'version' of the character is the right one - and this usually really only happening with anime and manga fans. *abby lee miller vc* boring. yawning.

and it's like, my guys...one of my favorite usagi's i've seen is played by mizuki yamashita in team moon's nogizaka46 musical ( you can watch it here ). she made me genuinely laugh so many times - she perfectly captured usagi's innocent dumb girl-failure energy. look at her reacting to minako talking about going to get food - pics don't do the over the top gasp justice ( and mamoru and makoto's faces made it even funnier ).

you know what version of usagi i don't really care for? 90s anime. not my cup of tea really - i feel like she's a victim of a lot of characters of her type where they make them flanderized versions of themselves. it's one of the reasons i can't watch the original urusei yatsura - ataru is made just...a straight up loser instead of an endearing one. there's a balance to that. but do i think she's trash? nah, just not for me. and there's still good stuff too. just like there there's good stuff in pgsm!usagi, or any of the musical!usagi's, or crystal!usagi, and hopefully a new version even after this. there's something good and worthwhile in them.

everyone dunks on 90s anime but honestly? manga mamoru doesn't do much either in the grand scheme of things and i like mamo-chan having some spice like in the 90s anime. i hate how it goes away in most versions once they fall in **love**. they can still be supportive and adore each other while stiiiill making fun of each other!

minako's the leader - the manga and most versions completely fail at doing anything meaningful with that. pgsm did though - but i also love that minako and usagi have similar personalities because of the history of sailor moon being kind of a spinoff of sailor v more than the other way around. so i just...combine the two in my head. no version of these characters are perfect and we're honestly kind of spoiled for choice (at least for the main senshi). we appreciate all aspects of sailor moon basically.

[thelreads]

oh, you really think so, AfO?

I'm honestly baffled you even let it reach this point, specially after the failure that was the skyegg.

Oh what, I thought it was funnier to just let him room amok AfO? Now suddenly you want to give orders? How shocking, I never thought you were a control freak or something.

I'd pay good money to see how you'd ever hope to savage this, but it's not like McBee cares.

Actually, I'm not even sure how he's speaking right now, since he's a fucking ball of plasma

[vespertin-y]

here’s the next part of ch4′s daily life, in which i was an absolute moron to think i could bang all this out in one post wtf this chapter is so long

-”you can trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. it’s the honest ones you wanna watch out for...cuz you can never predict when they’re gonna do something...incredibly stupid. it’s honestly easier to go through life without telling a single lie. which means honest people are just lazy jerks who’d rather coast through life. by the way, the recent trend of encouraging honesty is actually a lie. you see, it’s better for liars if there are more honest people in the world to deceive. they’ve been lying about that trend so there can be more stupid honest people...but that might be a lie, too. puhuhuhuhu.” normally i wouldn’t type out an entire monokuma theatre, but *COME ON*. do i even need to comment on this one.....danganronpa loves a good bit of false foreshadowing what can i say.

-[what the hell kind of ending was that? and that was way too long for an announcement.] THANK YOU!!!!!!!

-while we’re on the subject of shuichi saying things that are very satisfying to me: he asks gonta about his “tiny bugs” almost every time he sees him (including this particular morning) and is v concerned about them, repeatedly saying that he doesn’t think gonta’s making a mistake or seeing things. it’s always nice to see people take gonta seriously.

-”use your self-destruct system to save us. that’s how robots make themselves useful.” H I M I K O. “even though that is true, at least hesitate before you blurt out something like that!” KIIBO YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO AGREE!! at least threaten to sue her or something cmon D: [but you admit it’s true, huh...?] E TU, SHUICHI? pleasg tell me in the JP they said something closer to ‘that’s how robots make themselves useful in movies’ and everyone didn’t just become a complete dipshit all of a sudden......

-”anyway, that failure doesn’t bother me anymore.” right, which is why you’ve refused to use swords ever since, get visibly upset when just *seeing* a sword, and get even more upset when kaito and shuichi laugh about it. not bothered at all! no emotions here!!

-maki’s jaw literally *dropping* when kaito and shuichi apologize to her :(((

-FTE time! maki’s first up (and they don’t fuck up the gift this time!). we get the ICONIC line “i’ve turned a 5 story building into a 4 story one before.”, plus the reveal that she’s killed friends from school - but what kind of school *was* it, to have both a child assassin and the daughter of a yakuza kingpin in attendance...? inch resting.

-kokichi is next! “i bumped into kaito, and he ended up giving me a lecture. he told me to think of a way to escape...but the only idea i can think of is becoming the blackened myself. that’d entertain everyone.” (HANG OUT WITH KOKICHI Y/N) “nee-heehee, i’m lying! don’t give me such a scary face! here, you want some bubblegum? it’s my last one, but i’ll give it if you reeeally want it!” is offering people bubblegum when they’re pissed at you your defense mechanism or something!? anyway, the rest of the FTE is the rock-paper-scissors scene, which is...cute. it’s cute! it’s a good way of establishing that these events are just kokichi trying to get shuichi to spend as much time and attention on him as possible! there’s analysis to be had, obviously, but i feel like it’s already been done ten times over by smarter people than me. they’re the saiou FTEs, everyone and their mother knows what they’re about.

-it’s nighttime now, but instead of an announcement we get...a surprise visit from miu. oh boy. at least “me n the twins wanted to pay you a visit!” is one of the funnier jokes she’s told...?

-”don’t act all depressed just cuz you didn’t get to spend any alone time with me!” “...do i look “depressed” to you?” godDAMN shuichi ok

-the artstyle clearly makes it some kind of parody (of what i don’t know, sorry) but the fact that kokichi rounds everyone up to leave and abandon the virtual world plan and miu gets on her knees and begs to be able to kill him is so genuinely chilling.

-kokichi is also already noticeably crueler to miu - normally he does one or two over-the-top insults toward her per trial, which she even seems to.....enjoy......but here, he’s spitting venom almost nonstop and miu seems far more hurt than excited.

-”wh-what the-? am i...really that untrustworthy?” yes, miu. yes you are.

-”this body made my soul, and my soul made this body...which means my body and soul together make me who i am! separating them is outrageous!” another W take from himiko!!

-”him! he’s my daddy!” don’t be ridiculous, monotaro, he’s obviously your cousin. he comes from the hope mascot side of the family, which makes usami basically his mom. i’ve done the math!!

-”out of curiosity...what happens if you switch the cords?” “i dunno. i’ve never done that before...probably gets all glitchy or something! maybe you’ll become a vegetable, maybe you’ll body-swap with someone...who knows?” how i wish this chapter was a fun body-swap sidequest...how i wish......