#i guess back in 2013 when it was popular it seemed really big to me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jonathanslms · 2 years ago

Text

Here's what I missed on ! Tumblr !

It's pretty weird to return to this site after so long. (I'm not exactly a "Twitter refugee" as they seem to be called lmao, more like someone who, because of the whole Twitter stuff, realised that there are still people on Tumblr? And apparently the site stopped their weird filtering/post banning system bc they now allow porn again? Anyway,) I don't remember when I was last active on Tumblr because I deleted my old blog some years ago, but if I had to guess I was probably active from around 2013 to 2015/16 at the latest? And boy, there's so much new stuff...

Firstly, the quality and functionality of themes seems much higher? Maybe that's just because I'm older now, but there are just so many original and innovative themes and pages that, like, are so interactive?? And such a broad variety as well!!!

Adding on to that: Javascript is sort of forbidden?? The work-around is pretty fast and easy (just ask support for permission basically), but still, that sucks lol.

Then there's the whole "you can have an account but no actual blog"-thing?? Idk if I really like that. A lot of people seem to use the site like that, so it's apparently at least somewhat popular. But as a Tumblr-conservative (as in conservative about Tumblr, not a conservative on Tumblr) I must say that having a blog and customizing it was sort of the whole Unique Selling Point of the site, so... interesting choice. (As long as that's still possible I'm still happy either way, I think)

The whole Dashboard experience in general is just so different now. For one, there are ads? I'm not a fan of ads (shocking opinion, I know) and I'm sure had they done it right Tumblr could have become like Ao3 and not even needed them. Still, I don't mind them too much (haha certainly not bc I use adblock :) idk what that is, sounds very morally wrong to me) and I read somewhere that the premium version is only 40€/year, which isn't a lot a lot, but still unfortunate.

I can't even tell which features are new and which aren't most of the time (except for the replying to posts? and THE CHAT?? now that there is one I can't help but wonder why there wasn't one from the start?). I think there's a lot of stuff Tumblr implemented that used to only be possible through xkit before.

Speaking of which: xkit! There's a new version - xkit rewritten - and it's incredible. I didn't even think about re-installing xkit until I stumbled upon a post that mentioned it. Now that I am aware of its existence again, god have I missed it. Being properly on Tumblr without it just isn't the same, man...

Pretty sure the search and follow tags/trending/etcetc stuff is completely revamped as well, but I don't think I used that very often back then anyway. Once I followed a big chunk of blogs I just found new ones through snowballing.

The last thing I can think of that noticably threw me off was the slang? Like wtf is a blorbo? (I actually think I get that one now) What are those other scrinkly, scrumblo, beedy weeby words? Why do I feel several generations older all of a sudden? I can feel the immediate and visceral impulse of disgruntled rejection welling up inside me everytime I see people use any new slang word (or meme, looking at you old scorsese movie that doesn't exist) whose invention I wasn't there for. (please if you've been (back) here for a while, feel free to educate me on the new tumblr etiquette, memes and slang words, I'm curious, I wanna know)

Though that being said, the overall vibes have not changed much. It is still a site that embraces its nerdy lameness and unnecessarily deep deep-dives into ANYTHING. And after the last few months to years of seeing people attacking anyone and anything, and feeling angry/depressed every time I spent some time on my social media site of choice, I think this is a very nice change of pace.

#a bit of a rambly list on my thoughts of the changes on here over the years #god i remember when i first made an account here #my english was terrible #i did not have the first clue on how to change my theme or what that was even called #AND i was a full on larry shipper directioner (my first url was sth along the lines of “larrystylinsonmonstaaa”#i say along the lines...#i think that was it exactly #making myself a tumblr account in 2022 just so i can go on an internet powered nostalgia trip #this time i'm going to fully (and self-aware..ly?) embrace the cringe though #off into the void you go

0 notes

scorpionyx9621 · 2 years ago

Text

Resident Evil Headcanons About my Favorites Because I'm Camping Out in My Room During a Heat Wave. (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER) (Chris, Mia, Piers, and Ethan)

Chris

For as put-together and business first as Chris seems, a large part of it actually is his coping mechanism from The Mansion Incident and the whole litany of viral outbreaks/conflicts Chris has faced. Chris fully swamps himself into his work to escape having to deal with the trauma he's built.

After Chris snaps and goes on a year-long drinking binge to the point he forgets most of his identity following the Edonia incident of RE6 and after Piers's sacrifice at the end of that game. Chris does see a therapist and gets better, but he'd still rather be busy and overloads his plate than be left alone with his thoughts for too long. Thus furthering the self-destructive cycle.

Part of the reason why between the years of 2004-2013 Chris got so FREAKING SWOLE was because Chris is that guy who is in the gym pumping iron for 3 hours a day at minimum like he's fighting demons except Chris is actually fighting/running away from his demons.

I headcanon that Chris is bisexual. He isn't out of the closet so to speak but with how much he burrows himself into BSAA Missions and actual training/office work not many people are openly asking Chris what team he plays for. The only people who know are Claire, Jill, Barry, Leon (Claire let it slip accidentally), Piers, Sheva, Ada (Because it's Ada and she knows everything) and Wesker.

Jill was actually the first person Chris ever came out to. Jill could just tell. Mostly because Wesker was Chris's original bi panic™ and Chris would not shut up about it. This went from crush to abject, seething hatred of Wesker after Chris found out he was alive again at the end of Code Veronica.

It's stated somewhere that about 10% of the population is immune to the T-Virus. (Vanilla T virus not T-Veronica, T-Abyss, T-Phobos, TG, C, or whatever additional viral flavours we're adding) and Chris and Claire are a part of that 10 percent. But Chris also has the ABCC11 gene mutation that causes Chris's sweat to not smell. Conversely, Chris also has the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap and he HATES IT. He has to make a big deal every time he gets Mexican/Indian/Thai/Chinese food because he has to tell the restaurant no cilantro because it will RUIN the dish for him and he feels so bad having to do it every time. (Chris loves Mexican food too)

We don't have any birthday information for any of the more popular resident evil characters so Astrology is basically anyone's guess. But to me, Chris Redfield radiates Aries energy but also very heavy Capricorn energy too.

There's a line that was cut from RE5 where Jill teases Chris for flirting with a woman in the BSAA Tech Department who was a bit younger than him and Chris, embarrassed, denied the accusation. It's not a lie, Chris does like them younger than him. (Use that info as you want/wish) and while Chris denied it with the intern. Chris just tried to pretend the conversation never happened. When Jill, Chris, and Piers were all in the same room together and Jill always would just make eyebrows at Chris. Piers caught her doing it once, but Jill snapped back at him telling him to fall in line.

Chris circa 1997-Umbrella Chronicles absolutely did not learn or even know how to cook. This man lived off of take out, cigarettes, coffee, spite, and still had a damn near perfect Twunk physique. I'll bet once the BSAA got founded and really off the ground Chris realized oh fuck I'm actually in charge of shit now I need to get my life together. And Chris just went from burgers and fries 3-4 times a week for dinner is fine to just competitive bodybuilder school of dieting. And Chris just went in.

Chris, Barry, Jill, and Claire all have Thanksgiving together and they do it twice. Because Barry immigrated to Canada after RE1 the Mansion Incident Survivors plus Claire all always get together for Thanksgiving in October at Barry's house or at Chris/Claire/Jill's living situations every year. The triumvirate always ends up adding another person to the mix. One year Claire has brought Sherry numerous times after RE6. Leon was the most recent of the RE family to come to a Thanksgiving. Jill brought Carlos twice (Chris and Carlos DID NOT get along at first but eventually became friendly.) Chris has brought Piers once. The year prior he brought Sheva.

Chris's cheat meal/drink is so stupid. A venti java chip frappucciono from Starbucks. Chris just likes coffee flavored stuff. Whether it be using ground coffee as a rub on a cut of meat or a rich, espresso ladden tiramisu.

Chris eventually became Rosemary's sort-of surrogate father. After the events of Village the BSAA moved the Winters's back to California so Rose and Mia could be closer to Ethan's family and burial spot. Ethan didn't want to make things more difficult for the family so he had a whole base of operations set up outside the Winters's Northern California (we're talking Redding north not San Francisco north) and Chris really always was just this grump, cranky, older, often disappointed dad to Rose. But Chris had his moments.

Mia

HNNNNNGGGHHH BOY DO I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT MIA AND A WHOLE LOT OF THEN AREN'T POSITIVE.

But this is a headcanon post I'm not going to rip her to shreds. I appreciate her as a complex, complicated character but I just have to say. While Mia sent out the distress call to Ethan in a moment of clarity from her mold infection. Ethan was ultimately the one who chose to try to find Mia. RE7 was Ethan's fault. he could have been completely sane and rational and chose either to take this to the police or to ignore this. But this love-smitten fool decided to fall for the trap and become the main character of Dumpyface: The Louisiana Chainsaw Massacre. RE Village was ALL on Mia. While the Winters's couldn't have foreseen all that went down. Mia knew FULL WELL about Mother Miranda, what her intentions were as a scientist, that Mother Miranda WAS in Romania, that Ethan was indeed very much still infected with the mold, that she knew the full extent of Ethan's infection as well and that this likely wasn't Ethan but that the mold probably re-animated Ethan, and she willingly allows herself to be impregnated by what is essentially a BOW with a consciousness and a good personality.

ANYWAYS.

We actually do know Mia's birthday! In RE7 it's on her driver's license! December 14th 1984. Meaning she's a Sagittarius! (And that makes too much sense for me to be comfortable with!!)

Mia being a researcher with The Connections instead of just being a random handler for Eveline adds such depth to her character (and not in a good way.) Like what makes you become a researcher with a literal bioterrorist organization in the Resident Evil Universe? Umbrella was publicly and openly shunned after The Raccoon Trials. Mia and Ethan would have been middle schoolers/high school freshmen during the Raccoon City Incident. Mia would have HAD to have known the ethical nuking she was doing.

We know she's from Texas so my vague background/life story she has is she was born/raised in Austin to a fairly affluent family. While her family was loving they cared more about her grades and appearances than actually caring about her. She excelled in school and got a full-ride to Rice University in Houston (a school often ranked in the top 10 in the country) and excelled in Biology. With a particular emphasis on biochemistry and particularly mycology. Hence why someone with the connections picked her up.

Mia was originally baited with the idea that what she was doing was experimenting on a fungus that could, in essence, end aging and could even destroy cancers. When she realized what she had gotten herself into The Connections basically told her she can leave if she wants. But they will kill her if she does.

She probably became disillusioned once she realized she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Beginning to take up heavier drinking and not caring about herself. She eventually cut herself off from her family. Her younger brother died when she was a child. And her parents died in an accident right after she started with The Connections. Things were not okay for Mia at the beginning/middle part of her twenties.

Mia probably was sitting down at the bar of a cantina in downtown Austin on one of her rare evenings off. 3 mezcal margaritas and her usual bartender passively concerned about Mia but more concerned about a group of rowdy, twenty-something "tech bros" going on about the upcoming tech boom of people from San Francisco flocking to Austin soon.

Mia felt eyes gazing at her but pretended not to notice. She wasn't in the mood to entertain a boy at this time. Yet when she heard a voice ask why she was sitting all alone she turned to tell him off she stopped in her tracks. She was taken aback by the man. He wasn't a Greek God of a man but he had very appealing physical features and a smile that just made her think the whole world felt lighter. The blond man with a moderately slim build was trying to flirt with Mia but only being about halfway successful. Alcohol was not Ethan Winters' friend that night.

Nothing happened that night and both Mia and the man went their separate ways. Mia couldn't remember if his name was Evan or Ethan by the time she woke up. The next day was a horrific day at the lab in terms of biological horrors so she ended up going back to the cantina only to find the blond man from yesterday back at the bar sitting in her spot. Mia had playfully joked about how he was sitting in her seat. Ethan just retorted back that he didn't think he was back in high school to which Mia just let out a gruff chuckle. "Besides. You're much more beautiful than the girls I went to school with." The words took Mia back both by the abruptness and just how frank and honest Ethan was being. The two stayed at the bar till closing time that night.

Mia and Ethan soon started seeing each other more frequently. Every weekend at the cantina became once a week at the park, then became Ethan dropping off lunch at Mia's lab. (At the gate of course. Poor stupid Ethan had no clue he was putting his and Mia's lives at stake.) which eventually became the two of them moving in together.

The Connections quickly found out about Ethan and while they didn't forbid Mia from dating and eventually marrying him. They monitored Mia even closer now and made her take on more of the harsher approach and take on more hands-on experiments. With her superiors asking her almost every day about Ethan. Mia knew that Ethan was in danger but she loved him. And Ethan loved Mia. Ethan loved Mia more than she had ever felt love by anyone else in the world. The Connections could burn in hell. She wouldn't let them step between what they had.

My Headcanon is that right before Mia "went missing" when the transport tanker crashed in the hurricane in Louisiana prior to RE 7. Mia had finally concocted a plan to escape The Connections, turn herself into authorities, and attempt to get her and Ethan into the witness protection program. The Connections caught onto what she was doing and placed her as Eveline's handler during the treacherous voyage.

After Ethan passed Mia was relocated to Northern California at her request to at least be somewhat closer to Ethan's mothers. Chris reluctantly agreed and gave Mia and Rosemary a small security detail. Mia eventually did end up serving some time for her role in The Connections (like 9 months. Should be more but hey) and now she works remotely as a high school biology teacher for a remote GED/Homeschool program.

Piers

*through gritted teeth* Twink

In all seriousness Piers is such an interesting character. He actually has a character compared to your generic idealized action survivor tropes. And is character is that he's an asshole. Like as much as I love Piers I need everyone to take a second and look back at a YouTube run of Chris's RE6 campaign. Piers is not a nice person. Nor is he a good one. Ethically and morally yes, but he falls perfectly in the box of lawful asshole.

Like I love your Piers, I really genuinely do, and I know losing your daddy I mean captain was really hard for you. That being said it wasn't your brightest position to hunt down a bitter alcoholic with a temper and force him to lead a mission of bright-eyed soldiers into a literal war zone of zombie mutants.

ANYWAYS HEADCANONS AGAIN I NEED TO STOP RANTING ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS.

Piers and Chris fucked. You physically cannot convince me otherwise. Like I'm sorry I'm not sorry that you're wrong. You're just wrong if you think otherwise. I'm literally begging you to go back and look at the RE6 Chris campaign and all the supplemental material. In Revelations 2 this man literally has the gaul, the tenacity, the AUDACITY, AND the GUMPTION to email Claire DIRECTLY. Address her very formally, and asks for pictures of Chris when he was younger. What normal person does that. Like Piers babygirl I need you to stop.

If any of the RE men are going to be a yandere whose name isn't Albert Wesker. His name is Piers Nivans. He gives me crazy stalker ex vibes but in a hot way because he is hot.

We know Piers came from a long line of military men. That just happens in America. Some people are just products of that machine. Yet his parents were somewhat disappointed with Piers choosing to go with the BSAA as opposed to sticking with the US Army. I have a feeling his parents also didn't know about Piers's sexuality either but I'm not trying to think about potentially negative things.

Name a Resident Evil character with more Scorpio energy than Piers. I'll wait. His facial features scream Aries rising but that man has heavy Scorpio in his birth chart. Most likely in his sun, moon, and even Venus and Mars most likely. He just has those Scorpio eyes that make you feel like he's staring into your freaking soul man.

It may shock you but I get the vibes that Piers is from, of all places, Colorado. Colorado Springs to be exact. Very heavy military town out in the mountains. No real easily discernable accent. Piers was kind of equated to the "All-American Boy" trope.

Piers is a polyglot. He can speak English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese fluently. He's conversational in German, Dutch, Chinese, Indonesian, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, and Swahili. Before he passed he was studying Arabic.

Piers played Baseball and Hockey growing up and being from Colorado he's an avid ice-skater and snowboarder, particularly Alpine snowboarding. Fun fact that's not so fun as a fact. Piers's most prized possession was a $2k customized Jones alpine snowboard. When Chris went to Piers's quarters back at BSAA HQ after RE6 one of the things he found was Piers's snowboard. Chris was given it with the permission of Piers's family where Chris got it sealed in resin and it's framed in his apartment.

Piers wasn't necessarily in charge of the aux at Chris's BSAA squad group but Piers challenged the last person to a fight and Piers beat the SHIT out of them so Piers controls the music. Hope the BSAA Alpha team likes Santana, Nelly, Linkin Park, Jimmy Eat World, Usher, Madonna, Eminem, Jennifer Lopez, and Pink.

Speaking of fights. Do not fight Piers. He may be a whole 155lbs at 5'9 inches tall but this man has pure, carnal, horrific rage if pushed far enough. He got called the F-slur once in high school and it was by the star football quarterback trying to get attention and be a dick. Two cracked ribs, 5 teeth knocked out, an eye almost out of it's socket and a major concussion and three broken knuckles out of Piers later. No one was ever calling Piers that again.

How does Piers stay so lean you ask dear Resident Evil fans who somehow are still reading this? He has Celiac Disease AND is very lactose intolerant. Piers literally cannot eat ANY of the fun foods without having to dedicate 2-5 hours a day on a toilet. Like he'll be fine if he has a burger on a regular bun but he's gonna regret in about 2-3 hours.

Piers is concerningly well organized. His bed is always made and in perfect shape. He has a shoe holder, so many organizers for things like toothbrushes, sports equipment, laundry, (Piers genuinely does 3 separate loads of laundry for colors, whites, and misc)

What's Piers's one secret food weakness (he'll love you forever if you get him this) snow cones, specifically Hawaiian shaved ice. Coconut and mint flavored Hawaiian shaved ice. Everyone on the squad has tried it and Chris was the only one who didn't spit it out. Telling Piers "the flavors work it's just not my thing"

Ethan

Mr. Moldman, bring me a meme (bung, bung, bung, bung)

Ethan is so fun to headcanon about because Capcom literally gave us ✨nothing✨ other than he's an engineer and the world's greatest dad.

Ethan was adopted in my Headcanon. His birth mother was in her mid-teens when she had Ethan and gave him up after he was born. Ethan's birth farther wasn't in the picture and didn't want anything to do with him and neither did Ethan's birth mom really. He did meet his birth mother right before he went off to college but when he found out she had a new family of her own and she made it known she didn't necessarily want him to be a part of her life, it shattered him. Ethan never got a chance to meet his birth father as he had passed when Ethan was still a child.

Don't be too sad though. Ethan grew up in San Francisco and after he was given up he was quickly adopted by another family. His adoptive mother and father were so ecstatic about their new baby boy. Unfortunately said marriage didn't last and his adopted parents separated when Ethan was about 3. Ethan's adopted mom got custody of Ethan and she eventually came out of the closet and got into a partnership with another woman.

Ethan's Dad still was a part of Ethan's life and Ethan got to see his adoptive father every weekend. His adoptive dad lived out in Santa Cruz so it only was about a 2 hour drive every weekend there and back. Ethan's Dad was around long enough to see Ethan and Mia get married but died during the time period that Mia was missing.

Ethan's mom's partner Elizabeth (Liz for short) was a Mathematics lecturer at a nearby prestigious university (Berkeley) and it was from her where Ethan got his love for STEM and eventually settled on Engineering to be his passion.

Growing up Ethan actually was a soccer prodigy in his childhood and teen years. Being a star striker that was the proud owner of 3 state rings in high school and multiple scholarships to play soccer in college. Ethan ultimately went with his dream school UCLA (much to the dismay of his Northern California parents. Like come on Ethan, Stanford was offering you a scholarship, STANFORD)

Ethan actually tore his ACL on his left leg at the last game of his freshman year. His leg never fully recovered so he eventually dropped soccer at the collegiate level so instead he burrows himself into his academics and his work outside of school (Ethan worked at a Nike store during the weekends/summers and during the school year he worked at the UCLA IT department) this is also the reason why Ethan's fastest movement is brisk walking.

Funny enough. Ethan hates mushrooms. It's his least favorite food (it's a texture thing for him) and this dislike for mushrooms did not change once he died and got reanimated and had his consciousness co-opted by a mold colony.

Another funny fact: Carla Radames from Resident Evil: 6 is actually Ethan's second cousin once removed from his birth father. (Ethan and Carla have the same Great, Great Grandparents. It's from Ethan's dad's-mother's-mother that they are related.)

Ethan is a passable chef. He's by no means bad, but him and Mia came to a mutual agreement that Mia would do most of the cooking unless Mia wanted a few specific dishes that Ethan makes. The first dish he ever made Mia was actually his steamed shrimp, pork and cabbage dumplings. Those dumplings funnily enough became Mia's pregnancy craving and Ethan was overjoyed to make food for Mia as opposed to any other odd cravings. Ethan also was known for his homemade chili oil, hummus, and sangria (Ethan's secret recipe for Sangria is Pinot Noir, Spanish brandy, watermelon puree, raspberry, blood orange and cucumber.) Plus Ethan can make a mean American diner-style omelette.

While I get Capricorn/Aries energy from Chris and absolutely get Scorpio energy from Piers. Mr. Winters gives me some very powerful Cancer vibes. Particularly a Cancer rising. Home and family is #1 for this man and Ethan is VERY SURE to physically force you out of this existence with a one-way ticket to the afterlife should you cross him or his family. Ethan probably has an Aries sun, but particularly Ethan being a March Aries but with a cancer rising.

Ethan needed A LOT of therapy after the events of RE7. Thankfully he did receive the help that he needed and so did Mia. Although Mia was less receptive to the idea of therapy and gave her therapist the cold shoulder more often than not. For a sentient mold colony he did surprisingly well at therapy. Way to go sentient mold colony that dog-eared Ethan Winters. You did good.

From what we see The Winters don't have any pets. There's an explanation for that. Ethan is allergic to almost all forms of pet dander. Even the dang mold collective got that right. Ethan was a sniffly sneezing mess when the therapist brought their shockingly well-behaved therapy husky.

Ethan became pretty good at making dumplings from his mom's partner Liz. Who is Chinese. And growing up in San Francisco Ethan got to experience the whole range of Chinese cooking. Poor Ethan's second time cooking for Mia he used WAY too much Szechuan peppercorn and Mia physically couldn't eat more than 2 bites.

Unfortunately for Ethan and his mom's the last time they saw Ethan was very briefly right after the events of RE7. When Ethan died back in 2021 they hadn't seen Ethan in almost 3 years. Thankfully the two of them are very heavily involved in Rose's life and, Chris Redfield allowing, they spoil her rotten when they can.

#resident evil #Chris redfield #mia winters #ethan winters #Piers Nivans #nivanfield #Resident Evil Village #Resident Evil 7 #Resident Evil 6

72 notes · View notes

thepriceofbeingaroseisloneliness · 4 years ago

Text

Kaoru (DIR EN GREY) & Hazuki SPECIAL INTERVIEW 1/2 Translation

Notes before reading: This is the first part of the special interview broadcasted on Hazuki’s Youtube channel, you can still watch it there. The special interview is 45 min long, this part covers until minute 24. I will upload the second part in a day or two.

You can watch the interview here Please watch and support Hazuki’s channel!

Feel free to correct me if you spot any mistakes or any confusing parts. Links or credits to this post when the content is reposted or captured in other SNS is appreciated :) ----- Hazuki: Today’s guest is already here! Kaoru from Dir en grey! Kaoru: Thank you (laughs) Hazuki: Thank you for being here! (laughs) Kaoru: Well, somehow as the tension is different than usual, I got a bit surprised…(laughs) *he means the program started suddenly* Hazuki: (The program started) In a single blow…I cut in with a single blow…. I’m sorry… Well, I’ve been on Youtube since last year….I already had Ryuichi Kawamura (Luna Sea’s vocalist) and an acquaintance who is a death metal/death growls instructor….being able to do talks like this it’s a bit special so I want to do more and more….like for example, telling everyone stories about Kaoru they’ve never heard before….I would like to see that more and more….I asked you (to come here) and you agreed immediately so thank you so much… Kaoru: No,no…you don’t need to (thank me)…. Hazuki: I’m really thankful…. Kaoru: But, the first time we talked about this was last year…. Hazuki: It was actually a while ago, that’s true… Kaoru: But somehow, I wondered if there was something good we could talk about here…. Hazuki: This time, “Oboro” will be released on 28th April….so I’d like to talk about that as well…there are also a few things here *pointing at the table* so it’s not just that…. I often met Kaoru but there are times we meet from the beginning but sometimes we meet in a second or third different stages…. Kaoru: After eating… Hazuki: There are some patterns about coming together, like sometimes it’s the two of us at the beginning…. Kaoru: Yes Hazuki: Or both of us staying until the end…..to this day, I haven’t get used to that situation at all….*laughs* Kaoru: At those times, you are a bit…..like this…..*starts imitating Hazuki, making awkward movements* Like this…..*Hazuki laughs, Kaoru too* At that moment I feel like “ohh” *ego boost gesture lol* Hazuki: No,no…. (laughs) It feels exactly like that to me…..yes….I feel it…. So, before these talks, I get a drink for the guest that is here. I brought a lot of things but for the time being, let’s open a beer and after getting some alcohol in our bodies… Kaoru: That’s right… let’s start with this, right?.... because if you don’t drink, you won’t say anything…. Hazuki: I’m sorry….as there is a little distance between us…. I’m nervous so I need to drink alcohol…because you are a big senpai for me….cheers! Kaoru: Cheers! They both toast with their beer cans. Hazuki: It’s good…everyone is curious about one thing…. It’s really in the way….*Hazuki puts his hand on a bottle that it’s on the centre of the table, covered by a cloth* It’s really an object that stands out but, the drink that I want to serve for Kaoru today is….well, for me this…..how long has it been? I think 15-16 years… but in this long time there is especially one drink that left an impression in me…. Kaoru: Is something we drank together? Hazuki: We did….I get to know this type of alcohol/sake from Kaoru…. I couldn’t drink it at that time… Kaoru: I wonder what it is… Hazuki:I couldn’t drink it but as you were really into it and drank it….I was like….”I want to drink it with Kaoru”, so I tried and it was delicious….so I was able to drink it that’s why today I brought it…do you know what is it?...*pointing at the cloth* Kaoru:*Laughs* I wonder… what can it be?.... Because of the size I would say it’s whisky… Hazuki: Ah yes the size…..but it’s not….it’s another thing…. Kaoru: Sweet potato shōchū? Hazuki: Ah, you are quite close….it’s a type of shōchū…. Kaoru: Eh? Hazuki: It’s not Sweet potato shōchū Kaoru: Is it Tantakatan? * Tantakatan is a shōchū made with perilla leaves. It is produced in Hokkaido, Japan. Hazuki: *screams* AH!...that’s it…..*Kaoru and Hazuki laugh* That’s amazing *Hazuki starts clapping* You knew it so well…*Hazuki takes off the cloth of the bottle* Kaoru: It’s been a long time! Hazuki: It’s Tantankatan…. Kaoru: This makes me feel really nostalgic…. Hazuki: How many years ago? Kaoru: A lot…. Hazuki: I think it was 23 years ago…. Kaoru: I used to drink this a lot…. Hazuki: Drinking this kind of alcohol on the rocks…. I was still young at that time, I’ve only drank beer, shōchū and highball shōchū. I thought “I should really try this”. When you asked me to join you, drinking this, I drank a lot and got really into it. After this, there was a boom in potato-fermented drinks *Kaoru laughs* But because you asked me to drink it together, I got to like it. *Kaoru laughs* *On the rocks” means serving an alcoholic beverage in a cocktail glass with ice. I think Hazuki means is “a fancy drink”. Kaoru: How nostalgic….I barely drink this anymore…. Hazuki: I drink it…. I thought “this is definitely the drink I want to share with him”…..after drinking this beer…. Kaoru: Let’s drink it….let’s finish the beers… Hazuki: You don’t need to hurry….we still have time…. Hazuki seems to be amazed by Kaoru’s reaction towards the Tantankatan. Kaoru: This makes me feel really nostalgic! Do they sell this at convenience stores? Hazuki: They do. Hazuki wants to know when Kaoru had the first chance to try Tantakatan. Kaoru: Maybe on tour… Hazuki: I see, because it was popular/a trend…to drink it with everyone… Kaoru: Maybe the first time I drank it…. It was with Mr Ito, from the security company of X (X Japan)….that person’s face looked like a gorilla….*Hazuki laughs* when we started going on tour together, I started drinking it with him…. *Mr. Ito was popular for being in charge of the security of X Japan and Luna Sea. He worked later with other bands like Dir en grey. He is said to be the saviour of many fans as he worked sometimes in the front lines. Hazuki: He gave it to you and you drank it together….I see…. Actually, it’s not the first time you appear in a program I’m doing…. Kaoru: You mean the radio one? Hazuki: Yes, the one called 「Weekly lynch」. When was it? 8 or 7 years ago. At that time, you were about to release “The Unraveling”. You were releasing “The Unraveling” so you came to the program. Since then, probably most of the people who are watching this haven’t heard that radio program, especially Lynch fans so, roughly I’d like to talk about how we ended up here….I would like to talk about this again…our first encounter….do you remember it? *Hazuki starts laughing softly but ends up laughing loudly when he sees Kaoru struggling to remember it* *Kaoru appeared as a guest in「Weekly lynch」in NACK5 FM on March 2013. Kaoru: It was because of Reo, right? Hazuki: That’s it, that’s it…. Kaoru: I remember it was Reo (Lynch’s guitarist) who introduced you to me…. About where it was…..I think it was at some hotel lobby… Hazuki: That’s it, that’s it…at that time you were staying at a hotel in Nagoya…. Reo and I went to the lobby to meet you and we went to a shop…..I was really really nervous…I was thinking “finally I’m going to meet Dir en grey”, as I knew the band since I was in high school…I was really nervous about meeting you for the first time but….at that hotel lobby there were many fans showing up as well…like waiting for the members….I was thinking “as expected from stars/famous people” when you were getting off quickly…*Hazuki laughs* Kaoru: I see….it was at a hotel…

Hazuki: That time we hardly talk…. Kaoru: That’s true….I talked to Reo mostly… Hazuki: But I was listening to you in the sideway….at that time I already liked to drink…. But Reo doesn’t drink right?...*Kaoru nods* I guess he can’t drink…. I don’t know though….but he didn’t drink…the next time you came to Nagoya, I find the courage to invite you, I was like “tonight I’m going to invite Kaoru!”, but at that time you have another plan with other person so you told me “I’m sorry”…so I went back home…. The next day, you contacted me by email to meet in the afternoon… Kaoru: Suddenly? Hazuki: Suddenly…I thought it was weird because it was your day off… I got super excited….and we went to “Mountain”… Kaoru: Aaaaaa Hazuki: (Mountain) in Nagoya….I want everyone to google it….it’s a pasta place among other things… Kaoru: I’m sure your fans know it well….I get to know this place from you…. Hazuki: Is that so?-….*laughs*.. I was the one who introduced this place to you… Kaoru: That’s it, that’s it…. Hazuki: Well….since that moment….. each time that Kaoru came to Nagoya with Dir en grey…we would usually drink together….it was almost like a perfect attendance award, right? Kaoru: Right…. Hazuki talks a little bit more about attending Dir’s live when they came to play at Zepp Nagoya even though he lived in a rural area. Hazuki: At that time, I lived at my parents house in a really rural area of Nagoya. As going by train to Nagoya was hard, coming back was also hard, manga cafe… Kaoru: *cutting in* That’s it! They both starting laughing. Kaoru: I asked you if you were ok (staying there)…. Hazuki: The first time after the live was over….at the first after party…..the other members were there….there were many people gathering there… every one was talking and I didn’t do much there… the second time you told me to wait for you….when we finished drinking it was past midnight….early in the morning…. There wasn’t a night bus and I didn’t have money to come back by taxi….so I came to the manga café, slept a bit and came back by train in the morning… Kaoru: That’s it…. Hazuki: For me, that you came to Nagoya and we could drink together….it was something really valuable for me….it makes me feel nostalgic….those days have kept going these 15-16 years….it might feel a bit like “why a vocalist and a guitarist *laughs* but you are really a big senpai that I respect…that’s right…this program….for this talk corner….nothing has been decided…*Kaoru nods* I really didn't decide anything….what could be the first topic?....mmm…I think we could talk about the moment you got into rock music…. Kaoru: Like when I started playing? Hazuki: That’s right….for example, I only listened to kayōkyoku ( Japanese popular music from Showa Era) when I was an elementary student….at that time it started to sound “Rosier” by Luna Sea and I was like “what is this?” so I got into the rock world…is there something like that for you? Something like “oh that’s amazing!” or so…. Kaoru: The first time I listened to something and thought “that’s rock” was BOOWY. Hazuki: Eh?? Is that so? Kaoru: I think it was a thing for my generation…..everyone listened to BOOWY. Hazuki: They were still active? Kaoru: Barely….it was before their disband.…. Hazuki: I see… Kaoru: But at middle school everyone listened to them….but the band I listened to before them was Seikima-II…. Hazuki laughs. Kaoru: Singles at that time were records (LP), right?.. Hazuki: Yes… Kaoru: I bought it and listened to it….even at that time, like when it comes to bands and rock music it was like…..something amazing and flashy… Seikima-II felt like “this is it”….that’s how it felt when I listened and looked at them….I didn’t listen to them with the image of “this is rock” or a “band”…. But when I heard that kind of band, the guitars, the bass….everything together I thought “this is cool”….as expected, BOOWY’s (activities) at that time were decreasing but there was also bands like Barbee Boys and Ziggy…. But among all those bands I listened to….when I was in middle school, a transferred student came to my school to my class….he looked very serious…in that class he felt like the calm type….he sat next to me….and once we were going back home he invited me to hang out with him…even thought he was a middle school student….his room was full of records…..he had everything….an amplifier, record player, tapes…he also have CDs that were a recent thing at that time….he also had this huge speaker…of course he had a bed as well as it was his room…. Hazuki: But it was your friend’s stuff? Not his father’s? Kaoru: It wasn’t his father’s stuff, all belonged to him… Hazuki: Ehhhh Kaoru: It was amazing….it looked like an unknown world to me….I went to his house often to hang out after school…we would listen to the records that he had, he told to listen to the music he liked….one of the things he made me listen to was metal…. Hazuki: Western music? Kaoru: There was a lot of western music as well…like Iron Maiden and Judas…also Japanese metal and so but….it was like a “no way, no way” for me…. Hazuki: At time it wasn’t your cup of tea? Kaoru: At all…. Hazuki: Eh… Kaoru: I liked music in English….like Michael Jackson…I like Pop….music from the UK…..I listened to new wave bands for example….but that kind of hard rock or metal….I have this image of muscular guys playing in shorts jumping around energetically while playing….with those things in their shoulders that made them look like Saint Seiya….*Hazuki laughs* I had that kind of image… Hazuki: This is after BOOWY? Kaoru: It’s after BOOWY….I still was listening to BOØWY’s all the time….*Kaoru mumbles something about BOOWY’s CD covers?* Hazuki mentions Japan ( A new wave band from the Uk). They also mention again BOOWY’ and finally, X Japan appears. Kaoru mentions X’s Vanishing vision and that he didn’t like it at first because of the fierce and fast tempo songs. Hazuki: Eh? *laughs* I really can’t believe what you are saying right now… Kaoru: It was like a “no,no” for me…but among them, there were one or two songs that I liked… Hazuki: Yes, yes… Kaoru: Then, at high school…..I graduated from middle school and I started high school on April…and the 21st of April “Blue blood” was released…. Hazuki: Oh! Kaoru: At the bookstore and so there were X stuff there, I already knew them….and I preordered the CD…. Hazuki: *Laughs* How did that happen? Kaoru: I don’t know….I just did it… Hazuki: But you didn’t like them at that time….*laughs* Kaoru: But somehow for the first time, I was interested in them so I went the day of the release to buy the CD, I went back home,I listened to it at the radio-cassette and I was like “what on Earth is this?” *Hazuki laughs* Hazuki: That wasn’t too fast and fierce for you… Kaoru: It wasn’t….at all… Hazuki points out that the song called like the album “Blue blood” is fast and fierce but Kaoru seems to not care about that as he was amazed by the album. For Hazuki, it was too fast and fierce so it was a “No” for him at that moment. Kaoru: I was like “what’s this”?.... Hazuki: And because of that opportunity, even though it was fierce and fast, as you bought the CD yourself… Kaoru: For me, it was the feeling of the whole “Blue blood” album….it was like listening to something amazing… Hazuki: But you got interested in that album when you saw that add (at the bookstore)…. Kaoru; That’s it, That’s it…. Hazuki: From there, you got into that world-view…. Kaoru: Certainly…that’s it, that’s it…at first, as expected, I didn’t know much about instruments and their sound….but the songs…and the atmosphere when I listened to the songs….I saw there was a live at the medium hall of the Kousei Nenkin Kaikan in Osaka but the tickets were already sold out. I feel like going to the venue at that moment…. Hazuki: But you didn’t have a ticket…. Kaoru tells next the story about how he got the ticket after walking around the venue. It seems he was first offered a ticket by a old guy who asked for 5000 yen for the ticket (the real price was 3000 yen) but Kaoru didn’t have the money for it as he needed some for the train back home. Kaoru gave up about getting a ticket and he was wondering if he should buy some merch as people started to gather for the concert. Then, another old guy guy approached him and offered him a ticket, that was a seat in the last row of the first floor, and Kaoru got it. Kaoru adds he was kind of careless for doing that? ( getting a ticket from a scalper) And Hazuki starts laughing nervously. Hazuki: Well, well it’s ok…..because it’s an old story…. Kaoru: Then at the live I was on the right side…. Hazuki: That was Hide’s…. Kaoru: When I saw him….I was shocked…. Hazuki: Like it was something you shouldn’t see…. Were you a middle school student at that moment? Kaoru: A High school student…. Hazuki: Ah, you were in high school…. Kaoru: After seeing him, I just could see this person… Hazuki: But you are Dir en grey’s leader, right? Everyone…that fast and fierce songs were a “no” for you *laughs* Kaoru: It was really a “no-no” for me….for real….no way… Hazuki: And after that, the most intense and fast songs……but you didn’t like that at the beginning….but because of Hide…..X japan at that time was really fierce/violent….*Kaoru nods* With their hair up this way…*makes the gesture of the hair* Kaoru: All of them have their hair up…..but at the beginning, I was a little reluctant to get into foreign metal…. Hazuki: I understand that, it was the same for me….I was reluctant to it…. Kaoru: It was like it felt hard to get into it…. Hazuki: But when I was reading interviews of the artist I liked, they wrote about other musicians they liked, right? I wanted to try to listen to them, but I couldn’t really do it….because I didn’t like it…. Kaoru: That’s right… Hazuki: It was like that….was it the same for you? Kaoru: Like Alice Cooper with all that heavy black make-up…..he looked scary….when I listened to it, I didn’t really understand it… Hazuki: Like “X is better”, right?….it was like that for me too…. Kaoru: Hide was into pop music so I got into some artists because of him. Hazuki: I see… Kaoru: It’s stuff that I still listen nowadays….at that time he introduced these artist to his fans and I got into it. Now I listen to it and I think it’s cool...somehow it became like my roots….but at that time when it comes to rock, it was like “I don’t get it”…. Hazuki: I see….at that time, the members of Luna Sea would talk about Guns N' Roses or Nirvana….I rent some stuff from them but I was like “it’s not fierce, it’s not dark or bright, it’s just different”. Another time I listened to Korn and Slipknot and I was like “Oh, I like this”…until then, I barely listen to anything like that…. Kaoru: So since that time, you started to listen to western music…. Hazuki: Yes, I started to listen to it properly…..you already finished your beer… Kaoru: I did…. Hazuki: Oh, I’m sorry….*Hazuki grabs the bottle of “Tantakatan” to open it* That guy you talked about, the guy with the audio equipment, what happened to him after that? Kaoru: At that time, we graduated from middle school and…. Hazuki: Is that so? Kaoru: I don’t know what he is doing since then at all…. Hazuki: Eh??? Kaoru: Truth is….I would like to try to meet him…. Hazuki: If he is watching this…..if you see this, you can definitely contact us….so, about music....this talk is because you are going to release a single and it would be strange to not talk about it… Kaoru: It feels weird… Hazuki: It’s embarrassing for me because I’m not used to this. It’s a bit embarrassing but I really want to ask you about it…. “Oboro”, which is going to be released on 28th April… ....Tbc....

#dir en grey #lynch #kaoru #hazuki #translation

211 notes · View notes

weirdthoughtsandideas · 2 years ago

Note

Are any of the DCLA names common where you live?

No, but many of them aren't uncommon either for people to be named. Many of the names are names that I maybe haven't met anyone that has, but I still recognize the name. I can make a list:

Violetta:

Violetta - Well, this name is not really common in any country lol. However, I think it's more common to name your child this rather than, let's say, Violet. For example, in our translation of Charlie and the chocolate factory, Violet (the chewing gum girl) is named Violetta in the swedish translation. Violetta is much easier to say for a swede to pronounce, as when they say Violet they have to change their pronounciation to an english one.

Francesca - No, not common in Sweden, but it seemed like every friend I had who also lived a lot in another country had a friend named Francesca. I very much remember my friend who was half-french had a friend in France named Francesca.

Camila - Yes! But often spelled Camilla. Every preschool and elementary school has a teacher named Camilla. And SOMEHOW they actually always are red haired, now when I think about it?! Now, I have met like 2-3 teachers named Camilla and all of them were red haired...

Maxi - OH YES. Often short for Maximilian or a nickname for Max. I've met so many dudes named Maxi... many of them were kinda annoying tho HAHAH

Ludmila - Well, again, often spelled Ludmilla instead. Not a common name, but I know I heard the name once in like, a swedish radio christmas calendar. We both have a tv and a radio calendar every year in december (and they're really fun!), but in like 2013 the radio calendar for that year was "All the children celebrate christmas", and was about a family with 23 kids (we celebrate christmas on the 24th here), and every day one of the kids did something and it would be a rhyme with their name in the end. In the 13th episode, the children were performing a Lucia recital at a retirement home, but then their parents realized they were about to miss the bus back, so they had to hurry up singing. But one of the kids, Ludmilla, wanted to sing slowly, feeling the Lucia spirit. Anyway, the rhyme of the episode was "Alla barnen sjöng snabbt, utom Ludmilla, hon sjöng stilla" which means "All the children sang fast, except Ludmilla, she sang slowly".

Natalia - No, but I have met people named Natalie/Nathalie, so close enough. I have heard the name Natalia around, though.

Leon - I feel like that name has increased in popularity, cause I've met at least 5 kids named Leon at the daycares i've worked at

Diego - Not common, but not uncommon. I've heard it. Met a few people with the name and what's funny is that none of them were my age. They were either in their 30s or they were like 1 years old. It just skipped my generation I guess.

Angie - No, and fun fact, if you say Angie people my age will immediately think of the Violetta character. But I know that's not her full name. Angeles is not common, but the name Angelica is a bit more common.

Tomas - Yes, very common. Very common. There are Tomases everywhere. Send help.

Olga - Surprisingly I've met several people named Olga in real life. Both my age, as well as people younger and older than me.

Andres - Yeah, and no. I've heard it, but only met like one or two people with the name.

There's also Vilu's two other tutors she had briefly in the show, Elsa and Ingrid. Both names are very common. Especially Elsa.

All other names I've basically never heard of before, or I simply forgot them.

Soy Luna:

Luna - this is interesting cause it really is both? People who name their kid Luna often do it because they think it's a "unique" and "not common" name, but when every parent has a mindset like that, it's like the names becomes more common. The name is really common for kids who's parents grew up in the late 80s and 90s. So, I feel like either get got inspiration from the moon in Bear in the big blue house or Luna Lovegood (the latter seems very much more likely). Or they are like "uwu it means moon in latin, how cool"

Simón - Yes, but just spelled Simon.

Ámbar - Very uncommon, but I also feel like i've heard the name before? There was a pizza dude in a show named Ambar, or if it was spelled Amvar. I don't remember. That character wasn't swedish, he was from another country. Also I've heard the name Amber, of course, though no one is named that here. We have all just heard the name.

Matteo - Yeah, I mean, it's not the most common name, but I've heard it around. It's either Matteo or Teo/Theo.

Nico - Yeah. I mean, his full name is Nicolas, and there's a fair amount of people with that name. Also, we have a prince named Nicolas, born in 2015. He's the duke of Ångermanland.

Pedro - Not a common name for anyone from here, but it's a name we've heard before.

Nina - Absolutely very common, met so many people. I have a relative named Nina, a childhood bully named Nina, so many teachers and just. Yeah.

Monica - Yes, very common, actually. Every needlework teacher I've had is named Monica (idk how to translate needlework, but basically we have one class where we work with sewing and needlework, as well as one class where we work with wood workshops. Those classes). I've also had a music teacher with that name, and at least three Monica's that are lunch ladies.

Miguel - Not common, but again, we have heard the name, but very few are named it here

Sharon - Another name that's not common here, but we have heard the name before

Jim - Well, the name Jim, as a male name, can be common in some circumstances. I feel like many boys in my parents generations were named that, or Jimmy. But her full name, Jimena? No, I have never heard that name in my entire life. I actually thought the name was a bit silly when I first heard it (but then I felt like, they would probably think it was silly if they heard some of the swedish names, or nordic names in general).

Yam - Well, very uncommon, but I feel like I've heard similar kinds of names? I feel like children who has a background from another country would be named Yamila or a name similar to that, but I wouldn't say it would be impossible if fully-swedish parents named their kid that either.

Ana - Yes, but Anna is very much the standard spelling :)

Mora - No, but we do have a town called Mora. So maybe someone is actually named that too lmao

Gastón - Not common, but we all very well know the name thanks to Beauty and the Beast

Emilia - This is kinda common! Met several people named that!

Juliana - More common with "Julia" and the male name "Julian".

All other names I've either forgotten to mention or weren't common at all and/or i've never heard them before.

Bia:

Bia - No, but I've met people named Bea! So, close.

Chiara - I've always met other people who knows someone named Chiara, or Kiara, but I've never met anyone myself.

Celeste - Same with this, I know people who knows someone named Celeste, but not met anyone myself. Also, Celeste reminds a lot of us of the character from Babar.

Helena - Yes, this name is pretty common.

Alex - Yep.

Manuel - Yeah, I've met some people named Manuel. They can also be named Emanuel.

Daisy - Well, not common for people to be named, but we know a lot of fictional characters named that

Victor - Yeah! But often spelled Viktor, but the c spelling is pretty common too.

Lucas - This name was literally the most common name for baby boys a while in Sweden. In elementary school, there was literally 3 boys named Lucas/Lukas in my class.

Mara - Yeah, it's a name you've heard around.

The name Alice is very common here, but it's pronounced like the english Alice.

All other names I either forgot about or are too uncommon

#thanks for the ask!#dcla #violetta #soy luna #bia #disney bia

8 notes · View notes

maxineswritingcenter · 3 years ago

Text

You Saved Me - Derek Hale x fem!reader

So, back in the day I wrote this story on Quotev. And it was one of my first stories that got into the popular section and I am really proud of it. The only problem is.... It was written in 2013, uber cringe-ville. If you wanna try to find it, be my guest but be warned: the main character is an OC, she has “I’m NoT lIkE oThEr GiRlS” syndrome and there are some weird ass love lines added in. So, I am reviving and rebranding that story so it may live a better life, like witness protection. Anyway, hope you enjoy

* I wrote it in first person just because I thought it would be easier to read

(Y/N)’s family is killed in a fire that seems to plague Beacon Hills, moving in with the Stilinski’s was bound to cause hijinks, but what happens when she gets involved with the the illusive Derek Hale?

TW: Kidnapping, some violence

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

At first glance Beacon Hills seems like the perfect community. It wasn’t until later that I would realize that everything I ever knew was a lie.

I slowly slipped out of the front door and locked it behind me. Sneaking out wasn’t my usual schtick, but it was the last day of summer and for the first time I was going to live a little before starting to work at the Highschool as a volunteer coach for the lacrosse team. It was my first time ever sneaking out and just the idea of it made my heart pound, but the anxiety turned to adrenaline as I made my way out without either of my parents noticing. They were both incredibly heavy sleepers, there could be a parade outside their door and they wouldn’t wake up.

The party would mostly consist of most of the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams, and what would a lacrosse party be like without the team captain?

Walking down the sidewalk, I thought more about college. UCLA was a choice, or a community college too. Most kids would have gone straight after graduation, but I decided a year off would be good for me to de-stress. But honestly, I was just more afraid of the change. That and leaving my best friend, Stiles, behind was a little hard to fathom. We had known each other our whole lives. Another thing was…would he be okay? After losing his mom… who knows. But then there was also Michael. Michael was my boyfriend, and I loved being with him for the last four years. He really hadn’t mentioned plans for college, just working in the family business. What the family business was, I never knew.

About a block down the road is when I heard the howl. My instincts first go to fear, wolf in the darkness. But then logic comes in, there had not been wolves in California for decades. It was probably the neighbors husky.

The autumn chill had no mercy, whipping my hair into my eyes, I stopped on the corner of Fifth and Main, pulling my jacket closer and waited for the wind to pass. When it did, the figure in front of me made me gasp. But the shock subsided soon after.

“Mikey,” I sighed in relief, “Why’d ya sneak up on me like that? Almost gave me a heart attack. What are you doing out here?”

“Waiting for you.” He smiled. Ominous certainly, but this was probably just another one of his pranks.

“I guess so, I thought you said you weren’t going to the party.”

“We’re not.” That’s when a chill ran up my spine. Something wasn’t right, he wasn’t acting like himself. His goofy smile was gone and replaced by a dark looming presence that I wasn’t comfortable with. It was like he was a completely different person. I took a slow step back.

“Come on, this isn’t funny.” He said nothing, only matching my step going forward.

“Michael.” With every step I took back, he took one forward, matching my increasing pace. With no other choice in mind, I chose to run. But as my back was turned, he grabbed me by my middle with one arm and pressed a cloth to my mouth with the other. Without thinking, I breathed in, the chemicals in the cloth slowly numbing my senses and my body. I tried to fight the darkness entering my vision, but it was no use. I was done to my knees, Michael right behind me.

“Goodnight, (Y/N).” Were the last words I heard before the darkness took over.

“Sweetie, time to get up.” My mother’s voice rang in my ears.

“C’mon mom five more minutes…” I grumbled.

“(Y/N), you need to wake up.” Her voice is more urgent. I finally opened my eyes, seeing my mother, her body engulfed in flames.

“Wake up!”

My body jerked as I woke up, leading to soreness in my arms and legs as a few things became clear:

1. I was tied to a chair, and

2. I didn’t know where I was.

The events from last night slowly started coming back and nothing made any sense. Michael had never been controlling or abusive. Was I so blinded by the relationship that I hadn’t seen the signs? No, there were no signs. As far as I knew, Michael had no history of mental illness so something like dissociative identity disorder didn’t make sense and it wouldn’t explain the behavior either.

There was a bandana tied around my head, keeping me from any sort of speech. From the layout of the place, it looked like an apartment Michael had, but everything was different. There was a tack board hanging in the living room with so many pictures of myself and my parents, shots that looked like they were taken without us knowing. There were scrawlings but they were too scribble-like to make out.

The door opening brought my head to look towards the source. Michael walked in, shoving his phone into his back pocket.

“Well good afternoon, sleepy head.” He closed the door behind him and made his way over to the chair I was bound to.

“Alright, I’m gonna take the gag out but you can’t scream.” He smiled.

I nodded along. With one hand, he pulled the gag from my mouth.

“HELP! HELP ME!” I cried, hoping one of his neighbors would hear and call the police.

“Shut up!” He slapped me across the face, the stinging pain only added to my screaming for help.

“I said shut up!” He pulled a knife from his pocket, pressing the tip of the blade against my cheek. This new threat silences me, leaving me breathing heavily through my nose, tears making their way down my cheeks.

“See, was that so hard?” He stood up and made his way across the room to the box TV on his floor, “I’m sorry for the mess, but with all my planning I hadn’t had a chance. I’ve been planning a big surprise and it’s finally done.” I didn’t speak, only continued to watch his movements.

“I figure, even if you didn’t listen, you can still have your surprise.” He pressed the round power button on the screen and it fizzled to life.

“-the same arsonist on the loose? Coming back to breaking news, the second house fire in six years occurred in the early morning today. Firefighters were called out to the residence of (Y/D/N) and (Y/M/N) (Y/L/N) where their home had gone up in flames.” There was footage of my home up in flames, streams of water coming from the firemen below. “ Both (Y/D/N) and (Y/M/N) were found dead, seemingly from being crushed by a falling support beam in their basement. Their daughter, (Y/N), has not been found and is considered missing. If you have any information on her please call Beacon Hills police.” My photo came up on the screen.

My heart sunk into my stomach and my throat ached to scream and sob. Michael turned off the TV then and looked down at me.

“I’m surprised they found the bodies with how hot it was.” He said nonchalantly.

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered. My parents were the nicest people in the world and treated Michael like he was a part of the family, why would he do this?

”Don’t worry, (Y/N/N). It’s all a part of the plan.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

“I’m gonna head to bed, been out all night. I’ll see you in a couple hours.” He made his way to her bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Finally, I completely broke down. Silent cries poured out. My parents were just gone in a puff of smoke. And all at the hands of someone we trusted. Someone that I trusted more than anything.

After the grief quickly came anger. I don’t know how or when, but I am getting the hell out of here.

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

Read part 2 here!

Likes, Comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

Message me comment to to added to the General Tag or the tag list for this series!

#teen wolf fic #derek hale #derek hale x reader #maxineswritingcenter

94 notes · View notes

fallingsunflower · 3 years ago

Text

Harry's Relationships:

Caroline Flack (2011): I don't want to say too much about this one since Caroline's passed, but I think this was a case of 17 year old Harry liking an older woman who eventually pursued him. Although technically legal, something about it just felt really wrong. I'd like to believe it was PR but I honestly don't know. They eventually broke up due to criticism over their 14 year age gap.

Emily Atack (2012): Not much to say. Seemed like just a short lived/quiet relationship that she confirmed. Maybe y'all know more about it than I do, though.

Lucy Horobin (2012): Not sure what this nightmare was about but I 100% do not believe it happened. I think it was PR to boost Harry's womanizer image.

Taylor Swift (2012-2013): They started dating right around when Taylor's first pop album, Red, was released. It makes sense that she'd want to date Harry to broaden her fanbase to the pop field. Likewise, it was also around the same time One Directions second album, Take Me Home, came out so the same could go for 1D trying to expand their fanbase. Seemed like a power move for them to play their cards right, which they absolutely did because we still talk about it even 8 years later.

Nicole Scherzinger (2013): Apparently they hooked up when he was 19 and she was 35. It weirds me out so I don't think about it too much.

Paige Reifler (2013): Here's a masterpost about it.

Kendall Jenner (2013-2014): They were introduced to each other via their managers (big PR hint). Then there were "sources" calling magazines saying how "flirty" they were and how they're a couple but both Harry and Kendall denied that they were dating. My guess? Kris Jenner wanted to set this up to boost Kendall's model status (since this was around the time she was taking that career leap). The KarJenners are big friends with the Azoffs so it's not impossible. But I think it failed for some reason, unless they were going for the "are they friends or are they more" vibe. This also followed a failed attempt from Kris at getting Kendall to flirt with Justin Bieber for popularity in 2010.

Erin Foster (2014):I feel like I can't fairly judge this because I only know her as the girl Harry went to a pumpkin patch with and that, to me, isn't enough proof of a relationship, real or PR. I know "sources" said they're dating but "sources" could be my neighbor's sister's aunt's dog (aka not reliable).

Paige Reifler (2014): She came back around this time to tell people her and Harry were seeing each other. She also posted pictures of her in his clothes. But then she backtracked and implied she wasn't actually seeing him. Just seems messy. This is the same masterpost from before that talks about it. Seems like it was PR again but I honestly have no clue.

Nadine Leopold (2014-2015): They got frozen yogurt together a couple times. Apparently she was at his birthday party. "Sources" claimed they were flirting. Not much to go off of.

Xander Ritz (2014/2015-???): I had only heard of Xander once and it was pretty recently so I don't know too much about him. I thought it would be fair to add him in though. Here's the ask. I guess there's some controversy around him (that's the vibe I get) but regardless him and Harry have been spotted together on numerous occasions and have been rumored to have dated at some point. Some people speculate he's the inspiration for "Medicine".

Louis Tomlinson (???): I think it would be unfair to not include Louis, even though it might cause controversy.

Sara Sampaio (2015): Based off of the pictures and assumptions I thought they were real and hooked up once, but apparently this was debunked. Here is the ask I received about it! I tried to find a master post or something but couldn't.

Georgia Fowler (2015): Apparently they got in touch through their managers because she wanted to be part of the Victoria Secret models. Her and her manager requested a meeting because 1D, and especially Harry, was really popular at that time and everyone knows being linked to Harry once gives you a lifetime of exposure. A friend of her's told what happened and even had messages to prove that it was just PR. This is the ask I got this information from!

Kendall Jenner (2015-2016): Basically a continuation from earlier. Their get together happened right after Zayn left 1D and after Kendall was hospitalized for "exhaustion". Setting Harry and Kendall up again stopped questions about Zayn and why Kendall had gotten to the point of exhaustion where she needed to be hospitalized, and also gave a boost to 1D's last album (which came out in late 2015). I think they're friends who are amicable with each other which is why we continue to get content. I just don't think they ever dated. However the only thing I cannot explain, unless it was an orchestrated leak, was Anne's iCloud getting hacked and exposing all those photos of Harry and Kendall. But I did hear that when they were getting papped on the yacht, after their pictures were taken they'd immediately separate and go about their day (this came apparently from people on yachts nearby witnessing the whole thing).

Townes Adair Jones (2017?): This one's too weird for me to consider it being real. I doubt "consent king" would write and release a suggestive song about a girl without even telling her. Also he changed the lyrics in "Carolina" from "Town" to "Townes" (wouldn't he remember her last name if they got together?) My guess? "Carolina" is about drugs but he used a suggestive story to cover up the real meaning and this girl agreed to be his "muse".

Tess Ward (2017): Couldn’t tell you this one lol check out this ask about it though.

Camille Rowe (2017-2018). This one confuses me. Up until recently I thought it was 100% real but now I'm not sure. Camille moaned Harry's name on her Instagram story (weird, no creepy). Then Harry was asked about her on Nick Grimshaw's show, to which he said no (also his heart rate did NOT go up but it did for a pair of Chelsea boots). Then they start dating about a week later. Odd timing but nevertheless they seemingly date for a year (almost to the day). I don't doubt they had something and I'm sure they liked each other, but how serious could they have been if Harry was touring a majority of their relationship? Just seems odd but at least it gives a narrative for Fine Line.

Kiko Mizuhara (2019): Pretty sure she confirmed they never even met or properly hung out.

Nicole Branch (2020?): Still not entirely sure who this is LMAO but pretty sure she's milking their friendship for attention. Maybe they hooked up but the timing doesn't make sense so I'm calling bullshit.

Bianca Finch (2020?): Apparently she was a diehard fan of Harry's. Harry followed her on Instagram in October 2020. She then told people she slept with him. Not really much to go off of (because I don't necessarily trust her word) so I'm calling bullshit again. Plus, unless I'm wrong, the timeline doesn't make sense. Harry was filming DWD and supposedly in the process of pursuing his one true love. Plus we were in a pandemic. Too many holes in my opinion, but let me know if my information is incorrect!!

Olivia Wilde (2020-2022): 100% PR. No need to discuss more.

Obviously this list doesn't include any fans he's hooked up with or dated, but I really don't think it was that many. I strongly believe a lot of people make up stories for attention.

Anyways, hope this was helpful :) just my thoughts and not meant to stir up drama or anything!! x

#harry styles #pr stunt #pr relationships #Harry’s relationships

83 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 3 years ago

Note

That anon seems to be singling out slash stuff way too much for me to trust them. That anti-"girl who gets in the way of my pairing" was not limited to slash fandom and actually seemed more common in het ship wars from what I can remember. Obviously there was misogyny but it wasn't unique to m/m stuff. Even back when I joined fandom in 2013, so a more recent era of anime fandom ship wars and misogyny... the Bleach ship wars were so bad in terms of just blatant misogyny. Same with Naruto. Some of the arguments came down to certain female characters being slutty whores because they had big tits it was so bad. And hating on female characters was a popular pastime for everyone back then too. Idk just in my recent memory slash fandom during the really blatant misogyny period didn't seem any worse, and at least back then weren't really a part of the ship wars in the same way het ships were so were comparatively chiller, at least in the circles I was in back then. But I also wasn't involved in many yaoi-centric spaces bc I was a repressed bisexual tween who still was uncomfortable with overt displays of sex stuff, let alone *gasp* m/m sex stuff, so who knows how toxic the internal politics got. I just remember the really horrible ship wars (which were the worst manifestations of misogyny in my experience) being primarily het ships

Credit to anon for specify western fujoshi instead of accidentally casting judgement on Japanese fujoshi based entirely on the sins of western fandom I guess?

I wasn't even in anime fandoms anymore by that time, and I still heard all about it. The Bleach shipwars were legendary.

I don't recall ever looking at any misogynist flash games myself. If that was a fad, it wasn't in my neck of the woods. In fact, I don't remember flash games being big at all when I was deep in anime fandom in like 2002, which has led me down a rabbithole of trying to figure out when Flash did get big for games, and I found this REALLY COOL site with a timeline.

https://www.flashgamehistory.com/

31 notes · View notes

untitledtheunknown · 4 years ago

Note

If you could have written Kerry in 2077, how would you have done it? Characterization, quests, whatever you're willing to share. 👀💘

Okay so wanna say first I do enjoy Kerry’s quests, I just wish they were longer that’s my main gripe with things overall. I am willing to accept what they’ve done, I just want more of him because well its him. I’m also no game dev or writer, I write fics and come up with OCs, we make game campaigns based on what exists already. I can’t say I understand or know why certain things get put in and other things get cut so there’s that.

My biggest issue is the giant gap in Kerry’s timeline, went from 2023, Memphis concert in the 40s, to 2077. Some huge ass breaks in his timeline with no real reason why, and I can’t use things from the table top because 2077 doesn’t follow that timeline either. Samurai broke up in 2007, Kerry had a quite successful solo career from the get go, and in 2077 seems like none of that happened until much later on. He was writing Second Conflict with Johnny in the table top so it seems weird that its put out as this new album when he was talking about it back in 2013. I dunno its a whole thing.

What I would have done differently is much of what I already said in the previous post. My main thing is I don’t like how from get go he still seems 100% hung up on and obsessed with his image to Johnny’s. Like I understand from the outside looking in, tabloids and what not making that comparison to rip into him, but that’s not Kerry. Its not him. Without a doubt I wouldn’t put it past Ker to want to do one last gig, so all that could stay the same, but I feel like they could have done a much better job explaining where Kerry was mentally. Because when you read into it you see its not just about Johnny, that’s the surface, but it happens so quick its easy to miss when you’re caught in the stare with those blue eyes. This also in hand goes for River where they kinda got screwed out being able to naturally develop. The sauce is there, but its being eaten too quick, where as Panam and Judy have the main story quests to break things down and have things develop more naturally.

Quest wise I would have thrown another 1 or 2 quests in around the end. Maybe 1 more before the rooftop at Dark Matter, and another before Boat Drinks. They don’t have to be long quests, but something to allow more discussion, allow those feelings to kinda come in and show that there’s something more there. Because up to the rooftop scene Kerry is a flirt in some aspects, but that’s also just who he is, the romance gets packed on heavy and he’s confessing a lot really quick when its like a day ago V was just a wingman to arson and gunpoint demands. To me at least that’s a massive flip of what the hell, from both V and Kerry. So feel like shoving another quest in there to smooth things out, make the flirting a bit more obvious of hey something might be going on and allow that hesitant opening before a big confession later on would have just smoothed it out. Feel this would have also helped a shit ton with why he’s only attracted to male V. They could have built something out into that to make it more apparent instead of the shit show that was the twitter incident of “he only likes V for Johnny” and blow up that happens in his tag every month. Naturally developed romance scenarios can help a lot with preventing those kinda things. Takes the guess work out of it a bit, just saying.

Other thing, I hate the new ex-wife and kids story. I don’t know why they changed it, I was hoping Kelvy was going to be in 2077. Kerry aint out here winning any dad of the year awards, but from what I took in he was a pretty decent dad to Kelvy. The only thing I can thing of why they tossed that whole thing out was because again they fucked over his timeline. Kerry got married early 20′s and Kelvy was born awhile before the actual marriage. But she proudly used to name Eurodyne, she loved referring to herself as Kerry’s daughter. She was famous in her own right as a media, had her own show and net presence. I can only think she got scrubbed because the game she was in (v3 2020) wasn’t that popular, and again the timeline wouldn’t work for what we see. But I don’t get why they changed it to an aggressively failed marriage and him not wanting to be with his much younger children. I get why in how he is at that point in his life, but from the actual writing I don’t get why that was a better choice than just changing Kelvy’s age. Hell could of had her be a whole quest of rekindling a dying flame with her dad and finding out more of what happened. If anyone would have known some better insight, it would have been her.

Overall I think there’s good bones for Kerry’s stuff, I just wish it was more finetuned. Things did get cut, and feel like there’s a lot more missing than what we have found. As both a bias and a logical point he should have had another quest or two within his main run to allow things to develop a bit more naturally. I don’t mind him being at the end of the game but it does feel like he’s a ghost until then. My first playthrough I actually started to doubt he really was in the game until Johnny said “Hey lets go see Kerry” and I was just that motherfucker IS IN HERE OKAY. I also do feel that the stuff regarding his depression and attempted suicide could have been handled a bit better instead of getting swept away. This goes in hand with him probably needing another quest to just allow breathing room, but on the rooftop he is talking about some seriously heavy stuff and I swear to god if I have to hear that show saying “Rumors of Kerry’s depression was just noisy chatter” one more time Imma lose it. I don’t need details of what’s going on, but just something that its real. It wasn’t just a fad or a fake out. But because everything with him ends so suddenly and you get a drop of more in the endings and credits its just hard to accept that’s all we got.

I dunno, basically less about Johnny in the beginning. More quest time. Give him his daughter back you cowards.

#arguably I like a lot more than I have issue with #its not even that I dont like it I just wish it was slightly different #just its close but slightly off that it doesn't feel right #I will forever hold a grudge against Kelvy tho that I will not let go #she died in our camp but THAT IS BESIDES THE POINT #I loved her #Anonymous

15 notes · View notes

yeonchi · 3 years ago

Text

Kisekae Insights #24: GJ Club - how a spinon became a spinoff featuring Kyōya and Kasumi Shinomiya

(Art by 結城辰也)

The Kisekae Insights series has allowed me to bring the spotlight back on Waifu Network animes that I haven’t posted much about in the past due to lack of fanart or lack of interest. Like Hidamari Sketch in the last instalment, GJ Club will be no exception until I continue posting the usual content in my anime posts. Honestly, it was good while it lasted.

While Hidamari Sketch is a fairly popular and notable anime, GJ Club, sadly, isn’t. The anime was adapted from the light novel series written by Shin Araki and it only received one 12-episode season in 2013 and an OVA in 2014. Since it is a slice-of-life series, not much is known about the characters’ histories, which made it very easy to adapt into my personal project. All these factors coinciding with it being the 50th anniversary year of Doctor Who made GJ Club the perfect anime to adapt and expand on.

Background information

For some reason, the light novel has been a bit hard to find. In short, while you are able to read it online, the sources are unfortunately scarce.

From 2013 to 2015, NanoDesu Translations posted translations of the light novel. They published a PDF and EPUB of the first volume (which is available on archive.org) and translated up to Chapter 17 of the second volume. It was then abandoned for two years before Haraguro Scanlations picked it up. As of September 2018, they only finished up to Chapter 3 of the third volume (with the first chapter being translated by Shadowys on Baka-Tsuki) and there are no further updates after that, with the exception of a one-off chapter released in November 2020.

As of August 2021, however, all the original translations by NanoDesu seem to have been deleted from their site. All the translations are available on AsiaNovel, but there are no illustrations because the reader doesn’t seem to support images. If the images weren’t discarded in the code of the novels, then all they would need to do is add support for them and then they would appear.

There are 9 volumes and two special volumes for GJ Club along with 8 volumes and a special volume for its middle school spinoff. It’s honestly telling how popular the series was when the translators have all but abandoned it.

Shin Araki also wrote an additional spinoff to GJ Club, namely GE: Good Eater, and a sequel, namely KB Club. GE is set in a fantasy world with the characters being based off the characters of GJ Club, while KB Club turns everything meta by having both series be the creations of a high school light novel club, with the characters of GJ Club being based off the members of said club, right down to their names. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of that approach given how I’ve adapted GJ Club into my personal project. In the end, I guess we’ll never really know what happens in the novels, but at least we have this.

Watching the anime and listening to the character music was how I first realised that anime was sexist to males because of the female-centric focus in most animes. Kyōya only gets one character song in the series, and even then it’s a duet with Megumi. If that isn’t sexist to you, then I don’t know how I can convince you that a lot of animes are sexist.

In January 2015, I published two posts outlining my idea for an English dub of the series that also fits with GJ Club’s depiction in my personal project. The setting would be changed to London, England, specifically the areas of Chiswick, Ealing and Acton (where their school is located) and the characters would speak with British accents. The images in the original post are dead because I idiotically copied the images from the site instead of saving and reuploading them to the post, but since I’m grubbing for content anyway, I’m going to repost my character details as follows:

Kyōya: The protagonist of the series. When he started Year 10, he was kidnapped by the girls when he walked into an old school building, hoping to find the Culture Club. He moved to London from Manchester just before he started Year 7. His best friend outside the club is someone named Tesshin Yokomizo (横溝徹心) who is a local and not seen in the anime. In the GJ Club, he is nicknamed “Kyoro” and despite his spinelessness, he seems to have talent in dealing with the girls around him. His birthday is December 18. Due to a crisis involving his family during his childhood, he and his sister Kasumi were left in the care of a family guardian just before they moved to London, but she left when Kyōya started Year 10. It might have been that childhood incident that emotionally scarred him and left him spineless…

Mao: The Year 11 president of the GJ Club. Her family is rich and they live in a mansion in Ealing. She has a habit of biting and picking on Kyōya when she is bored or angry. She always reads books and watches shows without kissing scenes.

Shion: The only daughter in her family, Shion is an expert chess player with many brothers, all experts in some kind of activity. She speaks in a Birmingham (Brummie) accent because her mother and a few of her brothers were born in Birmingham. It is unknown if Shion was born in Birmingham herself.

Megumi: The calm and nice middle sister of the Amatsuka family. She likes knitting and she is always seen making tea and cakes in the club room. In the same year level as Kyōya.

Kirara: Born in Swansea, Wales, Kirara is the tallest and strongest member of the club. She speaks English in simple, monotone sentences. Welsh is her first language. Kirara can be seen eating meat, sometimes sharing it with Kyōya, but not with anyone else. She is afraid of spiders and has little tolerance to alcohol.

Tamaki: (voiced by Karen Gillan!) The newest member of the GJ Club when Kyōya becomes a Year 11 student. Like Kyōya, she is kidnapped and forced to join the club. Her nickname is “Tama”. Her family is from Glasgow and they run a Shinto shrine in Acton. She has several younger siblings.

Kasumi: Kyōya’s younger sister, who was born in Manchester. After a visit to the GJ Club, she becomes inspired to start a middle school division when she starts Year 7. She has a brother complex and she mistook Mao for being a primary school student when she met her. Her proficiency in Welsh is better than her brother’s, who can probably speak at a beginner level.

Geraldine: Shortened to “Jill”. She moved to Chiswick from Swansea to be with her sister, Kirara. She first met Kyōya at Ealing Broadway Station when she had difficulty buying a Tube ticket. She didn’t really understand how to use the ticket machine, so Kyōya went to help her. After this, Jill considered Kyōya her “samurai master”. Jill doesn’t speak English fluently, so she relies on her whiteboard to communicate with the others. She is as strong as her sister and she joins Kasumi’s GJ Club when she starts Year 7 in Chiswick.

Seira: The youngest sister of the Amatsuka family. Though she speaks in a typical London accent, she sometimes talks through her cat clip in Received Pronunciation (the Queen’s English/RP) using ventriloquism to state her true feelings to Kyōya, who she has a grudge against.

Mori: The maid of the Amatsuka family. She likes to ride a motorcycle. A running gag is her twirling before Kyōya much to his pleasure and annoyance to the rest of the club members. Sometimes, her mother takes her place without the family even noticing due to their identical appearance.

Kyōya, Kasumi and Momoka: The Brother, the Child and the Yandere

Normally in previous instalments, I would have described each character separately, but because their backstories are heavily intertwined, I will introduce them all at once in this section. Most of the backstory takes place around the Battle of Koshi Castle in December 2013 and during the Manchester Campaign of 2005-2013, which I have already covered in #15.

When Hiroki Ichigo’s twelfth incarnation was killed at Koshi Castle, he managed to escape in his TARDIS, where he regenerated into his new prototype, namely a four-year-old Kyōya. The TARDIS crashes outside North Manchester General Hospital on 11 December 2005.

Earlier, Hiroki and Akari’s gametes (along with those of Hiroki’s brothers and their families) were taken by Reona Yukawa and placed in the Progenitor so that they could breed super-soldiers out of them. When Takumi Kamijō and Kyōko Sakura manage to escape from their cells (saving Nodoka Manabe and Azusa Nakano in the process), he changes the destination of the baby about to be released into the Progenitor’s time portal. That baby was Kasumi, one of the super-soldiers grown from Hiroki and Akari’s DNA. She ended up at the same hospital as well and was about to be taken home by a couple when Girl Power killed them, resulting in Kasumi being taken by Akari and Shaun.

What remained of Hiroki was contacted by the spirit of Walpurgisnacht. Making a deal with her, Hiroki regenerated into his thirteenth incarnation, the female Momoka Mizutani. No, Momoka is not an OC for GJ Club, but she is based on the character of Apple Lam Chung-yan from the TVB drama A Great Way to Care II, played by Tavia Yeung. Momoka takes Hiroki’s TARDIS and heads to Salford, where with the help of Walpurgisnacht, she establishes a cha chaan teng café in the middle of a trading estate and hires a group of red drone Daleks as her workers, hiding their identities by having them disguise themselves as humans.

Over the next eight years, Momoka gets close to the new Shinomiya family by influencing them through Kyōya’s dreams to come to her café. Eight years later, on 11 December 2013, the Fourth and Fifth Doctors come in with their companions. When the Shinomiya family come in, a confrontation with Ayaka Kikuchi and her army ensues before Momoka transmats the Shinomiya family to a Dalek spaceship, where she prepares to execute them using the Yashio’ori. However, the Yashio’ori is sabotaged by the enemy army so that the laser beam would not charge.

As Ayaka and her army attack the Dalek ship, Momoka uses the Dalek-enhanced machine guns to fend them off. While two Doctors confront the Master, Momoka is killed by Girl Power officers, resulting in Walpurgisnacht taking over her body as she regenerates, maintaining her current appearance. Read #15 to find out what happens after this.

Once the Battle of Koshi Castle and the Manchester Campaign conclude, the Fourth Doctor helps Kyōya and Kasumi move to Chiswick in 2008. Five years later, the events of the GJ Club anime take place. During his time in Chiswick, Kyōya gets a job at the post office there and later, studies a double degree in Japanese Studies and Politics at SOAS in the University of London while also learning Cantonese, Mandarin and Welsh in weekend and evening courses (apparently he also wanted to learn Taiwanese but they weren’t running any courses, but that’s alright, he can always learn it somewhere else, which he presumably did).

On a side note, I volunteered myself to be Kyōya’s English voice actor, so I’ve practiced my Mancunian accent by watching actors like Christopher Eccleston, Stephen Tompkinson, Karl Pilkington and maybe a bit of Peter Kay as well. The only problem was that I’m not even sure that my accent is even Manc because I can’t tell if I’m getting it wrong and sounding like someone from Liverpool, Yorkshire, Newcastle or even Scotland. Oh well, that’s what happens when you really get into things.

I don’t buy expansion packs, I make my own (budget allowing)

So as I said, GJ Club only got one season and an OVA to go with it. Do Kyōya and the GJ Club make further appearances in the series? You bet your ass they do.

After being absent for much of the Next Gen Series in 2014, Kyōya and Kasumi receive a letter from their aunt, Narutaki, asking to meet in Hong Kong after their mother, Akari, went missing following the Siege of Ōsaka, only to be followed by Mao and the rest of the GJ Club, who learnt where he was going and managed to get on the same flight as them.

Narutaki, who had taken her Girl Power friends and established a rogue faction separate from the main group, takes the GJ Club to Nijō Castle, where she explains the background behind the Manchester Campaign and the events of Series 8 and 9. Soon after, Girl Power’s commander, Daniel, sends his brother, Nathan, out to find Narutaki. Kyōya tries to contact Hiroki, but he is unable to get through to him. Luckily, the TARDIS arrives and the Doctor and Hiroki help Angela and the others repel the attacking Girl Power forces. Some more things happen and by the end of the story, we learn that Kyōya and Mao are dating.

That Christmas, Kyōya and Kasumi head up to Manchester, but the Doctor briefly takes them and their friends back to Hong Kong for a picnic with Hiroki and the rest of the Zhuge family.

A few years later in 2018, the GJ Club and Momoka get a cameo at the start and end of the Gokaiger TV movie special. By this point in time, Momoka’s café in Manchester has expanded to many other branches around the UK and in Hong Kong.

The next year in 2019, Kyōya, Kasumi, Mao and Megumi are featured in a four-part adventure in Soulbound Series 3, helping the cast solve the mystery of Parker’s past and Shinbu’s origins. Two years after in 2021, Kyōya and Kasumi move to Hong Kong (along with the GJ Club) and join the Superhero Project as the new ShinkenRed and ZyuohTiger. You’d think Kyōya would be against violence given his harmless tendencies, but I suppose his character has developed over the years despite having abandonment issues.

So this has been the involvement of GJ Club in my personal project. It’s a shame the series wasn’t more popular or it could have gotten a second season, a manga, more (and frequent) translations of the light novel or hell, even a licenced release. This series is just like Sea Princesses in how popular it was, but despite the number of episodes the anime got, at least Shin Araki hasn’t abandoned the series (by putting it in a spinoff no less) unlike Fabio Yabu, who hasn’t made anything new for Sea Princesses since 2010 after getting more animated episodes than GJ Club did. On the other hand though, neglected series with little material has been good development fodder for my personal project as it allowed me to bring awareness to the existence of those series while also developing backstories and afterstories for them.

#kisekae insights #gj club #doctor who

3 notes · View notes

kkshowtunes · 4 years ago

Text

Hey folks! I wrote a short story and wanted to share it with y’all! Hope you enjoy

Summary: When Ella finds out her principal is homophobic, she can’t just sand by.

Story under the cut

“Ella Delta, report to the principal’s office,” the loudspeaker crackled. I rolled my eyes as the class oohed and side-eyed me. I stretched, got out of my chair, and made my way over to the principal’s office. I dragged my feet across the linoleum halls to our surly and impatient principal’s lair. I was far more nervous than I led my peers to believe. My hands were shaking and my shoulders felt warm and tense. I shrugged off my nervousness, and gritted my teeth as I reminded myself that any multitude of things could happen in the principal's office at 9:28 in the morning. Still, the knot in my stomach persisted.

When I arrived inside, I was met by the principal who was leaning forward in her glossy wooden chair. Mrs. Wolfe was a tall and thin woman with curly blond hair cut into a bob. She had sunken gray eyes and defined cheekbones, giving her a skeletal appearance. She stared at me for a second, examining my face with her angry gray eyes.

“Ms. Delta, we need to talk,” she said in her usual condescending voice. My nose scrunched up as I smelled the scent of strong perfume in her office.

“What is it, Mrs. Wolfe?” I asked with a smile. I tried to ignore the anxious thumping in my chest as I took a seat at Mrs. Wolfe’s mahogany desk with all of her stationery meticulously placed. Mrs. Wolfe was not the kind of person to call people into her office for no reason.

“Your pin,” she said, as she pointed one boney finger at the pride pin I wore on my blue denim jacket. I kicked my legs lightly to dissipate some of my nervous energy. I tried to reassure myself that nothing would happen. I told myself I would be in and out in a second. But all the kids called her Big Bad Wolfe for a reason.

“Take it off,” she said, her expression changing to one of deep seriosity.

“Why?” I asked with more hubris than a greek god who just cheated on his wife. Mrs. Wolfe pushed her oval glasses up her thin and crooked nose bridge and sighed.

“Here at Western Pine School, we don’t support those kinds of… Beliefs,” She spat out the last word as if it was poison. I sat rigid in my seat, shocked at the words that I had just heard my principal use. I cocked my head and my shoulders tensed as I continued to listen.

“While we do not support these kinds of sins in our facility, we all hope you get better,” The words rolled off of Mrs. Wolfe’s tongue like small daggers, each hitting me in the face as I became painfully aware of what she was talking about. I stared at my palms in dumbfounded disbelief. I bounced my leg and bit at the side of my lip. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to say something, but decided better of it and just left my jaw hanging lightly.

“If you take it off, I can leave you with a warning, but if I see it again, there will be more… serious consequences,” she growled with a stern face. I hesitated for a moment, and the room was totally silent except for the sound of Mrs. Wolfe rapping her long fingers against the wooden desk.

I wanted to revolt.

I wanted to say No.

I wanted to say something, anything at all. Instead, I removed the rainbow pin from the rough denim of my jacket and stuffed it into the side pocket of my pants.

“Am I free to go?” I asked shakily. I winced at my sentence. I sounded like I was asking an angry police officer. Mrs. Wolfe narrowed her eyes and examined me once more.

“You are free to go,” she said with her mouth smiling, but not her eyes. I nodded weakly, wiped my sweaty hands on my pants and hoisted myself out of the chair.

By the time I was out of Mrs. Wolfe’s office, it was lunchtime. The original shock had worn off and I was filled with rage. I wiped the stressed tears from my eyes as I headed to my lunch table. Waiting for me were my two best friends, Sam and Lexi.

Sam was a small boy with big sad eyes and hair that was impossibly poofy. He was shy to people he didn’t know, but he was super outgoing with the rest of the group.

Lexi was a rebellious girl with dirty blonde hair with electric red streaks. Lexi’s personality was as fiery as the streaks in her hair and injustice was her worst enemy. Together, we were the outcasts of the school’s social scheme. We weren’t popular, we weren’t picked on, and everyone else just seemed to pretend we didn’t exist.

“Els! Over here!” Sam shouted, smiling wide to reveal a mouth full of braces. His smile dropped to a look of concern when he noticed my face.

“What happened in there? You look like hell,” He stated matter of factly.

I took a deep breath before spilling everything that had happened.

“I know it’s not that big of a deal-” I started after I finished explaining the situation.

“Not that big of a deal?! Sweetheart, this is a problem!” Lexi said with an angry-protective snarl spread across her rounded jaw.

“Same thing happened to me, actually,” said Sam shyly.

“It did?! Why didn’t you tell us?” exclaimed Lexi. She took an exasperated breath as she continued. “Okay I know you guys might think this is okay, but we gotta do something!”

“What? You really think we, the weird loner kids, could do something?” asked Sam with a laugh.

“Yep,” said Lexi with a wide smile, a hint of rage still tinting her tone, “The real question is what we’re gonna do about it.”

“Uh, we could, leave school?” mentioned Sam, his eyes narrowing slightly. I was surprised he was even humoring Lexi’s dreams of justice.

“Like… a walkout?” Lexi framed it as a question but didn’t give us time to answer before jumping into the next idea. “Oh! We could walk out and host a parade! And… maybe we could invite kids from schools all around the city! Sam! Els! This is gonna be big!”

My skeptical smirk turned into a grin of joy as I listened to Lexi think out loud.

Maybe we really could make a difference I thought to myself Even if it’s small, it’s still a difference.

“One problem, Lex,” Sam started, breaking me out of my internal monologue, “How are we supposed to get the word out without Big Bad noticing?”

Lexi looked at him and tilted her head slightly. She raised one eyebrow at him as if she was surprised that he wouldn’t know the answer. Her eyes quickly softened though, as she began to speak. “Social media, duh,” she said. I was still confused. I had a couple of socials, but I was rarely active and I was far from popular.

“Wolfie isn’t online at all. She says it’s ‘ruining the minds of youths’ and ‘imprinting poor ideas into our impressionable minds’, ” Lexi chuckled as she made quote marks in the air with her hands as she quoted Wolfe’s outdated conspiracies. Lexi had a point. Ms. Wolfe did have a vendetta against all technology, yet she begrudgingly allowed computers. Lexi was relatively famous online. Sure, she was famous on Tumblr, a site everyone thought died back in 2013, but fame is fame I guess.

“I… think this might work out,” Sam exclaimed with a hint of hesitation in his voice. His eyebrows unfurrowed from their worried position to a more relaxed form. I myself was getting hyped, too.

“It’s Thursday now…” Lexi stated as if it was some great discovery, “I think we can get our act together by next Wednesday.”

We’re actually doing this? I asked myself. I twirled the pin back and forth in my pocket, considering my options. I stalled for just a moment before mustering up all the courage I could and pushing away the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach.

“Sounds like a plan!”

I shoved aside my calculus homework and checked my phone. Lexi had texted me.

Lexi: Hey

Me: Hey

I never knew how to respond to texts. I usually just sent over single words and emojis, hoping to get my point across in as little words as possible. Lexi on the other hand was a technological genius, and didn’t share in my painful lack of charisma.

Lexi: Drafting the post now :)

I took an excited little gasp as I read the text. Each second that passed made this whole thing feel real. I bounced slightly in my chair as I typed back.

Me: aaaaaa make sure u send it to me when ur done!

I bounced my leg and fidgeted, the excitement bouncing off of me like an aura. A big childish grin spread across my face as I awaited a reply. Out of my peripheral vision, I spotted the pride pin. I had taken it out of my pocket when I rolled over on my bed and it stabbed me in the thigh, drawing a small bead of blood. I grabbed it and rolled it across my knuckles like a coin. I stared fixated at my screen, the blue light shining into my brown eyes. Homework can wait, I was waiting for Lexi and her internet magic.

Lexi: Here it is

My heart started beating quicker as the three dots appeared meaning she was typing. I clenched the pin as tight as possible and took a breath as the message appeared.

Lexi: Hi guys, gals, and non-binary pals of the West Pine area! Help stick it to me and my friend El’s homophobic excuse of a principal. She made two of my friends stop showing who they are and forced her homophobic ideas onto them. All you have to do is show up at Western Pine school at 9:00 AM this Wednesday (I know it’s early, sorry). I will post updates and you can show your support at #Take-Down-Big-Bad-Wolfe!

#lgbtqia+ #help

I never understood how Lexi could talk and people would listen. Whenever I said anything I felt like I was screaming into the void, but maybe that’s how everyone feels. I don’t know what I would do in life if it wasn’t for Lexi and Sam. Lexi and Sam were the ones who listened when everyone else couldn’t understand.

I shot Lexi back a quick and sincere thank you text and closed my computer with a wavering breath. I absent-mindedly scribbled down the answers to the last couple of calculus questions while thinking about the walkout. I evened out the pages of homework and shoved them haphazardly into my binder. Then, I flopped down on my bed and shut my eyes tight. I tried to sleep but the thoughts and questions kept flooding my mind in the place of dreams. My eyes and limbs screamed at me to sleep but I just couldn’t silence the stream of thoughts.

After fifteen minutes of trying in vain to sleep, I dragged myself back to my desk. My fingers were itching to write down all my thoughts. I grabbed a couple of sheets of loose-leaf and a number two pencil from the supply cubby near my desk. I took another heaving breath before titling the page

Questions

After the title was written, my hands started to work. My brain’s overfilling thoughts translating into graphite sticks and swirls on a page. I decided to write the questions I needed the answers to. How to do things, what to do, the repercussions, and every other query I had swimming about my brain.

What are the logistics?

I thought about the question for a good two minutes before realizing the answer was right before my eyes. We didn’t need to overthink it. We didn’t need permission to rebel.

What will I do to make it special?

The golden question that had been bugging me all night. The whole thing, while powerful, felt oddly depersonalized. Sam was the brains, Lexi was the mouth, but who was I? The meek victim? The useless third wheel? I shook the uncomfortable thoughts out of my head before mulling over the options. Then I had an idea. I loved to write, and I loved what was right. The answer seemed obvious. My eyes lit up like fiery sparklers as I got out a new sheet of paper. I moved my pencil hurriedly across the top of the page. All the gray scratches and streaks turning into two words.

My Speech

I began to write and the words came easily. I wrote out my thoughts. All the abstract wisps of ideas firing through my neurons into tangible lead-colored shapes on a page. By the time I finished writing, my wrists were numb and weak and my eyelids were drooping with the threat of sleep. I looked over at the clock and- crap. The little red numbers on my digital clock read 3:08. I anxiously ran my fingers through the front of my hair before falling onto my mattress. It was mere seconds before I was asleep.

Despite only getting about four and a half hours of sleep, I woke up feeling more alive than I ever had before. I bounced out of my bed and slid over to my dresser to pick out some clothes. After some light deliberation, I decided to wear a Dear Evan Hansen shirt, blue jeans, and a soft pink hoodie. I cuffed my jeans quickly before heading out of my room, eating a bite of toast, and brushing my teeth. Before heading out the door, I noticed the pin, still on my desk. I wavered for a second before shoving it into my pockets in silent rebellion.

As I walked into school I saw Lexi leaning against her locker. Lexi had a cinnamon stick hanging from her mouth that looked like an old brown cigar. It flopped over as she gave me a wide grin and a wave.

“Els! Over here!” she called with a smirk. She propped her cinnamon stick back in her mouth before continuing. “Look,” she said vaguely, raising an eyebrow while shoving her phone into my hands. I let out a gasp as I scrolled down the #Take-Down-Big-Bad-Wolfe tag. There were people from all over, showing us their support. Lexi glanced at me and I shook my head in approval. The bell rang so we headed off in our respective directions.

As Mr. Thorne blabbered on about history and the past, my mind was fixed on the future. I rubbed the smooth end of the forbidden pin in my pocket. I went away to my little world in my brain, re-writing and adding to my speech. I felt the looming anxiety related to public speaking. Sure, I wrote the speech, but for some reason saying it out loud was petrifying for some reason.

“Ms. Delta, are you there?” I was burst out of my daydreams by the sound of my history teacher’s deep nasally voice.

“Hm?” I asked, my eyes darting around the room at the inquisitive stares of my peers.

“Maybe you should try staying in the present from now on,” said Mr. Thorne with his fingers pressed against his temple and forehead.

“Says the history teacher,” I retorted with a slight smirk. My eyes widened as I realized that I didn’t just say that in my head. The class burst into laughter and Mr. Thorne’s face became a shade of angry pink.

“I- uh- Ms- Ell- you- no-'' Mr. Thorne stuttered, his breathing choppy. I just crossed my fingers and, for the first time in my life, didn’t fear the consequences. I also felt like everyone in class heard me. I suddenly felt better about speaking in front of all those people.

It was finally the day. The day I had been waiting for all week. The day of the walkout. I bit at my cuticles nervously throughout first period. By the time the clock struck 8:55, I felt as if I could jump out of my skin with excited nervousness. I was trying to subdue the anxious bouncing of my leg. Then the intrusive thoughts started to flood in.

No one will come. I shook my head. They would come. Why wouldn’t they? We spread the word to the trustworthy kids at school and got a trending post on social media. Why wouldn’t people show up?

You're wasting your time. You’ll look like a fool. You’ll just embarrass yourself. Imagine you, standing out there alone, pathetic. The words spinning through my head like venom.

Pathetic. Worthless. Stupid. Dumb-

I looked over and the clock struck nine. I stayed in my chair for a second before seeing a majority of the kids in my class standing up. My eyes welled with tears of joy as we all headed out the door, to the chagrin of the teachers. We headed to the curb and I felt the greatest sense of pride seeing Lexi and Sam pulling their respective pride flags out of their pockets. The black, white, purple, and gray of Sam’s ace flag. The purple, pink, orange, and white of Lexi’s lesbian flag. I led the crowd, heading to the parking lot as a herd of angry and confused teachers lumbered after us. My heart gave an agitated flutter as I noticed kids from other schools piling in.

I gave Lexi a hurried thank you again when the news trucks came. I tried to make my way through the crowd of angry teenagers and colorful flags when I stop dead in my tracks when the crowd goes quiet. I turn my head and see my principal, red in the face. Her brown pencil-skirt swaying as she stomped over to the podium where I would make my speech. I swallowed hard as I turned to face her. Some of my anxiety eased as I felt Lexi by my side, squeezing my hand.

“Stop this foul behavior at once!” she screeched, “Everyone here is a truly lost soul. I apologize that your young minds have been perverted, but God will forgive you if you change your ways.”

My eyes welled up with tears. I felt worthless. That is until I heard the most beautiful sound.

“Stay tuned for more Channel 7 news!”

The news vans! My smile widened as I realized my principal’s rant had been televised to the entire city. Mrs. Wolfe seemed to realize that too, as she was beginning to panic.

I walked through the crowd over to the tall and lanky newscaster in a suit. He looked slightly like a red-headed John Mulaney.

“Mike Drum, Channel 7 news,” he said introducing himself. I noticed his actual speaking voice was much different from his formal reporting voice. He had a light New York accent in real life. “Amazing turnout today,” He said with a half smile and friendly nod.

I almost melted. A newscaster. Reporting my story. “T-thank you,” I stuttered. He stuck out his hand for a handshake and laughed as I went in for a weird sideways high five.

“No problem, Kiddo. You got a speech to make! Go get ‘em!” he said with a wink, patting me on the back. I cocked my head as I wondered how he knew I would make a speech. Maybe he was magic. Then I realized the entire crowd chanting.

Speech! Speech Speech! I headed towards the podium with a little laugh, enjoying the time before my anxiety kicked in.

I took in a choppy breath as I stood upon the podium. I ran over my short speech in my head as I brushed my fingers across the glossy auburn wood. I shook away every thought of chickening out and threaded the point of my pride pin through the heart-area of my hoodie. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth to speak. My mouth was dry but my mind was ready.

“In an ideal society, life is like a roller coaster,” The crowd quieted and looked over at me. I started to regret every decision I have ever made. This was a dumb desision...

“We try to enjoy ourselves and try not to go out of our way to make others have a bad trip,” I stammered a little bit but kept my nerves under control.

“We know it might be scary at times, but we also stick around for the ride,” I spotted Sam in the audience, giving me an encouraging smile.

“Unfortunately, this is not the ideal society. People will be rude or biased. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t stick up for what’s right,” I smiled a bit when I noticed Lexi giving me two thumbs up. “We can stick up for each other, and for what we feel is right. We can be prideful in who we are. So thank you again for coming, and showing you care for what’s right!”

I skipped off the podium and found Sam and Lexi. Lexi gave me a big bear-hug and Sam was flapping his hands in excitement.

“Oh my god! Els! You did so great!” Sam said between choppy little breaths.

“Thank you so much-” I started but Sam shushed me as he noticed Newscaster Drum walking straight towards us.

“Heya kid! Nice speech out there! You got real potential,” he said.

“Oh my god- You’re Mike Drum!” Sam said a look of giddy mortification spread wide across his face.

“Oh my god, I’m Mike Drum!” Mr. Drum replied, eyes jokingly wide. Sam squealed, his hands flapping wildly as he stood a bit too close to Mr. Drum. “Nice to meet ya, buddy,” Mr. Drum said, his usual charismatic grin on his face. Sam started to bombard him with questions and I gave Mr. Drum a look of Okay-thank-you-I’ll-leave-him-with-you.

As I walked through the crowd of righteous teenagers, I felt the pride swell in my chest; Pride and confidence. That’s what got us here above all else. Pride in our abilities, confidence in our rights, and pride and confidence in who we were. I knew there would be consequences for today. Deep down, I knew my actions today would have repercussions I would inevitably have to pay for. I knew I would have to deal with Mrs. Wolfe and her pack of angry PTA cronies. But the voice in my head told me it would be alright. Anyway, I was starting to get used to living in the moment.

#short story #lgbt #lgbtqia #please read this i worked hard on it #pride pins and needles #Doodlebug writes!#lgbtq+#my writing #my short story #story #original story #if someone made fanart/fic i would die please

10 notes · View notes

idontwanttospoiltheparty · 3 years ago

Note

Ive never really understood the hype surrounding Taylor Swift - I mean, I like some of her songs, but im not big on modern pop music so generally she just doesn’t really click for me. But I find it interesting that theres quite a few of Beatles/Swift blogs - like, they should have very little in common given that they’re from completely different eras and all, but somehow people seem to find a lot of semblance between the two. << and thats not me shitting on any of these blogs btw! Hope I don’t come off as rude or condescending there <3

Anyway, I was just wondering what got you into Taylor Swift? (I think ive read your post on how you got into the Beatles)

Hi, anon! Don't worry, I don't think you're rude or condescending! I agree they don't have too much in common and I don't really like their music for the same reasons.* I do have a playlist of Paul songs that have similar vibes to Taylor songs but it's mostly lyric-based. (Also the Beatles For Sale songs actually have quite the Taylor-tinge because Paul and John were not immune to Country Music)

I saw @stewy say once that a possible reason there are a good handful of us Swiftie-Beatle People on here is the appeal of a vast discography, which I agree with. If you have an artist/group with 200ish songs, it's just really fun to really dive into their work and explore all the facets. I also think: we're talking about the most popular band of all time and one of the highest-selling artists of the 21st century. They have a lot of fans so there's bound to be overlap, regardless of musical differences.

Moving on to your question: Getting into Taylor was an extremely personal experience for me and so my explanation is probably going to be kind of long so I'll put it under a read more.

It was spring-summer 2014, I was 15. I had heard the more popular songs of hers starting with Love Story and enjoyed pretty much all of them (I always found her hopelessly romantic point of view fascinating) but before I got a Spotify account in 2013 it was difficult in general for me to really get into an artists' entire discography so most of her songs had flown under my radar.

At the time, I was in this very weird sort of codependent online friendship with this girl who was basically my first real best friend and my first more or less crush. She was very depressed and I was very much in an I Could Fix Her™ mood, except that I obviously couldn't fix her and it made me feel like I wasn't enough and she had begun pulling more and more away from me and not replying to my messages and it was simply driving me insane. I consider it the saddest period in my life.

at some point during this period, I started trying to connect with other people (all online, I didn't know how to talk seriously to anyone IRL) and explaining the issues I'd been having, and one of the people who brought me joy and whom I actually felt not drained talking to was a huge swiftie. And IDK the fact that she loved Taylor and the fact that talking to her made my life better (and also the fact that I liked all the Taylor songs I knew at that point) just made me decide to give her a listen. And I think that whole "large discography discovery" phenomenon really helped me at the time (funny, because her discography has doubled since then). It gave me something new to focus on; there were just so many songs to discover, all telling such rich stories. I also have always loved bridges, they are almost always my favourite part of a song. And Taylor, god-bless her, loves them too and always puts her ALL in them. Like pretty much every bridge of hers brings the song to the next level, and even a lot of her songs I don't adore tend to have great bridges (Stay Stay Stay and Paper Rings come to mind). I think one of her most underrated qualities is how good she is at song structure and really building up an entire musical journey with a song. She also almost always adds cool ad-libs in her second and third choruses to keep the songs interesting and dynamic (or at least since she's gone pop). Anyways, back to the story: Then Taylor announced 1989 as her next album and released Shake It Off, and it was just like this great happy thing for me to look forward to, when I had very little keeping me going. The era was promoting a lot of happiness which in hindsight was slightly fabricated and it was just a really great thing for me to latch onto.

At the same time I was coming to realize that I was gonna have to pull away completely from my friend and all those break-up songs just… Hit, y'know? Like, some people seem to think Taylor's a one-trick pony because she likes to write break-up songs but to me, break-ups are just like this moment where you as a human can potentially feel every single emotion, and Taylor's songs have covered every facet of the concept. Here are some songs I remember from that period, that all meant a lot to me at the time because they explained my own pain to me so well:

Haunted, for the absolute terror you feel in the first moments you realize someone is probably gonna leave you. Come on, come on / Don't leave me like this / I thought I had you figured out / Something's gone terribly wrong / You're all I wanted.

I Almost Do, for the inner turmoil you feel when you know you have to stay away from someone for your own good but you really, really have to resist just running back to that person. We've made quite a mess, Babe / It's probably better off this way / And I confess, Babe / In my dreams you're touching my face / And asking me if I wanna try again / With you / And I almost do.

Last Kiss, for that absolute sadness that comes simply with remembering everything that was good and not comprehending how it could've possibly ended. I still remember / The look on your face / Lit through the darkness / At 1:58 / Words that you whispered / For just us to know / You told me you loved me / So why did you go / Away?

Forever and Always, for that feeling of desperately wanting to hold on to what you still have but at the same time realizing it probably isn't going to last and having no idea how to fix it, plus feeling like the other person doesn't even care. So here's to everything / Coming down to nothing / Here's to silence / That cuts me to the core / Where is this going? / Thought I knew for a minute / But I don't anymore.

Dear John, my all-time favourite song, for that moment you find clarity and realize that you deserved better and that you were headed in an extremely dark direction because of this other person. [DISCLAIMER: my friend did NOT abuse me nor did we have some inappropriate age difference. But the way she would ignore me and her general moodiness really affected my own mental health and self-worth problems] You paint me a blue sky / And go back and turn it to rain / And I lived in your chess games / But you changed the rules every day / Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone / Tonight / Well I stopped picking up / And this song is to let you know why.

(She's covered more aspects of break-ups in other songs [cheating, divorce, feeling awkward around your ex amongst others], these are just the ones I remember being really important to me when I was first getting into her)

She really helped me feel a lot less alone during one of my loneliest periods and I really can't thank her enough for that. Soon after this, I started crushing on a girl in my class and Taylor's love songs started to take on a new meaning for me as well.

What's crazy to me is, when she went on hiatus for a few years, a part of me thought maybe I'd grown out of her and no longer had much in common with her, but when reputation came out I was pulled right back into my love for her as a person and musician and then when Lover came out I found that she was still explaining feelings to me better than I ever could (specifically with the songs The Archer and Cornelia Street). And now with folklore and evermore she's simply absolutely perfected her story-telling and I find myself deeply moved even by the songs I don't directly relate to. I feel like she has this amazing ability to find the absolute truth in the specific. I've never had a summer romance with someone who already had a girlfriend and mostly wanted to go back to her, and yet the bridge of august feels so real to me, y'know?

Back when we were still changin' for the better Wanting was enough For me, it was enough To live for the hope of it all Cancel plans just in case you'd call And say, "Meet me behind the mall" So much for summer love and saying "us" 'Cause you weren't mine to lose

It's hard to explain but looking at this, like it's so much more than the story it's telling. It's talking about how when you're young you really need so little to feel satisfied; how sometimes the idea of someone maybe spending time with you is better than actually doing things with other people; and how if someone using you without much thought can make you feel like you're not even entitled to grieve what you lost. Sorry. I'll stop. Don't want to go insane.

So, all of this is very personal and unique to me, but I think really the main thing that draws me to her is how vulnerable and honest she is about emotions, how eloquently she can explain the pain of being alive to me. Some people think she isn't the strongest singer, but I think, much like John actually, one of her greatest assets is how good she is at projecting emotion. The song happiness is a song I think has some lyrically weak moments but her vocal performance on it is so raw and devastating that every single line works even when, looking at it on paper, it feels like it shouldn't.

Hope this rambling made sense to you, lmao?? I love talking about Taylor though so thanks for the ask! Also very open to giving song recs if you do want to check her out more but I won't unless solicited to lmao *Sort of off-topic but I do think there's a relation between my fascination with the Beatles' history and my love for a great break-up song. I like pain I guess :)

#ask #anon #taylor #mine

3 notes · View notes

dropintomanga · 4 years ago

Text

Attack on Titan's Ending - We're Now All Free

So this was finally it, huh? A manga that debuted in 2009 which became an anime/manga phenomenon in 2013 and would later still have a significant place in manga history ended this month. Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan was a title that I liked a lot and while there were some great moments in its final arc, the manga seemed like it tried a bit too hard to emphasize the complexity of human beings. Then again, maybe that's been the whole point of the series.

Spoilers abound after the jump.

I got to read up on the chapters that made up Volume 34. To be honest, it felt like somewhat of a mess. The whole backstory about Ymir Fritz confuses me a bit. I know that I will need to re-read the entire series to get a clearer idea. I got that the series became some kind of commentary on how people are always finding ways to divide one another via their differences.

It's just that I missed the old days, pre-basement. Attack on Titan was labeled as a horror action manga to a certain degree. I recently was reading an article about CM Punk (a former WWE wrestler who was very popular, but left the business after frustrations with management) and he talked about a horror movie he was cast in. Punk was asked about his love of horror and he said:

"I grew up on it, you know? I grew up on it because it was taboo. When things are taboo and you’re told you’re not allowed to watch it, what do you do? You watch it! You watch a lot of it. As you grow older, smarter and get some wisdom about the world, you realize that horror is the genre that tackles, before any other movie genre, the hard-hitting issues. Dating all the way back to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead tackling racism. I love a great slasher movie, right? Jason Voorhees and some camp counselors. Just let them loose."

As many fans who follow Attack on Titan will tell you, the story takes a huge shift from the days of Titans eating humans and the mystery surrounding them to a world where humanity is actually thriving and politics are a big reason why the events of Attack on Titan are the way they are. I know some people dropped the series after that. I don't blame them because to be frank, the series loses some of its unique appeal as most fans have seen stories of the latter quite often. There were still horror elements (albeit very few), but the tension delivered later on in most scenes weren't ones that gave readers chills down their spines.

I wrote a lot about Attack on Titan. I wrote about Mikasa, Hange, Annie, Eren's stress, Levi's past, etc. But once that time-skip happened, I never felt compelled to write about Attack on Titan much. There was some good exploration about Reiner's guilt about his actions early on. But nothing was super-compelling to talk about honestly to me. I think the time-gap between the 1st and 2nd anime seasons didn't help and so many exciting series (mostly from Shonen Jump) were coming out around that time period.

I did think the ending was okay. I do believe that Isayama was trying to point out that bringing real change in society comes from talking to one another in person despite differences. This was reflected in a campfire scene before the final battle where all of the "good guys" and the "bad guys" sat together to hash it out. You don't have to like one another, but never let differences become radicalized to the point of no return. I'll admit that this isn't easy and these things never are. Plus, talk should mostly be a starting point to get rid of injustice.

What I've learned from my own experiences is that I sometimes get anxious over certain conversations with people that I may not agree with. But once they happen in a safe environment and no one's shouting, I actually learn something and so does the other person. I can't assume everyone who disagrees with me is an awful person. I will never, ever suggest social media as a way to have those kinds of conversations because some people are either too awful or just say well-intentioned things without thinking about the person's true feelings.

And about people I truly dislike, I just look at them with pity because I know they're just being brainwashed by grifters/scammers/cult-like leaders.

Having those kinds of perspectives really benefited my mental health, so I guess I can appreciate Isayama for highlighting what it means to live among people who I don't always feel comfortable around.

I also love the Ackermans (Mikasa and Levi) for being the ones to take out the end-game threats. They're a family known to be Titan-killers, but there's also some Asian blood within them. I got a funny sense of Asian pride in seeing Mikasa and Levi wreck shit and getting respect for it.

While the ending felt similar to Code Geass, I kind of understand the view point on being the world's enemy to bring the world together. It's just a bit too naive. Even after all that, people are still at conflict with another only without Titans around. Maybe that's the whole point - the fact that self-sacrifice isn't a panacea to life's complexities. Martyrdom is sometimes worshipped a bit too much and there's a good number of disenfranchised young men who fall in love with that idea.

To end this post, I think back to how Isayama came up with the idea of Attack on Titan. He said that the story came to him after seeing a frustrated customer grab him by the collar while working at an internet cafe. Isayama noted how scary the person was and it was hard to communicate with him. The whole point of Attack on Titan is not just freedom, but getting past communication barriers with other people we fear.

When it comes to freedom, a lot of people seem to have a naïve and/or child-like sense of it. I see this a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic. They think freedom is basically the right to do whatever you want and not be punished for it. However, true freedom involves doing as you please and having the ability to be responsible to yourself and other people.

I know this viewpoint irks people, but the whole ending gives off that vibe. I have to respect Isayama for that.

I think that's all I have to say about Attack on Titan. This series played a big part in helping the anime and manga industries post-2008. It also made me see the possibility of a mainstream shonen hit that wasn't from Jump. I was one of the first people to pay attention to the series before it was licensed in English. I even got praise from Kodansha folks saying that I played a huge part in bringing the series over.

So I have a lot of fun memories. One of my personal favorite memories was during NYCC 2013 where a huge gathering of Attack on Titan cosplayers at Kodansha Comics' booth and Japanese news programming was there to film it. I got to witness all of that interaction between Americans and Japanese. I left the gathering thinking that things were really on the up-and-up for anime and manga perception over in the U.S. We're now in a golden age of anime/manga and Attack on Titan deserves credit for bringing us to it.

So thanks, Hajime Isayama, for showing the world what Kodansha stories are all about - inspiring impossible stories.

#Attack on Titan #manga #ending #characters #psychology #mental health

4 notes · View notes

rutilation · 4 years ago

Photo

In honor of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that has occurred in the last few days for fear of potential incoming Joshua discourse, I have decided to get ahead of the curve and start discoursing about him before the anime even airs!

(--because he’s an interesting character who I didn’t really understand until several years after finishing the game.)

So, I got into the game around 2010, and while I comprehended the broad strokes of Joshua’s character, he seemed more like an inscrutable trickster than a person with relatable emotions, and his reasons for setting the plot into motion were as opaque to me as his reasons for backing off at the last second.

In particular, a big sticking point for me was his assessment of Neku. He considered him “the worst person in Shibuya” and chose him as a proxy because of that. And for years I thought that was the most ludicrous aspect of the game. If the very worst person you can find in your bustling metropolis is a grumpy teenager who only has the potential to commit murder when under duress, then how could you possibly think that it’s beyond salvation, you utterly incoherent moron! But, several years afterwards, I realized why he saw Shibuya as unsalvageable, and why he held Neku in such contempt, and the disparate elements of the character started to click into place for me.

For as much as Joshua likes to put on airs, his motivations aren’t rational in the slightest. When Joshua says that Shibuya has grown shallow and static, he’s really talking about himself, and is projecting all the things he hates about himself onto the surrounding environment. He singles out Neku not because this run-of-the-mill moody teen is objectively the worst person in Shibuya, but because he sees Neku as a younger, more naive version of himself, and in a classic example of the narcissistic element of self-hatred, being like him is the most irredeemable sin Joshua can conceive of.

Then, I started thinking about what he actually intended to accomplish with his whole plan, and specifically, the duel at the end. I don’t think Joshua had any intention of presiding over a remade Shibuya. I think he was banking on Neku killing him and taking his place, and all that stuff about hijacking Shibuya from the composer during week two was for the sole purpose of planting that idea in Neku’s head. In life, Joshua was friendless, miserable, and myopic. He had hoped that by entering the world of the reapers’ game, he might find a sense of fulfillment. But in the end, this mere change of scenery didn’t do anything to address his underlying malaise, and life felt just as empty as it did before. Thus, he sets his plan in motion, intending to pass on his awful torch to a fellow awful person.

What he didn’t count on was Neku growing as a person and gaining hope instead of losing it. Joshua wanted to end his own world, but the outcome of all his scheming was that it opened up instead. Instead of validating his grand act of self-destruction as planned, Neku refutes Joshua's worldview in a way he can't ignore or dismiss.

When I first saw the secret ending, my reaction was something along the lines of: “Aww, I guess he’s not totally heartless after all.” But looking back on it, I can’t really see it as anything other than tragic. Joshua can’t lie to himself anymore, can’t continue to protect himself with a shield of apathy and cynicism, but because of the permanence of his past choices, he can’t actually free himself from this isolated and claustrophobic world he’s created either, and that prison is made all the more painful now that he realizes how much he’s missing out on. All he can do in the secret ending is watch forlornly as that younger version of himself grows up, makes connections, and moves on, while he’s still stuck at a dead-end.

(There’s a moment during the credits of KH:3D in which Joshua is perched above the rest of the cast on a giant letter, parodying his fondness for sitting on buildings. The others soon take notice of him, and hassle him into coming down and joining them. When I noticed it, it warmed my heart a bit, and made me hopeful about the trajectory of his character, regardless of whether or not a sequel would actually materialize.)

But all that being said, what I just wrote isn’t what the fine folk in the TWEWY fandom mean when they refer to Joshua discourse. As far as I can tell, the true discursive quandary is thus: “Is Joshua, in fact, Komaeda?” Well I have bad news for you guys because, in my humble opinion, he kind of is?

Now, I realize that knowing enough to write several paragraphs about such a cursed character can be seen as me telling on myself, but in my defense, your honor, I didn’t get into danganronpa until a few years after its popularity peaked. Whatever discourse wars were waged over Komaeda and his zipper-shoes back in 2013, I was not a part of them. With that out of the way...

You know those posts that get passed around here every so often about how the concept of gifted children sucks? How it puts too much pressure on them? How it encourages them to see themselves as instrumentally rather than inherently valuable? How it leaves them anxious, depressed, and bereft of ways to cope? Well, that’s the underlying allegory of SDR2, and underneath all the wacky shenanigans that comprise your average danganronpa title, that’s what the cast is contending with. This is true of it’s protagonist, and especially true of his rival.

in much the same way that Joshua is the worst parts of Neku exaggerated and taken to their logical conclusion, Komaeda plays precisely that role for Hinata. Both characters serve as a cautionary tale for the respective toxic mindsets that these games are denouncing.

Now that I think about it, Komaeda almost seems like an evolution of the concept, because he intuits from a fairly early point in the story that the protagonist’s very essence is a refutation of his worldview. He insists on viewing Hinata as being far above him, but in actuality he realizes Hinata is in a similar situation--see his comment in one of the FTEs that Hinata feels like a miserable outsider like himself. And if someone even a little bit like him is capable of experiencing happiness and connecting with others, what then? The gap between how Komaeda wants to feel and how he actually feels is a subtle but reoccurring thread throughout the story. This, I think, is why he seems to regard Hinata with both attraction and revulsion, treating him as simultaneously an avatar of his repressed will (hence why he attempts to bolster him in the class trials,) and an object of scorn (hence the smattering of passive aggressive jabs before chapter four, and the outright antagonism from that point forward.) While Joshua fools himself until the the end of the game, Komaeda, master of doublethink that he is, seems at times self-aware of the fact that he is a foil in the literary sense, and that awareness partly informs his neurosis. His take on the character type feels a little more post-modern, I suppose?

Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if Joshua were an inspiration for Komaeda’s character and role in the story. But even then, I suspect that the question is less, “Is Joshua, in fact, the same sort of character as Komaeda?” and more “Is Joshua, in fact, going to become a contemptible meme like Komeada?” To which I say, probably not. *knock on wood*

For one thing, while TWEWY will certainly experience an uptick in popularity once the anime starts airing, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will capture the nerd zeitgeist enough to turn one of its characters into a meme that transcends the story from whence it came. Furthermore, there’s more to being a tumblr sexy meme man than merely belonging to an archetype. Komaeda’s spiritual successor in DRV3 is kind of popular, but isn’t an inter-fandom joke in the same way he is, and neither are Kaworu from Eva or Ryo from Devilman, for that matter, and those are the grandfathers of the archetype in question. In addition, the other infamous tumblr sexymen that come to mind, Sans and Onceler, aren’t a part of the white-haired-anime-rival-boy archetype, and Sans isn’t even a conventionally attractive twink. I posit that the alchemy determining which characters and media tumblr loses its shit over is more varied and complicated than it appears at first glance. (Not that I actually want to devote much brainpower to that particular field of study, lol.)

Uhhhhh... in conclusion, thank you for reading my words and also the DR3 anime is trash.

#the world ends with you #twewy

31 notes · View notes