#i don’t think the animated series was nostalgia

[2mo3cm-man]

I mean, I think it’s a bad move for Star Trek to chase nostalgia and make Legacy, but it’s worth noting that nostalgia has been a part of the franchise since 1979 when The Motion Picture debuted. Like, I don’t think it’s a bad thing for old characters to show up again, or for Trek to explore its past. I guess I draw the line at “WE’RE GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER!” impulse to have the TNG cast relive the glory days decades later.

i acknowledge that’s not a clear or firm line, but still.

[starstruckkittensweets]

puppy love

Chuuya Nakahara x Reader

fandom: bungo stray dogs

My latest fixation, Chuuya with puppies! My precious boy deserves to be happy with a doggy of his own, so I decided to play into this little fantasy of mine (and his, probably). I'm planning on writing more parts to this lil series, I think it's helping me get out of my writing slump. Also parts of this fic are inspired by Shiloh, one of my all-time favorite books (so much nostalgia...) and a bit of a reference to that one puppy episode from Wan. And the panel I used for the banner is from the BSD manga (I think it's ch. 24) I hope you enjoy!

warnings: mentions of stray animals, Reader cries but it's in relief, mostly fluff, pet names (mostly "doll" but used only once in this part), the start of a slow burn perhaps? || words: 2k

Part I | Part II | Part III

He’s halfway through his usual trek home, muscles burning and head pounding from another successful night’s mission, when he realizes he has a shadow.

Chuuya doesn’t let up his pace; stay calm, don’t give anything away—but he has to wonder, who could be this stupid to try to follow a mafia executive? And they’re not being subtle about it either. Making no effort to conceal their breaths or their footsteps—

Wait a minute…that sounds too light to be footsteps…

He sucks in a breath and turns around to face the culprit. Hands clenched into fists at his sides, preparing for a fight—

“Woof!”

Staring up at him is perhaps one of the cutest fucking dogs he’s ever laid eyes on. (Not that he’s seen many dogs, but the point still stands.) Pointy ears, fuzzy orange fur, white paws and a belly that definitely looks too plump for a street dog.

He stares at it. The dog stares back, pink tongue lolling out the side of its mouth.

“…Woof!”

It takes every ounce of strength he can muster not to melt right then and there on the sidewalk. A thousand squeals on the tip of his tongue, gloved hands itching to scratch under that fuzzy little chin of his.

Never mind any dog hair, fuck that. Who’s gonna try to turn their nose up at this little cutie?

Chuuya briefly scans the area—not a soul in sight, just him and his companion beneath the lamplights—before dropping to his knees. The dog paws at the ground, his curly tail swishing madly in the air.

“C’mere boy,” he keeps his voice soft, holding out a hand. But the dog doesn’t budge. He just stares at him with that big dumb smile of his.

That really adorable dumb smile.

He tries again. The dog tilts his head and refuses to move. So Chuuya tries another tactic: “C’mere, girl?”

Still doesn’t move a muscle. Although now the dog looks amused as he paces from side to side, just out of Chuuya’s reach.

Yeah, gotta be a boy with that kind of attitude.

Chuuya sighs before pushing himself off the ground. Ah well, guess he’s too nervous to approach humans. Can’t really blame him for that; this city’s got its fair share of unpleasant people. He deals with them all the time, so he can kinda relate.

He shoves his hands back into his pockets (try not to think about how soft the dog’s fur must be) and turns on his heel to head home. It’s getting late anyway, and he’s got to get an early start tomorrow morning. He can’t be spending all night moping around some stray puppy following him around.

Even if he is the cutest thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

But he only gets a few steps in before hearing the unmistakable click-click of the dog’s nails against the pavement. He stops, the dog stops too. He glances over his shoulder, biting back a smile at the dog’s happy face.

“What do you want, huh? I don’t have any food, so if that’s what you’re looking for…”

Not that he looks like he needs any treats to begin with. He’s seen a few of the dogs roaming around Yokohama, all skin and bones as they pick through tipped-over trash cans. And the stray cats are no better, ears flat against their skulls as they hiss and claw at everything in sight.

So why does this dog look so fucking proud of himself?

Chuuya sighs and whistles to himself—and suddenly the dog comes running.

Two dirty paws plant themselves on his dress pants, that’ll surely be hard to get out, but how can he get angry when the dog’s trying so hard to reach his face? He chuckles under his breath as he kneels down to his level, as the dog plants kiss after kiss on his face with his slobbery tongue.

“Who knew all it took was a whistle?” he says more to himself than to the pup. The dog’s tail is wagging so hard he thinks it’ll fall off, the tiny little thing that it is.

He slides one of his gloves off, letting the dog sniff his hand before scratching him behind the ears. He was right, his fur is so soft… And his smile only gets bigger when the dog licks him again, not even minding all the drool.

But then he stiffens, slipping his fingers through the dog’s fur, noticing a red band of leather fastened around his neck. A collar? No way he’s someone’s pet. Then again, he does look a little too spoiled to be wandering the streets for food.

He curls his finger around the golden tag dangling from the buckle. No name, only an address he thinks he recognizes. Right on the edge of Yokohama, where the scent of sea salt is the strongest. Is it someone’s house? Apartment? Maybe a  shelter of some kind?

Chuuya steals another look at the dog, at those sweet brown eyes and twitching wet nose, trying his best to ignore the icy clench of his stomach. Maybe it’s for the best, just to bring him back. What’s he gonna do with a dog, anyway? Not like his job allows for much time raising a puppy, anyway.

Even one so cute as this little guy.

“Alright,” he sighs, scooping the pup in his arms, “let’s get you home.” He tries not to dwell on how warm the puppy is, or how softly he nestles his face in the crook of his shoulder.

And definitely not the way he can feel the pup drifting off to sleep as he starts down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Gentle puffs against his skin, his curly tail twitching against his wrist.

“Kotaro! There you are!”

The engraving on the pup’s collar has led him to a tiny little shop a few minutes from the port. A bit shabby with a torn sign on the top and windows that have definitely seen better days, and he’s about to turn tail (no pun intended) until he sees someone nearly fly out through the set of double doors.

“Kotaro!” Your voice is strained, tears streaming down your cheeks as you sweep the puppy into your arms. Clutching him as tight as you can, smoothing down the fur on his head as he stirs awake from his little nap. “I was worried sick… How did you escape again?! I could’ve sworn I locked the doors… You’re just lucky I came back downstairs when I did—or else you would’ve been out there all night long!”

The puppy only wags his tail, staring up at you with those silly eyes and sweet little “smile.” He knows it’s your weakness, how could you be angry at a face like that?

Oh, well. As long as he’s safe, you can’t really hold a grudge against him. Not when he’s back in your arms, safe and sound, and it’s just the two of you, just as it always should be.

It’s only when you hear someone clear their throat that you realize you’re actually not alone. You hastily wipe your eyes with the back of your hand—it’s a little difficult with a nearly-twenty-pound dog in your arms—and stare up at the man before you. Kotaro’s savior, your savior. And suddenly you feel a fresh wave of tears surge forth.

“Thank you for bringing him back! I’m so sorry if he’s caused you any trouble, I know he has a habit of bothering people when he sneaks out—I thought I’d kept him inside this time! He just has a thing for running away like the little troublemaker he is. He’s still young, hopefully he’ll grow out of it when he’s older, maybe he’ll mellow out and settle down, and then…”

You bite your tongue and avert your eyes. No need to scare off the stranger with your incessant rambling, especially after he was so nice to bring Kotaro back to you. But he only shakes his head, a soft smile on his lips as he tips his hat over his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it, he didn’t cause too much trouble.” He lifts a hand, allowing Kotaro to sniff him before scratching the fur beneath his chin. “Keep an eye on him, though. You don’t want him getting lost out there, especially this time of night.”

“I know… I swear, he’s gonna give me gray hairs before the end of the year. The other dogs aren’t even this mischievous, I don’t know where he got it from!”

Wait, other dogs?

He glances over your shoulder, towards the dingy windows of the shop. Pet supplies and part-time shelter, the sign plastered on the glass says. And sure enough, the closer he looks at your outfit, he can see little bits of dog fur clinging to the fabric—some gray, some brown, some white, and then a hint of orange thanks to Kotaro.

Just how many dogs do you have in there?

“Anyway, I just wanna say I really appreciate you bringing him back here. You didn’t have to, I know you’re probably busy. Let me just run inside and get my wallet, I think I have some left over if you want—”

But he’s quick to shut you down with a shake of his head, even a wave of his hands for emphasis. No money, he’s already got plenty of that to spare. And besides, it doesn’t sit right with him, paying him for something that should come naturally to any decent person.

And he doesn’t want to sound mean, but judging from the shape of that little shop of yours, you look like you can use every last cent you have.

“Oh, if you say so… But still, why don’t I make it up to you sometime?”

An uneasy silence settles in the air between you; Chuuya blinks as he watches you shift your weight, partially hiding your face in Kotaro’s fur.

“…I mean, you don’t have to—I just wanna pay you back some way! Maybe I can treat you to lunch one of these days? I don’t have many days off, but I can make it work! Or maybe…do you have a dog of your own? I can give you a discount on anything in the shop!” You throw an arm out to the double doors behind you, still holding Kotaro to your chest. “Name it and it’s yours! I really don’t mind, it’s just me here anyway. Well, me and the dogs, all nine of us.”

Wait, nine, including yourself…

“You have eight of them?!”

A laugh bubbles up in your throat at the look on Chuuya’s face. He reminds you of a child on Christmas morning, staring at the presents strewn around the glowing tree. He doesn’t seem one to enjoy the company of dogs, given his fancy attire and confident aura.

And yet, he still brought Kotaro back home, when he could’ve easily turned and walked the other way. You’ve learned not to judge a book by its cover, after all.

“Eight dogs, and hopefully more by the end of the year.” Your cheeks grow warm beneath his startling blue gaze. (His eyes are really pretty up close, aren’t they?) “…I can tell you all about them on our lunch date, if you’re interested.”

He blinks, eyes flitting back and forth between you and the dog in your arms. You’ve got guts, he’ll give you that; he can see it in the way you talk to him, the way you hold the puppy in your arms. Gentle as ever, but a fire brimming in your eyes. You love this dog, no doubt about it.

And you’ve got seven more inside? Do you love them all the same amount?

What breeds are they? How did you come to adopt so many dogs at once? Or did you adopt them at once, or sporadically over the years?

So many questions, and yet the night is crawling by. He shakes his head again, giving Kotaro one last scratch behind the ears, before meeting your gaze once more.

“Lunch sounds perfect, doll.”

Your lips pull up in a smile, and he can’t help but notice how it nearly matches the one on Kotaro’s face. Bright and eager, melting under the attention of the ones around you.

And yet your smile is infinitely prettier, and he finds himself thinking about it as he starts the familiar journey back home, as the night hours slowly tick by.

[h-worksrambles]

Sonic X Shadow Generations fascinates me. Because it feels like something I shouldn’t be excited for. And yet I absolutely am.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Sonic Generations. It’s my third favourite game in the series and my favourite 3D Sonic game (with Sonic Adventure 2 in a close second). I’m very happy to see it getting a re release to expose it to new audiences, and playing it in 4K60fps on my PS5 is a very enticing. Likewise, I really like Shadow as a character and I’m excited to play as him again.

And yet, his new bonus campaign promises to basically be a bunch of nostalgic pandering for Shadow the Hedgehog, a game which I consider to be, simply put, crap. It was boring, dull, colourless and embarrassing trend chasing. And pretty much everything I hated about it is on display in this trailer.

We’ve got gritty, grey cityscapes, we’ve got the rather blah alien villain, Black Doom returning, we’ve got the looming return of the series’…bafflingly executed lore. In a word, Shadow was a pretty much everything I didn’t want Sonic to be shoved into a blender. I’ve given my thoughts on revisiting past excesses and failures for the sake of nostalgia. I wrote a whole thing about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and my fears that it would go overboard pandering to the 2000s spin offs (which I dislike a for lot of the same reasons as a lot of Sonic stuff from the mid 2000s). A faux attempt at maturity that sacrifices Sonic’s camp and colour, and lacks the writing competency to make its tone shift work is pretty much my worst case scenario for the series. And now we’re invoking that for nostalgia? Again, I should hate this.

So if I dislike Shadow the Hedgehog so much. If it really is so emblematic of Sonic’s worst excesses that I want it to leave behind in the 2000s…then why am I so damn hyped for this? Why am I not feeling the same dread as whenever VII Remake implicitly threatens to bring back Genesis?

I think it’s because of the specific relationship Sonic has had with its past for the last decade. So much of the stuff from that time period is material that Sega has seemed actively scared to touch again. Sometimes with good reason. But I think that’s why some material from that time has gained such a strong nostalgic cult following, and why they’re held up as such bastions of missed potential. There’s never been anything quite like Shadow or 06 since they came out with how safe Sega has subsequently played things. And in many respects, that’s a good thing. But I can see how it build a sense of mystique around them. It was kind of sad to see 2010s Sonic so…scared of itself. Terrified to invoke its own history but not really committed to a new direction either. And this is pretty much the exact opposite of that hesitancy.

Basically, the reason I react to seeing Westopolis or Black Doom with ‘holy shit let’s go!!!’ rather than ‘why, god, why?’ is because I genuinely never thought I would see them again after this long. It’s just exciting to see Sonic Team throw caution to the wind and embrace all the parts of their franchise. Even the parts I personally dislike. Plus, Sonic Generations is kind of the perfect game in which to reimagine that stuff and make it..actually good this time. This was the game that made Crisis City of all things into a banger level. The game that took Silver, one of the most notorious boss fights in the series, and gave him a kickass encounter.

If they can fix that, they can do anything.

Plus, the fact that the trailers already show all these trippy stage effects and anime af boss fights and set pieces tells me we’re not just gonna be running through the same drab washed out burning cities that made Shadow 2005 so boring. Again, there’s evidently an effort being made to rehabilitate and reimagine this stuff, not just repeat all the same mistakes. And that’s exciting.

So yeah, Sonic X Shadow Generations has somehow managed to get me genuinely excited for all the parts of the series I typically balk at. And that’s pretty impressive.

That said, if I see Mephiles again, I’m leaving.

[verdantflamingo]

The morning in a normal abnormal monster family

Some time ago, I found myself in some sort of quarter-life crisis or something, and I ended up binge-watching all the Mostar High movies and probably every episode of the First Gen series. I might check out the third gen too, but it doesn’t have the same nostalgic vibe for me, especially since they split Cleo and Deuce… But Frankie’s new concept looks amazing.

Anyway, during this nostalgia trip, my thoughts wandered to the X-Men and what kinds of creatures they might be in a monster reality.

And forgive me, Emma, but you would 100% be a Twilight vampire. You’re gorgeous, you can read minds, and you can sparkle – not only in the sunlight. I can totally picture a twisted version of Twilight where Scott drives to, well, I don’t even remember the name of the town, and all the vampires fight over him because his mind is just so “readable.”

As for Scott, he was the first one I assigned a monster form. Sure, Cyclops would’ve been the obvious choice, but it doesn’t feel quite right – a Scott who can’t hurt anyone with eye contact? Yes, I read an interesting story some time ago that explored why Scott’s codename made sense, but Scott’s fear of hurting people is a pretty important part of his personality. So there is Scott, the son of Medusa. I think the fear of turning someone to stone is kind of similar to the fear of shooting someone with your powers.

About picture:

Scott and Emma are sitting together in the morning. Don’t ask me why Emma is awake, and they’re playing cards—a version of gin rummy, maybe—and it would never occur to Emma to cheat... Emma is wearing Scott’s shirt, her skin sparkling in the morning rays.

She has golden eyes. I also have a version with red ones, but let’s imagine that she and Scott have been together for some time now, so Emma has switched from human to animal blood (her favorite is horses...), and her eyes have turned gold.

He still has red glasses, but they don’t have to be made of ruby quartz; he just keeps his powers in check. No shirt is needed. And I thought about what kind of snake he would have. A Pseudonaja textilis—the eastern brown snake—felt like the perfect choice. Why? Because why not make the boy whose gaze can turn people to stone even more traumatized? This snake mirrors Scott’s lethal potential and his constant fear of harming others, which is such a vital part of his personality.

[millidew]

random list of v3 opinions after experiencing all that again:

the death road of despair segment is the pre-trial highlight of ch1. so damn good. just a perfect microcosm of the game and kaede's flaws and conflicts

maki is funnier than i remember. but she’s at her funniest when she hits shuichi with a devastating insult, usually completely unprompted

ouma and maki parallels and foiling forever and ever. they HAAATE each other. but also it’d be cool to see them get along. the whole point is that they don’t see through the other and believe the other’s lies but still

maki saying she’ll work hard to make people trust her and her talent and that she wants to survive with everyone…ough…

ouma is so mad. he wishes that were him. also that moment where everyone ignores him and tries to comfort kaito after gonta's execution. he also wishes that were him but unfortunately he's been an asshole to everyone and no one likes him so

the only way i can enjoy saio/uma is one sided ouma->shuichi where shuichi is just not invested in the cop/robber dynamic ouma wants at all. it’s funnier this way + saimota inspires a visceral upset within him. he NEEDS to fumble both kaede and shuichi.

on that note i’ve been hcing ouma as bisexual for years partially out of spite

kaito’s obnoxious charm can’t be ignored. if you think you’ve successfully done it, it means it’s just entered an asymptomatic form. it'll hit you soon enough

ch2 pre-execution >>> KIRA BUCKLAND THE VOICE ACTRESS THAT YOU ARE. EVERYONE WONDERING IF THEY MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE BY VOTING FOR KIRUMI. KAITO GOING “IDC I WANT TO LIVE, OUR LIVES ARE IMPORTANT TOO!” KIRUMI INSULTING OUMA <3 EVERYONE CHEERING FOR KIRUMI TO RUN!!! TO LIVE!!!!!!!! GAHHHH SO COOL

kaito and himiko just blatantly lying through their teeth during their ftes. the liars who suppress their true problemsssss. also him shouting that he is NOT GIVING HER A PIGGY BACK RIDE!!! EVAR!!!!! is so funny

himiko I LOVE YOUUUUU. i love her getting overly familiar with people post-development and just accidentally completely overstepping boundaries by insulting kiibo and calling maki "maki roll." she's trying so hard you guys

KAITO IS SO FUCKING DRAMATIC. HE SHOULD’VE BEEN THE MALE LEAD IN A HIGH-SCHOOL THEATRE PRODUCTION AND ANNOYED EVERYONE IN THE CREW!!!! STOP BOTHERING MAKI SHE HAS A POWER DRILL

shuichi and maki doing sit ups and the camera slowly panning to show kaito laying there hands behind his head saying his usual bullshit is one of the funniest moments of the game

tenko and himiko agree that shuichi should transition into a woman. this is true.

I don’t accept tenko slander unless it’s specifically about her obsessiveness over himiko in ch1-2 in which case I can’t defend her

if kaito shaved he’d look 13. for this reason he is legally not allowed to do that.

tsumugi and the background of v3 are SO GOOD. ABSOLUTE PEAK. in execution there are lots of weak points but after thh, sdr2, udg, and the anime series, tell me a meta story about consumption, lies, and depression that ends with the cameos from entire main games’ previous casts doesn’t go hard

don’t deny that tsumugi loved her little ocs. do you not enjoy torturing your blorbos, putting them into situations, and giving them nice things just to take those away?? shipping them and dressing them up??? making silly aus (salmon mode, utdp, arguably dr:s)?

i just wish the writers utilized her more bc i love that so much. she should've wanted to get to get more involved with everyone (giddily see her ocs up close). she should've made even more thh/srdr2 references. players assume the writers are making for cheap nostalgia points, and they are, but it's true in-universe too...she should've been so overconfident that she'd get sloppy with the situational irony... tsumugi you little freak ily

she and rantaro were 100% s52's survivors and you can pry this from my cold dead hands. her dr fangirl self can be her pre-game personality

speaking of pre-game personalities, pre-game content is at best boring to me. how they write ouma is my litmus test. if he's not enough of a nuisance, just in a different way, then it's gotta go

maki is down for a training trio polycule, shuichi is in denial about everything and fears becoming an awkward third wheel, and kaito has been trying unsuccessfully to wink-wink nudge-nudge shuichi and maki into “realizing their feelings for each other” for ages

i still think maki should have short hair. initially I thought just shorter pigtails would be ok but I’m now in the firm camp of a pixie cut with one of her scrunchies on her wrist, with her orphanage-age flashback self maintaining the pigtails. she had to cut them off for practicality’s sake but one of her hidden desires is to be able to regrow it one day. another show of her loss of identity and past life, and how every aspect of her is controlled? such a simple desire at first glance but because hair is such a simple show of autonomy…even more tragic… maybe her doomed childhood friend yuri used to do her hair …hrm…

ultimates are public, influential figures. maki’s had to assassinate friends before (rip her yakuza friend that I didn’t know she had up until recently). maki went back to being an assassin in utdp after graduating. the hope’s peak class roster MIGHT just be a hit list

for someone who includes miu in her top 3 I haven’t talked about her at all huh. it’s been maki central up in here

miu is AWFUL but when her jokes hit, they hit good and hard just like she’d want them to. she’s completely insufferable and deserves to hit ouma (also insufferable) with 3000 hammers. kiibo too but he wouldn’t want to

look just because ouma said he was doing everything for a good reason, do NOT forget that at his core he is a little dipshit. he’s a JERK!!!

brief dip into maki time again. one of my favorite aus is that maki’s doomed childhood friend is actually miu. i'll expand on this in another post

once again: drv3 and rgu are shaking hands about exiting the narrative and the follies of playing hero. read my utenanthy!kaemugi post

v3 is FARRRR from a masterpiece, but it's a solid and fitting Ending to the main games, plus it's got an insane cast with infinite dynamics and a premise which i love to bits <33 and it was the game that got me into dr, so it'll always be special in my heart. also kaito momota luminary of the stars debuted in it which gives it 5/5 stars

[arkus-rhapsode]

Are We Returning To 2000s Era Shonen Anime/Manga (A Discussion)

So this is going to be way more of a thinkpiece than I usually do for this blog, but recent trends in the space and niche that I devote a lot of time to, Anime/Manga, have been showing themselves that got me thinking. This is not meant to be a serious sociology case study taken as fact, it's going to be more a theory based on observations of the community that I, like many others, devote a lot of time into than a full on claim, but I do want to ask, is the anime and manga community is experiencing a resurgence in 2000s era shonen manga?

Background

Now let me get this out of the way, there is bias in these observations as I am a western anime fan, but also a North American anime fan. Meaning my gateway and gauges of pop culture are mostly determined by the history of my area of the world’s relationship with anime. From the OVAs of 80s hyper violent and hyper sexual sci fi that you had to purchase from the backs of video rental stores, to the Toonami era of 90s and early 00s programming block the centred around action anime and cartoons, the 4kids era of mass market japanese animated kids shows that were really just giant commercials with some of the earliest memetics in western sphere, and the explosion of shonen battle series in the western sphere in the mid to late 2000s marked by the rise of the colloquially named “Big 3” of shonen jump. I understand that continents like South America or Europe may have undergone a different exposure to the Japanese medium, but as I am going in with some bias in this observation, I would like to make it clear on where the formula is coming from. I also would like to lay down a certain clarification before making this, when discussing the topic of nostalgia I think a lot of people have forgotten what it actually means. If we go by the Cambridge dictionary definition, Nostalgia is “a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past.” This is often invoked when talking about pop culture because people from say 20 years ago don’t seem to enjoy or relate to the interests of today. The belief is that nostalgia is generational ergo if you grew up in the 80s you’re likely wishing to recapture the feelings of childhood that you associate with those trends from 20 years ago. In fact, most revaluation in media has often been catalyzed by a difference of those who grew up in an era rebuffing the opinions of those who didn’t. 

There is the well known “20 Year Rule” regarding pop culture nostalgia. That every decade it longs for what was popular 20 years ago. Probably no better example than “That 70s show” being popular in the late 90s, the return of many beloved 80s-90s franchises like “Ghostbusters” returning in the 2010s as well as series like “Stranger Things” that wrapped itself up in 80s aesthetics. DC's New 52 relaunch that seemed to bring back trends from 90s era comics.

Now it goes without saying that the 20 year rule isn’t a “real” rule, rather an observation that certain trends make a return to popularity because the ones who grew up with a certain media will be the ones who add to the discourse when they come of age and will be the ones having a chance to create consumable art for the masses and that may just be revivals of once popular IP. This isn’t necessarily wrong in regards to nostalgia, but I do believe that one doesn’t need to have been born in a certain era to be nostalgic for something when we discuss pop culture. Pop culture is really just trends and preferences that become en vogue and people can acquire a taste at any given time. Sometimes it can be due to those who grew up with something now having the chance to create and drawing upon their own childhoods, sometimes it's just due to not being exposed, other times it can be a certain feeling of disillusionment of the now, and seeking something that peaks your interest, and even sometimes it can be major corporations or networks looking for things with existing audiences to draw upon that actually expand the audience. In fact one of the most prominent Netflix adaptations of the 2020s has been live Action Avatar the Last Airbender and One Piece, both shows that got their start on American televisions in 2004 and 2005. One of the biggest animated shows right now is Invincible, based on a comic book from 2003

So I want to stress this is not necessarily about how if you grew up with the original Mobile Suit Gundam show you are being replaced by the kids who were watching GetBackers. And or if you are a fan of shows that came out in the 2000s you yourself were born in the 2000s.

But what was the landscape of the English speaking anime community like back in the 2000s? Well let me paint a portrait for you.

What was the 2000s like for anime fans?

The term I used, “shonen boom period”, is somewhat mythologized in the western anime sphere. There was a glut of high profile shonen anime running around the same time that most people identified with this time period and was arguably when we saw the most influx of people getting into the hobby. One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach served as big series known for their massively large casts, MCs with a level of attitude, some of the most hype centric power supernatural/extraordinary power systems, and certain brand of “Japanese-y” humor. We can’t deny that it wasn’t just these series however, as series like Fullmetal Alchemist became many people’s introduction to more narratively intricate series interspersed with a somewhat gothic action style. The gothic and somewhat edgy Death Note became many fans' first ever “battle series that’s not a battle series” that also incorporated many biblical and gothic horror elements into its presentation. And things like Code Geass also incorporated this combination of hyper stylized cat and mouse with ornate and gothic aesthetics and fighting robots. 

Series like Ouran Highschool Host Club and and Haruhi Suzumiya were basically gateways to the more hyper extraordinary slice of life series that didn’t shy away from fanservice and loud comedy. With ecchi like Rosario + Vampire taking it to an even greater extreme. For people willing to go even deeper, series like Fairy Tail began to pop up and share a distinct similar flavor to series like One Piece and Naruto which arguably started the popular conception of it coming from the same magazine as the latter. That’s not also discounting the amount of holdovers from the 90s like Dragon Ball z, Trigun, and Yu Yu Hakusho, which also had an edge towards fantastical combat and comedic oriented series.

All of this is to generally illustrate the media diet of what an average anime fan was expected to have some level of access to. As this was far before the eras of Funimation or Hulu having online services. Not a homogenized spread by any means, and im certain plenty of readers could name more underground or smaller series like Mushishi or Elphen Lied, but generally the popular mainstream you could tell that there was a consistent theme of long form media with a very loud, very flashy, and very action oriented type of series. Which I think is fair to say had skewed some people’s perception. And while I cannot claim with utter certainty that Japan was the same in this regard, you can look at magazines like Shonen Jump and notice a somewhat synchronistic trend. With series like Hitman Reborn, Gintama, D. Gray Man, Eyeshield 21, Bobobobo, etc.making a clear marcation of what was commercially successful at the time. Even series not inside the magazine but had smaller nicher, Tokyo-pop-esque series like Rave Master, Flame of Recca, Air Gear, History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi, Soul Eater, etc all had a similarity to the shonen jump magazine. To the point it was not uncommon to see so many jump characters in a collage and one from shonen sunday or shonen magazine in there as if this was all coming from the same place.

Changing Landscape

Now with the advantages of the modern internet, we have the ability to actually keep up with the jump magazine in real time as opposed to the common practice of relying on scanlation site and fansubs that were often devoted to the most popular works. But with simultaneous publication and services like Crunchyroll, being able to access a wider variety of shows and series that we may or may not have access to. I believe that the 2010s in the english speaking fanbase was the decade we saw a somewhat expansionism of what people perceived as anime. Anime could be One Piece and Naruto, but it could also be Erased, it could be the Promised Neverland, Attack on Titan, K-On, Haikuu, and Durarara. With the representatives of the 90s no longer being holdovers in syndication like dragon ball but rather full on revivals of the likes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Hunter x Hunter. 

All of these could be "shonen" but also other genres like Seinin, Josei, and Shojo all had their own varying layers of what they could be in their demographic

The mood of what was popular was also changing, not just in the fact that more flavors of anime and manga were becoming mainstream, but new works from shonen jump showed a rise in almost subversive series like My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer that seemed to consciously deviate or place new spins from traditional tropes of the 2000s characters, and we saw works that were derivative of previous serious like Black Clover drawing upon Naruto the same way it was known that Naruto had drawn upon Dragon Ball before them. Series like The Promised Neverland and Doctor Stone offered up more dramatic series that still infused a certain energy of the shonen genre. 

And of course the series like Attack Titan whose much more darker and gorey storytelling seemed to have become one of if not the biggest hit of the generation with a well regarded adaptation, but something that had felt so removed from what were once contemporaries like the then ending Bleach or Naruto. We can also note that the late 2010s saw the rise of series like Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen that began a trend of popular urban fantasy stories. Where fantastical concepts were now in contemporary Japan and the stories that focused on concepts like self identity and the harshness of maturing were juxtaposed to the real world inhabited by monsters. 

It seemed many tropes of the previous decade were still alive in the rise of Isekai anime. Which was particularly the only popular outlet for fantasy stories with an action orientation. But these almost felt disconnected from the wider world of manga as things like heavy harem action series had actually decreased in mags like shonen jump. There was also new tropes being established in this subgenre that became unique popularizations of tropes all on their own, such as the overpowered protagonist whose power everyone believes is weak. But many of these were based on light novels, a form of media that only in the last few years western readers are having official access to and not simply scans found on the internet.

We in North America truly have gone from anime being a niche that was primarily accessible through dedicated TV blocks like Toonami, to a full blown cultural relevance shift.

We also need to talk about this era in its perception of the past also shifted. The 90s and the early 00s often blend together as classics of the anime community. Somewhat encased in amber. However, there is no denying that “feels like a 2000s series” had become a bit of a shorthand for very goofy, Very horny, very action heavy series. Series like Fire Force and and Undead Unluck had their show what more problematic elements be equated to the problematic trends of the past that people just accepted as “a part of the medium.” But lets keep in mind, this is not really describing a time, more a trend. Superficial elements that invoke similar feelings of the past. 

Speaking of anime fans…

Fan Culture

So while I wanted to paint a picture of creatively the landscape has changed, there’s no denying that in the age of internet accessibility, the anime fan community has also changed. It is much much easier now to get in contact with people who are anime fans now than it was to rely on word of mouth like it was back in the day. I can still distinctly remember my anime club which wasn’t even really a club devoted to anime but rather other geek stuff like D&D and TCGs. Our hobbies just happened to have similar overlap.

Now though, anime fan culture is much more relevant and thriving. Going from just posting weekly reviews, to long retrospectives, comedy videos, abridged series, clickbait articles, fan theories, and podcasts. However, I think a defining feature of fans of the 2000s era of anime that were at their most prominent was hype culture. 

Due to many of the biggest anime series at the time being released weekly and focusing on action, many many many discussion boards and videos were often about staying in this cycle of wanting to see what happens next and the action made people very excited to see just how characters were going to win fights or even if they’d have fights at all. 

I want to make it clear that this type of activity doesn’t belong to a certain era, but you can see it shaped by the 2000s era. Especially when discussing “what is the next big 3.” As if it were a true position and title, rather than a moment in time where there were just three very distinct shonen series in the fanbase.This doesn’t necessarily have a “negative” effect on the discussion of anime/manga but you can see that certain genres lend themselves to hyping fans up more and more. 

Someone isn’t reading the most recent chapter of a romance like Blue Box with the same level of anticipation of who will face who like it was One Piece. But there have certainly been series that try.

The Present

Now we reach the 2020s and this decade is still young, so it is hard to say what the future will hold for certainty, but we can look at the last four years and notice some significant waves being made recently in Shonen Jump alone. I already spoke of Undead Unluck, a series that almost wears it would now be considered retro inspirations on its sleeve. With an opening chapter that establishes an MC that seems motivated by a sexual joke, A power system follows a verbal naming gimmick, and a loose enough world that allows for characters of varying aesthetics and to be incorporated into groups. With groups of these powerful characters splitting up to face each other and use their ridiculous power to the extreme. Even in the series' own meta arc about creating manga, the in-universe analogy for Undead Unluck’s manga is commented on as feeling retro. There is no doubt the biggest viral hit of the decade so far has gone to Kagurabachi, a manga about sword fighting and magical crime lords that seems almost indulgent in its stylistic slicing and or dicing of baddies. Its memetic success was primarily due to a somewhat sincere and somewhat ironic belief that it would be the “next big thing” as it promised to be a stylized action series. Another surprise viral success has been the manga Nue’s Exorcist which sees another supernatural swordfighter boy harness the powers of his sexy spirit lady while getting into harem shenanigans that echo a particular form of ecchi of anime’s past that had actually been somewhat absent in the past decade in jump. Both of these series have a somewhat noticeable similarities to Bleach, a long running shonen action series that has seen its own revival in the last few years of writing this with the long awaited adaptation of the final arc of the bleach anime. 

While the other members of the “big 3” never truly went away and became almost inter-generational, Bleach truly did feel like a “come back” as it was absent for so long. And unlike Hunter x Hunter and Jojo which were never really popular in the west and even their older anime are more regarded as anime deep lore. Bleach was one of the most popular series in the west at the time to never receive a conclusion animated. 

Speaking of anime of the 2000s Trigun Stampede was a reimagining of the original late 90s show. This errs a bit similar to Hunter x Hunter’s style of revival, but also seems uniquely its own in actually trying to find a balance between the original series but adding in things cut from its original late 90s early 2000s counterpart. 

And now we must examine other shonen magazines. Series like Gachiakuta created by a former assistant of Okubo, the creator of Soul Eater, carries with it much of the similar energies of that series. Its also noticeable as being a truly dark fantasy series. Not an urban fantasy, but rather a completely new world that had a very grunge and dirty world building. And then there is Daemons of the Shadow Realm, a series by Fullmetal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa. This series is also set in modern day japan with supernatural elements, however Arakawa’s style of writing is practically unchanged from her time on FMA. With an emphasis on action, intricate mysteries, and character building comedy with her trademark over exaggerated blocky style. There is of course Hiro Mashima who has started another new series, Dead Rock, and his style has also not changed that much. Then there is just flat out sequels to 2000s series like Gamaran Shura.

This to me shows that we are  seeing a bit of a combination of people who are now entering the workforce inspired by creators of the past, but also that creators of the past still exist 20 years later and are still making content that hasn’t really undergone significant change. 

Of course, we can’t also forget the implementation of the Manga Plus/J plus service which has opened up a very interesting ground for creators to have some of the most creatively out there series than what you may have expected from the shonen jump brand. I genuinely don’t think series like Make the Exorcist Fall in Love or Fire Punch would’ve ever been acceptable in the pages of a weekly shonen series. However one series in particular does feel like it could've and boy its been quite the success. Kaiju no 8.

Kaiju no 8 almost feels as though it is the AoT of a new generation with the amount of anticipation this one series has as well as the similarities between the series superficial elements. However, I'd say the key distinction between the two has been the tone. AoT took a dark and practically dour tone on its titan infested world. With an MC declaring war on all of his enemies. The pain was realistic, with human bodies being brittle and vulnerable. And the belief that just because you were a good person you weren't going to make it out alive. Kaiju no 8 instead opts for a more action oriented tone. Down playing the bleak realism for more "Hell yeah!" moments. With super science weapons that feel more akin to a tokusatsu show and fights and battles between humans an kanji the feel like the Dragon Ball style wrestling matches of old.

And of course, that’s not to say Jump hasn’t continued with series that feel more modern like the realistic and mellow romance of Blue Box or the dramatic coming of age story of Akane-Banashi. 

But the presence of these series has caused somewhat of a friction with the popular conception of the magazine. Its safe to say that while “shonen” tends to think of action male oriented series, it can really just mean works aimed more at adolescents. But I think many tend to associate this familiar feeling of “what is shonen” with their popular introduction of the magazine. With a saturation of action and brash comedy series. This is further complicated by the fact many action series in jump are actually ending over the last decade. With new ones not popping up to replace them as frequently and series like One Piece and MHA and Black Clover basically stretching out across an entire decade or longer. In fact, I don’t think it's unreasonable to believe that the hype for something like Kagurabachi was in part a belief that it signaled a return of a type of familiar series and genre that had been missing. Or at the very least, looked to fill an inevitable gap the magazine was obviously going to be facing. Followed by the other commercial success of Nue’s Exorcist, we are likely to see these series last for a long time. At the time of this writing, Tokyo Revenger’s author Ken Wakui has released Astro Royale, a series that feels very similar to his previous work yet infused with this almost GetBackers flavor.

So that leaves us with the question at the start, are we seeing a rise in 2000s nostalgia in anime and manga?

Conclusion

So I'm sorry if I disappoint, but the best I can say is, I’m not certain. I do believe that from my observation I think it is reasonable to say that we are seeing a rise in creators in the shonen space being ones inspired by series from 20 years ago. However, I think we are also seeing creators who are from that time period also returning to write how they have always written. 

On the consumer side, I think we can see that fans of anime and manga have changed in the sense their tastes can now be shaped by a much larger catalog of series at their disposal. But in the case of shonen, I think we are simply seeing those who likely got their start in anime at around the 2000s resonating with newer series drawing upon those series, but also with younger fans now likely to grow up with the tail end of what was popular in the 2010s now being influenced by the 2020s. I also believe that one of the defining features of the anime community in the last decade is hype culture. And currently we are seeing a rise in series that actually feel more catered to hype, be it a revival of a series they liked or predicting what will be the next success. 

All and all, this piece was trying to tunnel on the shonen demographic in general, which is more likely than not going to have similar traits relative to itself. I do see us as a community endorsing trends of the past and there’s an excitement for these things to “come back” even if they may or may not have left. If you liked this please drop a like or reblog because I may do more of these think pieces in the future.

[astridhoff03]

A Series between httyd2 and httyd3 would be much more interesting and creative than whatever they want to try with this live action remake

Don’t get me wrong, I love httyd with all my heart, but I rather see a series between httyd2 and 3 and a exact adaptation of the book, than a live action cash grab from a movie series, that is very near to my heart. But I can’t stop talking about the thought, how a series in between httyd2 and 3, which is based on the Comics and Ideas Richard Hamilton had for the franchise. His ideas are more creative than the live action train, we have to face. I‘d rather see a TV show about the httyd comics, then this useless live action remake. Just imagine how it would look like if the comics would come to life in the animation style of Chaos Theory and as cherry on Top, the same producers as from Chaos Theory. They have proven themselves in Camp Cretaceous and Chaos Theory, more than once. And I still think they would be a good pick if we ever got a sequel series to Rtte, that isn’t disrespectful against the original. If they would go in a more mature theme with more adult themes, like Hiccup having nightmares about the death of his father, Astrid and the duties she has to face as the Chiefs General and his future wife, how does she feels about becoming pregnant and having children, what plans does she and Hiccup have for the future, aside from marriage, explore Toothless‘ tragic backstory being the only night fury left and so on. Would make a lot more sense to finish this part of the story than whatever they want to do with the live action remake, aside from nostalgia bait, even if it was not even a decade since the last movie released, and money. I see no point in retelling an already great story. But no Hollywood and Universal want to be lazy and uncreative, again. The abuse of franchises just drives me nuts and now our beloved httyd is their next victim.

[turboacek-blog]

Hot Take: Trunks hair should be blue?

Long story short Toriyama (rest in peace) has always been inconsistent with Trunks and Bulma’s hair color, many people seen and we learned this when DBS future trunks had blue hair like Bulma but kid Trunks was still purple

There have been various theories on this outside of Toriyama just being inconsistent such as hair maturing similar to blondes becoming brunette, to the anime production having trouble with purple hair so they changed it to blue for Bulma but they figured it out by the time Future trunks arrived, and so on

My opinion

My true opinion is that Trunk’s hair (both present and Future) should match Bulma’s hair

I get that the purple hair Trunks is more iconic and recognizable and some think cooler but it also never made sense he had purple while Bulma had blue and Vegeta the Saiyan black

So basically it comes down to which should be Bulma’s hair color the blue or purple?

Even in the manga's first two chapters, her hair was blue then it changed to purple for basically the rest of the series (which is why Trunk’s hair is purple as they just matched the manga)

Whereas in the anime Bulma’s hair was blue the whole time creating the hair confusion

And honestly the thing not many people bring up are the shades of the blue and purple

The lavender purple Trunks usually has in the anime and most games is a nice shade of purple at least on him

But the darker shades while still good it’s not what people think of so there's a perfect shade of purple for Trunks

Whereas the blue has had the most variations in shades throughout the years/series

Like I think in my opinion the anime DBS shade of blue on Bulma and Trunks is not the best shade of blue

(even here ^ it's slight but I like Bulla’s/Bra’s shade better here)

Let alone the initial confusion on whether he had super Saiyan blue since it matched that shade

I think almost any other shade of blue works better than the DBS shade of blue Bulma and Trunks has

This artist had a good drawing showing all the different shades Trunks and Bulma one or the other has had and while it’s not the perfect thing to reference I hope it shows what I mean

Which reinforced that I think if it was any other shade of blue I would like it more

I prefer Bulma with Blue hair (but maybe that's nostalgia in itself), so I think Trunks in turn should have that blue hair to match his mother

There's also a color coordination thing where the clothes future trunks wore in Super and what teen/present trunks wore during Super Hero made me like it better on present trunks as it went together better at least to my eyes

So I think if we don’t have that nostalgia for future Trunks in Z having purple hair I don’t think anyone would be up in arms when they changed his hair outside of general confusion or it being changed

Plus I think Bulma makes more sense with Blue hair and Trunks should match that

Coming from someone whose favorite color is purple :)

Obviously very opinion based as I truly do get those that think it should be purple

Like even from the original manga Bulma and Trunks should have purple despite the anime popularizing Bulma’s blue which in turn overwrote the manga in a sense that even Toriyama when designing that family later on in Super planned for both to be blue-haired and it was just the anime again doing something different by keeping kid Trunks hair purple despite Toriyama designing him to have blue

So it could literally go either way

[marvelmusing]

Keep Your Judgement

Chapter Sixteen

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova x Fem!Reader

Summary: Theories about merzost, the very boundary of your powers, and your relationship with Aleksander are all put to the test as everything comes to a head.

Warnings: canon level violence, mentions of death and violence, animal death

A/N: this is a pretty hefty chapter, but I hope it makes up for the wait - enjoy!

My Masterlist • Series Masterlist

The fox is absent from your mind and Aleksander is nowhere to be seen when you wake in an unfamiliar patch of forest. Ravka is in the midst of a cold spring, but the flowers around you now are in full summer bloom. The stone beneath you, the ruins of a small fortress, is warm against your bare feet.

When you stare too hard at the distance, everything blurs into a haze of generic woodland – trees and thick greenery. A blue butterfly flutters across your vision, swirling in a cheerful loop around you that makes you too dizzy to follow.

“What is this place?” you ask your only companion, the girl who had been by your side when you awoke. She turns away from the rose bush she had been admiring, pale blue eyes wide and curious as she looks at you.

“You’re the durast; I was hoping you would have an explanation.”

“You’re Grisha?” She nods with a small smile, her eyes falling onto your hand. There’s a freshly healed scar across your palm, where you had cut yourself to reverse Morozova’s blood lock. “A healer.” She nods again and you close your fist, flexing your fingers. “Thank you.”

“It’s the best I could do. I never quite had the time to master tailoring before I died.”

“Died?” you repeat. She nods and you feel the blood run out of your face. “Am I dead too?”

She tilts her head, examining you for a moment.

“I don’t think so.”

That doesn’t reassure you. Desperate for some answers, you slump down onto the stone steps, tucking your knees up to your chest.

“What’s your name?” you ask her.

“Luda.”

She sits down beside you as you give her your name.

“Do you mind me asking, how did you die?”

“I was stabbed by one of the King’s soldiers.”

“When was this?”

Her brows crease together into a small frown, her head tilted aside.

“I’m not sure. I think time works differently here.”

History lessons at the Little Palace weren’t always your favourite, but perhaps you could figure out when Luda was still alive.

“What was the name of the king?”

“Anastas.”

“Oh.”

She’s quiet, eyes watching your reaction intently.

“Was that a long time ago?” she asks, though you suspect from her tone she already knows the answer.

You nod.

“Before the Fold.”

“What’s the Fold?”

You blink at her. The Fold is such a vital piece of Ravka’s history. A key feature on every map. A shadow that has been hanging over your country for your entire life. The idea of someone not knowing about it, of living in a Ravka without a mass of shadow dividing it, baffles you for a moment.

Luda listens intently, eyes wide as you describe the Fold and the state of your modern-day Ravka. There are tears in her eyes when you tell her about the Little Palace, your voice filled with nostalgia as you recount stories of your childhood – vastly different from hers. She’s sympathetic when you explain your struggles with helping Aleksander.

She tells you about the witch hunts and how she was cast out of her village at the age of six. With a melancholy smile on her face, she tells you about the man she loved, who had helped her rescue countless Grisha. It reminds you of Aleksander, which you mention to her.

It takes quite some time for the two of you to realise that her Aleksander is the same man as your Aleksander. But once you do, you’re both stunned. Luda is desperate to hear about him and you can see her heart break when you tell her how much he has suffered.

“Baghra warned him not to use merzost,” she admits. “Countless times.”

“Morozova used it,” you reason.

“Only to create his amplifiers. Aleksander is too selfless. He won’t see an issue with killing himself to keep the people he cares for safe.”

The two of you are quiet as you consider her words. Aleksander is selfless to a fault. There is nothing he wouldn’t do to keep you and the other Grisha safe. He has proved that time and time again, killing him piece by piece each day. You only hope that you might be able to save him from such a tragic fate, if you ever return to reality.

“I think he’s here for you.”

Frowning, you turn to follow Luda’s gaze and find the fox – your fox – at the edge of the woods. He trots over the grass, heading directly towards you. It feels like a piece of your soul has clicked back into place as the fox threads his way through your legs.

Luda seems cautious despite her curiosity, her hand hovering above the fox’s body.

“Go on,” you encourage her softly. “He won’t hurt you.”

“He’s beautiful,” she whispers, tracing her fingers lightly over his shimmering fur.

He tilts his head, looking up at you with his amber eyes.

“It isn’t our time yet, is it?” you say to him.

He shakes his head, taking your sleeve between his teeth and tugging you in the direction of the forest. As you stand, intending on following the fox, Luda calls your name.

“Aleksander,” she says, her voice wavering as she grips onto your hands. “Tell him… tell him he did everything he could. It wasn’t easy, but I’ve made my peace with the time I had.”

Swallowing hard, you tighten your hold on her.

“You should have had longer.”

She smiles softly, cupping your cheek with a fond affection in her eyes.

“I can see why he loves you.”

You don’t quite know what to say to her. Aleksander himself hasn’t even told you that he loves you. His actions have shown how much he cares for you, but he has yet to say the words themselves. Having someone state it so confidently makes you bashful.

“He still loves you,” you say. Her expression turns dismissive, but you shake your head to stop her next words. “He isn’t the kind of man to let time or death stop his love.”

The corner of her mouth twitches with the hint of a smile, tears gathering in her eyes. In this moment, she looks delicate and emotion tugs at your heart, encouraging your own tears.

“If he ends up at the making before me,” you adjust your grip on her hands, staring down at them. “Take care of him.”

She nods, her smile unfaltering despite her tears.

“I have a feeling I won’t be seeing either one of you for quite some time.”

»»---------------------►

Sunlight warms your face, and you blink rapidly as your eyes adjust to the sudden brightness. A small groan catches in the back of your throat and you stretch your aching limbs and push yourself into a sitting position. From her seat at your bedside, Genya discards her book with a gasp, tossing it away in favour of throwing her arms around you.

Somewhat disarmed by the hug, you look around at your surroundings, slowly recognising the bedroom you had been using at the Grand Palace.

“Genya? What happened?”

She pulls back, examining your face. There’s a tension in her features and a heaviness in her eyes. Genya is always meticulous in maintaining her appearance, but now she looks almost disheveled. Tears glimmer in her eyes as she brushes a lock of hair from your forehead.

“Ivan found you and the General in the woods. He said you had escaped a fire.”

“Ivan?” Ivan is alive. Deep down, you’re thrilled for Fedoyr, but at the moment you have more pressing concerns vying for your attention.

“You almost died.”

Her statement has concern for Aleksander mounting in your chest.

“Where’s the General?” Her expression drops slightly and your stomach twists fearfully as your fingers curl around her wrist. “Genya? Tell me, please.”

“He’s still alive. We’ve had heartrenders monitoring him constantly-” Instantly, you push the bedcovers aside and begin to climb off the mattress. “-and a durast keeping the merzost from reaching his heart.”

Genya settles her hands on your shoulders, attempting to keep you in bed.

“I need to see him.”

“Let me get a healer to see to you first.”

You shake your head.

“No. I need to see him, now.”

Dressed in a velvet robe, you stride through the corridors towards the royal chambers which Aleksander had claimed as his own. Genya hurries to keep up with you, despite the burning ache in your lungs. The fox skitters nervously at the forefront of your mind, scratching anxiously at the frantic thoughts of Aleksander.

Four oprichniki stand guard outside his rooms, opening the doors for you immediately so that you can rush into his bedroom unhindered. Ivan and Fedoyr stand at the foot of the bed, with David sitting at Aleksander’s bedside with a tense expression, his hands clasped together as he keeps the merzost from entering Aleksander’s heart.

Then your eyes fall upon Aleksander himself. The urge to cry like a helpless child chokes you. Moving towards him slowly, you can’t find the strength to breathe.

He’s sickeningly pale, cold to the touch as you reach for his face carefully. He doesn’t stir like he usually would, seeking out your touch subconsciously, and you experience the horrific thought that you might be too late.

His amplification still reaches for your power and nausea fills you at the feeling of strength that flows from his weakened body to yours. Closing your eyes as you sit by his side on the edge of the bed, you attempt to redirect the power, hoping to find some way of giving him enough to fight off the merzost.

The arteries in his neck are dark and thick with merzost, throbbing beneath his skin. There’s a sheen of sweat covering his forehead, his dark brows furrowed with pain. Clasping your hands together, you focus on the merzost in his body, gasping when you feel the vastness of dark poison tainting his blood. It makes your lungs tighten, the back of your head pounding with each weak beat of Aleksander’s heart.

Emotion closes your throat as you lean over Aleksander, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. Gently, you smooth his hair back, threading your fingers lovingly through the matted locks. He’s still so motionless, and your hands shake as you trace your fingertips over his scars which have darkened considerably. Kissing his cheek, you whisper quietly against his ear,

“Hold on for me, Aleksander, please.”

Blinking back your tears, you straighten up, addressing the room,

“Bring me the sun summoner.”

Fedoyr nods, giving Ivan’s hand a squeeze before he moves towards the door to obey your order. There’s a large, jagged scar stretching across Ivan’s neck, directly over the apple of his throat, which you suspect is a token from his escape from the Fold. He – like Aleksander – is lucky to have survived the volcra.

“Thank you for saving us, Ivan.”

He nods in acknowledgement, his expression softening slightly as he observes you and Aleksander.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Genya asks you, wringing her hands lightly.

“Not entirely,” you admit, rolling up the soft sleeves of your robe. “But I have a few theories.”

It isn’t long before you hear footsteps in the corridor outside as Fedoyr returns with Alina in tow.

“Fedoyr, hold her still.”

“What’s happening?” Alina asks, eyes bouncing frantically over each person in the room. None of you look at her.

“Quiet,” Ivan says firmly.

“Ivan,” you say. “Only stop me if he is about to die – and only then.” He nods solemnly. “Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Closing your eyes, you tighten your hold on Alina’s wrist and take Aleksander’s hand in your own, creating a physical bridge between the two of them.

»»---------------------►

It takes a few moments for you to realise where you are. The Little Palace. The sun is low, descending over the horizon as you walk down the corridors. The increasing darkness doesn’t scare you, this place is your home. There is only one place you can think of finding Aleksander.

During your time living at the Little Palace, you never actually set foot in Aleksander’s rooms, as an ordinary durast, you were never considered important enough for an audience with the General of the Second Army.

Pushing open the door to Aleksander’s chambers, you walk towards the figure seated in the armchair by the fire.

“Aleksander,” you sigh, filled with relief. “I thought it would be so much harder to find you.” He doesn’t turn at the sound of your voice and your stomach sinks as the silence rings between you. Each step you take is tentative as you move towards the chair, eyes trained on the dark head of hair. “Sasha?”

The figure stands and your steps falter.

“Alina.”

She’s wearing a black kefta and you feel sick at the sight of her in Aleksander’s colour. She frowns at you.

“It’s you, from the Spinning Wheel. Who are you?”

You shake your head minutely.

“No one.”

“Kirigan isn’t who you think he is.”

“I know exactly who he is.”

She lifts a hand, summoning a ball of sunlight which dances around her fingers. Her light is cooler than when you first saw it at the winter fete.

“And you stand beside him – knowing what he’s done?” Her voice is hard with anger and you know there will be no reasoning with her. Straightening yourself, you nod.

“I do.”

Small sparks flutter around her, the power fighting to be released. Then you realise, she doesn’t have full control of her second amplifier, meaning she is so much more dangerous than you anticipated. Slowly, you begin to back away.

She brings her hands together, wielding the light into a bright blade and you turn tail, running for the door. It slams shut behind you and mere seconds later the Cut slices through the wood.

Splitters burst from the broken door as it shatters from the force of Alina’s Cut, but you don’t dare to look backwards as you continue running. Knowing the corridors of the Little Palace so intimately gives you an advantage that you are quick to make use of, leaving Alina behind in the wake of her destruction.

As you lean against a window frame, attempting to catch your breath, your eyes are drawn to a light outside. There’s someone in Baghra’s hut. Aleksander. Rushing towards a door that opens into the courtyard at the side of the palace, you freeze in the doorway, staring out over the grass.

The open ground between the palace and Baghra’s hut means you will be vulnerable from all angles. Without the speed or heightened senses of the fox, you have no way of knowing if it is safe for you to move.

After a moment of steeling your nerves, you push away from the door, running as fast as you can across the courtyard. As soon as you make it to the grass, hope begins to fill you that you might make it to Baghra’s hut undetected and unharmed.

Then, there’s a galloping sound of hooves against grass, dirt spraying upwards, and you stumble at the sight of a stag barrelling out of the woods towards you. Halting your sprint has you swaying backwards, knocked to the ground by the momentum as you scramble away from the stag.

He’s large, colossal antlers raised aggressively at you as he snorts a warning. His pale fur stands out against the darkness, almost glowing in the pale moonlight as he stamps the ground territorially, blocking your route to Aleksander.

Despite your hurried retreat, he continues to stalk towards you and fear prickles over your skin. There is no way you can outrun such a creature. Mud sticks to your hands as you crawl backwards, eyes fixed on the stag as he begins to pick up the pace again, charging towards you with his antlers lowered to impale you.

There’s a flash of red fur and a familiar protective snarl. The fox. He’s come to save you. He barks and growls at the stag, weaving between his legs.

Terrified for the creature that has been a part of you for the last few months, you hold your breath and watch anxiously as the fox snaps at the stag. He turns to look at you, amber eyes locked on yours as he tilts his head as if to say: what are you still doing here? Go get him.

Shakily, you stumble to your feet, running around the warring creatures towards the hut at the tree line. Aleksander is sitting by the fire when you throw open the door.

“Aleksander,” you gasp.

He stands, wide eyed, rushing towards you as you throw yourself into his arms. He catches you immediately, coiling himself around you tightly as you grip onto him.

“You’re alive,” he murmurs, breathing deeply as he nestles himself closer to you.

“You are too,” you whisper, before adding, “Barely, because you used merzost again.”

He shrugs lightly, hiding his face in the crook of your neck.

“It was a small price to pay, to ensure you lived.”

“Aleksander. The only reason why I was able to create this tether is because you are frightfully close to joining the making at the heart of the world.”

“Is that what this is? A preliminary afterlife?”

You nod.

“I think so.”

His expression shatters, his knuckles stroking your cheek.

“You’re here to say goodbye.”

“You think I would let you go so easily?” He stares at you in confusion, and you lean forwards to press your forehead against his. “I’m here to save you.”

“How?”

“Merzost requires balance. The only solution I can think of is to reverse what happened in reality.” He frowns and you continue your explanation. “We get Alina to kill the stag, and I give you the antlers.”

“Kill the stag? What do you mean?”

“Look outside.”

Aleksander’s legs are shaky, and you need to keep your arm around his shoulders as he moves over towards the window. The fox and the stag are still fighting outside, their positions now reversed as the fox stands protectively at the entrance to Baghra’s hut.

“You certainly know how to pick an amplifier for someone,” you remark quietly with a wry laugh.

“He’s just as loyal as you,” Aleksander says in a soft murmur and heat warms in your chest.

Then you spot Alina approaching, her eyes fixed intently on the fox.

“I have to help him.”

“My love,” Aleksander says, curling his fingers around your wrist to prevent you from leaving. “Be careful, please.”

You nod, standing on tiptoe to press a kiss to his scarred cheek.

As you close the door behind you, Alina is tossing the Cut wildly in the direction of the fox. Instantly, you clasp your hands together, summoning your power to bend the stones and scraps of metal beneath the ground to create a makeshift shield for the fox. It shatters as soon as Alina’s light hits it, though it gives the fox the opportunity to escape. He scampers towards you, weaving between your legs.

“Are you alright?” you ask him. He nods, tilting his head back as you stroke your fingers through the fur beneath his chin.

Moving your attention over to Alina, you find her eyes bouncing between you and the fox – struggling to piece together how you hold such power over him. To get what you need to help Aleksander, you need to goad her into attacking the stag.

“You think Aleksander is the one mad for power, but you hadn’t even mastered your first amplifier before claiming another.”

She raises her chin at you.

“The stag chose me.”

“Did he?”

Doubt flickers over her face as she glances at the stag. He doesn’t seek her out like the fox does for you.

“The fox chose me. You’ve seen what we can do as one being.” Even in this tether space, where the two of you are physically separated, you and the fox are of one mind. He prowls at your ankles, keeping his eyes on Alina. “Claiming an amplifier is an exchange. They offer you their life, but you have to be the one to take it.”

She straightens herself, resolution in her eyes.

“Fine.”

Alina turns towards the stag, raising her hands slowly as her light shimmers around her. A shiver runs down your spine, and guilt settles in your stomach for a brief moment. Time seems to stand still, as a great blade of light shoots towards the stag. There’s a bright flash, as the light meets its mark and an earsplitting crack echoes through the air that makes your ears ring.

You don’t have to tell the fox your plan. As you sprint towards the unmoving body of the stag, the fox charges at Alina. The sound of them fighting makes you nervous, but you keep your focus on the task in front of you. Summoning a small Cut between your hands, you remove several pieces of the stag’s antlers, gathering together as much as you can carry before you stand and run back into Baghra’s hut.

In response to your arrival, Aleksander lowers himself onto the bed as you drag a chair over to the bedside with the antlers.

“Where do I need to put them?” you ask.

“Collarbones,” he states weakly.

Tugging at the collar of his shirt, you pull the fabric away as he loosens the buttons to reveal the top of his chest. As you settle the antler pieces over his collar bones with shaking hands, his fingers curl around your wrist.

“Are you sure about this?”

Shaking your head, you place your hand over his, squeezing it softly.

“Not at all.”

A weak smile quirks at the corner of his lips, then he nods.

“Do your best.”

Weaving your two hands together, you reach for your power and begin to merge the antlers with his bones. Aleksander grits his teeth at the foreign sensation, and you feel lightheaded at such an exertion. Relief prickles over your skin as Aleksander’s body seems to begin accepting the antlers. Most of the material sinks into him, leaving only a few sharp edges poking out.

There’s a sudden pain bursting over your face, that has stars sparkling over your vision and the sound of the fox whimpering outside has you glancing at the window, distracted. At the thought of Alina Cutting the fox, or burning him with her light, anxiety blooms in your chest and you’re tempted to check on him.

The pattering of paws against dirt soothes some of your concerns, as the fox comes barrelling into the hut. He scrambles into your lap, pressing his face against your chest as he pants heavily. Aleksander strokes his hand limply over the body of the fox, threading his fingers absentmindedly through his fur as he blinks heavily, staring unfocused up at the ceiling.

“You’re okay,” you rasp, lowering your chin onto the fox’s head as your heart pounds wildly, hands shaking as you focus on sealing Aleksander’s skin over the antlers. “We’re okay.”

There are only a few stray notches of bone, healed gnarly beneath Aleksander’s skin. The amplified has accepted him. With your hands free, you grasp onto Aleksander and the fox, holding onto them both in relief. Sweat drips over you both as you press your forehead against Aleksander’s. He kisses you breathlessly, a proud smile on his face as he murmurs,

“Take us home.”

»»---------------------►

Indecipherable voices overlap one another. Your vision blurs. There’s an ache in your head, throbbing as you sway in your seat. It takes several seconds for you to realise where you are, perched on the edge of Aleksander’s bed. The people around you are blurry; only one of them brings your vision into focus. There’s a hoarseness to your throat as you whisper,

“Aleksander.”

He blinks at you, sitting up in his bed as you move towards him. He curls his arms tight around you, griping onto your body with every ounce of strength he possesses. He breathes deeply, and you begin to sob when you realise there’s no unsettling rattle from his lungs. There’s a healthy flush over his cheeks and the dark skeins of merzost are nowhere to be seen.

Aleksander rocks you back and forth, tears in his own eyes as he presses his face into your hair. His words are muffled, but they hold a familiar sense of command as he addresses the room,

“Thank you for your assistance, everyone. Leave us for a moment.”

They are all quiet as they leave the room and Aleksander pulls you back down under the covers, guiding you into his embrace. He strokes your hair, holding you close as you bury your face into his chest. He watches you blink tiredly, exhaustion making your limbs heavy as you cling to him.

“Sleep, my love,” he murmurs. “You’ve done so much for me.” Sleepily, you tighten your grip on him.

“You’re not going to die, are you?”

His lips brush against your forehead in a delicate kiss.

“Not today.”

»»---------------------►

marvelmusing Tag List: @dreamlandcreations @blanchedelioncourt @idaofinfinity @slytherheign @ellooo0ooo @vixenofcourse @dumb-fawkin-bitch @jane-arthur @ilikefictionmen @budugu @watersquirtpewpewboomm @mysweetlittledesire

S&B Tag List: @motheroffae @daddymaster21

Aleksander M Tag List: @nyctophiliiiiaaa @jazmin2211 @wooya1224 @seronsalk

KYJ Tag List: @tartiflvtte @weepingwitchofthewest @poemfreak306 @writerloversjm @prochnost513 @meg-the-second-greatest @allinestarr @bwormie @aoi-targaryen @wonderland2425

BB Characters Tag List: @rachlovesactors @noortsshift @aikeia @weallhaveadestiny @two-unbeatable-beaters @idohknow @vaguekayla

[dragonsdendoodles]

What do you think the children would watch on YouTube? What would their favorite youtubers and content be?

Oh god time to just scream my age on the internet

Also for the record if any of these people are problematic I don’t know about it or what happened my entire YouTube feed for the past six years has been Reddit stories and video essays I use for background noise when I draw so if I mention someone sucky I’m sorry I haven’t consumed their content since at least middle school

For starters, I think Emma, Millard, and Horace avoid it altogether out of principle. Emma and Horace because people are stupid and they cannot believe this is what modern entertainment is and Millard because he has ruined many videos by pointing out every inaccuracy he could find and he got sick of the cesspool of misinformation that is the internet.

Jacob has been watching Minecraft videos since the beginning of the damn site. Specifically he discovered iHasCupquake and DanTDM a couple years after joining the loop and now when he’s bored and in a time with internet access he watches Minecraft Oasis and DanTDM’s Custom Mod Adventures on repeat. Noor is the exact same way, but with life hack videos very obviously aimed at middle school girls that have stuff like painting staples with nail polish and sneaking candy into class via empty glue sticks. Think Wengie and SaraBeautyCorner. They actually grew up with this so it’s more about the nostalgia than anything else

Enoch likes history videos. And videos about games like War Thunder and World of Tanks. He also likes Vine compilations, discovered when Jacob and Noor were quoting vines to each other and Enoch joined with them having absolutely zero knowledge he even knew what that was. (Horace also begrudgingly knows what Vine was, but instead of saying “yeah I sure hope it does” to Enoch’s “road work ahead???” he goes “I hate you and everything you stand for” and Enoch laughs.)

Olive, Claire, and Bronwyn watch Gacha Life/Club/whatever the fuck they’re on now I don’t know anymore music videos and Vine compilations. Bronwyn is here for quality control. (Bronwyn’s favorite YouTube series is Rosanna Pansino’s Nerdy Nummies series, even though she has no idea what any of the references are. What she does know is that she showed Jacob the Angry Birds cupcakes and he demanded they be made that exact day.)

Hugh is fascinated by all this but has little to no idea what’s going on. He did however get very invested in Sanders Sides and is very impatiently waiting with me for Orange to be revealed.

Fiona also doesn’t know what’s going on but she thinks Warrior Cats AMVs and multi-animator projects are INSANE she loves them and gets very sad when Noor is helping her look them up and they find out yet another creator is problematic

[theshadowrealmitself]

Pet shop of horrors was one of my favorite mangas growing up (I haven’t read it in forever so I don’t know if anything aged horribly, but from memory it was fantastic and you need to read it immediately, there’s also a mini anime series but I don’t know if it’s good) and the bunny one still messes me up to this day (spoilers ahead)

So a quick overview of it is that Count D runs a pet shop, and all the animals in it are actually supernatural that appear to be humans to Count D and customers, and he always warns people on how to take care of the pets when they buy one, but they always ignore his warnings and end up dead, and this detective just knows Count D is related to the murders but can’t prove anything (especially since the animals actually look like animals to him)(there’s so much other stuff going on this manga please, please read it, it’s so great)

And the bunny one is that this couple recently lost their daughter and decide to get a pet to help them with their grief, so they go to Count D who introduces them to this bunny, except the bunny looks like their dead daughter, so obviously they get the bunny

And Count D’s like “even though this looks like a human to you, this is still a bunny, so do not give the bunny any candy” (at least I remember the rule being to not give it candy), and they’re like “we understand” and go home and celebrate over having their “daughter” “back”

And at some point (I wanna say this happens almost immediately?), the bunny looks up at the mom with pleading eyes and asks for candy and the mom caves, which leads to this horrifying outcome of small bunnies (that actually look like bunnies this time) clawing their way out of the main bunny and then I think killing the parents? before all dying themselves because bunnies can’t have candy

And it turned out that that’s kinda how their daughter originally died too, the mom could never say no to her, and when their daughter was in rehab, she begged her mom for more drugs, and her mom slipped her some because she couldn’t say no to her and thought a little bit wouldn’t hurt, and it led to her overdosing (again this is all from memory because I’m scared to pick up the manga again and not have it live up to my nostalgia, so apologies if I got anything wrong)

And that just still messes me up, like she clearly loved her daughter, you can’t deny that, but she couldn’t do right by her, because instead of giving her what she needed, she just kept giving her what she wanted, and it killed her daughter, her daughter’s replacement, and even her and her husband in the end

And I just think if that was in more things (accidentally killing the person you love because you love them and you don’t understand that it’s because you love them that you should say no and disappoint them at times) it would mess me up even more but I’d go feral for it

[shin-meddlesome-hero]

Gundam Journey Recap 2024

Last year’s recap: Here

Another year of Gundam Brainrot. This time I watched more stuff because I wasn’t watching Zeta for 8+ months like last year. Here’s a very summarized opinion on everything I watched. Once again, take my ratings with a grain of salt.

Zeta Gundam: It took me an eternity to watch and I still want to write some essays about it. I get the feeling that I need to rewatch it in order to completely understand it. I’ll be honest, it was a pain to watch but it’s the UC Gundam series I’m still thinking about long after I finished it. I love Kamille, and Char/Quattro elicits in me the same reaction that many of you guys have towards Reigen Arataka. You’re gonna hate me, but that ending was amazing, one of the greatest payoffs I’ve ever seen. On the other hand, it was an absolute mess with women (a very interesting mess but sometimes it got annoying).

Enough amount of Char. 4/5

Gundam ZZ: I get why some people don’t like it, still it was a very fun ride. Unlike Zeta, I was able to watch this in a month and a half (look, I’m very slow at watching series, so this is a record time for me). It was like an 80’s Saturday morning cartoon so it gave me a lot of nostalgia. The first part was weak, but once they get to Earth and the opening song changes from “Anime Ja Nai “ to “Silent Voice”, it gets really good. I also enjoyed most of the characters.

Char only appears on the opening. 3/5

Char’s Counterattack: Guys, this movie was so hyped for me that once I finally, finally, FINALLY got to watch it I… didn’t felt much. I mean, it’s ok, I guess, and Char and Amuro are very Divorced. I don’t know, I expected a bigger catharsis, or to finally understand Char or get obsessed with him and Amuro and it just didn’t happen for me. It’s good, but I didn’t feel the same things I felt with G-Witch or with the Zeta finale.

Too much Char. By the end of the film I wished that he was punched more. 3.5/5

Hathaway’s Flash: Somehow I enjoyed it more than CCA, and it really got me interested in Tomino’s writing. Visually, it's good, and the “char clone” from the movie is fascinating. I’m not telling you more, only that this is the aftermath of Char and Amuro’s actions in CCA. Also the animation and character design is top notch. Hope that we get a second movie soon.

Excellent Char successor. 3.5/5

Gundam F91: It’s a total disaster but it’s very entertaining to watch. The first half of the movie was really good, but then everything happens so much, we have a character change sides and die in less than 10 minutes, and there’s a lot of details that aren’t explained. The protagonist is bland and no one gets too much character development. It’s kind of my guilty pleasure, because it’s obvious that they tried to cram a whole series in a 2 hour movie and they failed, but the try was worth it. Makes me wonder what It’ll be like if the story had reached its full potential. The character and mechanical design, along with the music and animation is pretty good. I would recommend it only for that.

There’s a bad Darth Vader knockoff and the actual Char clone looks like a pirate. 3/5

Gundam G no Reconguista Movies: I watched these when I got sick during summer vacation. They’re a wild ride, just like F91, everything is happening so much all the time and there’s barely an explanation. It’s a very curious experience because Tomino has A Vision he has to convey and he doesn’t mind if the plot and characters are sacrificed to achieve it. The characters had a cute design but there was not much to them, it was cartoony like ZZ, but somehow ZZ had more character depth, so it’s not exactly what I was expecting, but it was fun.

Hated the Char clone, however. 3/5

(At this point I became more obsessed with Tomino than with Gundam, I didn’t really trust that anyone else could write a good UC Gundam story besides him -I’m conflicted about The Origin-.)

Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance: Looked like a stereotypical American military story at first, but I liked where the plot went. I still think it’s funny that the protagonist is your typical soldier who lost their spouse, but this time it’s a woman. Who’s also a mom!!! (Yes, this is a very important plot point. Unrelated but it left me once again daydreaming about a story where Elnora was a Gundam protagonist). The ending fails if you’ve watched ZZ. It’s not bad, but you can skip this one.

No Char :( 3/5

Encounters in Space: One night I wanted to treat myself, and went straight to the 3rd Gundam compilation movie. This is my favorite arc from 0079 and the adaptation didn’t disappoint. Completely recommend it.

Right amount of Char. 5/5

Gundam ALC Encounter: An animation short that was projected on the walls of a shopping mall near the Nu Gundam statue in Fukuoka. Basically Lala Suneh reincarnates and becomes a lesbian tiktoker while Amuro and Char punch each other.

I didn’t like Char’s hair here but Lala has a girlfriend. 10/5

Gundam 0080/War in the Pocket: Started like your typical late 80’s kiddie adventure movie (it even sounds like one), ended like a Shakespearean tragedy. I really liked that the conflict wasn’t that big. It’s a more intimate kind of story, and the anti war message is effective. On the other hand, it’s hard for me to believe that the Side authorities just left a Zaku lying there for days, but whatever. Best Christmas special.

No Char but we don’t need him. 4/5

Incomplete series:

Gundam Build Fighters season 1: (first 10 episodes) Looks like a very fun shonen that reminds me heavily of Angelic Layer. However it sucks when it comes to female characters which is unforgivable for me considering that so far Gundam is one of the few shonen/seinen franchises that’s actually pretty decent about women (yeah, even Zeta). I’ll watch the rest once I’m able to turn my brain off for a few hours.

SD Gundam shorts: Some of them are pretty funny but they also suck when it comes to the female characters. I liked the shorts where the mobile suits are in the sengoku era.

Turn A Gundam: (25 episodes so far) Gave it another try after watching the first UC Gundam series and I absolutely love it. The series is super chill, it’s kind of my confort show right now. I really like Loran. So far it looks like it’ll be a 5/5.

Gunplas built this year:

G-Witch Kits: Full Mechanics Aerial, SDEX Aerial, SDW Heroes Aerial Onmitsu (I like Aerial), Suletta Mercury, Gundam Calibarn.

UC Kits: SDEX Nu Gundam (currently painting it), Gundam MK II, Semi-transparent HaroPla.

It’s still a pretty fun hobby. I found out that the SD kits are perfect to begin practicing painting and customization, so I’ll be trying that out. I also want to try out some RG and MG kits if I’m able to buy them.

TBR List:

So I haven’t read much of the Gundam manga and novels yet. But there’s stuff I really want to read:

*Beltorchika’s Children *The Hathaway Novels *Crossbone Gundam *Vanadis Heart *That one G-Witch spin-off *Char’s Daily Life (I would like to read the whole thing this time).

If you have more recs let me know. :)

[jasmine-tea-latte]

JTL's long but not as long as it could've been review of Netflix's ATLA

So.

I’ve finished watching the Netflix adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender and I have a lot of thoughts. Because despite some of the more questionable changes, I overall enjoyed this as an adaptation.

I wish I could say that I was surprised by the criticisms I'm seen so far, but unfortunately, I’m not. As much as I adore the OG series for being one of the greatest animated shows (or television shows, period), it’s been placed on a pedestal over the years and any adaptation of it will always be held to an impossibly high standard. And for better or for worse, a lot of fans have their nostalgia glasses on when it comes to the show, so any deviation from the source material is going to receive some form of backlash. I say this as someone who clearly still loves the show 19 years later, otherwise I wouldn't be here writing about it, ya know?

Anyways, if I had to give it a grade compared to the OG series, I’d give it a B- or a C+. If I’m grading it as its own thing, I’d bump that up to a B+ or A-. There are some elements (pun not intended) that definitely should have been kept in, and some changes that I thought were done well.

TL;DR – I had fun watching it even during the parts that made me cry, and the parts that made me say “… well that was a decision.” I’d love to see the last two books be adapted as well, if for no other reason than to meet Toph Mothereffing Bei Fong and see all of Team Avatar together.

(Also because I’d LOVE to see The Ember Island Players, especially if they managed to work in a few fun cameos. Can't you picture Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Play!Toph and thee Dante Basco as Play!Zuko, hamming it up for all it’s worth? Shut up and take my money!)

(And of course, the Last Agni Kai for obvious reasons)

So I’d recommend at least checking it out if you’re interested. I’d also like to recommend that if you do, watch it from a pragmatic standpoint that it’s a condensed adaptation, not a shot-for-shot remake.

Some things that I liked, and some that I didn’t are below the cut:  

(SPOILERS, obvs)

Aang – I really liked this version of him, and though his actor’s still young, I thought he embodied the upbeat, playful side well. I also liked that they removed his one-sided crush on Katara, and – don’t shoot me for this – if they went with Kat@ang later based on how they did their characters in this first season, I wouldn’t be entirely opposed if it’s built on actual friendship and not an unrequited crush. (Still Team Zutara for life, but I don’t think that I’d *hate* it if the show went in this direction.)

Katara – I thought her actress did great when it came to portraying the nurturing, sensitive side. What I didn’t like was them removing nearly all of her feminine rage. Let her be angry! Let her lose her temper and be hot-headed! This post sums it up nicely. That being said, I do think she did well enough with the direction she was given. Here’s hoping we’ll see our girl eff some stuff up if we get Seasons 2 and 3.

Sokka – Fantastic and sarcastic. I really liked his actor’s interpretation of him, and it definitely felt more in line with the character we all fell in love with during the OG show.

Zuko – out of the main cast, I think his performance was the best. He had to step into a major role, taking over from a beloved performance that is still hailed as one of the greatest redemption arcs in modern media with a lot of expectations riding on his shoulders, and I think that his actor knocked it out of the park. It’s different from Dante Basco’s interpretation, obviously. But as I watched each episode, I kept thinking, “there’s our grumpy fire boy.” The scene where he’s throwing the temper tantrum over losing his journal, while Iroh’s standing back and watching? I thought to myself, “this boy is the worst, he’s perfect.” Plus the flashbacks to his life before scarring were done well, and even though I knew what was coming re: the Agni Kai against his father and subsequent banishment, I still got emotional.

Also, regarding the Agni Kai – on one hand, I feel like his absolute refusal to fight back was such an integral part of that scene and understanding who he is as a character. That being said, I didn’t *hate* that in this version he was pushed into defending himself, albeit by holding back. That one shot where he hesitates to attack Ozai, only for his father to use that same move against him moments later… oof.

My ONLY complaint with this version of Zuko is that he didn't say "honor" once.

Other thoughts I had:

🟣 I really liked that we got to see more of the Air Nomads and life at the Southern Air Temple prior to Sozin’s attack. I also liked the explanation the show gave of having all the Air Nomads gathered together for a festival celebrating the comet, which makes more sense if they’re all (allegedly) under one roof.

Additionally, witnessing the genocide itself… I was crying. Especially during the final showdown between Gyatso and Sozin, and the realization that we were witnessing Roku’s (former) best friend slaughter one of his other closest friends.

But why wouldn't they send the children out on the flying bison to escape instead of having them all cornered?!

🟣 I really enjoyed getting to see interactions between Ozai and Iroh, which was one of the biggest missed opportunities in the OG show.

🟣 MY GIRL JUNE. That is all.

The part where she flirts with Iroh was also a nice flip on what happened in the OG show, with his covert pervert crush and all. Plus Zuko’s face when she calls his “dad” cute? Peak Zuzu. Also, poor Iroh hahaha.

🟣 Suki! I really liked the Kyoshi Island episode, plus her awkward flirting with Sokka by kicking his ass.

🟣 I really wish the whole subplot of Kya’s necklace hadn’t been cut, tbh. The flashbacks involving her were good, and as devastating as it was actually seeing her death, it does hammer home the point what a horrifying experience that was (side-eyeing you, everyone making the jokes about Katara always bringing up her dead mother.)

🟣 THE SCARF SCENE. Nice try, Netflix, but I know better than to get my hopes up again from 5 seconds of slow-mo. Did I still screech when it happened, though? Ofc I did!

🟣 The twist with the 41st Division was bittersweet and I may have (okay, definitely) cried.

🟣 Combining Jet’s subplots with the Mechanist’s and putting them in Omashu wasn’t too bad. I do wish the message of “not everyone in the FN is evil” from Jet’s episode had made it into this version, tbh.

🟣 Overall, I liked Jet + the Freedom Fighters. Also, props to his actor for capturing the pretty boy / f*ckboi attitude well.

🟣 Loved Chong and the hippies, of course (SECRET, SECRET, SECRET TUNNEL, YEAH!) and I don’t mind that they were included this early.

🟣 I loved the change to the Cave of Two Lovers and having Oma and Shu be lesbians.

🟣 I feel like if the show’s renewed for a second season and we come back to Omashu, there’s a chance they could revisit the COTL with Katara and Aang this time around.

🟣 The random lady smacking Zuzu with a broom – “how dare you hit that child?!” – was hilarious, and Dallas Liu’s facial expressions of “wtf” and “fml” were a thing of beauty (starts at 1:40 in the video below)

🟣 CABBAGE MAN! I just love that they got the original voice actor, hamming it up and screaming at the sky.

🟣 I LOVED the Blue Spirit episode, and all of the flashbacks, plus the voiceover about masks and seeing past!Zuko contrasted to present!Zuko, as presented in this gifset? RIP my heart.

🟣 The flashback to Lu Ten’s funeral and showing Zuko being the only person to join his uncle, sharing a sweet memory of his cousin while Leaves from the Vine plays? Beautiful. Ditto to the flashbacks of Iroh standing up for his nephew prior to the Agni Kai and the scenes of them getting ready to set sail to search for the Avatar. “I don’t need a babysitter.” “How about a friend?” how about excuse you I did not ask for these emotions how dare you.

🟣 I actually liked the inclusion of Ozai and Azula + Mai and Ty Lee. I also loved the opening of Ep. 3, showing how she was able to infiltrate the team of rebels. RIP to Kevin Tran (in advanced placement), though.

🟣 I loved that Katara rallied the women waterbenders and they were able to help during the Siege of the North. I also liked her reaction when she's talking with Yugoda in the healing huts and realizes why she's been sent there. It gave us a glimpse of the fiestier / headstrong Katara we all know and love, and if the show gets renewed I hope we'll get to see more.

🟣 I really enjoyed them giving Aang and Zuko a few minutes to talk / form a connection after he was unmasked as the Blue Spirit. That was nicely done.

and finally...

Nothing else to add, just chef's kiss.

(gif source)

Anyways! I might make a more extensive list of my personal pros and cons, but for now, I’d still recommend giving it a shot.

[gendervapor14]

treating myself to some old OP episodes to alleviate the horrors and i can’t resist the urge to ramble about bell-mère’s death a little bit.

so, i will start here, with this iconic moment:

manga readers may notice something right off the bat. “hey, arlong’s not aiming for her head!” yes, in the anime, seems they switched his aim for the heart. i actually prefer this. first of all, that flintlock is huge compared to her, so head or heart, it’s gonna kill her. not a fatality issue. i’m just a huge sap, and i think there’s something more symbolic about him shooting her in the heart for defending her love - her kids. (even tho all of this could have been avoided if she just lied, and then she’d actually be able to keep loving and supporting her kids, but, uh, i digress)

this moment really captured me when i was first watching, because for the first time, one piece truly felt dark. this wasn’t just an upsetting backstory. it had some element of gore here, which i’m not sure would be as effective if he went through with a headshot. they might have censored it a bit more.

more (slightly gruesome) photos and analysis beneath the cut 👀

look at what they got away with here!! this was early one piece mind you, so i feel like things were generally a little cushier? (or maybe that’s just my nostalgia talking XD) but the harsh black and white contrast, the utter silence during this scene, the speed in which this happened! (it was a pain to pause and scrub and get good screenshots, let me add). i will say i’m not up to date with current OP shenanigans, but to me, this seems like one of the most abrupt and brutal deaths in the series. (and this doesn’t even put into account the horrid beating she got beforehand)

there are some nice parallels here between her death and rosinante’s, (most notably her last words being “i love you” to nami and nojiko, and a flintlock as the weapon of choice), but even then, i think this is a bit nastier. seven little bullets in a 10ft tall man is painful, yes, but it wasn’t gruesome, and he managed to cling onto life for a little while afterwards. this was just. bang. done. heart – gone. leaves the viewer totally reeling.

in a way i feel like it’s almost an honor for bell-mère to get such a violent death? okay hear me out i know that sounds crazy. she sacrificed herself for her kids and went out kicking and screaming (or standing solemnly, towards the end). she brought forth such a refreshing take on women in one piece. i mean, let’s not forget this scene:

she was gonna blow his brains out!! zero hesitation!! how many characters in this series, let alone women, would go through something like this? i get that different characters have different honor codes and such, but it was sooo incredibly invigorating to see a woman get her hands dirty like this.

so by that logic, it’s kind of weirdly nice to see her not be treated like a little doll? this is highly speculative though, because i’ve noticed there’s this rather annoying trend where women are used as a moral compass for villains. “oh, look how deplorable arlong is, he did that to a young pretty woman!” we see the same thing with doflamingo, for instance, in his “fight” with viola. “oh how heinous, he threw her to the ground! how disrespectful! she’s just an innocent princess!” yeah, ugh. getting off tangent here

this whole scene set a standard for me, (and hopefully other viewers), who kind of saw the series as a fun lighthearted pirate adventure. yes, there was tragedy and sadness before this arc, before this backstory, but something about this moment in particular made my perception tremble. the bar was raised! a compelling character and backstory can have a truly harrowing ending!! a delightful revelation for me, for whatever reason XD

feel free to chime in if ya got any additional comments or takes on the matter. i don’t think bell-mère gets enough love. if you do wanna chime in, just um. be nice. i’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, okay. and multiple interpretations of these scenes are valid! i’d love to hear ‘em! <3

[ouraboras]

Ranking Alucard's Designs, Best to Worst

I've had a rough day and feel like being mean. These are just my opinions. Some rules:

I’m not counting each game a character appears in unless the design is noticeably different. I don’t count different art styles as a different design. I’m not counting the mobile game skins with two exceptions. For the most part it’s just him but purple. However, for your pleasure, joker Alucard:

Symphony of the Night

No surprise. It’s his most iconic design. He’s gorgeous. I enjoy how he wears a mixture of human clothes (the jacket) and more stereotypical vampire clothing like the cape. Same with warm colors with black and silver.

2. Grimoire of Souls

I love this design. I kiss it every night before I go to bed. I pray to it on Sundays. His waist makes me go feral. The only thing that bothers me is the brown lining. I wish they did something like the inside of his SotN jacket.

3. Moonlight Rhapsody – Outfit 3

I know absolutely nothing about this game. However, I love this skin. In my head when I imagine Alucard pre-Dracula betrayal this is it. The collar is a bit silly but I can look past it. I love the sleeves. The only critique I have is the brown and we’ll get to my feeling on Alucard wearing brown. But on this outfit, it’s not too bad.

4. Nocturne

They gave him his gay little neck ruffle back nature is healing. I wish they kept the details on the coat, but I’ll happily take the trade. I like his face.

5. The cancelled Dracula’s Curse movie concept art

I need to know what the context behind this would have been. The skirt, the pauldrons, his bloody hands, HIS HAIR PUSHED BACK. The only thing I dislike is his black nipple.

6. Aria and Dawn of Sorrow

I like the suit. The red pocket square is nice. I think it is a really interesting choice for it to be red rather than yellow as a callback. I love the choice to make him resemble Dracula pre-vampirism. All of his color has been drained and replaced with black and red. I go back and forth on if I hate or like (for symbolic reasons) his tie-neck ruffle thing. But none of that is my real problem with the design. His shoes are hideous. The heel is good.  He deserves a little heel. But what is going on with the white. It's ugly and going to be a bitch to keep clean. His slacks are too long. He’s a government agent, he can afford to go to a tailor.

7. Season 1 & 2 of the show

I dislike the shirt. I’m not a big fan of how they drew his face either. But I like how they gave him Trevor’s chest scar.

8. Captain N

He’s so rad. But to be honest, Captain N Alucard has a special place in my heart. I remember when this was the closest thing to an animated series Castlevania had. It being this high is purely my nostalgia. I highly recommend watching the episode. It is pure 90s camp.

9. Season 4 of the show

Whore.

10. Grimoire of Souls – Blood and Loyalty

I can’t find a better look at this skin. He’s apparently dressed as a samurai. I like this purely because his hair is up. I don’t see enough of that. (artists pls you’d be doing the world a service)

11. Lords of Shadow 2

The only thing I like about this design is the coat. The dark blue with gold looks really good. I don’t like the belts, but I can ignore them. My issue is the armor. I hate the bronze so much. The armor on one hip is ugly. The ONLY thing that salvages this crime is the fact this Alucard is wearing the highest heels. This looks like an MMO armor set.

12. Judgement

I only unironically like 2 of Judgement’s designs. This is not one of them. I dislike it purely because of how boring it is. They put Simon in bondage gear, gave Trevor a boob window, and made Sypha a Catholic magical girl. But Alucard has to be more modest than the actual child. They could have fun with this but didn't. The most interesting thing about this design is they made a vintage couch into his cape.

13. Dracula’s Curse

This is Alucard’s original design. It’s just your standard pop culture vampire. I like his little owl hair tufts.

14. Legends

I’m fine with changing up Alucard’s design. Hell, we got SotN because of changing it. However, why is he blue? It’s not this illustration either he is just light blue for some reason. I like the short hair. I think it’s a cute way to show this game takes place in the past. But again, purple? Really? His necktie is not doing it for me either. It looks really bad.

15. And finally, last and certainly least: Pachinko and Moonlight Rhapsody

The faces? Good. Hair? Good. But for some reason they made his coat brown. At LEAST for pachinko they had some gold gauntlets and brown gloves instead of his sleeve cuffs. But whatever fucked up person at Konami did the design for MR kept the sleeve cuffs. It’s not like there is the excuse of ‘Oh the inside is black’ because it’s yellow. Now you might be asking: Why is this the worst? I have similar issues with other designs. But here is the thing, they all did something new. This is just your standard SotN Alucard with a color palette change. It looks like a recolor skin but it’s the main one. It's a bad change but not one bad enough to not be boring.

[blueikeproductions]

Transformers fans have been going over a new quarterly report and there’s good news and bad news. The former is Transformers is Hasbro’s strongest performing brand, the later is RotB and EarthSpark’s toy sales are stinkers. In particular, EarthSpark’s considered an underperforming product, with the show’s ratings in the smelting pool. As some of us anticipated, the second season is the most we’re gonna get, no third season or beyond.

So as much as some don’t want to hear it: EarthSpark is essentially a flop, and the second season coming at all is more because it’s too late to axe it.

What’s carrying the toys so far are the collector lines: Legacy and Studio Series. For better or for worse, do NOT doubt the power of nostalgia. Also pricing. A friend was telling me a parent audibly freaked out at the prices of the EarthSpark toys, so that’s keeping parents away.

Do kids still like Transformers? Well in my experience they do, but they largely liked G1, Prime, RiD15, Bayformers and Rescue Bots. They did NOT like Cyberverse (especially in Japan where I’m told toys are STILL rotting on shelves down there), and now apparently EarthSpark. I didn’t see RotB in theaters so I can’t speak for that, but I did see a lot of kids at Bumblebee when it was in theaters.

The easy answer on its failure, and we all know GriftTubers will latch on to it, is Nightshade. Transformers making it on to Fox News is NEVER a good thing… not helped as the owl continues to be controversial due to the Japanese dub deciding to make them male. (Personally I say split the difference if Nightshade ever reappears and make them he/they but still.) I’ve been clear on my stance that NS is fine and cool, but I’ve also placed more importance on their skills, interests and personality. Their gender is not important to me to get them to like them, but the unfortunate problem is too many people on both sides focus on their identity and it scared off normies and parents. Again, well meaning like the Blue’s Clues Pride Parade, but read the room. There was a way to make NS work and still let them be NB, but they didn’t do it, and I still say the old “they’re Terran because gender means nothing to them as a robotic life form” was the way to do it.

The more nuanced answer however is more complicated. ES wound up being another kids show that was actually for adult fans and not kids, choosing to instead focus on a sense of identity and HYUGE importance on family. Stuff that isn’t bad on its own, but most modern writers and executives don’t understand subtleties: resulting in a lot of Bludgeoning of well meaning ideas in a show that doesn’t feature the Master of Metallikato. Most kindergarten and elementary school kids aren’t THAT interested in that stuff, they like Pokémon, Mario, classic Disney, classic Star Wars and anime in my experience. And Transformers has a certain expectation among people, and while there’s been stuff in the past that involves talking about things (Rad having environmentalist tendencies and Optimus respecting his feelings on needing to protect the environment when a fire breaks out during a Mini-Con Panel hunt, with Tigatron, Optimus and Dinobot having a similar conversation more than once in Beast Wars), if the Autobots AREN’T waging their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons, most aren’t interested.

This feeds into the show’s writing which also I think killed it: the show’s writing is decent but it only gets weaker as it goes along. The overfixation on making the Decepticons into misunderstood bullies who need a hug, despite also showing them perfectly content to kill people, the mixed signals of all the known Earth Decepticons now being friends with the Maltos, Optimus being a doofus the longer the show went on, the heavy IDW slants that weren’t popular at all with general audiences like Autobot Megatron, and Fix Fic Blue Eyed TFP Starscream. There’s also lack of proper follow up on plot threads like Ravage and Mandroid’s friendship with Alex, Schloder’s reasoning for hunting Bee being stupid, mysterious Transformer artifacts, poor reasoning on Energon aliens running amuck, why Cybertron never re-established contact, the lack of understanding why Quintus Prime seems to have such an interest in Earth and why the Emberstone is even here at all and more. Sure some of this might be touched on better in season 2, but do I trust this writing team now? No. No I do not. I think this can be summed up by the rejected episode pitch with Ratchet and Drift. More focus was put on them being husbands, and while both tried offering their own reasonings for the Cyber Sleeves, there was no concrete answer provided on why the kids had the sleeves. Its especially odd in that I wager they would’ve played up Ratchet’s atheism from IDW, but never once have Quintus actually speak up through the sleeves, like a joke in Family Guy where Stewie calls out Brian’s atheism because Jesus crashed on their couch recently. The episode is just… more fluff. People don’t want fluff in Transformers, and we’re seeing that with how well the Energon Universe is continuing to kick everything’s afterburner in comics. IDW never did that. The best selling stuff towards the end was the Marvel G1 prequel and sequels, and the Beast Wars reboot and those were still low in the rungs.

So what can be done to get kids more on board with new TF content? Go back to basics. Transformers desperately needs a new Beast Wars style show to give it a kick in the pants tv show wise. Earthspark I think fancied itself as that but was not meant to be. The Energon Universe is a good start: the true Neo G1 successor to the 80’s cartoon canon so far. The easy joke me and a friend have made is to just adapt the Energon Universe for tv, but it’s not ready yet. I think using it as a spring board would be useful and having the Void Rivals be supporting characters would help expand their exposure. But the simple matter is this: absolutely under no circumstances use IDW/MTMTE post war stuff. I’m willing to go as far as using characters like Adaptus, Nova Prime, Nominus Prime and the Guiding Hand for certain things but that’s it. Classic good Autobots vs evil Decepticons. Megatron is full on evil like in G1, the movies & Unicron Trilogy: no more of this making him into a repentant Anakin nonsense. More of stuff like Optimus’s friendship with Sparkplug and Spike and his consoling of the deer. Earthspark was on the right track making him more lighthearted and closer to the well meaning dad he was in G1, but they pushed it too far the other way like Cyberverse did. Maybe ease back on Bumblebee a smidge, that worked with ROTB and Energon Universe so far, and other than maybe a little mixing and matching (Like Strongarm, Iguanus, Fixit, Barricade, Blackout and other guys being main Bots and Cons for a change), stick to the basics.

Edit: adding more because I had to go run an unexpected errand. Not only the basics, but let’s revisit the idea of a proper anime again. It’s the second major modern anime boom in the States, why DON’T we have a new RiD or Unicron Trilogy type thing? And no I refuse to consider Prime Wars and War For Cybertron anime. I don’t care what Netflix calls it. The fact we don’t have a TF anime currently is baffling; the last time we had an anime was Transformers Go!, and that was more of a one off spiritual Brave successor. I’d rather at this stage Takara commission a new kids anime for Transformers with writers over in Japan scripting the premise who know what they’re doing to make a fun children’s show. Then it can be dubbed and we get Blum, Kaplan, Zeno and other popular/veteran anime dub voice actors to reprise roles/do new ones. I don’t care if Trigger, Toei, Polygon, Science Saru or whoever animates it, my stipulation going forward is 2D animated TF anime, but with designs that are easier to hand draw. Like somewhere between G1 and Transformers Animated. I liked the Armada designs but I can see why Energon and Cybertron opted for CGI for the robots because they became way too technical to draw outside of very specific scenes. If full on 2D robots wasn’t acceptable, the CGI technology used for SSSS. Gridman and Bravern is acceptable, but a full return to 2D animation is preferable.

As for a setting: Earth. Autobots protecting their human friends against the Decepticons. A new gimmick properly implemented from the toys into the show, with the Quintessons as a villainous third party with a stake in the affairs, hiring Mercs like Devcon, RoughEdge, Lockdown and Rampage, or freelancers like the Skuxxoid and villainous Void Rivals to do their dirty work.

Something like that, but above all else cast wise: Blaster and his Cassettes MUST return. And to acknowledge EarthSpark, Hashtag can be his kid sister, with Twitch as one of Hashtag’s own cassettes. Everybody wins.