#i thought the text was a bit hard to read when i picked themes tho. but looking back at it it's not too bad
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if you haven't used skycrypt but wanna participate just for fun, the website is here and the themes are in the top-right corner. if you're on a phone and dont see the themes option, turn your phone sideways :]
and if you have multiple just pick one of them :0
#i dont think anyone cares about this too much but i wanna see what happens anyways lol#been a long time user of sky.lea.moe but lately i've been using sunrise orange. Big Fan of orange#i thought the text was a bit hard to read when i picked themes tho. but looking back at it it's not too bad#i think the skills strain my eyes slightly more then the lea one but. small price to pay for such a nice shade of orange#chat#sb#tbh i just want something to do. im suffering rn i need to keep typing or something before i explode#so my solution to this was a poll. maybe i'll find something else to do too idk :P
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i'm so curious about your character gender reads now tho 👀👀
(You enter the kitchen and see me, eating shredded cheese out of the fridge by the handful)
(I turn around to face you.)
Hi. Do you want me to sell you on amab NB Siffrin? I'm going to try and sell you on amab NB Siffrin. And maybe even a little bit of tranfem siffrin and/or loop. as a treat. just for you.
So, (I put the cheese back in the fridge.)
This read of mine comes from a number of things, a lot of them to do with the game's themes, and to do with Siffrin being a narrative foil to the other characters. And Vaugarde as a whole.
(READMORE WARNING: THIS IS LIKE 6K WORDS LONG. YOU ALL SHOULD KNOW BY NOW I DON'T MAKE POSTS WITHOUT UNCONSCIOUNABLE AMOUNTS OF EVIDENCE AND EXPLANATION. IF ANYTHING I'M BEING RESTRAINED HERE. THUMBS UP.)
(Pre-readmore note: this is in response to me having given an analysis of how I personally percieve Sifloop in relation to asexuality and shipping. Which you can look at here. (x))
It is however, not what my like, no-holds-barred no-rules just-for-me headcanon for Siffrin would be. (which is intersex 'head empty no thoughts' siffrin, for the record). This is instead my close-reading-of-the-text-and-themes interpretation of Siffrin. This is why I'm gonna be saying Read and not Headcanon, to distinguish the two. (Anything I consider a little bit too much of a stretch vis a vis interpretive hard reads I will call a headcanon. But those are for the last bit of this post.)
Unlike *gestures at mass media* All That… ISAT is already packed to the gills with queer rep, to the point where I feel no need to grasp at straws and make overextended reaches into obviously unintended subtext. Like with, y'know, most media. Since here, the subtext isn't unintended. Like this isn't a Transfem Metal Sonic or Aroace Ash Ketchum situation where I know none of the evidence is on purpose and I'm just having fun making a conspiracy theory pinboard out of it. This is like… There's intentionality there. And I want to engage with it on its level, see what the text itself suggests. It's my personal preferred method of expressing deep respect to a text. (Not that it has to be anyone else's, obviously. This is just my way of showing I love a work.)
So yeah, I am, in general, very interested in hearing hard-fought arguments when it comes to interpreting texts. I'm glad ISAT has a lot to pick at here, and so, I will. (and since not a lot of texts ever have anywhere near this kind of depth in this arena, i don't wanna squander it… i'll try and keep my own biases as in check as i can, and already have done by hashing quite a bit of this interpretation out with two people of very different gender identities to mine. To put it mildly, binary-aligned or transfem I am very squarely Not.)
(Now that the cheese bag has been removed from the equation, I drop this framing device, sit you down at the table and begin to dredge up evidence from below it.)
Okay, so. What are my like… Core reasonings here? I think I can split it into three categories. Broadly, with an amount of overlap, so bear with me…
SIFFRIN AS A FOIL AND CONTRAST TO MIRABELLE, ISABEAU AND THE CHANGE RELIGION AS A WHOLE.
SIFFRIN'S HABITS OF CLINGING TO 'KNOWN QUANTITIES', SCAPEGOATS, AND THEMES OF RACIAL IDENTITY INTERSECTING WITH GENDER IDENTITY.
SIFFRIN, LOOP, DE-PERSONING, DEHUMANISING, APATHY AND SURVIVAL.
Okay so up top I'm going to split my argument for Siffrin's gender identity Present and Future here. This means, for now, I'm arguing for AMAB NB Siffrin alone. The transfem stuff is for later (and more for loop, in my mind, too).
I have a few direct observations of the text here that set things up. Here are the things in-game that make me assume that Siffrin, as of the start of the game, has not yet undergone any radical change to their identity in their life. Not on purpose, at least. These are ordered in a messy but logical flow, so uh, try and keep up. I'll synthesise at the end. I Prommy.
SIFFRIN AS A FOIL AND CONTRAST TO MIRABELLE, ISABEAU AND THE CHANGE RELIGION AS A WHOLE.
CHANGE & THE UNIVERSE: PERCEIVED OPPOSITES
When interacting with most objects in the Changing Room in the house, they express a genuine curiosity toward body craft. It seems they are legitimately unfamiliar with it on a deeper level than having simply heard of it.
Despite this curiosity (explicitly stating they've previously wondered about it), they dismiss it as too much work early on in the game. These points combined seem to suggest to me that they have never previously sought out any kind of real change to their appearance or identity. Either for gender reasons, or other body dysmorphia reasons. (Which, despite the dismissal, they do refer to their body as a 'meat prison', which is not particularly positive) However...
This changes in Act 3. In acts 3 and 4 they flatly state: "You're thinking about crafting your body. You seem to have all the time in the world now." While still never spoken aloud, their declining mental state corrosponds with a worn-down, almost nihilistic reckoning with the feelings they masked with the 'meat prison' joke in act 2.
[Image: Interactions with the change craft textbook in acts 2 and 3/4.]
In talking to Mirabelle, they are very self assured that one can stay the same/be comfortable with their born identity. They also seem a little unsettled by the change religion's flippancy in general, which makes sense, as they have been clinging to the famliar (even when painful) to cope with other traumas. (More on this later, section 2)
The Universe Faith appears to heavily disincentivise Wanting for oneself and other expressions of Free Will due to safeguarding against Wish craft. This seems to have impacted Siffrin's mental state majorly, even if they do not recognise it. The followers of the faith are (if Siffrin is to be believed) incentivised to 'go with the flow' and take paths of least resistance, and those that DO make big decisions will tend to justify things as being The Universe's Will. (See: The King's entire Modus Operandi, and the way Loop (and Siffrin) do the same rote actions, constructing worldviews (the play analogy, the Universe's Will) and justify that as what the Universe Would Want (despite a total lack of evidence to prove as such)) As such, it seems as if a follower of this faith as neurotic as Siffrin would be unlikely to act upon any Wants to Change Themselves without a lot of turmoil and backwards-justification. (Of note, Loop's forcible change coinciding with a dropping of pronoun. But that is again for later, section 3) As of the start of the game, they do not appear to have broached this kind of turmoil directly.
[Image: Act 5 interaction with the star journal, emphasis on it being a cautionary tale against reckless usage of wish craft, instilled so deeply to be a children's bedtime story]
Siffrin, in act 5, grows frustrated with both The Universe and The Change God, feeling abandoned by the former. They struggle with simultaneously anthropomorphising the Universe as a cruel onlooker, while also seemingly acknowledging them as a cold, almost scientific fact of nature. This would heavily imply that the 'blame' put upon the Universe by Siffrin in these moments is known to them, at least a little, to be potentially meaningless. It seems that somewhere in Siffrin's belief system is something, be it the core or merely a creeping worry, that the Universe is not a thinking, feeling, thing. And thus that their invocations of "The Universe's Will" are merely rationalisations of random chance and consequence. This is in DIRECT contrast to the Change God, proven to be an emotive sapient entity, who merely refuses to offer a helping hand. (Similar sentiments are, too, spoken by the Change God itself.)
[Images: Interacting with the window in the observatory in act 5, text from the change god meeting]
So. These are the bulk of my observations when it comes to how Siffrin is positioned in contrast to the Change Belief. It would seem to be that Siffrin, inkeeping with their role as an outsider, is a complete fish out of water in Vaugarde's change-centric world. This makes sense! It makes them a compelling foil to the Vaugardians in our cast, and allows the Vaugardians to challenge Siffrin's worldviews merely by existing. It also, more importantly, makes Siffrin an interesting lens through which to inspect our two most Change-driven characters. Mirabelle and Isabeau.
MIRABELLE.
Mirabelle and Siffrin's differing faiths are put on display the most frequently. Interactions like the circle key and the party's disbelief of Siffrin's facts about the stars make this clear. These interactions other Siffrin from the group further, and are another avenue through which Siffrin can ignore their own needs, not communicating with the party and allowing them to dismiss things he deems important.
Obviously, the friendquest is primarily about Mirabelle's struggle with her aromanticism and asexuality. But there's an implicit undercurrent of gender there too. Mirabelle has never made a big change, not like Isabeau. She has never 'changed completely', by her words. And Siffrin distinctly finds this an odd thing to be worried by. Whatever culture he carries has no pressure to explore these avenues, it seems. Siffrin is able to help her by sharing their honest opinions, that he's never felt the need to change these things, and he's happy (allegedly). Why should she?
[Image: Mirabelle's friendquest text] Siffrin is not thinking particularly hard when he first does the friendquests, they are just being themselves. By positioning Siffrin as this unchanged yet confident object, they are in the perfect position to help Mirabelle by being in her almost exact position, both sexuality and transgender status (albeit, with the caveats of potential alloromanticism, and a they pronoun), that they become her ideal foil. (And in fact, the subtle differences between their positions in canon add to this, showing a display of Perceived Genuine Truth, rather than simple in-group camaraderie)
Whereas…
ISABEAU.
When Mal du pays speaks as Isabeau, it says the following;
"I don't want to know someone who won't even try to change, who luxuriates in things staying the exact same like you do."
I don't want to know someone - Shame of being known, that's Isabeau's insecurity. Reflected back at Siffrin, who has become the worst thing imaginable to each of their friends, in Siffrin's own mind. He absorbs their insecurities like a sponge and incorporates them into himself. Empathy turned ill.
Who luxuriates in things staying the exact same - Now THAT'S interesting. This is not Isabeau's insecurity, it's Siffrin's own. But also, it appears as if, Siffrin, whom to Mirabelle was unflappable in that not changing was alright, has internalised some of her worry. That it is MDP's Isabeau saying this, though, shows this is about Personal Change, perhaps even Specifically Gender and Self Image, rather than Mirabelle's spiritual side.
Isabeau and his distinct change in personality and gender, to become someone who he actually likes… Diametric to Siffrin, who has been stagnant for a long time, presumably as far as they can remember. It would seem to imply they have no recourse against this argument. Siffin becomes, in his mind, the opposite to Isabeau, a man he deeply admires the bravery of when told the story of his Change. These are Siffrin's words against themselves, that they consider themselves to have never even 'tried' whatever it is they think Change to be.
So. These are my main points vis a vis: Siffrin as a foil. This reading would posit that Siffrin's He/They status is, well, almost accidental? Which I would imagine befitting of them. They are, at the start of the game, still the mysterious rogue who never elaborates upon anything. They aren't going to be correcting a they/them from a teammate who is likely far more cautious about assumptions.
Notably, Mirabelle excludes Siffrin from the label "man" in the bathroom monologues… But as does Siffrin when in the prologue poem room. Though one needs remember, Siffrin only expresses these thoughts internally.
[Image: Bathroom conversation featuring Isabeau identified as the party's singular man]
[Image: Prologue!Siffrin expressing that they are not a man in very certain terms.]
While I do wonder what Mirabelle's knowledge (or lack thereof, potentially! Did Siffrin actually divulge this to her, once? Or is she making assumptions again?) is here, this is pretty clear evidence that Siffrin doesn't see themselves As A Man. (that, and Adrienne's word of god "fella" comments). I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this… but.
The thesis here is, that Siffrin may want to explore their gender further; doesn't feel connected to Masculinity, and yet, keeps that He pronoun around? Well, the Universe does not, in Siffrin's mind, really allow for personal wants and desires. If their friends start they/themming them, then cool. They like it, but never requested it, so it's the Universe's will. But, asking? Making decisions and requests and rocking the boat? That seems to scare Siffrin a lot. It seems to scare them so much it causes a lot of, if not all of, the conflict in the game. I feel like it's a fair deduction that this aversion to humour their own desires pervades a lot of their existence.
Plus, I think there's meat there. By only allowing Siffrin to reckon with any potential desires to change only after growing closer with the family, you get to explore things like "How does Mirabelle feel that even the person who said she didn't have to change is changing." and the slightly less potentially harrowing (OR MORE, IF YOU WANT IT TO BE? IDK. I'M NOT YOUR BOSS.) "Isa's continued changing allows Siffrin a space to explore it, maybe even just by proxy, or maybe by joining them."
But mostly, this section is about how Siffrin not having Changed Yet makes them delightfully strong narratively; allowing them to relate to Mirabelle, and get cold feet when comparing themselves to Isabeau. I love this as a narrative strengthener. It's very rare in media that we get to explore a nonbinary character's thoughts and insecurities on whether or not they're "doing enough" to be nonbinary. Even less so Aligned nonbinary people. And reading that alignment and insecurity through the lens of a nonbinary person not fully disconnected from their assigned gender at birth? It's a very compelling exploration of a very common and raw and yet underdiscussed feeling, much like the rest of ISAT. I think this is an extremely potent element should it be read this way, and is only strengthened when taking Siffrin's other themes into account.
Speaking of which.
2. SIFFRIN'S HABITS OF CLINGING TO 'KNOWN QUANTITIES', SCAPEGOATS, AND THEMES OF RACIAL IDENTITY INTERSECTING WITH GENDER IDENTITY.
HOLDING ON TO WHAT YOU KNOW. (OR KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT.)
I explained above many of my thoughts on the Universe Faith, and trying to keep these two sections separate was difficult, but needed to be done for the sake of clarity. But this section and the above are deeply intertwined.
Siffrin… Holds on to the things they know. They do not know much. But man do they fucking hold. And yet, paradoxically, they are also avoidant about it.
It is made clear in the text, to the point where I really don't feel the need to rehash it here, that Siffrin's disconnection from their homeland is incredibly painful, but that they consider that culture utterly and irreplaceably important to them. They cannot face it, it is too painful. They cannot let it go, it is too important.
Knowing what we know of the Island's irl inspirations (though, word of god, the exact location is not supposed to matter, one can infer it from the text (and I did! within reasonable proximity!)), Siffrin is of an indigenous peoples of some description, more than likely. And at the very least, Siffrin carries with them inherent biases and ignorances that show that Vaugarde's conceptions of things don't quite mesh with their own. Bowing to the Vaugardian way of things could very easily be seen as assimilation, in this way.*
And identity? Gender? Presentation? Role? All of that has a cultural element. There's no telling what specifics Siffrin has lost in that arena, and that's the problem. Neither do they. How paralysing, the feeling, to know that should you change yourself you risk unknowingly erasing another piece of home? I wouldn't blame them for locking it off. Keeping their old clothes, keeping what little they can remember of themselves… It doesn't seem to me a conducive or safe mental space to get experimental.
And the Universe makes for a perfect scapegoat. As referenced in the section above, a lot can be justified should you call it "The Universe's Will", because who's there to call you on it? Hardly anyone. Your divine right to Freeze A Place In Time; Your Deserved Punishment for Wanting to be Loved: All of it the Universe-- If you want it to be. And thusly, if the Universe wanted you to be a certain way, wouldn't you already be? Wouldn't it make you so? (Wouldn't it take away your body, that which makes you human? If that is what it thought of you?) So best to put it out of your mind. Wouldn't want to accidentally wish anything.
But as the game itself puts it, personified by The King, you cannot stay mired like this forever. As Loop themselves puts it, they can "get so fixated, sometimes." At some point they need to allow themselves to grow in whatever direction they need, because in the end, they need to live their life. They don't need to abandon their country, their culture, but they can't let it restrain them either.
(* MASSIVE CAVEAT: im white as fuck boyyy. i cant say shit. im like technically Of The Land im like 90% pictish or something ridiculous like that so my particular line has never moved anywhere but. this is notttt something i have input or insight on. this is all gleaned from reading and listening to indiginous perspectives from wherever they may be. i am simply trying to infer from what the game gives us without inserting my own feelings on the matter.)
3. SIFFRIN, LOOP, DE-PERSONING, DEHUMANISING, APATHY AND SURVIVAL.
Alright, here's some less heady and purely-thematic points to round things out. And where we'll also address the fucked up star being in the room; Loop.
My last couple of reading points are the most potentially-transfem to me. Or at least the ones that really hammer home, to me, a seeming lack of want to be masculine-aligned.
ANOTHER NOTE ON THE 'NOT A GUY' THING.
Obviously, there is the aforementioned "Not a man/not that you're a boy" thing. This is rather straightforward, but also still pretty ambiguous. You can be masc-aligned and still Not A Guy. But it does seem to be of note that being a guy very much does not seem to be a goal of Siffrin's. I would posit this in direct contrast to… Isabeau.
But not Isabeau's masculinity. I would instead hold it up against Isa's femininity.
ISAT, as a text, has its characters have genuinely different levels of security in their gender identity, and Isabeau, despite still having insecurities, seems super chill on the gender angle specifically! Their internal strife comes not from their 'not feeling like a man enough' or 'hating being a woman', but instead from their self perception as a friendless nerd! Something that seems to be only tangentially related to Isa's gender, really?
The big dumb bruiser thing is certainly aided by being a dude, but Isa still seems completely comfortable referring to themselves with feminine language, calling himself a "mother hen" (prologue) and having "the heart of a fair maiden" (cookie snack time). (However, they also take being excluded from Mira's girly book club as a surprised compliment, implying they weren't expected to be excluded, and find it affirming.) And even further so, Isa states they want to continue changing further and exploring their identity more, being rather blatant that they might lean back into femininity (and more importantly, let themselves be outwardly smart again), since they're starting to feel hurt by everyone assuming they ARE genuinely stupid.
[Image: Prologue Isa calling himself a mother hen]
And man, this is such a breath of fresh air vis a vis representation. I don't think I really need to explain that. A character who's gender identity is driven by chasing euphoria, even if it started out by trying to drive out misery. Isabeau's character is so damn good. But this essay isn't about him, so get back in the crate, boy.
... So here we have Isa, who is genuinely comfortable reclaiming things about their birth gender, and Mirabelle who loves her traditionally feminine traits to the point where she feels a little guilty that she isn't rejecting them to foster change. And then we have Siffrin… who seems to reject masculine language…? Hrm… (… And then we have The King. A Masculine Title. Someone who Siffrin increasingly sees themselves in and deeply, deeply dislikes this.)
APATHY AND SURVIVAL
It should be clear by now that I see Siffrin's core character as being driven by avoidance and survival. This seems to lead to a lot of apathy, brushing off emotions that are too intense or events and occurences that are too painful. (See: just absolutely everything with Bonnie)
It's all Siffrin really seems to be able to do to Survive. They've travelled, seemingly alone, for what would be around a decade by what the game says about the island's disappearance. They've lived alone on the road as a traveller in a country that so openly welcomes strangers that THE KING and his whole motives can happen. Siffrin is avoidant and refuses to acknowledge problems or strive for help and comfort.
So. That line about the dress. Let's unpack the line(s) about the dress.
THE DRESS LINE, AND THE WAY IT CHANGES BETWEEN PROLOGUE, ACT 2, AND ACT 3.
Good god where to start with this. Full disclosure, the first draft here was way more vague in how I approached this line because I remembered it (and another line, I'll get to it.) way more tame, but going and getting the screenshots..... Siffrin. Buddy. We gotta unpack this.
In act 2, we have "You haven't worn a dress in forever!". This is a neutral, if seemingly a little joyous statement. All we really glean from this is the information that Siffrin at some point, wore 'a' dress. No real inferences there. (Maybe you could say that the singular as opposed to plural makes it more likely that they borrowed/only owned One Dress rather than owned several? But that's a massive stretch...)
Then, act 3/4 shuffles this off into a more general "You wonder if you'll ever wear different clothes again." Which is a more despairing and distant statement. Considering Siffrin seems to travel with only the items they can carry, and owns sleep clothes... It's unclear how many changes of clothing they have. The party seems to consider the cloak a pretty permanent fixture, anyhow. But this line doesn't really say much aside from 'oh god i'm losing myself to the time loop malaise'
NOW THE PROLOGUE. Prologue Sif, buddy, pal, Loop, if I'm allowed to call you that....
Thousands of loops in. We are wistful for specifically dresses. You've forgotten almost everything. You dream about someday seeing the sun again. To be anywhere but here. You want to wear a dress again.
I. Kind of do not know what to do here but point at it. Like I said, my first draft had me half-remembering the progression of this line and as such I was far more vague on what I thought it could imply. Instead this is just straight up yearning.
To, try and segue back to what I had initially written, we'll pick up here...
Siffrin expresses a want to wear other clothes, explore changing their body... But instead, they wear a ratty old form-covering cloak that keeps them warm and safe and is a last reminder of home. They are shapeless, formless, hiding their face under the brim of a wide hat. They do not voice their desire to wear a dress aloud. They once again, keep a desire to themselves, because they do not allow themselves to want publicly. Apathy is safer. Apathy and quiet means you do not risk retribution or hurt.
While I do not think the above is exclusively a transfeminine feeling, it really, really reads like one when taken part and parcel with assuming Siffrin has denied themselves prior exploration.
... And here I have to break my first draft again. I was being, once again, restrained in my reading when writing this. Because I had convinced myself I had maybe straight up imagined one of the lines I was basing my reads on, because I couldn't find it. Because it was a line that read so strikingly desolate to me that my brain had slotted it in during Act Five, meaning when I went looking for it neither me nor my friends could find it.
It's in acts 3 and 4. It's a line I already brought up.
"You're thinking about crafting your body. You seem to have all the time in the world now."
good fucking christ. sorry to break the academic tone but Jimminy Fucking Willikers, Siffrin. What's with that bit. The resignation and despair and guilty comfort we know the timeloop brings them, bleeding into the gender.
This. *taps my finger harshly on my desk* THIS, this feels transfem. this feels so wildly transfem to me. The knowledge that they've never changed before this line lends. The admission that they've been holding back because it's 'too much work'. I spent a lot of time during the game relating Siffrin not to myself but to my friends.
If I'm honest, really, truly, I'm not all too often in Siffrin's shoes. I'm the stable one, of my group. I'm the rock people ground themselves on. And I see so much hesitance, all the time. Denial of joy because what if it's taken away, again? Or futilely out of reach? It hurts more to try, and to fail, than to never try at all.
I wanted to shake Siffrin by the shoulders this whole game. Grit teeth beg them to accept help because for fuck's sake people are clearly offering it get it through your skull--
*coughs* Ah. Ahem. Right. The uh, academic tone.
Right. What I mean to say is, this read as transfem to me because of the way it relates to real-world experiences of denial. And this combo of the Dress line, and the progression of the Meat Prison line, the constant evidence of never having strived for what they want, and that insistance that you're not a man, seem to dislike being percieved as a man, but not being able to shed the outward signifiers?
Individually, yes, these points can be read in different ways. The total opposite ways, even, I'm sure! But as a gestalt it feels really, really transfem. Even if yeah, sure Vaugarde is a magical setting where being transgender is accepted, and this hesitance, specifically, around gender, might not 'make sense' in 'the lore'...
Diegesis isn't everything. Sometimes something that reflects a real-world feeling is important, even if it doesn't 'mesh' with 'the lore' of the world.
TANGENT: DIEGESIS AND READING INTO NON-REAL-WORLD-SETTINGS.
This is a Watsonian vs Doylist spectre that's been haunting this whole argument. In-universe (Watsonian), Vaugarde has seemingly no discrimination between genders, sexualities, and a lackadaisical approach to most things in the arena. Reading our own patriarchal/heterosexual/amanonormative/perisexist society unto it does not make sense, not in this context.
In the real world, however (Doylist), ISAT is a text made in our prejudiced society. A text that is distinctly flavoured by those bigotries which it is kicking back against. Because of this, it is not the whole story to simply read the text while discarding our real-world-informed inferences. Isabeau is a big example of this. While perfectly accepted in Vaugarde, he is very obviously a revolutionary character in our real-world space! He has so much to say, specifically BECAUSE things about him that are not readily accepted here, are accepted there! Same with Mira's struggles, and yes, Siffrin's too.
ISAT was written with the knowledge of how it would play against our real world in mind, we know this, clearly, from many an interview. This is most present in how it engages with asexuality and aromanticism (and immigrant identity), but make no mistake, it influences the Whole Text.
Ergo, just because I view certain writing choices here in the context of Our Real World Perspectives On Gender and not Vaugarde's In-Universe Perspectives, it does not make them an invalid read. They are simply a Doylist read.
There's been an admittedly loosey-goosey lack of delineation here between things I'm reading with either lens, because for the most part all of these points have been a vague synthesis of both that I can't quite decouple. Unprofessional, I know, but I'll admit to not having written my thoughts down like this in a good long while. Usually I just hash this out verbally over discord voice to a small number of weirdo literature and classics student friends who are willing to humour me. I'm an arts student too, but animation hardly required I actually write an essay to a literature degree's standard. Lol.
DE-PERSONING. AND LOOP. OH JESUS . LOOP .
Siffrin de-persons themselves a lot. I say de-person rather than dehumanise because, well, there's a subtle difference there. Siffrin doesn't see themselves as vermin or an animal or an object, but they do seem to see themselves as lesser, not requiring the respect they grant others. They aren't, you know, a 'real person'.
People get to have things like thoughts and wants and identities. Siffrin is, at best, Just Siffrin. They have what they have and they don't ask for more and they don't (CAN'T) feel too strongly on what they do have!
When Loop at first offers their pronouns they offer the Royal 'We'. This is at least a little bit, a joke. A nudge toward their true identity, a potential dig at themselves for becoming so understanding of The King. Mostly though, a joke on the first thing…. and a sign that they do not see themselves as a separate entity to the Siffrin stood before them.
When Siffrin rejects this, they settle for they/them. Loop drops the he/him, presumably partially to cover their tracks, but… They just showed their hand with the 'Royal We', and if you wanted to go even further with this, there's no way for us to know whether Loop is treating this pronoun as singular or not. They presumably are, but it is still a potentially plural pronoun.
Loop… Clearly does not see themselves as a person. It's, I would say, a completely reasonable assumption that the form they have taken reflects implicit feelings toward themselves as less than a person, an actor, a monster, a tool, a means to an end. They are rendered inhuman by The Universe, frivolous distractions removed. No mouth, inventory and clothes confiscated, nothing between the legs. Formed roughly in the shape of a person to allow them to do their only job: Help.
Loop's body does not make logical sense, given their continued ability to sleep, dream and their continued habit of deep breaths to self-soothe. It would seem to me, it was made in the image it was, with only the tools it needed to Help Siffrin. Why obfuscate their identity? Because giving the game away too early would likely make them lose hope. Why so deeply, thoroughly star themed? An instant signal, that even if a stranger, they are an ally. They are home.
[Image: Loop saying that they take naps and dream, and evidence of Loop habitually attempting to breathe in the twohats lose-to-loop ending]
And they… Degender themselves. No longer with any bodily signifiers of masculinity, and cruelly disallowed the ability to hide themselves beneath fabric, they are null. The spoiler Q&A (paratext, as it were) states that:
Q. Is Loop: 1. Actually comfortable with both he and they, but only gave the one pronoun to emphasize the distance? 2. Only using they/them because a large life event led to a shift in identity/ how they’d like to be perceived? or 3. time lops stole he from they they :( A. Mostly that first one. But all three of those reasons have a bit of truth to them.
While the 'mostly the first one' comment does imply that Loop would not baulk at being he/him'd (similar to how Siffrin does not), the other reasons, especially the second, having 'a bit of truth' does lend credence to this reading. That Loop's self-perception has shifted, and what I posit, is that this shift is in tandem with a disconnection with humanity. Due, presumably, to the dehumanising experience of the timeloop.
Loop has no biology to speak of, and yet they remain blind in one eye. I take this as an implication that they considered this so core to themselves, to who they could remember being, that it stayed. Even if they had forgotten their own face, trapped in a part of the house with no mirrors, they knew they couldn't see. They kept this, and yet seemingly they, or The Universe, or both of them in tandem, discarded all else.
This isn't like…. Healthy behaviour. That is for certain. But it is interesting that Siffrin and Loop seem to hold on to their masculinity by a thread, and that Loop, when actually given the excuse to make a choice, chooses the Neutral Option. Siffrin might de-person themselves, but Loop, Loop is absolutely dehumanising themselves. From Loop's own mouth (or lack thereof) do they call themselves a Corpse. That's… pretty damn bad.
TANGENT 2: POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE JAPANESE TRANSLATION.
Did somebody say 'distance'? Yeah turns out that has some more potential evidence. In the form of First Person Pronouns. See, English, with its third person only pronouns relies on others to gender you. Japanese, you get to gender yourself. And Siffrin specifically has an interesting discrepancy in the way he refers to himself.
(DISCLAIMER: I . DO NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT JAPANESE. THIS IS SECOND-HAND KNOWLEDGE. SOURCED FROM THIS TUMBLR POST AND OTHER QUICK SKIMS OF WIKIPEDIA)
Loop and Siffrin use the same, very neutral "mostly male but could go either way" pronoun of 僕 boku. Safe, soft friendly pronoun. Used by people on the younger side of adulthood, not so impolite that you can't use it in a formal setting. Such a neutral all-rounder that female singers in japan tend to use boku in their songs to relate to the audience with quiet confidence.
And in their internal monologue? Siffrin uses a completely different pronoun. In his head, for himself, he uses 自分 jibun. Now, this may be an artefact of the monologue's english second-person "You", since jibun can also be used to mean a very neutral "self". A "myself/herself/himself" type 'self'. But when used as a first person pronoun, it has a connotation of being… distant, introspective. Which is… a fascinating implication, if that was the intent.
But I don't know anything about japanese so ! If I'm off the mark, discard this!
LOOP, PART 2: MAYBE NOT A GREAT STATE TO BE IN.
While Siffrin I can comfortably argue that they can like, keep their current gender presentation, whatever you may perceive it to be, once the game is over, Loop, I cannot.
Siffrin's potential issues with their identity are ones that honestly feel like they would best be explored with gentle refinement and searching. They don't need to violently seperate themselves from what they are now, far from it, in fact. They need to learn to grow comfortable in their own skin, and with the people they love. To become open and trusting, with an open mind to where it may lead.
Loop has already lost this battle. They don't get to refine anymore, just pick up the pieces. While I don't necessarily think radical change is Good for Loop, I think they may Need It. For them, resting will probably become stagnation (see: napping all day under the tree, resigned, really, to the idea they're stuck there forever.), they need a shake-up in order to re-find their feet. Even if they end up right back where they started, they still need to do the actual painful process of soul-searching first.
Problem is, they're still rather avoidant. So it basically becomes a question of getting them into a situation where this exploration is forced upon them. At which point, that's a whole new plotline. This becomes fanfiction. Hence, why while I think Transfem-Egg Loop is a Valid Read when extrapolated from Siffrin… I must concede any actual adventures into them acting upon that as headcanon territory. I just do not know how you would get them there without making a whole new Thing, at which point it stops being Just A Read of the text haha. It doesn't help that Loop and Siffrin (grudgekeepers supreme) both have reason to spite the Change God after who was phone.
As for whether this egg-read reflects directly back on to Siffrin? Maybe! They are the same person. But I think that, especially with Vaugarde's lax views, and their actual differences (Loop's general worse mania // Siffrin's incentive to stay a reminder to themselves and Loop of their country) means they could easily go two different routes, along the road to becoming their own distinct individuals. (And in all honesty, growing into their differences is probably the more healthy option in the long run if you're keeping Loop around? But again, we are going so far into the future here this is no longer a read. And I am not here to dispense baseless headcanons without massive disclaimer, so…)
Tl;Dr:
Siffrin's Survival-Apathy and hesitance to change feels really thematic to their being 'what's left' of their homeland
They seem unsettled by the flippancy of the Change Religion at times, clinging to the familiar to cope with the trauma of displacement.
Mal du pays speaks of them that they have not 'tried' to change, showing an insecurity there, even outside of the literal stagnance of the loops.
They are self assured to Mira that one does not have to change, in a very genuinely personal impulsive statement.
They and others exclude themselves from being "A Man", but Siffrin keeps desires to explore their expression to themselves.
The Universe belief, seemingly in Siffrin's view of it, disincentivises Free Will and Wants very heavily. It is not hard to assume they extend this to all elements of their life.
They have self-admittedly never pursued tangible change, likely due to this aversion to choice. Despite this, they express interest in changing, seeming nonplussed with their body, and house at least some desire for more traditionally feminine expression.
Oh Good God. Loop Sure Does Not Treat Themselves Like A Person. Why Does That Come With A Pronoun Change? What Does That Mean?
But most of all:
It makes them such a fascinating foil and lens to Change and characters who believe in it! It makes them eerily similar to The King! It opens up such fascinating debate between characters like themselves and Mirabelle, Isabeau and Loop, on whether or not they want to change in future, or if it truly is okay to never radically change yourself! What genuinely fertile ground for dialogues. And man if I'm not heavily drawn towards dialogues.
(End of essay! Congratulations for making it the whole way! 🎉 I hope this nightmarish deep dive helps with understanding some of the ways I've been writing Siffrin and Loop too. Since while I've not ever focused on the gender side of it (and probably won't in comic form) this does pervade my view of the two, since it would be impossible for it to Not. As you can see, I do think it is pretty relevant to both their themes.)
(Now for some bonus material)
ADDENDUMS:
PERSONAL BIAS NOTE:
Not included in this analysis since this is more a Pet Theme of my own (usually kept quarantined to the realms of my OCs), but something else I see in Siffrin is a reflection of the Dude Issue(tm) of patriarchal irl society disincentivisng Dudes(tm) from ever fucking introspecting ever.
I'm curious about nonbinary/trans characters who have no idea they’re nonbinary/trans because they’ve been disincentivised from thinking/doubting their identity due to societal power structures or simply tradition. I dig around the themes of “a lot of guys are trapped in a societal prison without ever knowing and it makes them miserable but they can’t escape because they don’t even see the cage” like, a lot, in my personal work. It intrigues me. So bleh, cards on the table there. That mode of interacting with nb/trans characters is one I'm inclined to.
This kinda goes hand in hand with the watsonian vs doylist situation i took an aside to mention. But it is so far along the doylist side that I didn't want to include it, since it is a little too assumptive of the text for my comfort. I don't think the game necessarily has much commentary on this specific Societal Bind. But if it does, then hey, there's my thoughts on it.
STRAY SIDE NOTES AND HEADCANONS ABOUT OTHER CHARACTERS (AS A TREAT FOR GETTING THIS FAR):
MID-GAME OBSERVATION ABOUT BONNIE AND ODILE THAT I NEVER WENT BACK TO VERIFY:
I got the impression that Bonnie heavily favours they/them pronouns for Siffrin, and Odile he/him, as a bit of presumed character voice. I don't know that I am right, literally at all, in that observation, because it very well could've been confirmation bias.
BUT! It did give me the impression that one of the things Bonnie was idolising about Siffrin was a degree of "wow!! older person with my gender!! wow!!", which is just like, cute. I like it even if I don't have any solid evidence.
ODILE, WHAT'S HER DEAL?:
Oh she stays just as mysterious as she intends to be, huh? Even with her comments in the Changing Room alluding to knowing things about underground changing operations, you can't draw much of a conclusion about her. I appreciate verily that she's word-of-god unlabelled and also poly. That shit's great. Woman who has stopped drawing lines or caring what she's up against. Nice characterisation flavour I think.
Anyway, I do think that transfem Odile is a really, really nice take. I have no evidence in either direction for her in either direction, and her being a woman of any description makes her relationship with her absent mother something interesting to chew on, but the idea that she pursued womanhood intentionally lends an interesting texture. I've not much to say, but it's a thread to pull on. Makes you wonder what other female role models she had in her life instead. Anyway she's mysterious as fuck I can't extrapolate Jack nor Squat. Shrug! I'm also made curious by the idea of her potentially moving away from womanhood as she feels the weight of her history lifted. This goes either way, really. Diagnosis: mysterious.
HEADCANON NOTE: INTERSEX SIFFRIN
I don't have any in-text support for this so this entire thing is an unbased headcanon to me. but i DO like it because 1. fun and 2. potential for more thematic exploration
haha gotcha its fuckin themes again. its always themes with me.
But yeah. Not much to say here besides drawing a parallel (that I believe I've seen drawn elsewhere in the fandom already?) between ISAT's comments on how a society that values change would view Aroace identities, and how Mira feels about not wanting to change with the real world experiences of Intersex people having alteration and conformity forced upon them, saying the Change Belief would likely be just as bad for them as it is for aroace people.
So, adding it to Siffrin's situation further drags them into the opposition-to-change foil role. Which like I said, think has a lot to explore.
HEADCANON NOTE: A POTENTIAL METHOD FOR GETTING LOOP OUT OF THEIR GOD DAMNED COMFORT ZONE
I think utilising Loop's contrarianism is an effective and funny way to get them to explore their gender. I personally think running with them trying to hide their identity from the party is a hilarious way to do it. Having them try to position themselves in direct opposition to Siffrin to "throw the party off their trail" (not that i think they really need to?), going full feminine-revealing-clothing because it's NOT what a Siffrin would do and accidentally growing accustomed to it. Funny to me. Especially when the party eventually do find out who they are and go . "????? what was the girl stuff about ??? is that something you wanna do now ???".
[Isabeau] "Ohhhh it was a bit! Haha you really are Sif, still a jokester!" [Loop] "HAHA YEAH . JOKES. LOVE THOSE. LOVE TO MAKE JOKES!" [Isabeau] "Yep! Anyway. Tell me if you need anything!"
Bonus bonus:
[Siffrin] "Okay, so, if you're a girl. Does this reflect on like… me?" [Loop] "No doubles. Get your own gender, parasite~!"
#oh my god this is like 6k words what happened. well you can't say my claims are unsubstantiated i guess.#lucabytetalks#fuck dude i sure do !!!!#i have to assume a lot of other people picked up on exactly what i did too but i dont read other peoples meta very often so !!#i am simply shaking hands with anyone else who came to this conclusion. hi. sometimes its just fun to construct a small essay i guess#i have like no goal putting this out here other than like. For The Sport of Writing Out Media Analysis. so if it makes anything click#in peoples minds or actually sells them on this reading then that's just a bonus i suppose#in stars and time#isat analysis#isat meta#isat siffrin#isat loop#isat spoilers#2hats spoilers#lucabytewrites#welp. no idea what else to tag this. be free and into the wild my gigantic ass post.#is some of this redundant? probably! but cmon man its a tumblr essay i can't format it perfectly. sometimes points get repeated#anyway this post is lagging out my tumblr drafts now i have to post it oh god oh christ i hope nothing goes wrong#edit: i forgot i made the lucabytewrites tag a while back for purrgatorio this can go in there too
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This year I set myself a goal to complete FIFTY books, and keep a record of what I read including what I thought about/learned from each book in terms of writing techniques, story structure, or just wrt developing a better idea of my own writing goals and tastes. I demolished this goal before June, which I am extremely pleased about, and I am still in the process of demolishing this goal, having completed another three books since I last updated this list a week or two ago!
The aim of this exercise was the following:
Re-establish reading habit, and improve attention span.
Re-Learn how to write down my thoughts about books, even if they are uncritical observations, opinions, or ideas inspired by what I'm reading.
Cover as much ground as possible as fast as possible, over a wide range of topics and genres (audiobooks and written books both count!)
Book quality was not a factor I considered when picking what to read - if it fell into my lap I read it and wrote down my thoughts, and let me tell you I definitely read some sub-par books in 2023. I read some really great ones too! But when one is not picky you kinda get what you get, and I think next year I might be a bit more discerning/tactical in my approach. I also did NOT go to tik tok for book recs because I don't believe in tik tok the same way some people don't believe in the spherical earth. I picked books based on word of mouth, recommendations spoon fed to me by via the audible algorithm (still evil, but the devil one knows and all that), and via on-the-ground perusal of book shops and stacks and the 'recently returned' feed on the libby app. Despite this, I know some booktok faves managed to find their way onto my list. I am working very hard not to acknowledge this, please don't draw undue attention to it 😂
Speaking of libby, my hold list also grew astronomically this year. My poor local library is limited, and I have been waiting for a few books I really want for MONTHS (riyria revelations v1, the colour of magic, the king in yellow...). I was able to borrow as many cosy murder mysteries as I wanted, though, because small town libraries seem to have 10000000 of those available per patron per anum. Unfortunately, I have discovered I am neutral at best about this genre. 😔
The best books I read this year across all genres and in no particular order were as follows:
The southern book clubs guide to slaying vampires - Grady Hendrix: this appealed deeply to my love of and familiarity with horror movies of the 80s-2010s. It had an innovative and articulate approach to themes like powerlessness, rage, desperation, boredom, inequity, and guilt - at least compared to everything else i read this year. I noted paralells between this and Ira levins stepford wives, much of Stephen kings horrific americana, plus some other books and movies which I alluded to in my notes but for some reason I didn't write down (foolish 😓). Some big TWs would apply for this one, however.
The day of the triffids - John Wyndham: genuinely I do not know how I enjoyed this so much. I had no business enjoying this so much. Despite being from 1951, parts of this felt very contemporary in style and concept, tho sometimes dubious ideas about humanity or society would appear in the text as if they were a natural fact. Nevertheless, I went out and read another Wyndham book straight after, because there was also some beautiful prose in this, and it's always interesting to personally experience the origin of so many tropes which are like. Ubiquitous now.
Uglies series - Scott Westerfield: another unexpected winner. I never read these books as a teen and I consider that a good thing because they would have made my little adolescent brain crazy. These books are crammed with paraphernalia which would have been the coolest shit to a 13 year old me, all masterfully concealing themes about beauty and social hierarchy and state surveillance in a way that seems exponentially more relevant now than it did nearly 20 years ago. I was so impressed with these books honestly, and the way this author used language was something else. I didn't even notice what was going on until it was pointed out by the story, having simply resigned myself to reading an averagely written book full of weird dialect quirks just because it was pitched at a teen reader. I was way wrong, and ive never seen such an elegant example of style justified by the narrative itself. I really wish I could do something that skillfull in my own work!
Braiding sweetgrass - Robin wall Kimmerer: gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. a sensory joy. Seriously beautiful, and surprisingly emotionally intense. I had to read this in short bursts because it made me feel too much about trees.
Boy Parts - Eliza Clark: this one made me feel things I haven't figured out yet. Unlike everything else ive ever read, I could have believed that I wrote this, and that recognition of the self was horrifying because there wasn't a moment in the story i didnt struggle to reconcile revulsion with the exquisite beauty of it all. Easily the scariest book of the year, Easily the one i have thought about the most, Easily the biggest TW of my 2023 recommendations. I'm gonna be defining my own work against this for at least the next six months, or until I have matched it in calibre/distanced myself from it so completely that I am forced to recreate myself and my art anew.
In 2024, I plan to narrow my scope more and focus back on horror, fantasy, and non-fiction. Based on how good I was in 23, I'm going to aim for 65 books in 2024!!!
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FUCK IT, DREAM SMP HOMESTUCK AU
but it's only half shitposts and there are actual Thoughts in there.
You don't need to have read the comic to understand because I tried not to spoil anything major, but it'd help if you knew basic stuff about classpects, SBURB and the hemospectrum.
disclaimer: i'm not a good pixel artist and this is my first actual sprites ever so please be kind to my weird pixels
The Kids:
Tommy
Fundy
Techno
Tubbo
tommy, tubbo and fundy one of the kids because they're the kids in dream smp canon (with fundy being son of wilbur)
techno's there because i want to make a dave strider reference (haha get it because techno's name is also da-- *gets shot) and also because they are both coolguys except instead of using irony, techno has adhd
The Trolls:
Wilbur Soohte (fuschia)
?????? Ehrret (violet)
J????? Shlatt (purple)
Nihacu Niikki (indigo)
Skeppy Diamon (cerulean)
Quacki Tthiey (teal)
Philza Myncra (jade)
Dreame Wastkn (lime disguising as olive)
George Notfou (gold)
Sapphe Nahfpe (bronze)
Badboy Haelow (burgundy)
don't come at me saying only females are allowed to be jades and fuschias; gender is fake and this is an au
more of the AU and the talksprites are under the cut:
Tommy
Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Red
chaotic. the first person to be introduced.
when he gets introduced instead of the “Zoosmell Pooplord” bit, Tommy is initially going to be the name inputted but then backspaced it and decided that Tommyinnit was better and he was fuming until he’s named Tommy.
Gives me big Blood/Hope vibes. Blood because a lot of the conflict of the dream smp connected to someone breaking his trust or harming the things he cares about, Hope because a lot of the plot of the dream smp stems from Tommy starting shit based on his ideals and what he thinks is right.
the first to instigate fighting against the trolls
bbh contacts him once and tommy keeps cursing until he disconnects from frustration rip
wields Gunkind and his only strife weapon at the beginning is the Vlog gun. He has Gunkind as his strife specibus mainly because he looked up at schlatt and he imitates him.
Fundy
Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Orange
it was his idea to play SBURB but only through Dream.
he talks to dream the most among the other trolls fwt stans getcha juice this is the rosemary of the session
dream’s the one giving him exposition about the game so that’s how he knows how to play SBURB.
wilbur trolls fundy once and instantly adopts him.
“You’re my son.” “How does that even work??” “I was one of the people who created your universe. It’s basically the same thing.”
Fundy relents anyway.
Techno
Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Pink
dave strider but dead-inside voice + rose lalonde english major vibes
he slices the text box when you try to name him "Dave " like in
techno gives me time player vibes (contantly on the move. his skyblock series, his “stays in the pit” monologue,) but also rage vibes (anarchy, the “theseus” monologue, political alignment is Chaos) alas i am not sure what class
uses Tridentkind and claims "it came from god"
it was dream, he accidentally transportalized one of wilbur’s weapon while he testing the transportalizer.
Tubbo
Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Green
the jade harley of this session. the only thing keeping them from going apeshit. where would they be without him.
but also jade harley in a sense that he seems nice and wholesome but also don’t fuck with them they can mess you up
Heart/Life vibes??? someone good at classpecting help
i put them in prospit bc of the "tubbo third eye" instead of tubbo having a sixth sense or smth, they see the future from the clouds of skaia when they sleep
wields Stress-relieverKind at some point
bonus: everyone’s actual hair colors
Ideas about the Trolls
no i haven’t done their sprites yet bc it would take so much time and i’m not even sure if people wanna see more of this au skjdkdsakdfkl,, but i have Design Ideas.
events of the dsmp revolution are just a FLARP session drawing parallels to how the homestuck trolls had a FLARP session that spoiler alert: destroyed friendships. dtrio, eret, will are involved. eret betrays will's faction and wilbur's still Bitter over that.
on the context of alternia (highbloods and lowbloods) lmanburg and dreamsmp have their roles SWAPPED. the emancipation theme thing is completely gone since highbloods are in more power than the lowbloods (the dream team) .
wilbur made a faction called l’manburg because he wants a place where he and his fellow highbloods could make drugs vibe.they take a piece of land that was owned by the dream team. in normal circumstances, they shouldve stood down because lowbloods aren't supposed to start shit with highbloods (especially a group of highbloods that has the alternian heir among them) but dream turned it into an activism thing about lowblood rights. the story plays as close as possible without tommy or tubbo in it (which is pretty hard ik but this is the best can do).
like in the dreamsmp revolution, dream kinda let wilbur do what he wants but this time he has more reason to because he’s in a lower caste. dream really only fought back when wilbur announced that he’d be building lmanburg on their land and calling it theirs.
eret betrays wilbur by supporting the lowbloods and wilbur and co. technically won but only because he finally called the drones in, as a reference to how lmanburg absolutely got crushed by the dream team in the smp but technically won. l’manburg keeps the piece of land and the dream team scatter away to find a new home.
wilbur soot's a fuschia because a) he's in a position that has a lot of power, b) yknow how he wrote a song about squids and his thing with sally… yeah.
eret's a violet because nobility!! dream looks down on him because he's ambivalent on fighting for lowblood rights when he's in a power to do so "you just sit there, and you look pretty that's it"
also like eridan he has a minor aesthetic mutation (herobrine eyes) that won't classify him as a mutant.
jschlatt is purple because it makes sense thematically because of the gamzee parallels (a. substance abuse b. if you know what happens in act 6, you know this already but spoiler alert, he ruins the main protagonists' lives) also he's a funnyman he deserves the clown caste
quackity's a teal because he’s a law student. moving on--
ok but for real it also makes sense thematically because he's the one who wrote the thing that tricked schlatt into agreeing also he gets manipulated by schlatt which also draws parallels to certain events in the comic
skeppy and bbh are BEST FRIENDS despite being highblood and lowblood respectively. initially, skeppy just wanted to bother bbh but they grew to be good friends in time. y’know like how they actually becane friends :D
philza minecraft is a jade because dad friend. also works thematically, because spoiler alert he gets to murder a seadweller for going batshit crazy.
he also god tiers early. he dies fighting his quick undead denizen (haha baby zombie) but the consorts of his land carry him to his quest bed because he’s treated them all so well.
dream was initially going to be another caste but then i realized that means i have to make his hoodie something other than green which is unacceptable so its a good thing the fact that he's a lime works out
dream was the one who thought of playing sgrub in the first place- initially only planned to have gogy, sap, and bbh in the session but then realized that they four won't be enough so he invited more into his session
he’s also the first to go godtier ez clap blind speedrun not sure what classpect tho
the only reason why dream avoided being culled at birth for being a limeblood is because his rng is That Good. he quickly picked up the fact that he’s not supposed to exist and masqueraded as an oliveblood and kept mostly to himself to avoid suspicion.
george is still colorblind but he has lazer eyes along with it instead. dream lives with him in the same hive since being a mutant means dream doesn’t get a lusus of his own (dnf fans getcha juice “and they were roommates”)
despite living in the same hive, he never really figures out that dream is a limeblood. possibly because a) he’s colorblind and when he sees dream bleeding he just sees yellow b) he’s just that fucking oblivious and it’s so valid of him.
sapnap’s a bronzeblood mainly because i know he’s the instigator of the pet war with tommy also because i associate him with the color orang in my mind so bronze it is
that’s the end of this long-ass post!! if you have other ideas PLEASE i want to hear them. i don’t know the other streamers i mentioned in here very well so if you have ideas that would be fitting to them like with classpect or lunar sway that would be GREAT.
the only thing i’m confident about in here are the kids’ lunar sways. i’m not an expert in classpects and homestuck lore so there’s that too!! i just wanted to make this post because adhd means that the idea wouldn’t shut up until i finished it. This initially started as a single shitpost edit of tommyinnit talksprite but then the hiveswap 2 trailer came out and that means i have to combine my two hyperfixations.
also i have ideas about potential quadrants but idk how much of that is breaking some streamers’ boundaries about shipping (even the non romantic quads such as kismesistude, morallegiance and auspisticism) so i decided not to include it.
edit: apparently people want more so i made a discord server as a place to brainstorm!! please pm me to join!
#dream smp#mcyt#mcytblr#dream smp au#homestuck#sleepy bois inc#one of those tags is not like the other#tommyinnit#tubbo#tubbo_#tubbolive#fundy#fundylive#itsfundy#technoblade#dream team#wilbur soot#wilbur mcyt#eret mcyt#jschlatt#quackity#skeppy#badboyhalo#philza#dreamwastaken#georgenotfound#sapnap#homestuck au#reblog this to curse ur mutuals' feeds with Unexpected Homestuck in 2020
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Season in Review - Spring 2021
Your text here
Pretty Boy Detective Club
When this got announced I laughed at the title then I saw Nisioisin for original creator and Akiyuki Shinbo on direction and it went from being a total joke to like, one of my most anticipated shows of the season.
And yeah no it totally lived up to my unexpected hype. I don’t think I had any specific expectations other than hoping the dialogue was fun and it was visually interesting. It was both of those things to the max.
There’s just a lot of entertaining wit to all of the dialogue, especially since Mayumi Doujima – our perspective character – is a bit of a sassy fucking asshole, she’s a real treat to listen to. Strong vocal performance helps her too. Trust me to latch the most onto the one girl character in a show called Pretty Boy Detective Club, huh. Note that the boys are all pretty great too.
And then as for visuals, I really cannot even fucking begin to describe how amazing this show looks. It’s probably the most visually interesting and exciting anime I’ve ever seen? It depends on your tastes to a large extent – certainly the show is more impressive for art than animation even if that animation is still pretty great – but if you’re into shows that are as fucky and experimental and crazy as they can possibly be, finding new art styles every episode and with direction that’s constantly keeping you visually engaged, yeah this show’s for you.
And just to top that all off, the music is also absolutely amazing. There are so many memorable and fun tracks for every occasion and hearing these compositions is the absolute cherry on top of the rest of its strengths.
I don’t even feel like I have too much else to say tbf. The themes are fairly spelled out for us but they’re far from what I was enjoying the show for even if they’re still nice, the plots are generally always really creative and enjoyable even if I didn’t feel like they were worth that much as mysteries, and the last episode functioning as a soft recap was kinda disappointing – but again you fall in love with this show because it’s an audiovisual masterpiece and the rest if just cute bonus fluff for the hell of it.
Funimation’s subs for this show were abysmal so looking forward to rewatching whenever a good group picks it up.
Zombie Land Saga Revenge
Season fucking 2 baby!!!! It’s only been 3 years.
I haven’t read my original review of ZLS in ages and have no idea how it holds up at all, so while most of what I’m gonna say will probs be in relation to how this holds up against season 1 I have no idea if my season 1 thoughts are particularly well documented.
But anyway season 2 is both better and worse than season 1, wildin. Obviously looks a lot better, especially the CGI has had a great glowup, and a good amount of the songs are probably better than season 1 as well, idk I’m so exposed to s1’s music that it’s hard to say atm. Plus we have a clearer focus this season in theory, and particularly the last few episodes work really well compared to how season 1 approached its ending.
Guess the problem though is this season has quite a lot of fairly mid episodes? Episode 1 was a nice return to form but some moments down the line make it odd in retrospect; episode 2 was just kinda eh that didn’t do loads for anyone’s character, particularly its “focus” character Saki almost feels untouched in it; episode 3 is an okay setup episode but still eh; episode 5 doesn’t do a lot for Lily’s character despite being the focus; 8 and 9 are a Yuugiri “focus” arc that spends more time on some forgettable fucko than it does Yuugiri and what happened in them only needed an episode; and episode 10 is almost a recap out of nowhere? Like it’s not a recap but it almost just retells episode 1 from a very drawn out perspective that’s not in service of anything ig. Idk.
Most of those episodes were still at least good tbf tho and the season still has a lot of real banger episodes – 4 cemented Junko as my absolute favourite and had the best actual live show in the series; 6 was just hilarious and endearing as all fucking hell; 7 was probably the funniest episode of anime I’ve ever seen and did an excellent job introducing us to a brand new character, completely endearing us to her, and giving her a great sendoff that’s in service of the main cast as well; and then 11 and 12 are a really great end to the season that do well by every character.
Season 2 does a lot of work in service of making Saga itself feel like a very living place. Lots of season 1 minor characters return in different situations having had nice off-screen arcs and there are plenty of new faces that are instantly endearing as well – what Saga means to the people living there is actually explored which feels fucking great and I really appreciated being actually invested in their specific goal.
The whole “Revenge” part of the title was… meh. I like what they’re going for – give a clear narrative and thematic goal for the sake of the sequel season – though despite mentioning their EFS failure a bunch and how much they want their revenge, it feels kind of undercooked. Like, it’s mentioned but that’s it, it doesn’t really feel like it informs their actions much though. Not really bothered by it but it did feel a bit wasted.
Iffy on how indulgent in the supernatural this is getting. “Ever seen a zombie movie?” was enough for me – immortal old bartenders bringing back the dead and predicting disasters such as alien attacks is like… it’s not like I can’t suspend my disbelief or anything, guess I’m just too idolpilled? There was a s3 hook and I imagine it sold well so maybe I’d end up enjoying where it goes and eat my words here.
Guess a TL;DR really is just what I said near the start of both better and worse than season 1. Kinda disappointing since you obviously want a sequel to be even better, but happy to be able to say it’s not just straight up worse.
Junko best girl.
Odd Taxi
Pretty quick and easy show to sum up the appeal of. Odd Taxi sits within the ranks of such shows as Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood for being a narrative consisting of basically a massive interconnected web of different characters with different personalities and different motives interacting with one another and shaking up that entire web with every exchange and decision they make.
I actually don’t even feel like I have loads more to say than that. That description of what the show fundamentally is kind of just is the key appeal for me. Every single character is engaging to watch and they all have very realistic behaviours and reactions to everything that goes on. We get a pretty thorough understanding of who every individual in the show is and how they operate and how they influence one another even though half of them don’t even know each other.
It’s also very good as a mystery anime, obviously has loads of moving pieces to begin with and seeing and hearing people theorise throughout was satisfying. Probs will rewatch – potentially more than once – just to catch it all.
Episode about gacha guy was one of the best written things I’ve seen in anime. This show has pretty fucking godly dialogue but this episode especially, god damn.
When I saw Odokawa’s design I had no idea how Natsuki fucking Hanae would do such a character. Feel bad underestimating the dude – he killed it.
OP was cummable.
Ending is sorta eh? It’s a good end point for sort of the main plot and I think it does its big reveal moment well. But for lots of the characters it’s basically just “they have a happy ending now” even if it doesn’t feel like their arc reached that point. I still enjoyed it but I guess it was kind of underwhelming compared to the rest of the show.
Slime Taoshite 300-nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level Max ni Nattemashita
Hence just Killing Slimes.
I watched Spider Isekai for Aoi Yuuki. It was shit and disappointing and she wasn’t in it enough. This was looking to be my Aoi Yuuki fix to fill that void. It did so much more than that.
In terms of Aoi Yuuki I’ve got loads of her in here. She sings the OP and it’s great fun - I could never get enough of it. And beyond that she’s the protagonist – Azusa is a super endearing character with a mad respectable approach to life, she encourages everyone to commit as hard as possible to a good work-life balance, overexerting yourself is not a fucking option. Based. And of course she’s a treat to listen to. Not quite as chaotic or loud as I tend to favour from Aoi Yuuki but tbf this performance fits the show like a glove.
On that note this show is basically just Yuri Harem Family Iyashikei: The Animation. There are only girls, all the adults are very in love with each other, all the kids are just the most innocent adorable fuckers ever, it’s got a huge constantly expanding cast and I felt like I had a brand new favourite character every episode, it was fucking brilliant.
Tbh right, art style isn’t quite the cutest in the world. But the show’s overall tone and presentation and concept and vibe is so fucking adorable and happy and comfy and fun that the show feels cuter than it actually is? I’ve seen shows with cuter artwork than this that feel less cute anyway because they just don’t hit that vibe as well. It’s wild.
Btw don’t take what I just said as a slight against the visuals at all – this show actually has more than one choreographed fight scene with like, pretty fucking good animation. Again not the most impressive in the world but directed so well as to really feel the action and excitement – Azusa taking on like a dozen dragons actually gets to look fucking badass, it’s great.
I mean if feelgood yuri harem/family sounds appealing to you you’ve already seen and loved this show. If that’s not for you, get the fuck out my life.
Godzilla: S.P.
Despite enjoying all like, 2 other kaiju anime I’ve seen, I’m not really a kaiju guy at all. And I was initially gonna pass on this for that reason. Like, I don’t care about Godzilla lol.
However, the combination of a Bones and Orange production alongside primarily me seeing a visual with all the character designs persuaded me to give it a chance. Do not regret it whatsoever.
To get the execution of what drew me in out of the way – this show looks absolutely fucking fantastic. The art style is deceptively distinctive and extremely easy on the eyes + animates really well on the 2D front; and the 3D is as high quality as you’d expect from Orange – high quality models with really clean and natural animations that still befit the kaiju we’re seeing. I do think when you see the 2D and 3D in the same shot they don’t feel completely in the same environment – but the execution is still better than a lot of other shows and hey tbf you can blame it on the kaiju being otherworldly anyway lol. Also the character designs are just absolutely fucking amazing. Every single recurring character of which there are many has a very distinct design – sameface doesn’t exist – and so much is communicated about everyone via their design, they’re all hella aesthetically pleasing, just makes it a very lovely show to look at.
Then in terms of narrative and pretty much the remainder of the show feel since this is a very dialogue driven experience – the main thing I can say is the same comparison I use all the time. Have you ever found yourself reading wiki pages for stuff you know nothing about, or watching several YouTube videos for a topic you otherwise had no interest in? Going down a suggested videos rabbit hole and learning a whole bunch of shit you’d never learn otherwise but just these videos are so good in their presentation that you become engaged anyway? Yeah you forget or can’t even truly process the info because of how complicated it is, but you really enjoyed the ride anyway? That’s what watching this anime is like. The dialogue is so informed by a bunch of scientific – particularly theoretical physics – jargon that I never actually felt like I totally knew what was going on. And yet I loved every single second of everything I was watching regardless. You may not understand anything about this wild ride but it’s so fucking fun that who gives a shit? That’s what watching this show is like.
I genuinely don’t have much else to add lol. I watched this with Moyai fansubs and they were really high effort – since I know them from Mewkledreamy anyway I was excited to see how they’d manage this and they did swell.
Mei best girl.
I even found the kaiju shit genuinely cool, particularly when the titular big guy himself appears there are lots of really striking and memorable action shots. Cool time.
SSSS.Dynazenon
Hey our second kaiju show of the day! And some sort of loosely related Gridman follow-up too – that show was a completely unexpected treat for me so I was really looking forward to seeing what Dynazenon would have in store.
Right off the bat I want to clarify that I’ve not seen Gridman since it aired and didn’t rewatch at all so I can’t deny my memory being a little fuzzy, and everything I say in relation to it should be taken with a grain of salt.
So for our first Gridman comparison I’m not fully confident in – I think Dynazenon is probably better on average. I think Gridman reaches higher highs overall – particularly with regards to how Akane’s written – but it didn’t always use its time amazingly and could get pretty repetitive, alongside Yuta not being much of a character. Dynazenon opts for a more consistent tone and story structure; and with gradual status quo shifts and character development as well it puts great work into feeling as good on the last episode as it did the first.
Kind of the key area in which it’s beating Gridman for me as well as being a really strong show in general is in its character writing – Dynazenon has perhaps some of the most down to earth, relatable and human characters I’ve seen in anime. Every single recurring character (sans poor old Chise) is very thoroughly explored and extensive depth is given to their characterisation. We know exactly what makes everyone tick and what pushes them forward or holds them back. They’re all pretty damn flawed individuals but not even all of them want to improve – it’s really grounded despite the odd denpa atmosphere and uh, giant monster shit going on.
Helping said cast is what I’m just gonna describe as the best all around cast performance I have ever heard in a show. Every single word delivered by all these VAs for even the most minor characters is so specifically and carefully delivered and just feels so, intimate and human? Like you can fully feel everything going on in a character’s mind at the same time as whatever front they’re projecting just based on the strength of the deliveries alone. And it’s a genuinely constant feeling of this – it’s not a show with voice acting normal enough to not notice until the big explosive moments where you’re like “wow that was great” – it is literally 12 straight episodes of a show where you hold on to the sound of every single delivery because of how masterfully delivered they all are. I really can’t overstate how fucking fantastic these vocal performances are – it’s a really huge part as to what makes this show’s characters so fucking impressive. It’s gonna take a lot to surpass this for me.
I do think there are some areas in which Dynazenon needed improvement though – it kind of ends too quickly with some resolutions feeling sped up in a sense – particularly Chise’s arc basically just stops early on and then she’s given an ending anyway. And it’s a weird issue since like, the show could remedy it if it didn’t spend so much time just kinda doing repetitive mecha stuff. But I actually adore the repetitive mecha stuff – it’s a show for which the deliberate and slow pacing builds atmosphere really well. And yet it’s also at the expense of some arcs. I don’t want the show to change the pacing for those arcs but I don’t want those arcs to stop. Guess I just wanted a few more episodes, maybe?
I pretty much liked everything else, lots of “holy shit giant robots are cool” moments which are quite difficult to get out of me, music was really great, show as a whole has a real great style and episode 11 especially is beautiful, some other praises. Watch Dynazenon.
Super Cub
I kinda meme got excited for Super Cub in a server based off of nothing specific, though the very washed out colours of the PV had me curious about what sort of show Super Cub was going to be. I think I just expected “cute girls doing cute things but on motorbikes”. What I got was something so much more unique than that.
Super Cub is a very specific breed of iyashikei. The classical piano soundtrack is grand yet simple, the colours muted, dialogue exceptionally minimal. It’s lonely. Minimalistic. Devoid of gags. For much of its runtime Super Cub genuinely is just getting simple satisfaction from seeing a lonely girl find a small bit of happiness with her brand new Honda Super Cub.
It shouldn’t need to be said just based on the type of person I am, but yeah I was absolutely in love with this. Super Cub is a show that finds so much comfort in solitude and to that end it’s an absolutely perfect show to just put on when you’re just vibing by yourself. You know, the shit I live for.
Super Cub also benefits from being a show where the gimmick of “colour coming back into my dull world” trope thing isn’t done horribly. Every show I’ve seen do that tries to always be the most beautiful colourful show ever and only shows the washed out stuff as like POV for its MC only whenever it’s relevant. Super Cub meanwhile is near permanently washed out and only gains more vibrant colours whenever Koguma is happy – sometimes it’s only just for a few seconds. Lots of thought and care goes into the direction and the vibe the show wants to convey, it’s really great.
Helping Super Cub further is that it’s not just Koguma the Adorable going on bike trips or whatever. Like it’s predominantly that but it works in service of giving her genuine character arcs – like the show actually has some 3 episode arc structures and I’d say for a good majority of the show those arcs are actually fantastic.
Where Super Cub starts to go a bit more wrong for me though unfortunately is with the introduction of Reiko. She’s kind of the opposite of what I loved about the show. She’s loud. Bombastic. Constantly quipping. Good for Koguma getting friends ig but it feels like the first 3 episodes were the start of the show being a 10/10 for me and Reiko being the start of that score going down. Despite this, the next 3 episodes are still really solid.
Where it goes even more wrong for me is with the introduction of girl 3 – Shii. Shii basically exists to shill some weird westaboo foodie café jokes and have someone simp for Koguma for no real reason. She’s genuinely annoying and since this is also the part of the show where Koguma turns into a bit of an asshole (which I don’t not like but she was better before so) by this point I’d felt like the Super Cub I fell in love with was being replaced with some kinda boring iyashikei full of café scenes. Shii also gives us the one straight up bad episode with episode 11 – which is melodramatic unrealistic tasteless garbage.
For all that though I do want to say that the majority of the show is just lovely OST, minimal dialogue, beautiful background art cute girls with great expressions and a really distinctive yet cute and appealing art style being iyashikei. What made Super Cub so special is lost tragically quickly, but most of why it’s still very good is retained for the bulk of its runtime. I wish it had been more consistent, but I’m very glad to say I’m still not disappointed by how Super Cub turned out.
Mini Dragon
Mini Dragon isn’t a thing that lends itself to too much discussion. Pretty much 60-ish second episodes of Maid Dragon – a show with kind of a skit structure anyway, so this doesn’t feel like too little time or anything.
What actually else do I say about this lol. I love Maid Dragon. This is Maid Dragon. It’s fantastic.
Shadows House
I’m not gonna lie – of everything that survived the great dropping of this season, this seemed to be the show that was hanging on by the thinnest thread. I found parts of the first 4 or 5 episodes interesting, and I like the vibe of the show – good visuals and music at all times with nice character designs too. But I was also pretty bored a lot of the time, and found myself only holding on because of faint hopes that it’d turn into some cool show about uncovering and dismantling a big corrupt system thing. I do like that type of thing so.
Fortunately from like episode 5 or 6 onwards – basically whenever the debut started and characters began taking direct action and actually being thrust directly into its systems, I started having fun. Cool mystery, cool character dynamics, cool reveals, the systems being propagated are realistic and not cartoonishly evil within the confines of the world and the young revolutionaries rising against it feel just in doing so as well.
I don’t actually have too much else to say about this show – it got off to a slow start hinting at greater potential, and then just worked to realise that potential in a fine way. It’s not the most impressive show in the world – like I’ve got it at 7/10 for a reason – but it sure was fun enough to convince me to keep watching in a season where I dropped the overwhelming majority of what I was watching. I’d say that’s pretty worthy of respect. I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it but if somebody asked if it’s worth watching I’d be very happy to tell them “yes”.
Emilico is cute.
Yakunara Mug Cup mo
I also got meme excited for this – except unlike Super Cub this show stayed a meme for its entire runtime.
Mug is bad in a really specific and fascinating way. It appears to be a cute girls doing cute things show – its gimmick being pottery to shill its town. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Mug is a sports slice of life drama and character study, - about a girl who gets into a hobby where everyone outclasses her and she’s constantly failing to live up to the expectations placed on her due to her prodigal mother, who’s long passed away. The person she most wants support from is her dad but he struggles to give it to her for the simple fact that she’s just not great at pottery. The support from her friends doesn’t do anything from her because she can see with her own eyes the skill difference between herself and them. It’s honestly a deeply tragic narrative. Other than the part where it’s uh, so fucking hard to care about lol.
Mug is boring beyond description, like other than the occasional really good shot and also that one episode where they dream some funky fantastical Japanese mythos shit, it’s basically only appealing in so far as viewing it as what I described above, that sports tragedy thing. But it still kinda wants to be a cute girls doing cute things show first? But the other girls are so forgettable and barely even have character traits. They just… exist.
I do think a combination of my meme hype for this show and the tragedy angle are what keep it as high as a 4 for me, but yeah no I wouldn’t recommend this unless you very specifically want to see something exactly like this.
Season 2 got announced the instant the show ended and you already know it’s in my Fall ptw lol.
Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru: Churutto
It’s Yuki Yuna chibi shorts.
80 second episodes.
Characters from across all the various Yuusha de Aru series – suffice to say as an anime only I did not know who anyone was.
Some VAs I really liked.
Jokes were actually okay sometimes, and hey episodes didn’t drag that much.
Still not really for me lol.
Mewkledreamy Mix
Man…
“oh yeah I loved season 1 I’d totally watch another year of this” I managed 6 episodes.
Mix is just boring. It’s not funny, it dials up the stock animation by tenfold, it also has a lower target age range by about a tenfold as well, Akki’s fucking annoying, my darling Yuni-sama was barely in it, I just found extremely little to appreciate here.
Fumetsu no Anata e
Yeah so I and lots of others were really looking forward to this because it’s by the Koe no Katachi manga originally and has a damn appealing sounding premise. Think I expected it to be a traveller show at some point but I did have the fact that it’s more arc-driven told to me in advance, so it’s not like I went in with the wrong expectations, but… it was just real fucking boring lol.
Made it 3 episodes in? I thought the first one was about the best possible execution of what a fairly standard first episode it was, but it was still kinda eh for me. Technically flawless but didn’t exactly grip me.
Next 2 episodes just kept that feeling up but with like 3 minutes of recap at the start of each episode, and being even less engaging than that already meh first episode was. I really was in “fuck anything that bores you” mood this season so just stopped wanting to put up with this.
Ijirinaide, Nagatoro-san
Tbh the one episode of this I watched was like, decently fun. I guess I’m the type of person that can enjoy seeing a kinky simp get bullied to shit by some asshole girl. Except I don’t think I’m enough of that to want to watch 12 episodes of said content.
People will move on from this show very quickly so fuck the culture currently surrounding it lol.
Hige wo Soru. Soshite Joshikousei wo Hirou.
I actually greatly enjoyed the 5 episodes of this I watched. It’s a refreshingly optimistic show that preaches self-love, self-respect, and recovery above all else, which are principles I can hardcore get behind, so I appreciated that a lot. Also main dude’s insistent on the fact that he’s not a good person and Sayu’s just had her standards warped by lots of bad people, and yeah I respect that humble normalcy of his as well.
Thing is I kinda think I got all the good I was going to get out of the show at that point – everything I liked was already happening and how thy were going about that didn’t seem to be changing. But they set up a love triangle! And I fucking hate those. So basically just dropped because yeah, don’t need to see more of the good, don’t enjoy what I’m already expecting to be bad.
86
God tryna remember how I felt about this show even.
I finished episode 1 and basically decided that nothing that it was setting up or doing interested me even remotely, I guess?
Also they tried to make MC moe and have her uwu anime girl uwu moments which felt real tonally jarring from what seemed to want to be a serious military drama with some real basic allegories huh.
Found it dumb that MC was the one and only not racist person in this city wow.
Everyone having white hair got me a bit excited though.
Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song
Yeah I made it 5 episodes into this?
It was doing a setup episode -> payoff episode structure I got bored of real fucking quickly. I forgot details from setup episodes and then had zero interest in any of the happenings in payoff episodes so, really was nothing for me there.
Also found Vivy and her teddy’s dynamic unbearable, they have zero chemistry or banter, she hardly feels like she’s even talking to him, there’s some timeskip real early on that glosses over some interesting things this show could be doing, and apparently a recent thing happened that basically cancelled out everything the show already did so by god am I glad I dropped lol.
Dialogue wasn’t very good but I’m glad the bear spoke quick enough to not test my patience that much.
The animation is pretty great and the pretty shots are real pretty, but tbh the pretty shots worked against the show because they’re just so high detail compared to the normal look of the show that it becomes fucking jarring.
I don’t remember anything else worth saying.
Osananajimi ga Zettai ni Makenai Love Comedy
Made it 5 minutes into this. It was painfully bland and uninspired. I hated it.
Mars Red
Yeah so episode 1 of this show, right. Was fucking brilliant. Just a masterfully directed tonally excellent visually distinctive and appealing piece with fantastic voice acting and a really top tier execution on a seemingly standard premise. Other than that one vampire boy being real generic and dull I had zero problems with this episode and was thoroughly impressed. If it was just that it’d have been like an 8 or even a 9 out of 10. Realise that was just a bunch of positive adjectives in a row but like, man I enjoyed that first episode a lot.
Episode 2 was probably the hardest episode to finish of anything this season. I wasn’t even tired when I started watching it yet it nearly put me to sleep several times, like I was fucking fighting to stay awake during it. It was nightmarishly boring and a gigantic disappointment after how much I loved the first episode. Pretty easy drop then.
Jouran: The Princess of Snow and Blood
Dropped after 2 episodes.
Tbh was really looking forward to this because it looks cool as fuck and also all the Raise A Suilen involvement, but me oh my this show was hard to watch.
Tbh it kinda felt like starting a 24 episode show from episode 13. The show acts as though everything’s already been established and we already know what’s going on, so we should appropriately be surprised at all these twists and turns and double agents and whatnot. But we just don’t.
There are a lot of shows that are very much fully indulgent in their own world, and it can work out for the better. This was not such a case.
Sayounara Watashi no Cramer
Well documented fact about me is that I fucking hate Your lie in April with a passion and it is uncontested in its position as the worst anime I’ve ever seen. Cramer comes close!
So yeah naturally hating YliA so much I tried to hatewatch Cramer as well – I mean hey it has my literal first and second favourite seiyuu as its lead characters, that’s at least something?
I think in the 2 episodes of Cramer I watched it managed to do literally zero things well and literally everything else at just about the worst level imaginable, holy shit. It’s transcendentally bad at everything to a degree to where I’m at a loss for words in even describing it.
TL;DR one of the worst things I’ve ever had the misfortune of watching and not even funny bad enough to get beyond episode 2.
Blue Reflection Ray
I was excited for this because of magical girls but it was boring and ugly :(
Half-respect this show anyway, primarily because I have a friend who likes it but I also feel like it definitely feels like something from a different era without necessarily feeling dated? Like there was risk in letting this show happen but staff wanted to make it happen anyway.
Didn’t pay off because nobody in the west cares and nobody in Japan cares and the BD’s production has been cancelled which isn’t something you hear every day.
Tbh I could hypothetically see me picking this up again, if only for that one friend, but yeah nothing about it compelled me to enjoy it.
Anyway yeah that’s anime so
Anime of the Season - Pretty Boy Detective Club
Feel like I said just about everything I love about this show so, yeah.
Girl of the Season - Mayumi Doujima
Actually kinda tough choosing between her and Koguma but Mayumi’s a lot more likeable for a lot more of the show so.
Boy of the Season - Hiroshi Odokawa
Tbh I like him for similar reasons as I do Mayumi - it’s the wit, the demeanour, though in his case he’s like 40 and jaded and cynical. Both are fun all the same.
Anyway that’s it! My Season in Review for Spring! Took longer to make than any other oops, not for any specific reason other than just me taking my sweet time lol. Hope y’all enjoy the read uwu.
#season in review#pretty boy detective club#zombieland saga#odd taxi#killing slimes#godzilla#gridman#super cub#maid dragon#shadows house#mug cup#yuki yuna#mewkledreamy#86#blue reflection#cramer#fumetsu no anata e#jouran#mars red#nagatoro-san#osamake#vivy#21.8.21
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#showyourprocess
From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!
To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.
RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!
sabrina @lanwangiji, my love, tagged me to share my process of making this typography edit! check out her explanation of her the untamed edit and her edit tag.
1. PLANNING
i once opened lyrics edit requests so i can learn and practice typography. this edit was a request as well. i asked them which lyrics they wanted to have and the colors they’d like. since i got several requests and it was hard to keep tabs on them, i made a trello board so i could organize everything. i’m still using the trello board for every edit idea i have, the board makes my life easier.
above is what i filled the card in the board with. basically just information of the requests.
1.1 INSPIRATION
once i got the request, my first thought was to find the vibe the song/lyrics exude. “it’s an old curse” screamed witchy vibes to me, so i went to pinterest to find some inspirations. at first i was looking for witchy poster designs and i came across this. i liked how it has smoke-ish graphic and i thought the smoke suited the “old curse” lyrics. and tbh pinterest is a rabbit hole, they gave me suggestions after suggestions, like this and this which became my inspiration for the color palette (i added the gold from those pics) and the sun moon design gave me the idea to incorporate space stuffs too. i somehow landed on this too, and because i wanted to include space theme, i made a simple phases of the moon. ultimately the hero of this edit was the lyrics, i didnt want the graphics took the center stage. i was inspired to make a crystal ball and do this kind of typography but after several trials i couldnt get the the typography right, so i scratched that idea and went with the space theme instead.
1.2 PICKING COLORS
after i was feeling inspired enough, i went looking for the right colors. i usually just type “color name” and “palette” on pinterest. example “dark grey color palette” and i chose the one i liked best. when the request only asked for 1 color, i always searched for either a complimentary or contrasting color to give it a jushz, to add sprinkles. that’s why i added gold on top of the dark grey.
1.3 FINDING FONTS
this is the hardest part. the fonts play important role to the design. they need to convey the vibes of the lyrics, in this case witchy/magic vibe. i needed to find fonts or font just as magical and a bit whimsical. tho i hoard fonts... i like to use new font for every typography edit lmao sue me.
i highly recommend going to creativemarket free goods site, pixelsurplus font freebies and behance to search for fonts. i always use 100% free fonts, that means i can use it personally as well as commercially. creativemarket gives me desktop license for the fonts, which means i can use it for commercial as well. the reason i do this because i want to open an etsy shop someday, and i want to have the right license when i sell my stuffs. i almost never buy fonts bc they are expensive lmao.
the fonts in used are “Vintage” for the main typograpy (i think i was a freebie from creativemarket) and “Morganite” for the title of the lyrics and the name of artist.
2. CREATING
once i have my materials and ideas, i open my illustrator and hope it doesnt crash every 5 min.
for this kind of typography edits, i use 600x700 px. tbh i dont like using 540px, the suggested tumblr size, as the width bc to me it doesn’t look as good in quality, so i up the px. but more on this sizing later. i utilize the artboards function in illustrator, and i use 2 artboards.
i use illustrator (ai) bc i’m working with vectors. when i work with vectors, the graphics/texts or whatever im making in ai wont become blurry or lose its quality when i enlarge or shrink it. in compare to photoshop, i need to make for example the moon graphic very big, so i wont lose the quality when i reduce and enlarge it again. with vector, i can start small and when i expand it, it’s still as good as when it’s tiny.
2.1 GRADIENTS
i started with the gradients first. i created a rectangle as big as 600x700px and with the “freeform gradient” tool in ai, i played with the colors. below is the color palettes i used
2.2 LYRICS AND GRAPHICS
once the gradients are done, i worked with the lyrics and graphics right away. when i first doing this edits, i made typos a lot lmaooooooo. so i copy and pasted the lyrics on top of my artboard, so i wouldnt have any typos.
i had 3 layers in my ai. one for the inspo pics and the OG lyrics. the rest for the edits themselves. i broke up “It's an old curse/dreamers diving headfirst” into to parts, hence the 2 more layers
i almost always started with the lyrics first then the graphics. but for this edit, i made the smoke first so i can layout where my text would be.
tbh the process of making the lyrics is a trial and error. i tried bunch of different stuffs and i chose whatever the best. but i worked like methodically, i made sure i finished the first part of the lyrics first then i could move on.
i was lucky with this font “vintage”. the font offers me several glyphs like these
and i chose the one at the bottom. you’re very lucky if you find a font and they have glyphs.
excursion: glyphs vs fonts
glyph is an individual character. It might be a letter, an accented letter, a ligature, a punctuation mark, a dingbat, etc.
A font is a digital file which is used to display a typeface, which contains the entire upper- and lowercase alphabet as well as punctuation, numbers, and other special characters.
after i was finished with all the lyrics i added some graphics to make the edit pretty like small stars or dots. i added the song title and the artist too, sometimes at the bottom sometimes at the top. and i added my watermark put it as small as i could and made it a bit invisible but still can be seen.
2.3 EXPORTING
exporting! this is where i’m going to go deeper with the dimension of my work. in ai, i always choose to save with “export as screens” function. it automatically divides the artboards i have and save them separately. i always save as png, bc the size is smaller than jpg but can maintain the quality.
now the export tab looks like this
see the formats? i always scale up my edits, 2-3 times the original artboard size. reason is, to maintain the quality. i have tried to save it as original, 600x700 px, but it turned out a bit blurry. bc everything in ai is vector, when i scale up it doesnt lose the quality. BUT once i save it as png, it’s not a vector anymore, and when you zoom in until a certain degree it’ll be pixelated. that’s why i always scale up, to avoid it becoming pixelated when it’s just zoomed 1 or 2 times.
2.4 FINAL TOUCH
i opened my photoshop and also pray it won’t crash. import the png of my edits, add some grains/noise. the reason i use photoshop is, the noise filter is way better than in ai. it’s smoother somehow. and then i export my edits.
(i have a timelapse of how i made one of my edits, it’s not this one, but it’ll give you a better visualization. find it HERE
3. POSTING
now the hardest parts are done, we go to posting!
i uploaded the 2 posters on tumblr as photos then i wrote the captions. for this typography edit, i always chose another lyrics that i like from the same song for the caption. i bolded the lyrics, add link to all of my typography gradient edits.
i always use this link to color my caption. i usually choose 3-4 colors, and i took the colors from my edit. but this was not until recently lmao. before i just took a guess and looked for similar colors that match the edit, but then i thought “why didnt i just use the color in the posters lmao”
ok after i have my html code for the caption, i go to this site to replace the “;” with “ “ so tumblr can read the code.
i’m not one who puts their edits in draft, bc i just cant wait to post it. i have to option here, either i post it immediately when the time is right (i usually post between 4-8) or i schedule it, if im finished before 4.
i put all the necessary tags and click post! i am done finally!
i’m tagging:
@thetriangletattoo for this amazing series
@deludedandlostcause for this impressive gif
@half-lightl for this spectacular edit
@gayndrew for this stunning drawing
@thechampagnelovers for this cool collage
@cloudslou for this incredible edit
@heyangels for this incredible edit
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TFATWS episode 1 rewatch commentary
The first scene was so beautiful. I loved that we didn't start directly with the fight sequence. It feels way closer to the quiet beginning of CATWS and I love it so much.
The title is also SO NEAT, music's on point too but hey it’s Henry Jackman the one thing I’m sure it’s going to be great overall is the score.
The choreography is AMAZING, really well shot. Sam shielding himself with only one wing was MA-JES-TIC.
“WHAT'S UP” EXACTLY SAM EXACTLY
I did feel so uncomfortable in regards to the military aspect of it. Not that I was expecting anything else, but both here and in Captain Marvel the military we're good guys < 3 propaganda is so blatant and ugh:/ At least there wasn’t a literal recruitment spot like with CM.
The yellow filter in the Tunisia scene BYE please stop with the yellow filters 2k21
"I've been working with the Air Force for six months now" So, did Sam even catch a break at all after Endgame? Or did he just throw himself to work like SOMEONE did after being iced for 70 years. Hmmm? Sam????
"Essentially, these people, they want a world that's unified without borders" OH NO! HOW AWFUL, how evil of these bad guys smh
Joaquin: SO about Steve
Sam: :)))))) nope
"Moon stuff" SAAAM
#1 cry with Sam's speech, full on chills.. Fuck. Me. His voice about to break before saying thank you bYE.
Shady politician: "It was the right decision" (FUCKKKKK YOUUU)
Rhodey: *press any key to doubt *
I need someone to analyze the different curation of the two exhibits pretty please
NOT THE PHOTO POST-AZZANO JFC. That photo is my weakness, Bucky sweetie (also I find hilarious that usually when there are articles about Stucky and/or #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend they aaaalways use that photo LMAO)
In case someone wants to read the transcription of the texts about Bucky: "In 1944, while on a mission to thwart a Hydra weapon transport in the Alps, Barnes was thrown from a train and believed to have been killed in action. It wasn't until 2014, over seventy years later, that it was revealed that Barnes was alive, having been found by Hydra operatives. Captain America himself (i can't read) the effort to bring Barnes in only to later aid in a escape from custody having been convinced of his innocence. Steve's loyalty to his old friend, coupled with his refusal to sign the Sokovia Accords, led to the dissolution of the Avengers and drove the Captain into hiding with other like-minded Avengers including Natasha Romanoff, Wanda Maximoff, and Sam Wilson. The current whereabouts of Barnes remains unknown, habing been labeled a fugitive following his escape from custody."
"current wherabout unknown" but not the government, interesting. Also, pretty good summary of CACW from the public's perspective, although one of the things I always wanted to see explored was the public's reaction of the fallout of them going into hiding after Civil War (which I'm hoping we'll get to see a little bit of in Black Widow).
Interesting point about the 70 years without having Captain America. Clearly the sacrifice play wasn't enough this time to fuel the nationalism so they went with a squeaky clean John Walker instead.
Sam saying the shield belongs to Steve I'm going to cry now excuse me. Sam. Sam sweetie.
The No. 1 Captain America comic in the display ugH fuck yes
See this is how you do a cameo that has actual meaning. Thank god for Malcolm Spellman being a competent writer. That scene was so well written.
HAVE YOU PRAISED ANTHONY MACKIE'S PERFORMANCE TODAY?? Holy shit that last shot fucked me up.
I'm loving the use of the wide shots, especially in the flashback. The camera movements are in synch with The Soldier's state of mind and mission focus, so good.
EVERYONE STAND UP FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM aka The Winter Soldier theme composed by Henry Jackman.
Without a doubt the most brutal TWS fight scene there has been, People involved in Punisher and John Wick are involved in this and it SHOWS.
For the record, still stands that the only time we've seen him chocking someone with his right hand instead of the metal arm remains the Maria Stark assasination. I know it's probably because of blocking and the way the shot was composed but the implications are still bone chilling. God.
Uhhmmmm I'm very ambivalent about the "Hail Hydra". On one hand, it was 100% fanservice and the internet is probably going to go insane over it, and the dead way Sebastian Stan delivered the line. Good shit. Buuut what I love about CATWS is the way Bucky never, ever ever, mouths Hydra rethoric, and even when Pierce tries to gaslight him with it, it's just an empty effort. The Winter Soldier isn't doing anything because of ideological loyalty to Hydra, even if it's product of brainwashing, it's just sheer dehumanization. They don’t need him to say the words because he’s just An Asset. There are people who have put it more eloquently but yeah, I rather go with the fanon interpretation of that aspect.
The music growing louder with the shot of the keys. GOD.
I'm fine this is fine.
#2 cry with the therapy scene of fucking course.
The government monitoring Bucky is noooot going to end well lmao.
"We need to know that you're not gonna * slowmo stabbing motions *
Bucky: * nodding along slowly *
I laughed out loud.
"It's passive agressive" I love him.
The way this scene just sucker punched me in the face, made me weep and then had me cracking up. Amazing.
Therapist: You can't do anything illegal
Bucky: yup yup check checkity check. What IS considered illegal tho?
*aggresive tablet finger pressing *
"Then why isn't it rule number one?" Bucky your Steve is showing.
I love the close up shot. I'll keep saying it. It's so good.
"I'm James Bucky Barnes" yeah you are🥺
That smile is nightmare fuel LMFAO I love it.
Uhm the way I'm kinning Bucky it's not funny anymore damn
That whole “are you lashing out at me” rambling is really reminiscent of the bar scene in CATFA and how he lashed out at Steve after Peggy left. Uhm yeah fuck.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" "Peace"
"That is UTTER BULLSHIT" "You're a terrible shrink"
yeah ugly crying to ugly laughing speedrun for me
"You're free" "To do what?" jesus. That entire scene. #3 and #4 and #5 cries for moi.
Ugh that Brooklyn shot. Someone needs to do a gifset compairing it to the one in CATFA asap.
"It's like Monique but it's got a "U" in there for uniqueness" "That's absurd" LMAO
"You can't keep fighting with your neighbors" uHM * redacted redacted i'm shifting into 1940s mode abort abort *
"Nobody passed 90" "So young. Such a shame" FGADHGA
🥺🥺 yes flex those flirting skills good for you
"It's a dance to this things. You can't… you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943. Feels like." #6 cry I completely broke down into tears with that.
This Yori storyline is going to punch me in the face with a metal fist. Great!
The TWS theme when he looks at Yori fuuuuuck.
GREAT LET'S GO TO LOUISIANA THAT WAS GETTING HEAVY.
Those shots of Sam in the car. Immaculate. Showstoping. Yes.
Marvel, what if instead of promoting the military industrial complex you put a lot of publicity about cars?
"Uncle Sam!" LMAO subtle.
Everyone trying to have the wings lmao same.
I've only had Sarah for a day but etc. Brooklyn 99 meme
Good mirroring about Steve and Sam family's legacy. Good shit. Goooood shit.
Sam is trying so hard ouch my heart. I can't imagine how painful the scene with them reuniting must have been. He 100% still feels a lot of guilt about being gone for those 5 years (and even longer before that).
"Maybe it is time for us to move on" uuuuuuuuuuh
"To the rescue" "Always" 🥺🥺 i love them so much already
That shot outside the restaurant is so beautiful. Can't wait to see the night scenes in Madripoor tbh.
"I tried the whole online dating thing. It's pretty crazy". Uhm well that is something that Bucky Barnes has now said. In canon. Damn.
"It's a lot" "You sound like my dad" LMAO
Every Bucky fanfic trope speedrun with this scene
"Wow you really can drink" OH you have no idea
Just realized we don't even know her name, well.
"You have any siblings?" "I have a sister" THE WAY I SCREECHED. We're definitely getting Becca
Well that escalated quickly. The important thing is to try?
I can't deal with this BUCKY SWEETIE #8 cry right there fuck
The wardrobe department is KILLING IT, there's such a difference between the outfits of the shows vs how ugly and generic it usually is.
"ThEre is NO such thiNg as on time. You're either EARLY or LATE . picK One" lmao the way he delivered that line
At first I thought the flag smashers had thrown two cars out of a window LMAO
"I don't know how jurisdiction works here, but I'mma have to place you under arrest" uhm yikes. The way they changed Joaquín Torres backstory to just random army nice guy #1 is not sitting well with me, what can I say.
Sam's wings motions I LOVE HIM YOUR HONOR
Fuuuuck this guy.
"Funny how thing's always thighten around us" "Look, I'm on your side. After all, he's a hero". This script is C R I S P as hell, great fucking job.
"I don't care, I'm not gonna quit" "What are you trying to prove? And who you trying to prove it to" SHIT HSIT SHIT!!! UGH amazing. Look it's not necessary to say the show's questions out loud but how they flow between the conversations is still very satisfactory without feeling in your face about it. Inner conflicts have been set up fucking perfectly everyone * claps *
Ugh here we fucking go. I knew this was how the episode was going to end but my stomach still dropped like a rollercoster. God.
The score is on point. Damn. Damn.
God, Sam.🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
The captain america franchise's visuals in the credits are always so amazing.
Also, does anybody know why Mackie isn't first in the billing? Uhm what's that about?
ANYWAY CONCLUSION THAT EPISODE WAS SO FUCKING GOOD LIKE HOLY SHIT. I love them so much. The balance between the personal conflicts and the political aspect (although the military aspect is still very much yikes) was on point and it was overall a joy to watch.
#tfatws#tfatws spoilers#i'm so happy rn#sorry for the ramblings i just wanted to have it all written down#sam wilson#bucky barnes#captain america#tfatws commentary
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late night texts | csb
genre: fluff, crush! soobin, close friend! soobin, friends to lovers, soobin is a fluffy baby okay he’s a cute blundering mess
pairing: choi soobin x reader
word count: 1.7k
summary: soobin is helplessly head over heels for the girl he cares so much for, but he keeps his feelings to himself, until things suddenly change for the better, over late night texts and blooming roses.
song: 🎶 blueming by iu 🎶
soobin's fingers hung over his messenger app in anticipation.
It was half past ten, and yet his phone delivered him no message from you. you had promised him that you would text him at quarter past, after your shift at your internship had ended, but fifteen minutes had passed and there was still no green dot beside your icon.
soobin just assumed you had fallen asleep after a tiring day, which he totally understood. he didn't blame you one bit, knowing how tired you must have been after non-stop activities for twenty hours. sighing in defeat, he placed his phone face down and cracked his knuckles.
he missed you so much his heart ached, but he could never text you first. he didn't know if he meant enough to you for it to not be annoying, and soobin was a big coward.
just as he got up to get a drink as a distraction, his phone chimed. soobin nosedived into his table so hard to grab his phone that he probably could've broken it.
at the top of his notifications, a light blue notification from you awaited him, labelled clearly with your contact name. soobin had been too afraid to put a heart beside your name (for fear of the boys finding out, or even worse, you). but you were too special to him for it to just be your name. so he copied a cute little flower emoticon from this layout site and placed it lovingly beside your first name, even though he knew that his contact in your phone was probably saved as every one else was.
clicking on the notification, soobin's furrowed eyebrows smoothened and his bunny smile revealed itself. the thought of you never failed to make his day a whole lot better.
y/n ❁: hey soobin! :D
y/n ❁: sorry im so late :(( i missed the bus and didn't get home until like 2 minutes ago
soobin sighed as he let out a knowing smile. you had busted your data watching videos of your favourite drama a week ago, so you couldn't text him on the bus.
binbread: omg it's okay y/n
binbread: don't you wanna take a shower first? i can wait!
y/n ❁: i'm alright, soobin. thank you tho 🥺
y/n ❁: and besides,
y/n ❁ is typing…
y/n ❁: i'd much rather talk to you
soobin felt his heart pounding in his chest, felt the blood circulating through his fingertips, his face, his entire body. he was flushed red and felt warmth consume him, leaving him with the jittery, skittery feeling that your sweet words always bestow him with.
binbread: y/n omg aaaaaaaa
binbread: 🥺🥺🥺
binbread: i love talking to you too
binbread: how was your day?
whenever soobin asked you this at the end of every day, it was never just a conversation starter, let alone a formality. he genuinely always wanted to know how your day went, worried at how much you exerted yourself to serve others. soobin knew how reckless you were when it came to your own needs, and he sealed a secret promise to always look after you, especially when you didn’t look after yourself.
y/n ❁: omg it was amazing
y/n ❁: there’s this guy named hangyul who just started interning with me
y/n ❁: he’s so funny omg i actually had to tell him to shut up so i could get work done
guiltily, soobin felt his heart drop. of course there was another guy, someone much better, someone of the quality you deserved-
y/n ❁: ok lowkey
y/n ❁: think im gonna set him up with seungyoun
binbread: seungyoun? the guy from your dance studio?
y/n ❁: yeah!!! they’d go so well together
y/n ❁: oh yeah
y/n ❁: hangyul is gay
y/n ❁: lmao
soobin felt embarrassed at how relieved he was. soobin was definitely the jealous type, and he hated it. he hated the way his mind would jump to conclusions, hated the way he always felt on the verge of being replaced, and he really hated the way his jealousy was always amplified when it came to you.
you didn’t have any mutual friends, so he’d rarely ever have to see you interact with any other guy. he was so grateful for that. who knows what his jealous heart would do if he saw you with someone else. at least, with this, he had that false sense of security that maybe, maybe, your feelings echoed his own.
binbread: omg do it y/n
binbread: don’t you need to sleep though
binbread: as much as i love talking to you
binbread: you literally pulled like 8 all nighters in a row
y/n ❁: it was only 3 :(
y/n ❁: and i missed you :(
y/n ❁: stay soobin :(
y/n ❁: soobinnie :(
you frowned at soobin’s inactivity. little did you know, soobin’s neighbour had knocked on his door, asking if he could borrow scissors because his kid needed it for a project and he couldn’t find a pair in his home. you could have waited, but you had missed him the entire day. and you were feeling really, really, annoying.
y/n ❁: soobiiiiiiiiiiin :(
y/n ❁: soobin come back :(
y/n ❁: i miss u :(
y/n ❁: love :(
y/n ❁: baby :(
y/n ❁: you’re my
y/n ❁: honey bunch
y/n ❁: sugar plum
y/n ❁: pumpy-umpy-umpkin
y/n ❁: you’re my sweetie pie
after soobin had kindly handed his neighbour his scissors with the baby blue handles, he immediately picked up his phone and read your messages. instantly, his face burned up and he dramatically put his hand to his heart (because he was alone, and you made him do things like that just by calling him two pet names and quoting a children’s song). but as the ‘seen’ appeared at the bottom of your messages, panic began to jolt your bones.
y/n ❁: soobiiiiiiiiiiin :(
y/n ❁: the user has deleted this message
y/n ❁: the user has deleted this message
y/n ❁: the user has deleted this message
y/n ❁: the user has deleted this message
y/n ❁: the user has deleted this message
y/n ❁: the user has deleted this message
y/n ❁: the user has deleted this message
y/n ❁: the user has deleted this message
y/n ❁: the user has deleted this message
binbread: y/n
binbread: i saw everything you sent lmao
binbread: dont do this to me :(
y/n ❁ is typing…
y/n ❁: do what binnie? :)
binbread: that
binbread: [insert crying cat meme]
binbread: [which i don't have on me now because i cleared my storage]
y/n ❁: ok i literally cant take this
your thumbs twiddled around your screen as you inhaled sharply.
y/n ❁ is typing…
oh no, thought soobin. this is the end. this is where she gets irritated with me because i can’t take a joke. she blocks me and we never talk or hang out again. she find another guy and she’s happy without me and i’m sad and lonely and miserable, shovelling bread into my mouth as a replacement for my soul-
ding!
y/n ❁: you’re too cute for this world soobin
y/n ❁: and u make it so much better for everyone
y/n ❁: especially for me
y/n ❁: and i know this seems weird, and may very well ruin our friendship
y/n ❁: but i really really like you
y/n ❁: and im tired of hiding it
damn, soobin thought. damn i was not expecting that.
soobin’s heart was beating wildly out of his chest for the third time that day, only because of you. his fingers were shaking as he typed his reply as fast as he could. the moment he had dreamed of for months had finally come tapping on his screen.
binbread: oh my god
binbread: i like you too
binbread: i’ve liked you for like
binbread: so long
binbread: is this real
y/n ❁: or is this the fantasy
binbread: those aren’t the lyrics y/n
y/n ❁: i tried okay
binbread: and im so proud of you for doing so
binbread: truly a pop culture queen
y/n ❁: :(
binbread: okay okay
binbread: jokes aside
binbread: i've liked you for like,, 10 months now
binbread: this is a dream come true
binbread: you're a dream come true
binbread: so y/n
binbread: will you go out with me?
y/n ❁: i literally just confessed to you like 3 minutes ago
y/n ❁: like yea of course choi soobin
binbread: you could’ve just said yes :(
binbread: but okay meet me at the 5th station tmr?
binbread: i wanna take you to my favourite bakery! :D
y/n ❁: totally :D
and so here, at fifth station, act ii of your relationship with soobin had revealed itself. soobin looked like a prince, stepping out of the subway in a creme button up and black jeans, approaching you with a red rose in one hand and his phone dialling your number in the other. he smiled brightly as he approached you, seeing your face and your screen, popping up with his contact name.
incoming call…
soobin ❁
and so to his favourite bakery he brought you. it was rose themed, from rose gold metal vases to wooden countertops, and rose infused drinks and pastries, you felt like a princess. his princess. especially when he brought you for a walk in the cafe’s rose garden and you ran your hands gingerly over their velvet petals, thinking about the rose in your hand, how lucky you were to have it, and how many more of them you would get to enjoy. soobin gazed at you with soft eyes and gently took your hand in his.
“we’ll be as beautiful as this, together. a hundred roses,” soobin said, as if he were reading your mind, “wanna make them bloom with me?”
---
a/n: ayo! hoped u liked my first soobin fic 🥺 i love choi soobin and he’s very cute,, anyway if u have any requests feel free to send em in!! i’d love to write em <3
#choi soobin#txt choi soobin#soobin#choi soobin fluff#soobin fluff#txt fluff#txt imagines#txt fanfic#txt yeonjun#txt taehyun#txt huening kai#soobin angst#soobin smut#txt soobin#soobin imagines#txt#tomorrow by together#tomorrow x together#tomorrow x together fanfic#txt fic#txt scenarios#soobin au#choi soobin au
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oops
Rin realised with absolute terror, that by some cursed oddity, the quite-revealing, most definitely embarrassing selfie she had just taken had been sent to Len.
rating: T genre: humour, romance pairing: rinlen words: 2,477
It was a balmy Tuesday afternoon, and Rin was bored, so she went window shopping.
Her favourite thing to do was try on cute outfits, take selfies in them, and then not buy anything at all. It wasn’t like she could afford to buy any of the things she tried, anyway—she was a broke university student, barely scraping by weekly on nutritious meals of cup ramen.
This day, she felt particularly ambitious. A little sexy, even. So she went to her favourite lingerie store and tried on a bunch of cute, expensive underwear.
Alas, it did not go exactly as planned.
When she unlocked her phone to take a selfie, it did some weird glitch thing, but she simply shrugged it off and went to snap a photo of herself in the pastel, frilly, mermaid-themed underwear she’d picked out. Hmm. Cute. She clicked the confirm button, and went to take another picture, except—
Except the screen didn’t return to the camera option.
Oh, no.
It didn’t.
It had, in fact, opened up her message with Len. Her uni friend. The cute guy from her Psychology class.
But that wasn’t it.
Because, Rin realised with absolute terror, that by some cursed oddity, the quite-revealing , most definitely embarrassing selfie she had just taken had been sent to him.
The final hit was the little: Read at 2:36 .
“Fuck!”
.
It was a balmy Tuesday afternoon, and Len was struggling to stay awake during his Introduction to Molecular Chemistry lecture. He kept nodding off every few minutes, the lecturer’s voice oddly soothing—both a blessing and a curse in his case.
But then his phone buzzed, and his eyes popped open to read the notification.
(1) Message from Rin Kagamine.
Huh. Wonder why Rin was texting him. They didn’t really talk much outside of their class together, but she was pretty cool. Pretty and cool, that was. He didn’t really think they were on that level for casual conversations yet, so perhaps it was uni-related, or something.
He reached over to unlock his phone to read the message.
And promptly turned off his screen again.
What… what was that .
His eyes had almost fallen out of his sockets. Had he just seen correctly? Or was his mind playing tricks on him? He wasn’t even entirely sure.
Reluctantly, he opened the message back up.
And confirmed, it was, indeed, not a mistake of his eyes.
She had, in fact, just sent him a picture of her in underwear. (Very nice underwear, might he add! But also, what the fuck was going on here .)
Before he could even form some degree of coherent message in response to the picture, Rin had begun spamming him in a flurry of panic.
FUCK
I’M SO SORRY
I
I’M SO FUCKING EMBARRASSED OH MY FUCKING GOD
FUCK!!!!
I SWEAR THIS WAS AN ACCIDENT I
I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED MY PHONE GLITCHED I’M SO SORRY LEN FUCK
He raised an eyebrow at the messages, amused. So it was… an accident? How does one send a sexy selfie as an accident? How does one’s phone glitch to the degree of accidentally sending someone a sexy selfie? Had she been meaning to send it to someone else?
There were so many questions.
Well, the good thing was that Len was definitely awake now.
.
Rin was crouching on the floor of the dressing room, half-naked and freaking out because he still hadn’t replied. But he had read all the messages. Oh god. What happens if he, like, posted the picture to some Facebook group to shame her? What if he used it for blackmail?
Was Len that sort of person? Did he like blackmail?
But before she could jump to any more conclusions, he’d responded with:
Thanks. I needed something to make this lecture a little bit more bearable.
He was at school? Had he opened the message in front of everyone? Had everyone else seen her in the cute little frilly mermaid underwear with her unshaven legs and pot-belly from eating two servings of instant yakisoba for lunch????
Rin sunk further down onto the ground, clutching her head, texting back rapid-fire.
I swear it was an accident I don’t know why it was sent to you I was literally just taking pics of myself and AHHHHH
Did she really just admit that she had been taking photos of herself, half-naked, in the dressing room of an expensive lingerie store?
Yes. Yes she did.
And Len had the audacity to send back a crying-laughing face.
Well idk if you wanted an opinion, but it looks cute. You should buy it.
Rin buried her face into her knees, utterly humiliated . This wasn’t what she was expecting her boring Tuesday afternoon to be like. Maybe she should’ve just stayed home and studied like a good student.
Well. It was too late to go back now.
I wish I could but it’s way out of my price range
Thanks, tho
She closed her phone and stood up, taking a breath to calm herself. At that moment, the dressing room assistant knocked on her door and asked, “Do you need any help?”
“I’m fine!” she croaked, scrambling to change into her next outfit. God forbid she let anyone else look at her body today.
.
Len couldn’t help but be a little disappointed at the fact that she’d stop replying after that last message.
Of course, it was normal , given that this was all apparently an accident , but he was hoping she’d send another picture or two.
You know.
That sounded dirty of him. But she was cute. And that first picture was—although very much a surprise—somewhat eye candy for him. Plus he was super bored. He still had another hour left of his lecture and his soul was slowly being leached from his body.
So, like the little disgusting man he was, he sent another message.
Is that all?
About a minute passed, before Rin responded with, What?
He internally winced. Was he really going to make himself sound like a major creep?
Yes. Yes he was.
(This was going to make his Psychology class super awkward and he knew it.)
You’re not trying any others on?
Rin’s reply came almost immediately after that. Of COURSE I’m trying others on
What, do you want more pictures of an underdeveloped adult woman with hairy legs and a bloated stomach in your phone?
Len snorted. The picture she’d sent was fine. It was a body. A very nice body he liked to look at.
So he said, I can give you a second opinion?
It was radio static silent from Rin. She’d read his message, but no answer. He waited about five minutes, before he put down his phone with a sigh and tried to tune into his class.
She’d probably blocked his number. With good reason.
God. How was he going to meet her eyes in Psychology class on Thursday?
Providing she didn’t like, sock him in the jaw for being a pervert.
But he couldn’t help it! He needed the thrill! The entertainment! Also the pictures of a cute girl in cute underwear on his phone!
Len was going to hell but he didn’t even care.
.
Rin had stared at her phone for an incredibly long time, not sure how to respond to her classmate.
Look, she got it. It was her fault for being a dumbass and not checking before taking the picture. She technically asked for this roundabout method of torture.
And yet. He had the audacity to ask for more.
She didn’t know whether to be mad or impressed. Madpressed, maybe.
So she left it to stew on, finished taking selfies of all the cute underwear in her naked glory, and went home very pensive. She thought very hard about it all on the bus, and glared hard at his little, stupid face in his icon on the message app.
Len was a good-looking guy. And , from the few conversations they had in class, he had a good sense of humour. And judging by his messages, he was also a cheeky asshole.
But she could’ve done worse. A whole lot worse. She could’ve sent that picture to her grandfather, or better yet, one of her creepy great uncles. Perhaps it was a good thing she’d sent it to some random (hot) guy from university.
Yeah.
So Rin decided to send the rest of her photos to him, and die gracefully in a puddle of shame.
He’d already seen one, so he might as well see them all.
.
Len almost tripped and fell flat on his face when Rin suddenly bulk-sent five more pictures of her in various, adorable lingerie.
He wasn’t even in his lecture anymore. He was walking home, feeling sorry for his little perverted self, and the fact that he accidentally slept through the remainder of his class. How on earth was he even going to pass that class.
The blood rushing to his head (and to the south pole), he managed to type out a response that read a lot more underwhelmingly compared to what was really going on in his mind.
Very nice.
Was it something a girl wanted to read after sending multiple pictures of herself in a vulnerable state? No, probably not. But his brain had turned to mush and was starting to seep out of his ears.
Rin wasn’t impressed.
You could’ve at least said thank you
Len fumbled for his dorm key, hands sweaty. Look, he was inexperienced. No one had ever sent him sexy pictures—or the equivalent of them, at least, whatever these were. He didn’t know how to handle it! Besides, she wasn’t even, like, a girl he was dating. He couldn’t just go full-mcCreep and tell her that he had a boner.
Could he?
No. He couldn’t.
Thank you , he responded, upon letting himself into his dorm room. I like the lavender one btw. It goes well with your hair colour
Was that too… much? He didn’t know if what he was doing was right. What did she expect him to say? He had no idea what on earth this entire situation was meant to be.
Oh really? That was my favourite
Cost like half a kidney tho
Len sank down onto his bed, relieved at her response. Okay. Okay. He was doing better. But now … he had a very important question he wanted to ask.
What’s the name of the store?
.
Rin blinked at his message, wondering why he was asking.
But she decided it was better not to ask. Maybe he had a girlfriend, or something. (Which, if he did, she would be incredibly pissed, because wouldn’t this classify as cheating? If he did, she was going to make sure he couldn’t walk straight ever again.)
She sent him back the store name. And left it there.
Thanks!
I’ll see you on Thursday ;)
Rin stared at his messages. Why did he send that winky face. What did it mean. What did it mean.
She didn’t respond, just tossed her phone aside and flopped back against her couch. She’d find out soon enough if she’d regret her actions.
.
Come Thursday, Rin had all but mentally prepared for her encounter with Len.
He pulled out the chair beside her in their lecture hall, and she stiffened, reluctantly dragging her eyes up to meet his gaze.
“Morning,” he said, acting way too casual given the circumstances. He plopped a familiar bag down on the desk in front of her and winked. Winked.
She felt her breakfast come up a little as it dawned on her, with absolute horror, that the bag donned the logo of the exact same store she’d been trying on underwear in the other day.
“What… is this,” she asked, gesturing at the bag like it was a severed toe.
Len looked smug, resting his chin on his hand. “I don’t know. Take a peek.”
“You don’t know,” Rin muttered to herself, unconvinced. She leaned forward, peering into the bag, catching a glimpse of something the shade of lavender. Uhhhh. She’d seen that shade of lavender somewhere. On her body. In the dressing room.
Hm.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Len said, shifting his gaze away so that he was facing forward. “No, I don’t know your size. I guessed.”
She wanted to send her face forward into the surface of the desk.
“But if it doesn’t fit,” he added, lips turning up into a smirk, “you can always take it in to swap it for your size. The receipt is in the bag.”
God. What on earth. What the even. What?
“Is this… are you going to like… blackmail me or something, or,” Rin spluttered, eyeing him with suspicion. “What are you going to have me do in return for… this? This brand isn’t… cheap.”
Len glanced back at her, shrugged his shoulders. “Well, you technically don’t have to do anything , but…” He licked his lips. What the fuck? Ew. Gross. “I wouldn’t mind some more pictures.”
She gawked at him, heat rushing to her cheeks. “ Re ally?” She didn���t trust him. She didn’t trust this pretty-faced man-boy at all. “So, you want to be my sugar daddy?”
He choked. After recovering from his coughing fit, he sat up straight, made direct eye-contact and said smoothly, “Yeah, if that’s how you want to see it.”
So, he gave her expensive lingerie. In exchange for. Pictures of her. In said lingerie.
Wow.
Rin wasn’t sure whether she was awake anymore, or just dreaming. Maybe she had passed out or something, and was having a fever dream. This was just too weird to even be real. She pinched her thigh under the desk, but nothing happened (alas).
“I mean, you could just go on a date with me instead, and maybe you’ll get to see the real thing,” her mouth said, without any mental input. It just came out.
It was real clown hours in this Psychology lecture, huh.
Len’s mouth popped open. Then closed. Then opened again. “That could work, too.”
It was silent. No one knew how to handle this situation, apparently. They were both staring awkwardly at the bag of lingerie on the desk between them, like it might eat them at any moment.
Eventually, Rin’s hand reached out and snatched it off the desk, stuffing it down into her shoulder bag on the ground. She cleared her throat, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Well, I’ll try it on tonight and see how it fits.”
Len tried not to look too pleased. And failed. “Cool.” He hesitated, side-glancing her. “If it does… ”
“I’ll meet you at Crypton's at seven.”
He blinked, surprised, before leaning back in his seat and grinning with satisfaction. “Sounds good.”
(Spoiler alert: Rin’s underwear didn’t fit, but they still went on the date anyway.)
#fanfiction#vocaloid#vocaloid fanfiction#rin kagamine#kagamine rin#len kagamine#kagamine len#rinlen#lenrin#rinxlen#lenxrin#uh... yeah
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Oooo, how about two from each of them? Fanfic asks: J and P, film asks: 15 and 16, music asks: 20 and 26.
OMG thanks!!! :DDD
Ask games: Fanfic asks, Film asks and Music asks. (People you can still send me asks if you want, asks are fun to answer to!)
***
FANFIC ASKS:
A little background before we get to the questions: I haven’t written too many, actually only 6 quite short ones (and one of them is a bit longer than usual) about Die Ärzte (Bela/Farin FTW) and all of these I have written between the years 2009 and 2012, so I was 18-21 which means they are not that good. And there’s lots of things I wouldn’t write anymore. I also have a WIP on my computer, I started it in 2012 but stopped writing altogether only to start writing again in the end 2018, it has bit over 28k words currently and tbh I have written 90% of that when I started writing again two years ago. I still have my old ones up on LiveJournal (ask for a link), but I haven’t published anything fron this later one as I’ve just been writing down all kinds of snippets whenever I have had an inspiration. I think those are also a lot better in quality than what I wrote before, the old ones are quite cringey.
J. What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?
I guess we talk about those fics I have also finished, now. It’s actually hard to decide but I would say my favourite is either Why not even once? or The Boring Book Freak. I think the latter is actually The favourite.
The first one (was actually my second dä ff overall) is set to happen in 2003 and in that one Farin is leaving for another vacation somewhere and Bela wants to go with him, but Farin wants to travel alone and Bela is struggling with that, as well as with Farin finally leaving and having to somehow survive his time at home without Farin there. The writing itself is bit stupid and I feel that the end got bit too far but otherwise I like the idea.
The second one (came actually after the previous one) is set to happen in the early/mid 90s (my fave Bela/Farin era btw) and on that they just are at some random summer cottage. Now, fuck cottagecores and such, I wrote it because summer cottages are a thing in Finland and I wrote it when cottagecore was not even cool yet. Somehow I imagined that it would be very Farin-like to rent a cottage from the middle of nowhere, in a forest and then spend a weekend or so there with Bela. Who then is not entertained at all and is bored because Farin won’t put away his book and won’t give him any attention, so he tries everything to get Farin’s attention. I especially like the visual images this fanfic gives to me, I can see their hairs and outfits so well and those are also aesthetically very pleasing. (They look the same as in that Absolut Live interview from the 90s, I don’t control their looks with my fics usually, I just have an idea and then my brain creates how they look in that particular scene :D)
I have also written a short songfic around the lyrics of their song “Ich weiß nicht (ob es Liebe ist)” and it was fun to imagine that as Bela/Farin. That was fun to write.
This got a bit long so I put the rest under a cut:
P. What are your favorite tropes to write?
(Had to google what a trope is lol. I’m old-school and no longer know most of the terms unless they’re old terms.)
Angst - I put my own angst, sadness and angriness into my writing often. It’s when I feel like in real life I would need other people but I don’t know how to reach out or don’t just feel comfortable about opening up, I open up a file and start writing. This is also where we get to the next trope...
Hurt/Comfort - But not so that X hurts Y, but that Y feels hurt for other reasons and then X comforts them. I kinda got obsessed with this theme after being bullied at school so I was always hurt but never comforted, so I often go back to those feels and emotions with my text to look for that comfort (hug, nice words, whatever) I never got in real life.
Fluff - This is bit complicated because I like writing fluff but I also hate reading fluff I have written. Because it does not sound like me. And sometimes when I write, I feel like standing behind my own back and vomiting a little on the inside because of how cheesy and disgusting that is but still I can’t stop writing. And then I feel like a different person when I read them because I can’t believe it’s ME who wrote them. The same way when I watch movies and people kiss, I always look away. And I want to look away when I read my fanfiction. But I can’t, especially because I know I looked at that scene in my head when I wrote it.
Humour - I love humour so much and I like to include this to my writing. Normally I put the humour in my comics but some of that fits also in the regular texts too.
***
FILM ASKS:
These are super tough but also fun - I have been trying to think of what to answer to these for days.
15. A film everyone loves but you hate?
The Avengers (-12). Sorry but not sorry. Well I don’t hate it but I don’t understand why everyone says it’s the best Marvel movie ever. It’s not. It’s full of clichés and stupid forced heteroromances and whatnot and the plot was just so, so predictive I don’t understand why it’s often talked about as some sort of cinematic master piece. I literally was able to tell everything that was gonna happen next when I watched it for the first time. Only cool things in that movie are Loki and Iron Man, whose character I already liked as I had seen the Iron Man movie and liked it. But I hated both Thor movies (the third one is awesome tho).
I like Marvel and I have seen I guess most of the movies - before MCU all good Marvel movies to come out were The X-Men movies and Spider-Man movies, and because I saw so many terrible Marvel movies, I was avoiding the whole MCU and I got into these movies much later and still, after seeing them all, I say The Avengers is one of the worst ones. Thor and Thor 2 are pretty much even worse (and I haven’t even seen the Hulk movie because it looks terrible), mainly because I just can’t stand the fact they’re mainly just built around Thor and his love interest...
16. A film you love but everyone else hates?
Spider-Man 3 (or the whole trilogy with Tobey Maguire). I see we continue with Marvel here but seriously I don’t understand why everyone is always picking on Tobey’s version of Spider-Man? And people especially hate the third movie and how Venom was portrayed in it (I’m obsessed with Venom’s human teeth pls I want his teeth), when it’s actually the best one for me. The second one is bit boring because it was again all about whining and Mary-Jane... Anyway, the reason why I am so attached to these movies is that I saw the first Spider-Man movie from TV when I was a teenager and in junior high myself, and I was bullied and a bit of a nerd so I could relate to Peter Parker a lot, and it gave me just so much strength to see him become Spider-Man and to stand up against the bullies and other assholes.
I also saw the third movie in the movie theater and there was one scene during which I started hysterically laughing with my friend because of an expression Tobey made as he was sitting on a bed, I don’t know why but somehow I just totally lost it at that :D It still makes me laugh so much when I see it! And when the movie ended, I heard a The Killers song “Move Away” for the first time during the end credits and TK was one of my favorite bands at the time (and still is).
***
MUSIC ASKS:
20. a song that empowers you
It gotta be Dead! by My Chemical Romance:
youtube
This album was what got me through all the shit that happened when I was 15+ and especially this song always made (and still makes) me feel so good. I often listened to my old mp3 player while walking to school and back home and every time this song came by, I just felt like nothing can harm and that life FINALLY was so great! It’s so energetic and still makes me feel that living is actually super awesome.
26. a song that taught you a lesson
Hmmm. I think I will answer to this with Dusche by Farin Urlaub.
youtube
That thumbnail is terrible but... And why did I choose this song? Well, I’m all for the sound what comes to music and I’d say at least 80% of all lyrics go way over my head. I just don’t have the skills for understanding poetry and also very poetic lyrics make me go crazy. I hate not knowing and when I have to assume, guess and interpret something. I don’t want to guess but I wanna know what someone has actually thought.
Dusche was the first song that had lyrics that for the first time ever actually spoke for me. I probably saw some video with English subtitles a fan had made and it just blew me away because holy shit, people are capable of writing lyrics even I can understand??? And that way I realized I can like lyrics but only if they make absolutely no sense (aka are funny or somewhat crazy, like Dusche) or when they are written in a story form or sung from the 1st person view or to “you” or in passive - but only if I can get behind the idea there.
After Dusche, Farin’s song Porzellan followed. And one of my absolute favourites is Karten. So, Farin is one of the only few people whose lyrics I have been able to understand. I still don’t hear lyrics and don’t understand a majority of the lyrics my fave bands write, and I have understood only a couple of Bela’s lyrics and I’m not sure if I’ve understood any of Rod’s lyrics. It’s not even about the language barrier anymore really, it’s just the topics or wordings I cannot comprehend.
Thank you again for the ask! This was very interesting to ponder and answer to :)
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Ken-Chan’s Fan Event!!!
I basically died and ascended so I’m writing this from beyond this world.
Have a peek under the Read More if you guys are interested in hearing about this fan event! Unlike the Donut Conferences, I don’t think he’s making a DVD of this one.
OK so ken-chan's event was in this little basement cafe with like... 60 people max. Super close quarters, and I saw him and Hiroki and Justin closer than when we were second row at Takato's event. UGHHHHH HE'S SOOOOOO CUUUUUTE They all were, but obviously Ken-chan in particular. Especially with his current longer hair, he looks especially boyish.
At first he just like quietly appeared out of nowhere from the back and everyone was like wait, what? what?? lololol Then he made his way over to the "stage" area and took the microphone to say hi to us, make sure that we grabbed food from the buffet, etc... He actually started the event with circling around the tables and taking photos with everyone (which I think took everyone by surprise because that's usually done last). So he took photos with everyone and was restricted to 20 seconds at each table to chat lol. The staff kept him on-time otherwise I think he would’ve definitely gone over.
I told him it was my first time at one of his events, which made him happy and then he asked me how I got to know about him, so I said Engeki, and then I told him I came from America to watch it and to come to this event and he was happily surprised. He was gonna ask me another thing but time was up! Not much anyone can say in 20 seconds if you’re trying for an actual conversation lol.
For the guest corner he kept giving us clues and I think we all knew who they'd be but everyone was shy so nobody spoke up to guess who. And then Justin and Hiroki came out and there was cheering and clapping~♡♡♡ (There’s a part of me that is deeply amused to have seen Hiroki twice in three days and both times at some other actor’s event where he was a ‘secret guest’ LOL. For not going to an Ino Hiroki event, I’ve seen him quite a bit lately lol) Instead of going to Ken-chan first, Hiroki decided to be a little shit (like always) and he went for the buffet table instead and Ken-chan was like, “Later! You can eat later!”
Ahhhhhh seeing the three of them together like old times was sooo -clutches heart- And they were really happy about it too. Hiroki and Justin hung out just yesterday with Kage-chan to watch the World Cup, and Ken-chan knew about that but he doesn't know anything about soccer. But he actually decided to watch some yesterday and thought Senegal's coach was really cool, and then he said the Japanese goalkeeper was cool and the other two were just like, “yeah.... no comment.” I also don’t know anything about soccer, but my twitter timeline seems to have mixed feelings about the Japanese goalkeeper and I’m assuming Justin and Hiroki don’t really like him lol. Justin had been a guest at a previous donut conference, and Hiroki has gone to one before, and he asked, “How is this any different from a donut conference?” Since this particular fan event is named differently and stuff lol. But the whole theme of this one is to just “relax” so for example, there’s no Kenko appearance, and based on the DVDs I’ve seen, the donut conferences tend to be a little bit more elaborate in content. More like Takato’s event that I saw probably. But this one was meant to be smaller, more easygoing, more intimate.
If there was ever any doubt that the "Today's Third Years" videos were ken-chan's idea, no more reason to doubt lol. The other two were whining about being tired after Engeki performances but Ken-chan would always come up to them with, "So for today's theme!!" Justin pointed out how much thought Ken-chan put into those themes all the time. Hiroki apparently wasn't overly fond of the one where he was the boy catching bugs and Ken-chan was the cicada and Justin was the mantis. Which cracked me up because that's probably one of my favorites and also Hiroki arguably got the best part since he wasn't a bug lol But Hiroki likes to complain tho lol. And still he admitted that because Ken-chan was always so excited about them he'd get into them too, and Justin agreed to that.
Keeping with the Engeki stories: Apparently one time in the dressing rooms, Justin's personal makeup mirror was missing, but his and only his, and he was confused and wondering, “...are they telling me not to wear makeup??” And Ken-chan said, “You could just go on stage without makeup, you look good enough to not need it.” But Justin replied, "Ok but like, Asahi is Japanese. And I have this foreigner face. And I have to try and make my eyes look smaller." So then Ken-chan asked the crowd, “Who does their make-up in the mornings and tries to make their eyes look smaller?” Obviously nobody raised their hand and Justin answered, “Pretty sure it’s just me. Just me.”
English became a topic at one point and Justin admitted he's stopped taking English lessons because he’s gotten too busy to go. That and, "I also realized I could just practice by talking to my family." And Hiroki was like YOU SHOULD'VE REALIZED THAT FROM THE START! Hiroki also wanted to brush up so he recently bought a textbook for self-study, but he said it was too hard. Lots of unknown vocabulary. Then Ken-chan said he actually remembers the first English word he ever learned, which was "sacrifice" and the others were like WHAT A WEIRD FIRST WORD??? But it's because a friend of his from grade school used it kind of weirdly and after he asked the teacher what it meant, he realized better what his friend was talking about, thought it was profound and then remembered it forever.
Hiroki was like, "I kind of understand how you could be friends. He sounds weird like you." Actually Justin and Hiroki called Ken-chan "weird" a number of times lol, like it's his defining feature or something. That and he texts them in their three-person group chat like a “girlfriend.”
He’ll send them selfies and go, "Here's today's Akisawa Kentarou!" and Hiroki is always like dude, what? Or out of nowhere he’ll tell them, "It's cold out so take care and don't catch a cold ok!" And Justin was like, “It's kind of like having a girlfriend.”
For a little question corner someone wanted Justin and Hiroki to say something they liked about Ken-chan and also one thing they disliked. Justin loves ken-chan's bright and warm personality. He feels like Ken-chan gives him extra energy and strength and that he always gets caught up in Ken-chan’s pace. Hiroki loves that when it comes to Ken-chan he can really feel like he cares for each individual in their own unique way. Like Ken-chan is mindful of different people and holds a different kind of love for everyone. WHICH I THOUGHT WAS KIND OF DEEP I DUNNO I GOT EMOTIONAL. Justin agreed and Ken-chan said how happy he was to hear that.
Another question was, if the three of them could appear together in a play again, what kind of roles would Ken-chan imagine for everyone? And honestly it got kind of weird and convoluted, but he assigned Justin to be a monk, and for Hiroki to be someone completely plain and normal. Because Hiroki’s done a lot of different types of roles as an actor and since his normal personality is kind of out there, he thought it would be a challenge for Hiroki to be as plain and as normal as possible. And Ken-chan himself would be like... the bad guy running an evil organization, but then he found religion and converted... but it was a trick... it got weird. Justin was nodding his head and kind of getting into it, but Hiroki’s face just kept getting more and more confused LOL. And at the end he was just like, “What is this?! This would definitely have a bad ending!” ( 絶対バッ��エンド!) Justin just went, “Yeah this just all reminded me of how amazing Ken-chan is. He just comes up with stuff like this.” Hiroki was just giving these super doubtful looks, oh my god, he looked so funny honestly.
When the guest corner wrapped up and Ken-chan said goodbye to them, he tried to kiss Hiroki’s hand as he shook it, and Hiroki was just giving him the funniest stink-eye for the next two whole minutes as he slowly, slowly backed off from the stage area lololol. (Again, HIROKI IT’S NOT LIKE YOU DON’T TRY TO SNEAK SMOOCHES FROM PEOPLE, I JUST SAW YOU TRY TO SMOOCH TAKATO TWO NIGHTS AGO; HE’S SUCH A LITTLE SHIT I LOVE HIM).
After that, Ken-chan treated us to a song, and my heart was soaring because I love his singing, and he picked such a sweet song with sweet lyrics, and UGH. I need to see him live in a musical someday. He was all nervous before he started too, saying that he was bad at singing and everyone in the room just VEHEMENTLY shook their heads like WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT?!?! But the space was small and he wasn’t on an elevated stage at all, so I’m sure the intimacy of the setting made it a little more nerve-wracking singing a solo song in front of 60 people.
Then for his good-bye message he thanked us all for supporting him and for making events like this possible. He even gestured to me where I was sitting and said, “Even coming all the way from America! She’s here from America, everyone!” and the other girls did the “Ehhh???” thing at me and OMG I just kind of bowed meekly. But then another girl in the front raised her hand and said she was from China studying abroad, and Ken-chan was all, “I’m global! Global Kentarou!”
Then for the send-off, he would shake our hands and try to spend at least another 20 seconds talking to each of us as he gave us our individual good-byes. If you ordered his donut conference DVD, there was the option to have him give you your copy at the end of the event, so obviously I did that lol.
He also prepared these little handwritten cards for everyone with small felt roses attached, so I now have a handwritten card from Ken-chan~
When it was my turn, he took my hands and shook them and thanked me for coming all the way from America to see him. He asked me how long the trip takes, and I told him that from Seattle to Narita is about a 10-hr flight, and he was like, “That’s so far!” And then I showed him the donut earrings I wore for his event, and he poked one gently and pointed them out to his friend who was assisting at the event (It was Shouma, who helps him at every event I think) and was just like, “Look at her donut earrings! They’re so cute!” And then he complimented my Japanese, wished me a safe trip home, and held my hands again (how do I ever wash these hands again?) and said, “Have a nice day!!” and I dunno. My heart just like... melted. Also my gift for him this time was a black shirt that has “have a nice day” embroidered on it so it was also a bit... not deja vu, but ANYWAYS. I’m so proud of myself for not tripping up the stairs as I left because oh my god the euphoriaaaaa~
My photo with him is going to be one of my most prized possessions forever probably.
----
Oh! Also the three of them made a video after the event (x) but since Ken-chan and Hiroki are “graduated” from being Karasuno third-years, it’s not titled the usual “Today’s Third-Years.” Now it’s “Today’s Adults... or wannabe adults anyway”
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My Muse
It doesn´t matter who I am, or not. The only thing that matters at the moment is, whether you are alright? Don´t give me that look now, I have seen it countless times before. I just wanted to help you, when I stretched my hand out for you to take. Was I really that frightening, that you now fear me? That you flinch back, when I move too quickly? When I move in your direction? I think I can´t look into your eyes any more, the expression they have is killing me inside.
My name? I don´t think I remember it either. It has been lost for a long time. Sometimes I believe that only the stars from high above us, could remember my name, but I don´t think they have bothered too. At this point I have many names, not a single one truly mine, but not wrong eihter. Just say something, I will notice when you are talking with me, and I will response as best as I can, even though I am more like my teacher, than I ever thought I would. Don´t worry, that is a story for another time.
I came from a horrible place, but I have a feeling that is not quite what you wanted to know. I swore myself to never go back to this place, to leave it behind once and for all, but I think I failed. It still follows me, every step that I take, it is always right behind me, and no matter what I do, I can´t shake it off. But like I said, this isn´t what you wanted to know. The place, that you mean, doesn´t exist any more. It was burned down a long time ago, and something new was built on top of it. I mourned it, when I first saw it, hated them for doing such a thing, but I came to realize, that it was already gone, when I was rebuild, and that it would have fallen apart anyway eventually.
Family? No, I don´t think so. Years have passed the last time I saw my blood relatives, and I hope that they aren´t aound any more. I know how that makes me sound, but it would be for the best. Really! For everyone, it would be the best. People that I have searched for myself, I have lost long ago too. Death, really makes no difference, with whom it takes. Friends, some left me behind, other I had to leave behind. But, let´s not talk about this any more. It still hurts to think of them.
Hah! What?! I, do I, huh. What makes you think that? Look, just look back on how you yourself reacted, when I tried to help you, and you think that I have a partner? Well, putting that ridiculous notion aside, the simple answer is no. I don´t. I had a companion once, brave and smart, and the only one that never minded my ways. But he was horse. Which makes this answer really weird right now. Other people tend to avoid me, they just don´t stay around for long, and in the end I am left alone.
What do I-? What is it with you and those kind of questions? Kindness and acceptance, I guess. Those are traits, that I enjoy to stay around. But I don´t think that will be of any use for you! I don´t even know what you are doinh here. Though I would like to know, where your mind is, when you open your mouth! Knowing who you are, is also a pleasent attribute to be around. I guess I like to be around people that will accept me and the way that I am, every once in a while. It is good for the me, I need that, you know. The assurance, that I am not completely unwanted, that there is someone out there, who will accept me. But enough of that for now!
Nothing specific, if I am being honest. I find work, where the people need another hand to help. I often get paid in favours or in food. While we are on the topic, I rarely have the need for money either. I sleep under the stars, and believe it or not, nature can sustain you. There is enough food around, you just have to know where to find it, and that get´s earsier over time. Sometimes, I guess, I kill monsters. I don´t know when I started, but it somehow stuck with me. It became something that I do a lot more often, then I ever thought I would do.
A dragon. I knew it, I knew him. He wasn´t evil, just angry. Maybe even rightfully so. I saw him grow up, and I was there. Some days I would teach him what I know, and when I came back, I always would have a little gift ready. One time, I gifted him this chicken, you see, her name was, I think it was Casey. He was so happy. But then, there was another child, and it was sick, there could have been a medicine, but the price was too high. He got so angry, and the price was still far too high. It happened so long ago, but I still have to cry for him. It wasn´t fair what happened, the circumstances, it just wasn´t fair. He deserved more of a chance, but he never got it.
I never visited a school, even though I have to add, that doesn´t mean I don´t know what is taught there. I learn from the people that I meet in my life, and from the libaries across this world. After all I was taught how to read and write, an important skill in my opinion. I can learn whatever is written down out there. The fighting I learned from a soldier, my medicine from witch. I learned the basics from them, and could then further my knowledge with what I learned on my travels. My knowledge really just is what I accumulated over time.
Travelling is a full time occupation. I don´t really have things I could pick up on the side, though I try to keep myself entertained most of the time. Nature doesn´t only offer you food, there is far more to it, than you believe. I like to listen to the birds sing in the morning, when they are just waking up, or to observe the way clouds draw in the sky, with a little imagination, there are the most beautiful pictures up there, or to watch the different behaviour of different animals. It is all so interesting, and I guess I like to see it, when I have the time. My favourite sights by far though are the stars, and the way the sun rises and goes down. It is just beautiful.
My favourite? I guess I like reading. There is something new in every book. Almost like you are stepping through a little portal into another world. It is also nearly always worth the time I spent over books. I rarely regret, reading or staying in a libary, instead of travelling further. My knowledge, is also mostly based on that. Sometimes I learn phrases, and words that way that I have never heard before, so that is always good too. It is something that can occupy your mind for a little, when your body is exhausted. It is almost peaceful.
The weather? Really? You are asking me about the weather, that I like? Well, I guess I like the warm days, but not the hot ones. The ones were you just enjoy the warmth, without sweating. When the sky is clouded, even though I tend to worry about rain on those day, they still are my favourites. And it is definitely the nightsky that I prefer! I adore the stars more, than the sun, so that shouldn´t be much of a surprise. I guess all, in all I love autuum and spring, those middle times, more than the extremes. It is just the most pleaseant time.
Once a long time ago, I really had such a place. My companion had found it, and it was really beautiful there. There was little lake, and the whole thing was surrounded by trees. The light would always break in such a fascinating way on the water. I really loved it there. But one day my companion died. I only visited that place once after that day. He was the one that had found it, I always thought, that I shouldn´t stay there without him. And in the I didn´t. I don´t know what happened to it. Maybe it is gone, maybe it is still there, exactly as I left it. But I won´t go looking for it, that much is sure.
Yeah, I learned them over time. Stay in a foreign place long enough, and you will learn. A hard way to learn a language, sure, but it had always worked for me before. It get´s easier and harder at the same time. I get used to learn new words and a whole other way of speaking, but on the other sides, I sometimes have som many words, for the same thing in my head, that I don´t even know any more, which one is the right one and which one is the wrong one. It is weird. There are also soome languages that I know, that aren´t even spoken any more, those were a pain to learn, that I can tell you!
I do listen to music, I had once in fact a friend, who made music. He was a strange one, but he was always nice. Sometimes he would even teach me a bit of what he knew, that was fun. Other times he would just play songs for me, that came to him in that moment. They were always the most beautiful songs that I knew. And of course do I know stories too. I am traveller, a vagabond. That is the way I entertain myself on the road, reciting old stories, and thinking about them. I have heard stories from across the world, and they are all so unique, even when they share some core themes. The product of creativity is always so beautiful.
Religion? I will be honest with you, I don´t care for it. If someone wants to belive in a single allmight god, or a whole pantheon. It doesn´t matter to me, and as long as it doesn´t concern me, I have no reason, to go against it. Though it makes me angry, when people use their religion and their text to hurt other. I don´t think that is right, and I hope thos people would just stop it. Though I don´t care much for the believing part, I sometimes like to listen to the stories that people tell, they are fun, sometimes.
Yeah, most of times mythology are stories, that people believed to be true. There are so mayn out there, and most were once the core for another religion. Myths usually run around the making of the world, and the gods that lived there and watched over humanity. Well, I loose the term watched really loosely here. There are so many different view points there, and no matter where you will go over time, there will always be something like a myth there.
My favourite, well, that would have to be the one about a goddess and the king of the underworld. There are many different versions of the myth around, but some things always stay the same. The goddess somehow winds up in the underworld, sometimes she is kidnapped by the king, other times she just wanderes there by accident, and decided to stay there, by the king´s side. Her mother is the goddess of harvest, and in her grief over her daughter all the plants die, so a bargain is made, that the daughter returns for an amount of time. They explained in that myth how the seasons came to be, and I think I just like it. It is a nice story.
Ah! From the light hearted topics, back to the depressing ones, with just one question. I think as a child I just wanted to get away from it all. I didn´t want to stay where I was any more, and I needed to be somewhere else. So that is what I did. Packed my bag and just went away. I started running that day, and I don´t think I have ever stopped running since that day. I can´t any more. But, hey! Who can say that they have fullfilled their childhood dream, right?!
For some reason, it is the rain. Maybe it is because it was raining for days, after I finally left, or because it tends to rain after I lost someone. But that sound, coupled with the smell, it just, there is an ache in my chest, when that combination hits. There is nothing that I can do against it. It is just there, and it is so heavy to carry around. But it is there, makes it hard to breathe, maybe it isn´t nostalgia, maybe it is just sorrow, at this point, so painful, that I can´t even cry because of it any more.
I have a good nose, so I smell a lot more than you would imagine. There is one smell, I don´t really hate it, as much as I rather fear it. It makes me uncomfortable, and makes me sick whenever it crosses my nose. Do you know how burned flesh smells? How ash does? This combination is just something horrible. It reminds me of something I would rather forget. A smell that I love would have to be freshly cut grass. I don´t know, it is just pleseant. Often enough reasoning for me, to like something apparently.
Sometimes of the darkness, sometimes of what I can´t see, sometimes of a false smile. There are many things in this world, that can and have already, stricken fear in me. There are things out there, you would never go to sleep any more in fear of meeting them in your nightmares. But I know that they exist, that they are real. Sometimes it is even the smallest things, that can strike fear in me so very naturally, sometimes it is something so abstract, that I don´t even know where I would start to describe it. But no matter what it is, the things I fear are numerous.
Are you trying to give me a whiplash with those questions of yours? You change quicker between heavy and depressing to light and silly, than I can keep up with. Are those your real intentions to confuse me thourougly, so I don´t know what is happening any more? Huh. But to come back to your little question. I am ambidextorous, originally left handed, and so this day the hand I like to use more, but you may know the talk about the devil. So the right hand I learned to use more, to keep myself safe. Happy?
Apparently not. I do indeed possess a few of those. Habits are countless for me. I wake up with the sun and go to sleep with the stars. I need those habits, for I am a vagabond, and though the road brings plenty of change, it also needs a certain kind of routine, that is where the habits come into play. And vices, they come with time too, with hunting, with killing. My most noticeable one, as a vice at least, may be my drinking. I carry my flask with me, and when it becomes too much I start to drink once more.
I would prefer the truth by far. Though I can imagine that for some it might be nice, to be lied to repeatedly to sare their feelings, I couldn´t take it. I would rather take the unpleasant truth, then the nice lie. At least then I can start to make my plans according to reality, to deal with what is really happening, make a plan appropriate to what is going on around me. In the end it is so much easier to deal with an unpleasant truth, then with a nice lie. In the long run, I will come out alive, it will have maybe hurt in the first moment, but I will be alive.
To come back to your prior question. A nice lie. Even better when it is said with a sweet smile on the face. Nothing, and I really mean nothing, gets my blood to boil so quickly. I always rage, when I see behind the lie, against myself, against the person who lied. I doesn´t just make me angry, it is a violent rage that comes over me then. Something that is only barely in my control, and would destroy anyone in my path if I led it.
They thought all of this, without ever answering a single question.
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Wholesome Questionare Tag Meme
Tagged by @80sglamcowboy Rules are: -Post the rules -Answer the questions given to you by the tagger -Write eleven questions of your own -Tag eleven people
This is long as Hell, friends and I apologise.
One inquisitive bitch has asked me:
1. Name one person (real or fictional) that you think you could 100% take on in a fight
Foaming mouth guy from Avatar. He’s got no stamina, barely any health, no skill. He’s unfocused and weak and my noodley nerd-ass could take him. (Though I am a little concerned he has rabies.)
2. What’s your favourite snack rn
Grilled cheese w veggies, mustard, and grilled tofu w a side of ketchup made by my roommate. It’s honestly the purest thing.
3. Which apocalypse do you think you’d do the best in? (i.e. Nuclear winter/ robot uprising/ Too many vampires, etc)
O man. I love apocalypse movies and I love survival horror (that one episode of the X Files where they’re trapped in a cabin, anybody?). I also genuinely love camping and I’m a bit of a medical hobbyist. I also watched an unreasonable amount of prepper videos on YouTube. That said, as mentioned above, I am a couch potato weekling. Furthermore, I don’t do well in conflict so if the world hierarchy collapses into a power vacuum where you have to Orange is the New Black-style intimidate ppl for supplies, I would melt and die quickly.
My best bet, it would seem, is an Arrival-esque alien apocalypse where the ones who have enough patience and sci fi knowledge to communicate w aliens are at the top of the food chain. And worst case scenario it’s better for my ego to die at the hands of an alien than a human.
Sci go apocalypses are just cleaner y'know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4. Best and worst fandom you’ve been in? Or have you somehow managed to avoid fandom completely?
Worst has to be Steven Universe. I regret not just moving on after I got bored. Ah well.
(I also think celebrity/real ppl fandoms are a dead end.)
My other fandoms all have various pros and cons and it’s hard to pick a favourite.
Adventure Time has great fanart, great meta and ppl have yet to descend into Homestuck-ian chaos. That said, they’re quiet af. People also fixate way too much on the fake fanfic AU Fionna and Cake. I have yet to read a really good Bonny/Marcy fic and that is a tragedy (a few have come close tho). Bottom line for AT tho is that it’s my go to wholesome cartoonist fandom. I like that it has depth but that it’s generally very simple and fun and that the fans are mostly shut in animation adults.
AtLA/LoK fandom’s biggest pro is that it’s huge and you literally never ran out of quality content. I’ve even made a few friends via this decade old franchise. It’s also enjoyably rich and complex. One of my favourite (now inactive) blogs was one that connected world building and little background Easter eggs to real Chinese history and culture. That wAs so cool!! I defs think as a Chinese person it allowed me to connect to non-western culture in a socially acceptable way.
The downsides tho are many: it can be overwhelmingly complicated (esp as someone who knows jack shit abt Chinese history), people take it too seriously, The Great Shipping Wars, it’s so big it’s a little lonely, the show itself has so many flaws upon greater inspection you wonder why you wasted your time on anything related to it, it’s an Asian themed story created by white dudes who make fun of their fans, the best parts of the show were written by other writers but those same white guys get k the credit. Also as w any fandom related to POC culture, racism happens. Anyways most of you know this already. IMO the best thing to have happened do the fandom is korrasami. Now it’s just abt Asian lesbians ruling the world.
(Though I also thoroughly enjoy the Family Rivalry part of the fandom. There are so mNy dysfunctional families to choose from!)
Rick and Morty is technically speaking my newest fandom. It’s got a lot of obvious cons (pickle Rick sexists, Szechuan sauce racists, asfhkkh incest) but one other con is just how pedantic and overly analytical people are abt the world building. I can’t breathe wo being corrected. RM has a misleadingly complicated high sci fi aesthetic that begets the kind of overanalysing my brand of overanalytical nerdiness can’t handle. Too many alternate universes. It’s just too complicated.
However one thing I like is that conversely I can overanalyse the writing and characters’ psychology/relationships (which I LOVE) and ppl take me very seriously. (At least they used to.) it’s kinda validating to have your 3k word essay on an old man’s bedroom and what that signifies for his depression get over 1k notes.
Rm also attracts the fun, super talented animation crowd so there’s boundless fanart and memes. I never knew I would like a gravity falls crossover retirement home AU btwn Rick and Stan so much but the art is objectively gorgeous?? So ??
I really dislike the lack of attention the female characters get from fandom bc they’re all really great? Female rep is limited but both canon and fic really do their 2-3 tokens justice. Also the jerry hatred is getting old (that male aggression… Like… Calm down, Jake) but it’s a refreshing departure drom when Megg from family guy was the butt of the joke.
Harry Potter, one of the pillars of nerd society, has both changed my life and irreconcilably annoyed me to death. (W no thanks to the racist creator herself!) One can’t underestimate how huge the hp fandom is which offers you as many reasons to love it as reasons not to. Harry Potter’s canon has complex world building that’s also charming enough not to take itself too seriously and much the same could b said of fanon. To a degree. Certain corners of the fanbase are fantastic shitposters and meme-ers and can draw you back in like a black hole. Casually enjoying Harry potter imo is where it’s at. The fanfic is probably one of the most impressively vast. Strangers at Drakesaugh, believe it or not, still updates and not only that, I still read it.
Not casually enjoying Harry potter is, um, yikes? HP and Hunger Games love to insert themselves appropriately in real life political traumas and honestly the dedication of the fandom can be overwhelming.
The HP fanart corner of deviantart circa 2010-12 and @flocc HP comics however are the best.
Meet the Robinsons, Ye Olde Fandom, still stands to this day. (Thanks in part to me ngl) As Iroh might say, they are a proud people. MTR is so bizarre and tiny it’s the only fandom I was able to read EVERY fic summary in existence (ones published on obscure sites excepted). The fandom has never ceased to surprise me for better or worse and mostly due to its age range. The original movie was intended for 8-12 yr olds and their (jaded) parents which means that now, ten years later, the fans are anywhere between 12 and 25. It has approximately 20 pieces of professional-grade fanart and fic and I am downright serious abt the quality and thoughtful complexity of this minority of fanart. Like I shit you not some of it’s almost too dark. However, tragically, one can’t talk abt obscure Disney fandoms wo also mentioning the incest ships (this is what happens when middleschoolers have to resort to cartoons to explore their sexuality in an anti sex ed world), the disorganised crossovers, and the blinding lack of imagination. Nonetheless, that a fandom of any kind could sprout from a 90 min cgi movie before the recession, based off an obscure but objectively fascinating children’s book, is still impressive. The fandoms smallness can in many wars work to everybody’s benefit: it’s a tightly knit community w little to no drama. And lots of memes (that I mostly make) to enjoy sincerely or ironically.
I’m also going to mention, very briefly, the Twin Peaks fandom, most of whom, even the die hards, are v casual when it comes to fan content (I need more fic damnit). Nonetheless it’s a decidedly cool art kid crowd for an art house show and I really enjoy befriending twin peaks watchers.
5. What’s one hot food that you prefer cold? (or, alternatively, one cold food you like hot)
Is it snobby to say I like food to be the temperature God intended?
Like I like cold pizza and salad-y pasta but I wouldn’t mind if everything were room temperature as long as the food itself was well made.
6. ya like jazz? What music do you enjoy listening to? Can you recommend any songs/ artists from that genre?
I think in some contexts I can like jazz. It’s very cosy and nostalgic, it can make you feel like a grand dame stepping out of your limo into your martini filled mansion as records pop around you and your fur carpeted living room. I also occasionally like jazz covers and alternate genres of jazz like electro swing etc.
Generally though I also think jazz is a little antiquated and a little all over the place. I lean more towards the ambiguous minimalism of mellow techno music like Jonna Lee, Grimes, Björk, early Lorde, Yasmine Hamdan, Austra, TRST, etc
I mean I don’t stick to just one genre (I imagine most ppl don’t). I like alternative (Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, Joanna Newsom) and some musicians who seem to completely exist outside of genre like iMonster and the Gorillaz. Not to mention straight up pop like broods, Ellie goulding, lady gaga and Lana del rey. (I mean technically Ldr isn’t pop but u get the ideer)
7. What binge worthy show do you like?
So many man. There are so many out there! Twin peaks, Transparent, Love, Grace and Frankie, Adventure Time, House of Cards, Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, Mad Men, Girls, Broad City, Black Mirror, Avatar TLA, 6Teen, Chowder, Over the Garden Wall, Flapjack, the first season of Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, etc
The list goes on. I’m a TV fiend.
8. What’s an old meme that you miss and wish would be brought back?
Always liked the Gothic [x town or whatever] meme. It was like a text post version of the cursed images meme. Currently I’m really enjoying the song from another room meme and I hope even after it gets old it’ll make a comeback.
9. Tell me your aesthetic
O man. That’s a can of worms! Okay. Deep breath.
I like futurism, of all kinds. I like strong lines and clear shapes. I like colour blocking and minimalism and glass and holographic LED neons. I like white Japanese urban tiled buildings. I like aliens and ruins and cubes and white and colour blocking and black. I like technology and aliens and Comme des Garçons and Issey Miyake. Rooms that are empty but for one light and one window and one plant. Love that.
I like the midcentury cubism and Mod and 30’s futurism. Clear and strong industrial shapes and curves and post modernist abstractionism.
I also love nature, I love most every Björk and Iamamiwhoami music video. I love the mountains and the forests and the desert and the winter tundra and most of all I love the water. A vast expanse of sky and sea w so many colours and textures. I love the 2000s and funny blob shapes and y2k’s obsession w secondary colours and shiny round things. Love pink. I am a grown adult who will never tire of pink. (Though I don’t really like when people overdo pink.) I love cursed image family photos taken with flash in a suburb. I love the grime and the sanitary aesthetic of suburbs and hospitals and brutalist office spaces. The fluorescent lights of the institution but with purple carpeting!
I love 70s mod and I love colorful 80s brutalism I like it when houses are shaped weirdly and they have carpets and polished curved wooden countertops and spacious nothingness where everything looks clean and cosy and bizarrely ugly and it all looks like an art gallery w too many plants.
I also really love maximalism and wood and detail and fur and velvet and embroidery and silk and windows and wood carvings.
I love 70s kitsch like John waters movies and Shrimps designer fake fur CDG17 where they just piled on knickknack after knickknack onto white dresses w food long trains. Toys and novelty items and lamps shaped like a woman’s leg in a fishnet stocking. (See also: most Tim burton movies, wes Anderson, Carrie fishers house)
An overwhelming mishmash of wool patterns with clean cubic 70s architecture and so many plants and windows and wallpaper and candles and cobwebs. Also really like witchy mourning jewelry and essentially every house in Harry potter. Love the unfortunately racist boho/hippie aesthetic. Any house designed by bill kirsch is a masterpiece. Woven baskets on the ceiling piles of hats and art supplies everywhere. Stuff!! Everywhere! Hidden passageways reading nooks fireplaces the Pink Palace from Coraline!
Everything!!!
I’m a cartoonist who’s a nerd for design so I like when concepts are taken to the extreme in a humourously charming and clear-minded way. Whatever aesthetic someone chooses, they should go all out and really dedicate themselves to the highest form of that aesthetic. It has to be perfect without being sanitary of fake. It has to be alive yet beautiful, frozen in one perfect moment.
10. Favourite time of day and why?
Dusk. I think it’s a nostalgia thing. I loved the hours before bed time as well the hours before dinner when it was getting dark and the sun was reflecting freaky colours along the horizon while I ran around the grass. It’s cozy but it’s spacious and adventurous. So many things can happen at dusk!
11. You have the choice to live in any fictional universe - which one do you pick and why?
Harry Potter!!! You get the best of both worlds: magical, over-romanticised Victorian/medievalism, wish-fulfillment surrealism and wifi. It’s great. Likelihood of dying is so low, medicine is so advanced and even then ppls n°1 choice of lethal weapon (Avada Kedavra) is painless. Me and Luna could hang in her garden. I’d never have to pay for the subway again. I could live a nomadic life in a tent w infinite space. If you chose to live as a wizard amongst Muggles you’re basically god and you can cheat capitalism. Gravity is my bitch! And I’m not gna lie my dream house has always been a combination of The Burrow, the Lovegood house, and Shell Cottage.
My turn to pick your brain:
1 Favourite texture?
2 Favourite smell?
3 Favourite children’s book/children’s TV show? (I’m talking about the bizarre abstract ones for toddlers)
4 Best and worst prank you’ve ever pulled?
5 Weirdest beginning of a friendship?
6 When you’ve been in fandom for a while you start to notice you’ve a habit of staying in the same corners. What corner are you in? Are you part of the fluffy ship corner? The intense world building spec meta corner? The shitpost comic fanart corner? Etc
7 If you could invent a class that would be obligatory for all high schools across your country what would it be?
8 What’s the weirdest thing you’ve gotten at Halloween while trick or treating?
9 Weirdest family tradition of yours?
10 Describe your significant other (or your crush, or your dream partner or if you’re aromantic your fave person) through only TV references.
11 Favourite piece of dialogue in a movie?
I don’t know 11 ppl but nonetheless tagging: @that-guy-in-the-bowler-hat @skairheart @nochangenohope @eventheslightestrayofsunshine@autistic-jaredkleinman@phoenixkluke
…and YOU (if you were not mentioned above and so choose to accept this mission)
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December 23 2017
Hi Tumblr. It's cha girl. Me. Things are good, for the most part. I'm p happy right now. My bank job is alright. It started off really rough. I hated it for the first few weeks but now I don't want to kill myself every time I have to go into work. So. Things are looking up. It's a pretty easy job. A little bit more difficult than Target, for sure, but not nearly as stressful as I thought it would be. When I make a mistake it isn't stressful because I fucked up someone's money, it's stressful because I just create more work for myself having to fix it. I also thought that I wouldn't be able to make friends there. Everyone is older than me. They're in very different places in their lives. But! I was wrong and everyone at the bank is super nice and since we're just chillin like 90% of the time we have some great conversations. It's kinda nice. I don't work much when I'm at work. I talk to my co-workers and I write poetry and I draw. I help customers when we have them obvi, but a majority of the time there is no one in the bank. I also get 1 hour lunches, and it's so close to home I can go back to my apartment play a full ass game of league on my lunch. That always improves my mood for the day. The dress code isn't as strict as I was worried it would be. I have tons of dresses that are appropriate and I always get compliments on my outfits. We have theme days on Fridays which is super fun. Yesterday it was Hawaii in December day. My manager liked my outfit so much she took a picture of me to share with the other southern oregon branches. The only downside is that I don't make as much money as I did at Target. I just don't work nearly as many hours. It's nice, I have so much free time. An unbelievable amount of free time. I do miss those 1k paychecks tho that I was getting when I would pull 40 hour weeks at Target. I miss a lot about Target. I regret leaving most of the time. Target was fun and it was so much more than the bank. I got to walk around all day and I always had something to do even when everything was done. At the bank, when everything is done, it really is done. At Target when I finished my job I could go do someone else's. Zoning in beauty is done? Awesome, I'll pop over and zone all of B block. It's always a mess in B block. Zoning the office supplies section of Target is a beautiful nightmare. No one ever does it. But at the bank when I finish my job, I can't go over and balance someone else's drawer. I'd be fired. I can't even be near someone else's work. I miss some of my coworkers at Target too. I still get the occasional update through my love :D who still works there. Who is slaying it out there. Killing it. Ofc. But I miss talking to some of the people there. Idk. I'll stop missing it eventually I imagine. Things with Vince are wonderful. I talked to him about my issues and he like... listened??? He heard me and he changed his behavior and it's amazing? Never had anything like that before. It's so different for me. He's different. I don't think I've ever been so in love with someone. It's incredibly frightening. And sometimes we get into arguments because I'm scared. It's not fair to him and I feel bad. It doesn't happen often and most of the time I'm really great to him I think but sometimes I'll notice that he changes his language towards me or about me and I get scared. He met my whole ass family on Wednesday. That was an experience. He was so nervous. It was cute. He's cute. We had a great time. He may be the first boyfriend I've had that my entire family likes. They love him and I love him and it's weird. We went out to dinner and had great conversations. It was our first family dinner in over a year. Then we went back to my dad's house and we played trivial pursuit and Vince and I won (ofc) and everyone had such a good time. I miss my family a lot. I miss our family game nights. I miss being able to casually bring my boyfriends home and have him play games with us. I miss our arguments about philosophy and our arguments over who is the smartest person. I miss sharing our lives and our dreams. I grew up with so much pride for my family. It was a huge part of who I was. I was a Yaeger. That carried weight. For me at least. I was raised with expectations to live up to. We worked hard together, for each other. And having everyone together again, remembering all of the good things about my family, all of the good times and seeing all of us, all of these amazing people together, it was really hard for me. I was fucked up about it. It crushes me that my family is gone. The Yaeger family doesn't exist. It's garbage now. Vince says I need to deal with the emotions I have about my family. I don't know what more there is to deal with. It sucks and I'm incredibly sad about it. I don't know how to stop being sad about it. Sometimes I feel ok about it and I feel like being away from my family, and the idea of my family, has given me an opportunity to explore who I am and what I want out of life. I think I know those things now though. I don't ever get to be individually me with my family. I don't get to be an adult with my family. I know that is the reality for a lot of people. I know it shouldn't even be an issue. But it is for me. I care. I also don't think that it is helpful that we all exist in this weird middle space. Where we all still work. Where my parents are still best friends who lowkey hate each other? Where nothing feels resolved or final. Where we all end up back in the same place. It doesn't make any sense to me. Anyway. We had family night and my boyfriend was there are I loved that he was. He fit in well. With my non-existent family. Fantastic. You know what's funny? I've picked up a lot of his mannerisms and I'll do things or make facial expressions that are so him without even realizing it. It always makes me smile. He's an adorable person. Um. Yea. I'm staying with my mom for Christmas and I'm hella sad. I miss him a lot. He texts me the sweetest things tho and it makes me feel better. I've been seeing a lot of him over the last few weeks. We're both busy but we make time for each other. Even if I'm so tired I feel like I want to die, I will still drive out to Medford to see him. I want to make an effort for him. That's something new for me too. I worry sometimes that he doesn't think as much of me as I do him. Because it's so much and how could he?? He's smart in a really practical way but somehow also emotionally intelligent and I'm just not practically smart. I don't know a lot about a lot. I don't know what I can give to him. I want to be able to give everything to him. But he already has it. I don't know. Maybe it's just my insecurity. And it's definitely made worse by seeing my parents interact. Brings it to the forefront of my mind, for sure. I don't want to be to him what my boyfriends have always been to me. Which isn't fair. He isn't me and he's a good person and if he says he loves me then I should accept that. Ultimately, I am so happy with him. And that's all I want to say right now. I could probably write ten novels about him or to him but I won't do that because that would be super extra. It's nice staying with my mommo and my brother for a few days. Nams is here too. They're all fun. We have good times and I'm excited for Christmas. I got everyone a little something and I think it's kinda cool. For the first time in my life I have the money to buy everyone real ass presents with my own money. It's nice. I guess that's about all for now. Thanks for reading~ Goodnight, Tumblr
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yallnve realized by now that this is a fulltime 100% narnia blog...and as i havent slept since finding out someone somewhere was set on making "the silver chair" into a movie & the dynamic world of narnalysis is the best i can offer,
first of all im like.........ya rly gonna just jump into the silv chair!! im not really interested w the details on what anyone plans to do with the content b/c i donno, ive never been really interested in the book. not because its like bad or anything, actually it's probably the most cinematic in terms of things actually happening at a steady rate. i just like what i like, maybe because its sort of lower scale? whatever. its not like its hard to make into a movie i dont think, is what im saying. that would be either the horse and his boy or prince caspian, probably the latter b/c like a genuine 1/3 of it is an expository flashback. but all of the books are bit tricky to adapt coz theyre just short, you have to pad basically all of them in some way or another. but sure. silver chair. w/e
the thing is that you Have to assume despite starting afresh that theyre doing this one since the first three books have been recently filmed? and this being the fourth. but How Are You Going To Just Jump Into This One. thats an awful lot of exposition thats being built on, at this point in the game we're neck deep in the Lore. you'd really just have to have read the previous books or at least seen the movies. are they counting on the audience to have done that? but at the same time its really not fair to fully rely on that. in the book you can go "read the other books" and wave it off in a sentence of "and then they explained it all" which does tend to happen in the actual text a fair amt. its a bit awkward in movie form though? its a plot point right off that eustace knows who prince/king caspian is. so then you have to sum up dawn treader. and that has to do with what happened in prince caspian, in which the plot of lww is pretty important. like, alright, possibly you could just explain tvotdt & take it from the perspective of the girl who doesnt know crap about narnia yet? but thats not nearly as good a starting point as lww. on account of that ones meant to be a starting point! i'll see scholastic / any publishings that try to push magician's nephew as the first book In Hell, frankly. strongest narnpinion right there. the published order over the chronological order
anyways i'm sure it can be figured out, its just.......Interesting to think how the silver chair intro might be made into Intro To Narnia v.2.0? will they even try or will it be "ok but seriously just have read the books or whatever before you come in here." mystery unfolds
another thing thats interesting is that lww is clearly abt like, hey kids here's a version of the resurrection for you. whereas silver chair doesnt have anything to do w any Biblical Events at all (tho of course neither does prince caspian, tvotdt, or the horse & his boy). it is instead about how atheists will try to steal your firstborns for.................reasons. (no reason, theyre just evil.) this one is just a major amplified version of another particularly ridiculous CS Lewis Apologism Favorite that runs through the books: that when it comes to having no Faith (in aslan but you know also the abrahamic god) everyone who doubts aslan/god is like, actively lying to themselves, because they have that Gut Feeling telling themself that their faith is not only whats righteous but also whats true. the gut feeling of truth is a big theme in the books, shit hinges on it all the time and makes doubt all Clearly Sinful instead of a reasonable result of aslan effing off for centuries or whatever. and speaking of, god only knows if lewis is really suggesting that real life doubt or nonreligiousness is 100% populated by people who are clenching their fists like "i know in my heart jesus is real but i dont want to believe it so i won't, damnit!" which yknow makes no sense for like....life, and uh? i dont know what its supposed to mean for like....other religions? i dont think he's about putting the nuance that not every concept of religious Faith is the same as in christianity into this book, i dunno abt his thoughts irl. lord knows its a mystery how he thinks that "if jesus wasnt lying and jesus wasnt Insane then christianity is real" argument means anything. nothing in the world fits that argument for finding out if something is true or not........and also it hinges on that concept of "insanity" which......like.......i'm sure is all about nice 1940s ideas of how "insane" people act. its shit, throw it out, i mean. and besides? as though theres a Logic argument to prove christianity as truth? have you just Solved religion, lewis? have you? sometimes, i swear..
anyhow so in the silver chair its just a big ol festival of his "atheists are lying to themselves" and "atheism starts by someone who Knows The Truth (jesus is real) lying to others, likely aka the devil or whatever, and the stand-in for the devil is a witch again." and lewis really seems fond of the allegory of the cave. smh! like, in that allegory "knowing" that your faith is true is impossible! but youre also out here arguing its logically provable? and don't forget the gut feelings thing. but it makes NO sense for him to drop it into this book universe because in this allegory the prince captured by atheists & the protags are people who have hopped into the cave and seen the sun and shit!! they dont need to be the people who have only ever seen shadows who need to be convinced that an outside world can exist!!! bitch!!! get your allegory in order. silver chair just.....lord. the lying babysnatching atheists
a n y w a y s . . . thats a weird conflict to put in your third act, and its also a weird argument to make re christianity, that even though you acknowledge its impossible to know that your faith is in something thats real, you're willing to risk it? its sort of like that idea that you might as well be religious even if you dont "believe" any religion is true, because you lose nothing and potentially gain both comfort in life and reward in an afterlife. but its kind of a big deal in christianity that you're supposed to believe that what you believe in Is Literally Real. maybe apologists are allowed to do that sort of thing in their arguments, i suppose. its like in the last battle where he has a dude who believes in another deity accepted into the christian afterlife b/c despite a lack of belief, his virtuous nature is, from a practical standpoint, accepted to be for all intents and purposes to be equivalent to having believed in the christian god, like if he happened to follow all other rules except the Believing In Jesus one then he's good to go anyhow. interesting in that its also supposed to be pretty vital in christianity that one has to accept jesus as god in order to be Saved all up into heaven! i suppose that guy in the book was meant to have been converted right before death or whatever. at that point its very unclear who is exactly dead or not, but probably everyone. still, aslan clearly makes the argument that "basically you might as well have been believing in me, so you're good to go." fascinating stuff. another one to ask lewis abt
uhhhh another point is that i think theyre intending to make other movies also? but not all four remaining ones!! and if i had to guess which one they'd be leaving out uhh lets say....the horse & his boy....................which conveniently is the other sort of sparsely plotted one. two kids ride horses towards narnia, briefly have to have a shenanigansy undercover sneak through a crowded city, ride towards narnia some more, and then one of them stays at some guys house while the other kid goes into narnian battle where he himself doesnt actually do anything, but that fact is described pretty funnily. its still sort of a fun one, on account of the sneaking around hijinx, and the fact that it happens to give ANY of the details of what tf the pevensies did for like the twenty years they reigned over narnia's golden age which the lww just tells you absolutely n o t h i n g about! the answer is: a lot of battling probably, on account of narnia went from being ruled for a century by someone who could kill you in a second and also why would you have invaded narnia at that time, it wouldve been like trying to invade russia. but then a bunch of kids took the throne and upended the whole system and the snow went away, it seems like a destabilizey time to invade or whatever. imo. but then again they mightve bought themselves a few years on account of aslan having shown up and all. but lbr, they were just put into battle right off and coronated three seconds later, theres no reason on that front that they wouldnt shy away from having more battles. and the books said there were a lot of battles. and in thahb, its like, well we've been battling a lot lately and now we're in shenanigans and we'll just have to battle our way out of it, which they absolutely do. edmund straight up decapitates a guy. how ARE they supposed to just transition immediately into english schoolchildren after a couple decades of that mess??? they even have the fancy courtly speech. its magic i suppose
the point is its kind of a fun book, oh also, aslan is TOP shenanigans in this one. he straight up actually attacks one of the protagonists, for Reasons, but still. not that he doesn't murder the pevensies in the last book. i mean, i guess you could argue that its just like Divine Coincidence where what with the unaligned timelines betwixt england and narnia, aslan couldve just picked the moment everyone was gonna die anyway and just tossed them over to X point in time in narnia. but I Donno.....im kinda with that university student who's stressing about whether aslan cause ww2 for the purpose of sending the pevensies to the wardrobe. like, that train accident that killed everybody killed four people on the platform & five people on the train in different carriages and everything, or maybe the numbers are switched because i dont remember where lucy was. im saying, that was a hell of a crash. but sure. anyhow, even more fun, aslan appears as a cat to the Other protag while he's spending a night on the edge of the wilderness, and scratches him for saying he once threw rocks at a stray cat. like, hard #same, aslan!!! wtf dude why arent YOU being claimed by satan
whats also fun is that it doesn't really take place in narnia, which is also the reason besides pacing that you wouldnt really want to make this one into a film? because uhhhh the whole worldbuilding lewis crapt upon everyone for calormen is clearly racist as fuccck. if you arent already familiar with all the books (namely this one and i suppose the last battle) then its like.....i guess its some sort of vague notion of the ottoman empire? its really just a mashup of any number of white-english-variety racist notions. everyone is brown, is it an inaccurate stab at an amorphous amalgam of middle eastern culture? east asian? are people islamic or hindu? just try and guess what he was going for because its just. not based on anyone needing to know anything about reality. lewis was against seasoning food i guess, because it will mention i guess like, people cooking with onions like the heathens they are. (spoilers: this country just exists in the narniaverse to represent Those Heathens). its not necessarily an Evil place, they are noble savages ok!! with their formal seriousness and cutthroat customs.......b/c they are not as advanced and peaceful as the white northern christians, see. closer to the less developed violence of their inherently backwards ways and Cruel Society reigned by violence DONT CONVERT OR YOU'LL DIE, KIDS. but also.....you wont be white? the reason of calormens existence is really never explained. telmarines came from englandverse on accident thru a magic portal just lying around, possibly thats whats meant to have happened there too? its never attempted to be explained. anyways its basically the intro to the disney aladdin.
lewis is entirely inconsistent and self contradictory all throughout the series for the sake of the authors convenience. this is part of what makes the stories fun and the worldbuilding charming. it is also what allows him to pull stunts that have you pinching the bridge of your nose in exasperation and writing out essays to try to figure out how narnia is supposed to work. it is also what allows him, five books in, to be like, "here is the country to the south where the demon-worshipping gross scary brown uncivilized folk sit around hating narnia and confirming any racist notion you have about any nonwhite nonchristian country or culture." thanks, clive
its of course ludicrous and, of course, the protagonist shasta just so happens to be white despite being raised calormene. spoilers, he is narnian. or really from archenland, which isnt narnia but is still white and pro-narnia so its alright. i mean, technically narnia is allied with calormen at all points in time of the series? calormen just quietly tries an invasion in that book and also in the last book. so thats interesting. i suppose lewis is anti-crusades, which is big of him. the pevs arent out here trying to conquer calormen and convert them to narnianism. so that must not be the Destiny of the true christian? or are we meant to believe calormenes are beyond help? shasta who is of course secretly not "really" calormene is still representing someone undergoing "conversion," yet again, the guy is white. i suppose being brown is whats hopeless?
theres an inadvertently laughable line at the start of the book where a calormene expositorially points out that shasta is white by comparing him to the "accursed but beautiful" narnians. who are all white? is he just talking about the pevensies? the archenlanders (i cant remember where theyre meant to have come from either.) are like, all humanoid narnian natives white?? wtf, aslan. anyways, the dialogue is unnatural and funny enough, but its also like.....ok lewis, we got it, whiteness is the standard for all universes and everyone wishes they were white. stupid, sexy narnians.
what alllllmost suggests that being a poc isnt an automatic fastpass to hell is that im fairly sure the second protagonist aravis is a nonwhite calormene?? i dont remember it ever saying she was "fair" like the narnians the way the book immediately points out that shasta is. she is of course escaping an arranged marriage (the calormene plot to sort of vaguely try to invade narnia is also based on forcing susan to marry a dude she doesnt like yet who she apparently genuinely considered as a suitor when he wasnt acting like a jerk? so not only a dude who isnt white but a dude who isnt aslanian christian. its a whole complicating element to just toss out in this otherwise flat af worldbuilding, dude!! not to mention? despite the battles and shit, susan was out here considering marriage? how absolutely fucked up would it have been if any of them married and then effed off back to england. moving along) but she is from the start portrayed as equally sympathetically as shasta and nothing about her is pointed out as being Bad and Reprehensible, which the narration has no qualms about doing. she even gets to spend some time with her calormene friend, who is not exactly meant to be as sympathetic or noble but certainly isnt portrayed as at all evil. like...theres at least the occasional exception apparently, in which maybe not every person is inherently evil and violent and cruel. who knows
also aravis definitely later marries the white protag?? but apparently interracial marriage isnt entirely Unthinkable here. wait, also, aravis claims to be somehow a direct descendant of the calormene god tash? first of all, is that true, comma, possible? in the last book its confirmed that tash is real, albeit, like, a demon. dunno what c.s. is telling us with that one. is aravis related to a demon. we can only guess on account of the theme of Inconsistency
anyways. i suppose you could make it into a movie if you just threw out the racist shit. but the "calormen is also distinguished from narnia via its religion" element is also a touch janky. can it be thrown out too? if they intend to produce the last battle, will it be thrown out then. it kind of comes up again. if you get rid of those elements though, the stakes get a little blurrier and more political and more "wait well why would they have any beef with each other in the first place" if you cant just easily point out that the calormenes are shaking their fists at the narnians and their demon worship and their jealousy at not being white. again, are all centaurs white or something? wtf
truly calormene is the most racist ass shit in the whole series, but the concept comes up in less painfully direct ways other times, too. why are there native species in narnia that are considered inherently evil?? sure, the white witch as the stand-in for the devil wasn't originally from narnia. was she creating shit too? i dont remember what she was up to on account of i havent read the magicians nephew in a hot minute. i know they had to take a pegasus into a garden of eden type shit to smoke her out of wherever she was lurking for some reason or another. still. whys there whole types of creatures who are universally and unilaterally condemned? i know we're meant to believe that they just have evil intent according to their nature, but uh....theres no point at which any of these creatures are given a chance? maybe they served the white witch because she was nice to them for once. you're not given the chance to know. EXCEPT for the fact that you get shit like: giants are evil save for the occasional exception, like in lww when a "good" giant is described as having like, a long family line, and "traditions." not like Those Sorts. they do talk in like prince caspian and shit, when their numbers are miserable and theyre discussing tactics, whether to get help from the gross hags and harpies and etc and ppl will talk about Those People and Sorts and Rabble and its like...jfc. b/c apparently sommme of them can be decent! if theyre a giant or whatever. and meanwhile the dwarfs are always chaotic neutral or whatever. not believing in aslan but not necessarily being anti-narnia coz they live there. but sometimes being good guys!! but sometimes being bad guys, and jadis was cool to them apparently. like.................theres definitely cases of Types of narnians who fall outside the "born good / born bad" system, and thats pretty fucked. wolves too? theyre the Talking Beasts aslan definitely created, but on the side of the white witch? how was she having trees be on her side, too? whats going on around here. whats the moral meant to be. smh
uhh well anyhow, you could do a nice essay on gender re narnia. on account of sometimes its staleass typical sexist tropes like uhh, say,, the devil stand-ins keep being women? witches, ok. and the idea of "women need to be protected as pure creatures" as a basic sexist notion, and even lewis taking a relatively subdued jab at the idea of calling that sexist. susan being the miniature mom character type, and of course the infamous last battle bit where, in an attempt to describe her lack of spirituality as a self-insert of what lewis considered his own period of fake maturity via rejection of christianity, she's of course not only described as not believing in narnia (which????? what is anyone supposed to make of that. again, in the allegory of the cave shit, she's been outside the cave!!! she lived in narnia for YEARS AND YEARS and then WENT BACK. how are we supposed to believe she just convinced herself it wasnt literally real? its not quite the same as someone losing their faith in christianity.) but as like, wearing makeup, damn her. even if he wasnt trying to make the point that "look at boys and go to hell" which, i suppose he couldnt, as in narnia susan was being courted just fine as queen, yet i suppose also she didnt marry anyone—anyways, of course its still sexist to slight the way she decides to dress as some form of false maturity, even if its meant to be metaphor. just clumsy af & not great when again, devils are always witches around here. and being younger is to be more spiritually pure which like............mmm ok. this is sort of another one of those weirdly sexless fantasy universes, why do those keep happening. i mean sure this is a christian fairy tale for kids. but nobody even gets married save for in the last paragraphs of a couple books. its left a bit ambiguous whether thats even spiritually acceptable in the narnia rules, unless its to Continue the Line a la the telmarine monarchy from caspian the first to tirian the whateverth. hm
but also of course you get the young girl characters being...somewhat almost allowed to fight (archery mainly) but anyways at least being given equal status to the boys who are there also. theres even mention of once apparently narnia being ruled by a queen w no kings around. fantastic. and theres some non-witch lady characters on occasion. the human characters are where the dynamics are most at, i suppose, but anyways this at least has some nuance & at times seems to go just a bit beyond what you might expect from some old dude in the 50s. still not that surprising or innovative, but not completely flat, and seeming to contain at least a little reflection upon the topic
the essay of race re: narnia would be really short though. Its Racist Af. if you threw classism in too, you might get a bit more length out of it. but really its just so flat in this subject, and totally needless. there's the fact that even narnia is ruled by white english people but.....you can really do without juxtaposing this with the heinous nonwhite country somewhere over there. the rest of the books operate just fine w/o this
tolkien mentioned HIS scary brown backwards civilization to the south a lot more fleetingly in lotr but its....v much the same worldbuilding as narnia??? aka middle earth is pretty much an imaginary proto-england where you dont want to go too far east or south or you run into dangerous &/or inherently evil territory!! ok, jrr.....who was the other people in the inklings?? what did they write. could no one rein these guys in. coz lewis is over here with his Alternate Universe england. with uhhhh wilderness to the north and west and the dangerous evilish racismland to the south. and the ocean and dont forget narnia is a flat earth to the east. also? why are the lone islands like that. can aslan take care of some of that shit. for gods sake. anyways. the all-white good guys / evil poc should be thrown out of everything, thats not what makes the worldbuilding in either lotr or chronarnia at all interesting. yet is it is surely a subsection of the inherent Englishness of both examples........it warrants analysis but not "carrying on into films or anything based on either's precedence in the fantasy genre."
god who knows what im talking about at this point. im just saying "if they arent looking to even bother trying to wrangle the horse and his boy into something not ludicrously racist then i wouldnt be at all surprised." still, do you suppose theres like a curse where unless all narnia books are given some sort of film adaptation, the world won't know peace? more likely the world would end, maybe. the curse of clive. i dont really remember but that elder bbc series sure didnt cover the whole saga
well this is long enough but lets all set off in more endless, doomed narnalysis, such as
my thesis on trying to figure out what. the Fuck any reader is supposed to make out of edmund's role in the lww
whats the deal with merpeople?!
where are all these witches coming from, anyways
seriously if the narnians were just less murderous to the Undesirable species would they have been on the pro-aslan side all along
if there was only two humans staying in narnia at its birth, wouldnt their line like, die out immediately with their kid.
where did the archenlanders come from
where did the calormenes come from
oh yeah and like. are we seriously meant to believe that, at the end of the world, when aslan reveals that being goodnatured supercedes having the Wrong Religion, there is only one calormene in all of a) current existence and b) history who fits the bill? really. why even bring it up, then.
how did narnians react to their four monarchs completely disappearing......for real.....and what happened to the line to the throne?? was there just no ruler until the telmarines came in and took things over for the rest of the few centuries or whatevs.
when was that deep magic in lww written? at the start of narnia? coz thats the magicians nephew. again, how tf did the white witch get any leverage in that one. how was that supposed to be a good idea. wtf. see my thesis
whats the white witch supposed to represent as a stand-in for the devil? not helping that i dont remember the details of magicians nephew for shit, but she's definitely in the Multiverse lore of narnia as being from a different world as narnia and england. wtf is like...her nature
how weird is it in narnia that you have a god who drops in confused alien children to both go on personal journeys and save the world? is narnia-aslan/earth-jesus also dropping other children from other worlds into other other worlds? via other forms? hmm
lewis is all but inviting us the readers to be filling in the blanks with narnia fic. he's basically like, outright actually inviting fic with people wanting to speculate what happens with susan, who must inevitably return to narnia as lewis intends her to represent his own departure from (and obvious inevitable return to) christianity
a weird detail that is also never elaborated on: in addition to the narrator freely inserting loads of opinions into the narration, there's a time or two its made clear that like, the narrator has gotten this info from interviewing the characters. how'd you know about that last battle, "they all died and this happened in the afterlife" shit, huh. just another weird element
sussing out other lewispinions, like how he hates all schools apparently
narnia vs middle earth!! both quasi englands, both pre industrialization, both with christ figures running around some more than others, both with the need for rightful kings, totally different roles for humans tho. well, thats the whole comparison
and, inevitably, more.
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RFA (including Saeran and V) reacting to MC who loves Yaoi? :)
Oh my God I´m just so excited to write this o(^▽^)o
_Yoosung_
° Yoosung was at your house to help you get your things for the sleepover at his parent´s
° he knew you were sort of an otaku, so he wasn´t suprised to find a bookshelf filled with mangas over mangas
° he himself only read some including his favourite LOLOL characters
° (I guess some sort of doujinshii)¯\_(ツ)_/¯
° “Hey MC, can I borrow a manga from your shelf?”
° “Sure go ahead. But don´t make a mess.”
° as every good fujoshi you kept your most precious copys in the very back of said shelf
° it was a habit Yoosung also hold ¯\_ʘᗜʘ_/¯
° NOT good….
° “Hey MC what is this about?”
° you looked around and to your suprise he was showing you the cover of Ten Count No.5 (it´s the latest one available in my coutry XD)
° your emergency-yaoi-bells rang and you tried to take it away from him
° “Give that back you won´t like it, trust me!”
° but he held it out of your reach when did this brat get so damn tall?
° “Why do you want to hide it that badly MC?”
° “Because of reasons!” (;¬_¬)
° he then did the unavoidable and opend the book
° of course it was not a page with Shirotani and Kurose talking
° and of course it wasn´t one with Kurose in his childhood either
° it was one of those pages
° if you want to know to what I´m reffering to please check out Ten Count chapter 27/28 o((*^▽^*))o
° with a bam he dropped the book on the grounf, now red as a certain character involved in the manga
° “M-MC, what is that? Don´t tell me all of theese contain such….. acts??”
° he was the definition of embarassment becoming alive at this point
° “No they´re not! You just had to pick one from the back, hadn´t you?”
° if you say it like that it sounds as if he´s at fault here…
° “I´m so sorry I won´t ever take one from the back again.”
° this poor boy is now shocked for live ヽ(*>∇
° but hey MC can like what she wants anyway XD
° sometimes you have to learn the hard way Yoosung….
_Jaehee_
° Finalyyyy~ your long awaited package arrived~
° you said good bye to the postman and now held a big box full of new Yaoi-Mangas in your hands
° BEST.DAY.EVER!!
° as you opend the box the one copy you´ve waited for forever to be realeased in korea happen to be on top
° so why wait when you can enjoy it now o(≧∇≦o)
° it was called The right way to write Love
° (personally I really enjoyed reading it)
° after your precious box was carefully put away under the bed of course you settled down on the couch and began reading
° when you finished the first story you were almost crying from all the sweetness ⊂(♡⌂♡)⊃
° but the following one…. dear god forgive me for I have sinned for reading that
° let´s just say the focus was set on interhuman interactions and by interaction I mean in a physical way
° to summarise: it wasn´t something you would want your parents to see 。(*^▽^*)ゞ
° unfortunate she´s Mommy-Jaehee
° since it felt quiet alone in the house you turned on the TV to have some noises
° because of these noises you didn´t hear the door opening and Jaehee calling out for you
° your faced away from the door so you didn´t see her entering the living either
° “Hello, what are you reading MC.”
° because you´re a real fujoshi and your entire focus was on reading physical-gay-interaction (if you know what I mean) it was like she´s talking to a wall
° so she decided to just take a look at what captured your attention so much that you didnt notice her
° bad mistake….( ≧Д≦)
° “My gosh MC what are you reading? What are they even doing??!!”
° to say it was the shock of her life was an understatement XD
° you screamed. she screamen. the girl on TV screamed
° as quick as you could you closed the page and hid the book behind you
° blood was running from her nose and it resembled the colour of her cheeks
° “Let´s just not talk about this again. Ever!”
° a nod was all you could manage to do while going to your room and laughing like a mad man 。(*^▽^*)ゞ
_Zen_
° as always Zen was out off the house to practice his new play
° for you this meant you´ve got some special freetime which you always dedicate to your secret Yaoi-obsession
° this means: singing openings, watching anime, reading manga and fanfiction and of course and liking tons of fanart
° as your anime of the day you selected the masterpiece Junjou Romantica, season one
° while watching (let´s just assume MC is such a big fan she understands japanese) you also read the mangas because why the heck not ? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
° you know how the second episode ends? Misaki quitting Virgin-Cub
° the same Thing happend in the manga, just a BIT more detailed
° you started hearing the intro-song for the 3rd time this day and couldn´t resist singing along
° while singing you kept the page you were currently reading open, to continue anytime
° but while singing and constantly turning the volume up the arrival of a certain actor remained unnoticed
° he always thought it was simply impossible to not notice him, but there you were, singing some catchy tune and reading some book
° his abnormal bid ego just couldn´t bear that….(҂⌣̀_⌣́)
° it was logical to him to pay you back for that
° standing behind you he coverd your eyes and took a look at the page infront of him
° remember what I said about the manga having more detail?
° you tried to struggle free and hide everything but it was to late
° “MC, what is happening there?”
° fuck, he saw
° “Eh…. you know, when two peoplelove each other they do interactions on a physical level..”
° “I know that! But These are dudes MC, dudes!”
° “Do you want me to become gay?”
° “What? No, of course not Zen.”
° is it to much to expect people to accept your likings? Yes? ok then I said nothing
° you had to explain a LOT to him but in the end he kind of accepted you liking this genre?
° still a bit disgusted tho
° but to distract you from this stuff he walks around shirtless a lot more than he did before, and to show you that he looks a dozen times better than those men ( ° ʖ °)
_Jumin_
° you had to be careful, very careful…
° because every package that arrived was controlled by one of the security members
° that meant you couldn´t just order Yaoi-Merch online like you used to as a single
° the consequence was that you had to buy all of this stuff either at a shop or ask one of your friends to order it for you
° today you went out shopping and to your luck you were able to do that without any guards following you
° this was the perfect opportunity to stock up on mangas o(≧∇≦o)
° you returned to the penthouse with a bag full of precious new babys for your collection
° back home, Elisabeth joined you on the big couch where all of the copys layed in a big mess
° she just purred like she didn´t care XD
° 1 houre later you already finished the first 2 volumes of Sekaii ichi Hatsokoi and started with the 3rd
° (if you wonder it´s the case of Onodera Ritsu No. 5)
° you looked at the clock and to your relief there was still an hour left till Jumin will come back
° so you cleaned up the mess you created, planning to continue reading after you´ve finished
° unfortunately you left the book on the couch with Elisabeth
° what was even more unfortunate, Jumin´s last meeting was canceled and to suprise you he didn´t send a text to warn you
° as you put the last bok away in the shelf you heard a scream, Jumin´s scream
° “ MC what is this Piece of junk doing here!?”
° no need to say it like that…¯\_(⌣̯̀⌣́)_/¯
° “Jumin don´t shout like that you´ll scare Elisabeth.”
° rushing to the living room the worst case scenario already has happend
° he was reading the damn book, right on the page where you left of
° Takano forcing himself on Ritsu once again
° “Jumin, give me back my book, please.”
° to your suprise rather than angry or disgusted he looked more confused
° Thank God!
° “MC why would you read something like that? Do I not satisfy you enough?”
° great now he looked hurt.. but still this is way better than angry
° “What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with you Jumin I just enjoy reading it.”
° he looked like a little confused kid and than did the last thing you´ve expected
° “Jumin! What are you doing put me down this instant!!”
° “No.”
° apparently he had to make sure he still satisfied you for the rest of the day
° so it wasn´t even that bad that he foudn out about your no longer secret hobby
_Saeyoung/Seven_
° I saved the most strange one for him XD
° when he did the background-check on you he also took a look at your online orders
° and there he thought he already was the biggest Fujoshi Queen King… (╬ Ò ‸ Ó)
° this being a critical hit on his ego he made up his mind to pay you back one day
° after you moved in with Seven and Saeran you stopped ordering online and bought every book your heart desired in the local bookstore
° because you just knew Seven would tease you nonstop if he found out about that obsession of yours
° little did you know Special-Agent 707 already had his masterplan ready…
° when you came back he wasn´t on his Computer, which was very unusual° instead he sat infront of the TV and it looked like he was waiting for you to return
° “Hey Seven what´re you doing here?”
° “Good you´re back I was waiting for you to come back and watch some anime with me.”
° you didn´t exactly know why but you already had a bad Feeling about this
° “Everytime we watch something it´s either disgusting or disturbing.”
° I´m only dropping the words Euphoria and Corpse Party here
° “But MC~ I know you´ll enjoy it this time.”
° Oh God this sounds so wrong
° you gave your okay to watch whatever it was with him
° but when you heard the first tune of the opening theme, you instantly knew what was going on
° but since you watched every freaking Yaoi, even if it was very strange/disturbing you were prepared
° personally, Ai no Kusabi disturbed me XD
° you somehow had the idea he already knew about you passion, so why not do the worst Thing to a Fujoshi? Spoiler
° “Did you know that they´ll cut Ricky´s dick off?”
° “WHAT??”
° he was shocked, and let me tell you to shock him is an Action worth a nobelprice
° MC used Spoiler, it was super-effective
° as if faced Medusa he was now turned to stone
° this means it was MC´s victuuriory
° he stayed like this until Saeran did the ice-bucket challenge to him XD
_V_
° he´s blind so I thought why not write about Drama CDs
° V had an appointment at the doctors to look after his eyes
° you stayed home because Jumin wanted to accompany him very desperately
° being a goog girlfriend you of course let him do that
° for you it meant that you could listen to your new CD over the sound system and without headphones
° said CD was called Kuroneko Kareshi no Nakasekata ( it means something like black cat´s boyfriend to cry for I think..)
° because of V´s eyesight-situation he decided to focus on his other senses a lot more and invested in one of the best sound systems
° this was to your joy once again o(*≧□≦)o
° you didn´t understand much, but it didn´t matter to you since you were reading the translations at the same time
° did I mention it was really loud and you didn´t notice anything else? Good, Keep that in mind for now
° one of the things that remained unnoticed was V entering the house
° the first thing he heardwas some strange, male moaning
° he thought you would be cheating an was on the edge of tears
° poor V(︶︹︺)
° but then there was another moaning, also from a male person and this seemed very strange to him
° he entered the livingroom, still unnoticed by you
° you then noticed him because he closed the door a LITTLE to loud which caused you to turn around in shock
° as quick as you could you turnd the sound system off to stop those noises
° “Oh, hey V. Is your appointment finished already? I used the System..”
° you were more than just relived that he didn´t bring Jumin with him in the flat
° “Listen, we won´t talk about that but if this is yout hobby than I won´t say anything. Just don´t let me hear it again OK?”
° you gave your ok and hurried into the kitchen do prepare the dinner
° by this time V´s head and yours were as red as the tomatoes you were currently cutting
_Saeran_
° his brother dragged him away to do some fishing to “deepen their brotherly-bond”¯\_(ツ)_/¯
° that meant you had finally time to play the game you purchased last week
° after getting comfortable on the couch and putting on some headphones for better sound you hit the start button of Dramatical Murder
° you started right away with Noize’s route
° and of course aimed for the best ending possible
° as you played or red to be more precisely, the hours flew by
° I played Amnesia (the otome-game) and it really took some time to finish a route
° so after you played for like 6 hours straight it finally payed off
° that meant the good parts came, and they weren’t the only thing that did
° if you know what I mean
° you already saw some of the CGs online but damn
° unlocking them yourself and hearing the voice actors while seeing it was way more satisfying (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧
° so satisfying that you, however that is possible, didn’t hear Seven screaming that they’re back
° when Saeran couldn’t hear an answer from you he immediately thought the worst
° you finaly leaving him because of how fucked up he is .( ˃﹏˂̵ )
° don’t think that my poor, precious baby I love you ( ≧Д≦)
° so he was more than happy to see you sitting on the Couch with some headphones on
° “So that´s why she didn´t hear us…”
° of course it was unacceptable that you ignored him
° he had to pay you back for that, that was a sure thing
° so he wanted to see what was more important to you than him at the Moment
° as quiet as he could, he walked behind you to take a look at your Screen
° he didn´t like what he saw….
° the next things happend in only a few moments
° he placed your headphones somwhere els and turned off the handheld-consol you were playing on
° after that you remembered laying on your bed with Saeran ontop of you and already pulling at your shirt
° “MC you were a bad Girl for playing These naughty games. So for that you must be punished.”
° and he did. the whole night.
This was so fun writing I had the fun of my life o(*>ωAlthough I lost the document 2 times
I hope you like it and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing o(^▽^)o
#mystic messenger#mystic messenger headcanon#mystic messenger zen#saeyoung choi#seven#jumin han#jaehee kang#yoosung#saeran choi#mystic messenger v
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