#honestly the only reason im not seriously considering that course of action is bc i already know

[nejackdaw]

Baton update: the Finale

Guys I have done it. I strapped on my wax wings and unlike Icarus did not crash and burn. The baton. Is finished. And so is the base. Finished them both today. I might not have ever been much of a crafts guy but I am INCREDIBLY pleased with the final results. This started out as a pipe dream and now it's reality. Don't let your dreams be dreams etc etc

Showing her off first 💞💞💞 I'll add the rest of the images below a cut so this post isn't a mile long but AHHHHHH IT'S FINALLY DONE!!!! Guys I've been working on this since May but I was determined to finish it before the year let out

Here's the baton itself. What a beautiful pain in my ass. It's a regular 12" conductors baton so trying to turn it into Zelda's definitely not 12" Glorious Baton was. Awkward. I winged this entire thing. The grip/spiral is a rubber band. (Two, actually.) It's held together by sheer determination and super glue. I colored those pink roses with marker. The tail parts are made out of cardboard (half from a non corrugated bit off a package flap and half from a graham cracker box.). I couldn't find a wired ribbon to use for the end so I just cut a length of wire and fucking sewed it to the ribbon. Improvise, adapt, overcome.

The display base was simultaneously more and less of a hassle than the baton. Much less fine, close quarter work, much more difficulty getting things to stay put (this is a callout post for the garland, I'm looking directly at you.) Initially I made the actual display holder, which is 100% just painted wooden skewers, then I took MORE package cardboard and used that as the base. If I was a little more insane I'd add tiny lights somehow so the triforce could light up. The garland was. An absolute pain just 100% from having to decide which leaf extensions to remove to positioning them to trying to attach the damn thing (challenge: nearly impossible.) BUT it is surprisingly sturdy for what amounts to a piece of cardboard and some tiny sticks. I just now added that central support piece and the extra flowers today, because unfortunately the baton is top heavy and without it it just... Well. Spun itself upside down. The foam flowers themselves added a shocking amount of weight to it, but it's the baby's breath that really weighs it down. Not that it's heavy--it's very nice to hold in the hand, but again, it likes to spin itself around if only supported at the ends.

It kinda doesn't feel real. I still honestly feel like I should wake up tomorrow and go "I'm gonna work on my baton today!" I think my brain is in denial lmao. Been working on this thing for seven months, man. This year has DEFINITELY been my introduction to crafting year, and I had a blast. After all that time, and it's finally complete. Thank you to the Legend of Zelda for always being a massive inspiration to me throughout my life. Wow. Reality really can be whatever I want. I made myself a prop/display piece out of random materials and a dream

[misterbitches]

some thots. having a bad time so this is rougher than usual. oh well

....

i guess he really does know hiim best cos if that was my mans (man specifically cos if anyone else did that id take it more srsly) i would be like oh my god ur singing me a love song? i would love it but i woudl SCREAM in embarrassment. UNLESS it was a really deep love song that's about us dying together.

like i want to eat ur skin type of thing (drain u nirvana) lmaoa but i really like this song it reminds me of that velvet underground song (the only one i know cos of juno lmao) and nico or whatever 'i'm sticking with you)

my adhd would be out of fucking control i had to spend my time listening to this looking around i kept getting distracted by a tissue and thinking "wow this song is nice but i wish it would end bc i am getting distracted" and lo and behold i paused it and i have to pee and i know it's gonna take forever to undo this

ok about 12m later i turned it back on and they kissed and then he bit the corn then that night li chen also lost his virgin teas after watching gay porn and being like "hm interesting" and he'll be like "i see, ur dick is not medium sized"

i'm honestly gagging i cannot at this 12 year old marrying his mom

beautiful theyre beautiful

ayea you fucking psycho we do too because he was 17 and we had to witness it (or well, other people did cos i didnt watch the show even tho wayne song is [BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEP] and i want him to [BEEEEEEEP] and ppl even liked it which is fine like i get it in theory but they put this in my eyeballs so i'm gonna make fun of it bc it's fuckin DUMB lmao like i can't I CANNOT and he said "u were so persistent" BITCH UR 30??!?!???!?!?!?)capi hve it on mute and i tried to get a screencap of li chen and mu ren like together and not just his face but i cant find the timestamp and seeing their faces as they get married is literalyl traumattizing i'm like scremaing at my screen going "HE'S 5 HE'S 5 HE'S 5" and every time theyre like "we acn live forever together" like no bitch ur bones rae creaking

also is the officiator white? if anyone knows why or if that's common i'd love to know more. EDIT: HE ISN'T I JUST THOUGHT HE LOOKED LIKE MOBY FROM THAT ANGLE

anyway here

i'm almost done with this fucking bullshit and i am in a really ould mood and usu they make it a bit better but imo it's kind of....annoying i guess balancing all these story elements and introducin gother couples (even in the periphery) since the story in itself can't focus. i feel like all in all the time spent with these two is a lot more limited and we get the feel for the rship because of their chemistry as actors, irl chemistry as friends and colleagues, and hopefully being happy and working on a good set. so it isn't the strength of the writing or production.

for some reason they get like less dynamic ways of being together which i think is part of their charm, they do things their own way, but the writers really should have substantiated this more. it's really just the way everyone in the show has managed to deliver these AWFUL story lines and production decisions (like seriously who the fuck was on costume? lighting?)

like maybe hot take but all the moments that are cringe and insane in the show are not pleasant, per se, because they aren't thought out clearly. so they're not a joy to watch in the normal sense but the actors are good enough to pull it off. i didn't cringe at the talks they had because it felt like actors like acting these lines out instead of us being embarrassed for it and you CAN TELL theyre embarrassed.

this is a huge kudos to the casting director and the actors and whatever crew that actually did a good job. i don't particularly like watching bo xiang and his grandfather husband not because of the content but because i feel like, to me, they're so awkward even though they have chemistry. i don't have that issue with xing si and his rapist brother boyfriend because watching them is actually really pleasant, it's intimate. this isn't to do with the story though because when it hits you how devoid this other person is and how stupid the situation is it changes (for me, for me, for me, this is all my opinion think whateverrrr u want im not telling u 2 ok!)

so truly kudos to this cast. idk if i'm misremembering here but imo the most cast appropriate series in this was crossing the line and close to you. one is a decent atmosphere and execution (yes even with that brother story line, notice the major key differences though because that's a sincere false equivalence. they try to execute power imbalances soooo badly and then fail every time but here's one meant to shock too and it was just likelmao ok girl?)

it may not make sense to say either in a writing way or for the character to do it but i believe that whoever the characters these people are supposed to be especially those super not well written on the page still get that message aacross (yong jie's actor is a good ex. not sure if i should ccongratulate him for having the worst job on earth and the worst character and his character is flat but. ostensibly they should let their actions speak for themselevs but what they do is they back themselves into a ccorner with unsuretyabout their characters or a dilemma that pops up they just want to excuse it. well guess hwat u couldnt do enough legwork. but to some extent the disposable side couple works here on a um "our eyes see them and get it" way

also to me it seems like they chose this story just to have this specific wedding. like it's a timely topic and i'm pretty sure like another provision? (correction? idk) was made WRT taiwanese same-sex marriage so it's topical but it isn't like a "papa and daddy" situation where they're interacting in it and there (for ex: the pride parade) and there being like real life terms and consequences. here it seems like they were like ah yes wedding ah yes dumb couple from modc bc we kiled off the other one sooooo (then outsource them to life love on the line u__u) then hamfisting in some fucking message which is funny bc

- despite the hints peppered in and the clear attraction they both acknowledge ur like ~not gay just him~ even tho...i mean i just. again they dont read over what they write i don't think considering. but wahtever.

- the only gay dude (verbally said) is with his rapist brother with an awful power dynamic oh or IS a rapist (gao) (or his brother but i think it was just a "im a psycho so it's him" thing unless they said it. in which case idc cos i wasnt paying attn but that's also not great) or i guess the wedding but like....that's also a ridiculously inappropriate and dumb relationship taht it's built on. i mean i don't really see much respect her so i dont particularly want to hear abt gay weddings being important when they didn't even utilize it in the story beforehand and have we ever. this is a huge indication to me that it was a reverse engineered chosen story beforehand (if it was one) or thought of

soooooo

so reversal of that....it didnt give us enough time to breathe with these two at all but for both of the actors they can capitalize what's on the page and the writers didn't. like their dynamic is very i give/you give like taking car eof each other etc that's why

again, no artist worth their salt will ever say their work meant nothing. that's a cover up. i'm sick of lazy production and then getting away with it claiming being subversive or attacking an issue by not doing anything. we show crazy shit all the time but it has a POINT and ur point is "i like the gays" then girl.....i mean it's not great

but the acting really carried it. i have a feeling if this series continues it might continue to use more experienced actors cos maybe the budget goes up but they also have less inhibitions now when it comes to acting. i like the way li chen expresss himself and teng teng too. i like anson a lot and there's some angles that did not do any favors and i think eh has to get more control of his body movements (bc he's SO LARGE and thin) but he wasn't bad at all and there were real human tears. of course i, personally, favor charles tu. he has more control over his body because he has...less to work with and he's a bit bigger and he was really great in this role. he's a himbo a bit of a meathead but you like him. you like them. there's some things i think they had them say and do that they wouldn't let happen if they stuck to the characters and the story (mainly liking that dumb idiot rapist)

what i notice is that the reprehensible actions people criticize others for in the show and in real human life lalways gets turned around. teng teng being surprised that this boy's grandfather boyfriend met him when he was a junior in high school and he's 12 years older and him apologizing for being shocked and then whatshisface going "ur better at it than most people" and then the convo about gao with whatshisface and then rapist brother comes to pick him up. they are admonishing gao but thinking that rapist brother is noble for doin gwhat he did (and oh rapist brother shows up) like the hypocrisy and the decisions are immense. so now it's like "guys see he's a great guy" like girl STICK TO SOMETHING but whatever so i live in this universe where muren and li chen do everything right and have lots of different interesting fun seex with all their friends. i would write this but i cannot i am dying

[madokasoratsugu]

im new to shokugeki and i dont care about spoilers, why is it bad?

a no joke answer bc u deserve this:

tl;dr Shokugeki sucks because it lost its direction halfway through the story, and when Tsukada (the author) realised that he’d bitten off more than he could chew with such a huge cast of characters.

long answer:

here’s the thing. Shokugeki started out good. 

it mostly played off the usual shounen tropes: a challenger would appear, but then they quickly joined the friendship circle, rinse and repeat. but with such a wide cast of characters with differing goals and personalities plus the high stakes of only the top 10% graduating, it made it easy to bank on the character interactions and friendships, which is what the first half of Shokugeki did, heavily so. and it worked ! 

it was a simple set up (protag aims to beat his dad in a cook off, goes to cooking school, meets friends and foes ! a tournament arc ! fun and shenanigans ! yay!), but Shokugeki did it good. it didn’t subvert any expectations, just did according to what it set out to do. nothing felt exaggerated beyond the typical manga stuff, and everything achieved was earned with hard work. with the occasional fluff and friends thrown in, it became a comfy mix for a good shounen manga.

if anything, id say that half the success came from the character’s relationships themselves - the plot wasn’t anything special, but the genuinity that the characters and their friendships and goals (shared or not) were treated with were wholesome and fun.

which is why it was so fucking jarring when it derailed by throwing aside half of its cast and completely stagnating all character development for the remaining half.

(insert infamous Central Arc expulsion joke here)

if you’ve started/are intending to start, id say its the most obvious after the Moon Banquet Festival Arc/beginning of Central Arc. the writing started getting sloppy, as did the handling of the characters. ive mentioned this before, and ill stress this again: i honestly believe that Central Arc is when Tsukada realised what a big miss steak he did in creating such a huge cast, and in the face of Shokugeki’s then success, made some poor authorial choices to keep the hype going (both plot and character wise).

for characters: half the cast was rid of via expulsion, including very competent chefs (which had no proper in canon explanation on how the fuck that happened) who happened to be fan favourites. i mean, Hayama Akira ? fuck, Nakiri Alice, anyone ? plus any poor remaining characters got shafted in lieu of Souma, hard. this became more prominent as the Arcs slowly go on, the ones of which took the worst brunt of it being Takumi and Megumi.

(what do u think is worse. your fav never getting a cameo or your fav being part of the forefront team but constantly getting fucked over because Souma didn’t get the spotlight of the chapter yet. vote now in the replies.)

for plot: higher and higher stakes were introduced that again, just didn’t make sense !! in Central Arc, Souma was expected to win against Eishi, the best chef in his entire school. when two arcs prior he just lost a cooking contest to two of his peers (placed third), and one arc prior struggled to beat Kuga in ticket sales (even then he didn’t win because his cooking was better, so. wasnt even a win on the cooking front). there was no build up ! NOT EVEN A TRAINING ARC. he just went straight from the bottom rung of the ladder to the fucking ceiling. super different from the first half of the series when everything would be shown in careful detail (best example i can think of off the top of my head being the Shokugeki against Mimasaka in the Autumn Election Arc).

also: in the midst of introducing Erina’s character arc and backstory, Tsukada seemed to completely forget (or maybe just didnt know how to link back?) that he’d already established an overarching plotline: Souma’s quest to best Jouichirou. so when Souma began overthrowing these foes that are his seniors said to be leagues ahead of him, the suspension of disbelief was stretching waaay thin. but hey ! its a shounen manga ! we can forgive this much (sarcasm). 

then Tsukada introduces Asahi. mother fucking Asahi. who is basically introduced by beating Jouichirou without breaking a sweat, but oh boy did he break the suspension of disbelief right then and there and completely toss the plot into the fucking fire. because there’s no end goal anymore ! the one thing that our main character has been working so hard for ? non existent. pointless. this no name (at that time) character has done it, pack your bags boys, let’s go home.

(might i note that at this point, Shokugeki was also uuhh nothing like the slice of life comedy it originally was. it became an action-psychological mix that just…doesnt work. and i mean. of course it wouldn’t. there was no foreshadowing, the villians can’t be taken seriously because 1) theyre also teenagers for fuck’s sake 2) Azami’s just a creep, plain and simple. he has no depth. no one cares about an antagonist who’s bad at just being bad.

the themes it began with was completely set aside for really badly written character backstories and angsty edgey bs that i still don’t understand why Tsukada thought would work in retaining hype. especially when considering how pure the premise was.

i honestly also think that its the Blue Arc + Dark Chefs Arc when Tsukada actually realised that his plot had gone haywire, since volume sales were dropping hard and fans clearly hated the direction the series had gone in. but instead of trying to reign it back in, he decided to just let it run buckwild because he just didn’t know how to fix it.)

to rub salt into the wound: so many promised resolutions are shoved into the background, done offscreen, or worse yet, forgotten ! scenes that fans have literally been waiting for. Souma VS Erina Shokugeki. Souma VS Takumi Shokugeki. Nakiri Alice coming back to the series and actually fucking cooking again.

(im sure that there’s more that lead to its downfall but like. shrugs. this is mainly to me why it sucks: it had A Lot going for it (im not ashamed to admit that at one point i actually genuinely believed it could be one of the next Big 3 on Shounen Jump), and it just didnt live up to any of it for no other reason other than Tsukada mixing elements of a story that didn’t work well together, tried to force them to work, and did nothing to fix it when it didn’t.)

so our plot is gone. so are our lovable characters. so is the slice of life comedy that drew most people in in the first place. the potential that it had is now dust. what does Shokugeki have left that makes it unique, that makes people love it ? here’s the answer !

nothing. 

that fact kicks you in the teeth every fucking time you remember how good the first half of the series was. 

then that fact dropkicks you when you realise that Shokugeki no Soma literally started on a 90degree drop into a dumpster fire when the series was at the apex of its popularity and plot buildup.

that’s why it sucks.

[n333rdypirate]

some speculation

check under on why this is like this and we’re left here with this mess

ok so when my friend and i first learned of the ridiculous 1 translation per 4000 years thing, i asked the east asian studies professor at my college. she’s uhhh. iffy. maybe ill make some post complaining about some of her problematic behavior on my main or side or something, but that’s all im putting about her here. she’s just...iffy. i dont normally interact with her for reasons.

so anyways i asked her what the heck is up with this confusing shit show that is academia. and she said that while some chinese classics like journey to the west get “rewritten”/”reworded” to be more “exciting” and interesting to the general public, fsyy did not get this treatment. since ive actually read the english version, ill say it’s very dry. the plot is really action filled and fun, yes, but the wording and narration of it is rather. plain. straight forward. a bit boring tbh lol. i had wondered if that was just the translation/localization’s fault, but no. it sounds like even the original chinese wording is kinda dry to native speakers lol. this lack of interest/demand has resulted in the 4000 year old classic book having only 1 complete english translation.

and as a result of generally being dry, many chinese people might not have even read this book lol. 

that doesnt stop the cool characters like nezha, jiang ziya, or daji from becoming stock characters in fantasy/xianxia movies, books, tv shows, etc. i legit saw a freaking romance donghua webcomic of the undying love of daji and king zhou and their reincarnation or something and i thought it was absolutely hilarious considering how they are in the source material lmao.

this book is pretty culturally influential and reading it might help you understand that new chinese movie/drama/whatever that you want to get into better. however, you probably shouldn’t assume that every chinese person you meet has read it and/or knows everything about it lol. i personally just treat it the same as english classic since the general opinions on classic literature of either “we only read this because we had to in school” (general public/non-bookworms) or “yeah so im a big book/history nerd and read this for fun” (me lol) seems to be universal lol. sadly tho this also led to the whole “1-translation-per-4000-years” problem due to low public demand/awareness of general existance for it in countries other than china.

sorry if that seems to be common sense but i figured that id just say it in case someone cough my professor cough needs to hear it bc of flashbacks of my professor’s iffy attitude regarding related things so yeah.

TL;DR as influential as this book is, its writing is really honestly dry and has caused low demand for translations = 1 translation + ridiculous paywall of academia bc this classic is such a classic that only nerds and students and collectors in english language countries must want it, so of course we, the greedy capitalist publishing/distribution company, must squeeze them dry of all their money!

again, a disclaimer that this post/explaination of why the book is like this is speculation between me, my friend, and our college professor. 

but seriously the basics of economics are supply and demand, and when demand is low to non-existent, the supply will be the same. it sounds pretty simple and plausible to me, but seriously if anyone finds the real reason why the heck the price tag on these things is like this, please tell me.please. im begging you to help me make sense of this. im just. so confused. my brain is absolutely boggled. can you imagine trying to buy a copy of some super common classic like the lord of the rings and then getting told that each volume in the series typically costs $120? each volume better be some first edition, signed by the author himself or something to justify that shit. ok, so maybe the price of books that need to be translated are a bit higher to compensate the translator/import company, but even classics of non-english language origin like the three musketeers, tale of genji, the illiad, anna karenina, etc., dont cost this much. there has to been a reason this one classic book is getting the same overpriced academic treatment that college textbooks get.

sorry im just still super salty abt this. and im normally a p chill person, but this academic/elitist culture and the resulting price tag have made me super super angry in ways ive never been before lol.