#i wanna read and write about my silly little gay men doing silly little things

[patolemus]

wrote 1.3k words today. i'm incredibly proud of myself. i'm also so fucking behind on my assignments

[3koboldsinahoodie]

i thought the same thing about the jean thing. cause i love love love the fic and im so committed, but the only thing that kinda grossed me out was the depiction of her. i get that mlm is what you wanna write, but gay men demonizing women for just existing in "the way" is def a problem like the other anon mentioned, its misogyny. so i hope you can keep it in mind just overall in life. you can have prejudices and preferences OF COURSE, just try and not step on the girlies toes for existing.

absolutely no hate, dont respond if you wanna, just maybe think about it! cannot wait for the scott fic.

Hey! Thanks, I am aware of this and it is something I've kept in mind, trust me.

First just wanna note first, Vanessa has become a smaller part of my Logan fic than I intended due to wordcounts (in current plan she is going to pop up more later though), but she is going to be a bigger part of the Wade fic, and the dynamic is not at all like that. She is very much a good friend to Wade without just dismissing their past relationship. Part of the dynamic I want to explore more in that version is the love they still have for each other and how thats actually positive for Wade and Logan.

People villianising Venessa is very much something I've seen done in some fics which is always an immediate no for me, for this exact reason, so I do appreciate where you are coming from.

However:

I am aware of how things can come off by having Jean be a bad person. But, I also feel it is also questionable to draw a line where female characters cannot be bad people just because they are women. As I have said, it hasn't been my intention to use her as an obstacle, and this is something I have kept in mind, but I do think there can come a point where if you worry about all the possible ways things can be read as problematic and then avoid them at all costs, it can just lead you to making nothing at all. There is almost always going to be something a little problematic in writing, especially when going into heavier topics, because yknow, life is problematic.

Additionally, for the Scott fic, I want to write a version of her being dark pheonix. Sorry, spoilers, but I find her going evil interesting and didn't love how it was done in the movies, so I wanted to use my silly little fanfic world to write it. She's her own character, outside of whether or not shes with Scott and Logan, and I may not *like* her, but her potential as a character is cool and interesting as hell to write, and I wanted to have a play around with that - particularly the idea of it being difficult for Scott to seperate whats Her and whats her powers talking for her. That seemed like a really heartbreaking idea I wanted to write about. I can't really do that and keep them all best friends at the same time

Tldr version: Jean is a bad person in this fic. It's not just her "existing". She cheats on Scott and to an extent Logan (as she does in canon) and goes dark pheonix (as she does in canon) with a slightly darker lens on it that questions how much is just Her.

She will also be fair in some of the things she says and does, because Scott and Logan are not perfect people either. No one in this fic is gonna be a perfect person.

So yeah I appreciate that this is an important thing to keep in mind and this is something I am trying to be careful of, but I still wanna write a villian doing villian things, and I still wanna explore some darker topics. The Scott pov will come with a bunch of warnings, and I appreciate this is likely not gonna be a lot of people's thing and this is just for my own sake

Sorry for very long ramble response but idk, having kept this in mind so strongly I feel sorta obligated to defend my position, yknow?

Anyway thank you for reading and I really do appreciate the fact you pointed it out in a respectful way!

[vibrantleeches]

I'm Angry >:( (Super long rant about absolutely fucking nothing)

I wasn't gonna put the fandom so this could be more general but fuck it. I wanna be specific about shit.

I've heard so many other people complain about this but it's MY turn. I HATE being apart of a dead fandom. Like please...! I just wanna talk about silly little characters from a stupid book, then movie adaptation, (The Maze Runner Series) and how everything clicks and works and the ideas for after the main books-

The only thing people talking about this story is the ship I enjoy but think is a bit overrated (Newt and Thomas). Sure they're cute, the actors also lowkey ship it, and the author has a lot of silly little nods about it but why not think about other ideas? Like I know everyone loves bringing up how Newt gave the letter to Thomas and not Minho his arguably closer friend, but it's not about the love between the characters. It's showing how he really is the, capital L, Leader. How he is trusted and a true person, how he is the opposite, in the eyes of the Gladers, to Teresa even though they had similar experiences. (Minus her watching her mother go insane which... God I hate that they didn't have that in the movie, but more on that later and also the whole mind reading.) I just feel like if you want romance there can be romance but you need to do it right. I saw this really good commentary about how writers need to learn how to write women because it's making their characters act gay because they are super dynamic and interactive until a women comes on and they have to "love her technically". Super funny but also that with gay/queer rep. Make the boys kiss, because they want to and not because they are two boys and that's hot or whatever.

Like, I'm having a hard time also finding queer spaces in this community, like I understand the leisurely enjoyment of gay and queer ships that needs to be normalized. A lot of women talk about enjoying it because of how men don't seem to respect women the way they do male friends and how they want that mutual respect. BUT the love feels weird when written with only the experience of straight relationships in mind, like it's not the same. Not the dynamics, or the feelings, because it is fundamentally different. Like that's how those hyper-femme twink with a super buff or hyper-masculine bear dynamics happen, which are fine i guess. But why not do more man! The ships that can be had are so gorgeous. And super fucking dynamic (god I use that word a lot) because of the complex inner world building that is done.

AND THE HATE ON TERESA-

She's not my favorite either, I have a hard time with that whole "The death of a few for the survival of the many", but GOD. She had her reason (watching her mother go insane at like 7), she was flawed, she was also A FUCKING CHILD just like the rest of them?! I don't hate her, personally, because her character is understandable and has attempts (and ultimate failures) at redemption, because she isnt meant to be redeemable! People who hate her and haven't read the books or heard about the books is excusable, because so much is explained in those pages that isn't even mentioned in the movies.

Like her and Thomas being connected psychicly! Or all the times that WICKED used her against her friends! She was so confused, manipulated, and abused that I doubt she even knew what was her or them anymore!

Anyways! I love these books (and also hate them all the same) and could go on amd on for hours-

[sock-to-the-third]

Ocean’s Echo

By Everina Maxwell

Got to admit, for someone who doesn’t seek out romance novel’s, I have a unique habit of finding a crap ton of them in my research lol.

Story-wise, Ocean’s Echo’s got a couple twists and turns. The main draw for me was the poppy dialogue, personalized narration to Tennal and Surit and the social dynamics of neuro-mods.

Maxwell really emerses you in the world with opening it in a gambling den. It feels like slipping into the hot tub equivalent of learning about the world, setting up possible conflicts and introducing you to Tennal in his natural environment.

Tennal has this bigger than life personality that can easily dominate any scene he’s in. Yet, he has this social awareness + powers that we wields like a magician. He’s a clusterfuck of a person but man, the nuance *sips the fine wine of characterization* is divine.

Contrast that with Surit’s upstanding forthright nature + intense moral compass makes for a fun dynamic. Also, the way Maxwell introduces him… XD fucking goats. If you read anything, read the goat scene [insert page in post].

The story has the strongest tension at the beginning and the 3/4th point of the story so naturally those were my favorite.

Architects and Readers originating from remenants of an ancient alien civilization was cool. I loved how it’s this pseudo military / perhaps representative state? Either way, I like the vibes. Plus the “light” motif and how it replaces “god” and references to the supernatural in when exasperated. It helps immersing into the world.

Though, I have to admit that judging by the first quarter of the book, I assumed it’d be a much darker book than it was. There’s a bit of a lull period about 1/4 point to 1/2 point that you’d think would get to Tennal more or that there would be a bit more time before they could build that level of allying.

Granted, I think that’s more an indicator of my preferences for slow burning of enemies to friends than really a comment on Maxwells writing.

Did I mention the descriptive prose is killer? It’s fucking amazing. Especially related to describing the floating through space and sync stuff *chiefs kiss* so good.

On to ~REPRESENTATION~ the original reason I picked up this book.

Like wit all books I read, I was hoping for an MC with they/them or neopronouns. While I didn’t get that, Istara (pilot) did have they/them and a neo pronoun (xam).

The conventions of pronouns and gender were intriguing. Made me google if Maxwell was non-binary and/or gay cuz man, the cis or cis gays do not put this much effort into cuff links to denote pronouns.

Wood: he/him

Flint: she/her

I can’t remember what they/them was but I liked how there was an indication that other territories had different accessories that indicated pronouns. Also, there was pronoun edicate that some personal pronouns wouldn’t be shared while others would be. Less as an indicator of “yeah I don’t wanna be bullied” and more “we’re not that close, fam.”

Another thing I enjoyed gender wise was how little it came up. There was some entwining of it when explaining the cuff links but otherwise, the main characters, Tennal and Surit, despite having he/him pronouns didn’t get referred to as “men” or any gendered term constantly.

Plus Surit’s “alt-parents” (god I love that word, it fits the setting so well” were referred into in a partner-esque fashion that felt like a breath of fresh air.

I think it was a bit silly to tie gender to pronouns but that’s more of a “i’m sick and tired of gender, please shoot it into the sun. Kill it. Die die die” than an actual criticism, more a preference tbh.

I really love seeing other authors takes on how to handle introducing pronouns. I can’t tell you how awkward it is to introduce pronouns with names. It just makes me want to choke because it feels so ineloquent. Personally, i just make everyone psychically know each other’s pronouns when I write like how people IRL pretend they can spot pronouns by looking at you. So it’s fun to see other people’s takes.

How would society operate if we had the equivalent of pronoun pins incorporated into society? How would some one react if they didn’t recognize a given pin? Would you be curious about someone’s gender?

It’s so rare that you find conversations like this in the wild of books so it’s fun having these conversations at all.

Though I do wonder sometimes…. Hmmm… Not referring to Maxwell but I’ve read a couple authors who are outside the binary and have a tendency to have their main characters use binary pronouns, at most, a supporting character or love interest using neo or they. It makes you wonder how hard it may be to publish mc’s with they/them pronouns or if there’s some internalized stuff going on.

A thought to ponder. I have only superficial evidence to back it up but its certainly something I want to explore.

All in all, pretty good book. Love some he x he love.

[wisemins]

✧༻❀!Starshine’s Self-ship Promo!❀༺✧

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║▌│█║▌│ █║▌│█│║▌║

𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙤𝙙𝙚...

𝙎𝙚𝙡𝙛-𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝙙𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙!

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❝𝑮𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝒔𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒐!❞

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❥ Hello all, I’m Starshine, your local self-shipping goblin here to finally make a promo/pinned post! 

❥ Paragirl | She/her, they/them, zhe/her | Bisexual, Ficto, ace spectrum | INFP-T

❥ If you’re in need of a new self-ship pal, need a gush pass or simply want to read this, travel onward!

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Carrd (something to get my sillies out with. Other info too. Graphic design is my passion *blaring Star Wars intro*) (Sidenote, right as of 4/5/24, haven't paid my yearly carrd yet, so info is missing. Bottom line for dni: don't be weird. treat people right. and no fuckin pedophiles.)

Full F/O List (I recommend you take a gander at this since I sometimes I’m too lazy to update my carrd. I’ll always update this list though.)

FYI (tidbits about me, stuff you might not need to know but I wanna share. Includes list of fandoms.)

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Before we move forward, I must mention these few things!

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❥ I do not tolerate ship discourse or any discourse for that matter on my blog, don’t bring it round’ these parts please. I do not care to discuss it or perpetuate it, thank you!

❥ I am not comfortable with sharing romantic F/Os as romantics, platonics and familials are completely fine though (queer platonics are the exception here!). I have a butt-ton of f/os by the way, if that bothers you I recommend you dip out. But if we only share like one or two, I can just block your tags too! Just lmk!

❥ I am 22 years old, please be aware of this! I might post some NSFW things, keep this in mind! I also swear a lot in text. Plenty of my men and women are also whores, sorry about that.

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Now that’s out of the way, here’s a little bit about me!

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❥ I’m an artist in almost every regard, mostly digital and traditional art! I also write a lot (peep my Etsy I write love letters for people like us ❤️❤️❤️ ) do art commissions there too, and make jewelry for myself and my close ones!

❥ I’ve been self-shipping for as long as I can remember, I still have my very first f/o on my list that I actively inserted myself with over 8 years ago!

❥ I’m a massive fan of music, a self-titled music geek if you will, I also have over 200+ confirmed playlists. I take it a little too seriously, blame the autism.

❥ I’m native american and very proud of it!

❥ I’m incredibly gay! Like man. Really gay. Anyways--

❥ I’m a punk, feel free to ask me about it!

❥ I’m gaming. A lot. Pew pew pew

❥ Maladaptive daydreamer!

❥ CEO of AoT f/os, Marvel f/os, Star Wars f/os, CoD f/os, and biker f/os! Probably more to come knowing me

❥ Talk to me about my favorite fandoms and I’ll lichrally explode  

❥ I run an imagines blog! @selfshipseaside​

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Tagging system

I usually have two tags for each romantic f/o, sometimes just one! Platonics and familials only have one tag. Keep in mind I haven’t been using this system for very long, my old posts are tagged with no emojis, just the tags themselves. So be aware of that! 

Romantic ships will be tagged with: ❤️: [tag] 

Platonic ships will be tagged with: ✨: [tag]

Familial ships will be tagged with: 🏡: [tag]

Crushes will be tagged with: 💌: [tag]

Retired/Exes will be tagged with: 💔: [tag]

Queer-platonic ships will be tagged with: 🫶: [tag]

Note: I might sometimes post something suggestive or NSFW. Block this tag: “Starshine’s feelin’ spicy 😳” if you are either a minor or just don’t wanna see it. Thank you!!

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❥ If you got this far and you seem to enjoy my vibes, please feel free to follow or dm me! I am in love with my babes, and I’d love to hear your love stories! I absolutely adore making new self-shipping friends, do not be afraid of me fellas!

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[adultswim2021]

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law #1: "Bannon Custody Battle" December 30, 2000 - 4:30AM | S01E01 Welcome to the first episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, the first show on Adult Swim’s roster that I rejected as a substandard product. It should’ve been the Brak Show. In the opening episode, Birdman takes a case from Dr. Benton Quest, better known as Jonny Quest’s father. Race Bannon is fighting for custody of the boy, arguing that he’s a much better, much more present father figure to Jonny. Harvey Birdman was first conceptualized with an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast. In the episode “Pilot” we’re shown a supposed disastrous pilot episode of “Coast to Coast” where Birdman was originally attached as the star. Birdman, a depressive, out-of-work super hero, utterly botches the job as his inability to host a late-night show due to his deriving all his powers from the sun becomes more apparent. The character recurs a few more times, most notably in the episode “Sequel”, where Birdman guest-hosts the show. Still, to call this a proper Space Ghost spin-off requires carrying a big asterisk along with it. The character name “Harvey Birdman” was invented for Space Ghost, but besides both being based on the old 60s Birdman Hanna-Barbera show, they have little to do with one another. One would get almost nothing out of watching the original Space Ghost episodes before watching this (except for, you know, getting to see episodes of a much funnier show).

So in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law you have one 60s Hanna-Barbera character as a lawyer taking court cases from various other Hanna-Barbera characters, usually of a similar vintage. In this particular episode we’re treated to a lot of jokes about the homoerotic subtext of Jonny Quest, specifically the relationship between Race Bannon and Benton Quest. The writers decide to tastefully side-step the seemingly pederast relationship between Race and Jonny. Watching the original Jonny Quest with the same attempt to subvert and recontextualize the relationships between the characters through a modern lens, a certain type of observer would probably note the amount of shirtless roughhousing Race does with Jonny. Speaking of watching Jonny Quest: I have to admit something: I never really watched Jonny Quest at all before writing this blog. I’ve had an interest in older shows and cartoons my entire life, but the entire genre of action cartoon didn’t appeal to me whatsoever when I was a kid. So last night I watched my first episode of Jonny Quest, in glorious 1080p on my new 4K television; a format it was never EVER intended to be viewed in. Jonny Quest is objectively junk. It’s fun, boyish, escapist entertainment, and there’s a lot of good irony in it, especially with it’s antiquated portrayal of other cultures from a bygone era when we were far less connected to the rest of the world. It has limited animation and simplistic design. The backgrounds look like they were painted on a post-it-note and most of the men are drawn to look like reskinned versions of Race Bannon. But there’s at least something a LITTLE charming about it. In fact, there was one moment of beautifully scripted action that absolutely won me over: Race and Jonny’s speed boat goes airborne briefly and crushes the bad guy’s boat from above as they speed towards one another. I nearly cheered when it happened. I knew The Venture Bros took liberally from Jonny Quest, but the coolest action sequences on that show seemed to be striving for the same exact visceral reaction I got from seeing Race crunch up some lizard men on a boat. Birdman is a similar deal: He was a cookie-cutter imitation of comic book heroes from the silver-age of comics (the obvious comparison here is DC’s Hawkman). I actually did watch a Birdman adventure late last night as I was falling asleep to follow up on Jonny Quest, but it felt less important. I can remember checking out the original Birdman on DVD not too long ago. Also, your typical Harvey Birdman usually focuses on jokes about shows other than Birdman. Still, it’s neat to see those characters in their original context, as well as that Hanna-Barbera stock-explosion animation we all know and love from Space Ghost blowing up Zorak on Coast-to-Coast. Also the episode I watched will be heavily referenced later, but not for this. I only watched the first episode of Jonny Quest taking a cue from my friend Kon who noted that most of the references in “Bannon Custody Battle” are directly from the first episode. The most specific (and funniest) scene in the whole show involves the Lizard Men, the main villains of that first installment. Other characters show up very briefly, and are all ones that appear in the opening sequence. Unless I find out differently (I’ll probably try to make my way through the rest of Quest in preparation for Venture Bros.), it really does seem like the writers just watched the first episode of Jonny Quest to write this show. Watching this episode of Harvey Birdman was like batting away an existential crisis. I remember vaguely at the time not being SUPER hot on this show, but I cut it a lot of slack and trusted that it would simply get funnier. I wanted to love all the shows on Adult Swim. Anyway, I went from being lukewarm on Birdman, to hating it. Reading my own earlier review of Birdman I blasted this episode for being homophobic. I used to have a very low tolerance for gay jokes, back when they were highly in fashion. But now that we live an era where there’s an arms race to find new ways to scold one another for perceived slights gay jokes can sometimes, NOT ALWAYS, be a little refreshing to hear. The fact that my stance on gay jokes can change as long as it’s in direct-opposition with the rest of the world is at least a little troubling. Does this mean I’m an inauthentic reactionary? Yes. Yes it does. There, I admitted it. Now, let me off the hook, please. I say that sorta jokingly. The gay jokes in this are mostly pretty lame, and come off like Mike Scully-era Simpsons gay jokes. The early scene at the beginning where Birdman eyes widen when he’s misunderstanding the nature of Dr. Quest’s and Race Bannon’s relationship really does come off as early 90′s homophobia. I remember it seemed out of place at the time. I’m sure it played just fine in the midwest, but the show didn’t really put it’s best foot forward with that. Speaking of lame jokes, this episode has a few that have nothing to do with insulting gay people. One of my least favorite bits involve the specific gag of undercutting a dramatic moment with characters fumbling around awkwardly in true-to-life fashion. Why, if a person tried to recreate a dramatic sting you’d see before a commercial break in real life, you’re right, it’d probably go awkwardly! But this 11 minute show has at least 3 explicit examples of this, and it’s only mildly amusing once:

Bannon dramatically walks out on Dr. Quest, after announcing his intention to take Jonny with him. He awkwardly comes back because he forgot his keys

Birdman dramatically argues with a rival prosecutor and summons his personal digital assistant, and then awkwardly fumbles with it

Birdman proves that the Race Bannon on the witness stand is actually a robot by unplugging him, but he accidentally pulls the wrong cord and has to spend a few seconds untangling and retracing the correct cord.

Another thing about Birdman is that there is usually a lack of strong jokes. The show usually includes a layer of comedy where there are simply characters who simply have odd, scattered speech patterns or odd ticks. The rival lawyer in this slurs his speech in a particular way: cut to the jury looking confused. That’s the joke. The Judge grumbles in an ornery fashion and generally acts like he doesn’t wanna be there. He says stuff that sounds like bad improv. That’s the joke. The show will only ocassionally come up with jokes to justify these character traits. It’s just silliness that doesn’t usually go anywhere. But, I do kinda like some things about this episode. It was animated by J.J. Sedelmaier, known for early digital animation seen in the crude era of Beavis and Butt-head and SNL’s TV Funhouse. They really do have their own style of comic timing, and there are some gags in this where the animation works in their favor. There are some jokes where the drawings really sell the comedy. I’m not sure if I liked this animation better or worse, but it does match the oddly-stilted Jonny Quest animation better than the episodes that came after this would have. Oh, one of the funniest bits not on the show was when I popped in the DVD I forgot that the menu music is Wesley Willis’ “Birdman Kicked My Ass”. If I were in high school when the DVD came out I would have loved it just for that reason. Same could be said “Jonny Quest Thinks We’re Sell-Outs” by Less Than Jake. I was an easily impressed kid.

[capsgirl19]

wait I wanna hear about the gay subtext and wasted potential of teen beach 2

Okay, strap in because I don’t do elevator pitches. Major spoilers for Teen Beach Movies 1&2. And a readmore because this is LONG!

SO. Idk if this is a common observation, but it seemed fairly obvious to me that Lela fell hard in love with Mack over the course of the first movie. She felt trapped by gender roles, obligated to pursue a relationship with a boy over and over again, never even considering that there might be something more until this girl unlike anyone she’s ever met crashes into her life saying that she can do anything men can do, that she doesn’t have to fit into a little box. I legit thought the scene in her bedroom might be her confessing to being gay, though I knew it wouldn’t be. And like... the necklace exchange? The extended hug at the end? Not to mention in the second one, she’s desperate to escape her own universe so she can be with Mack again, desperate to live in a world where she’s allowed to be her true self. The fact that Brady turns into a garbage fire in that one doesn’t help my opinions on the canon pairings, either. By all rights, Lela’s story in the second movie ought to be a tragedy. She escapes a world defined by rigid expectations that she be in a relationship with a man to get back to the girl who changed her life. And she makes it! And she’s happy! And then it turns out everyone she loves will die if she doesn’t go back to her own life. She makes this tremendous sacrifice to save her entire universe, and honestly a sad gay story is cliche, but imo better than doing what they actually did with that ending.

As a little aside, can we talk about the unbelievable amount of lip service in these movies that the second one undermines with its entire plot? In the first movie Brady was kinda dumb, but a seemingly good boyfriend. Mack was so about Girl Power that she was trying to bring third wave feminism to the early sixties. In the second one Brady is sulky, jealous for no reason, dumps his girlfriend because HIS TRASH ASS fucking forgot they had plans, and never even has to apologize for it. On the contrary, Mack apologizes to HIM! When she never did anything to so much as suggest she’d find his interests stupid! I digress, sorry, it pissed me off to no end.

That finished, let’s get into the meta. While I don’t think the writers realized it, they wrote a super interesting multiverse. We’ve got the prime universe, the one Mack and Brady are from, which is the one all the others spawn from. My theory is that literally anyone can create a universe by writing about one. The intricacy of the created universe is based on how much worldbuilding goes into it, and the better thought-out the universe, the stronger the fabric of reality surrounding it will be, and the harder it’ll be to change from its intended path. This isn’t a new concept, but there’s an interesting level of equity in the fact that secondary universes can rewrite the entire timeline of the primary one if they change enough. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Wet Side Story is a sleepy little universe, not much thought put into how it runs at all. The characters sing and dance their way through the same summer over and over again in a contented daze, like the lotus eaters of the Odyssey. And then along come Mack and Brady, to stretch at the delicate chiffon of this simple place. The characters closest to them begin to stir from their trances, and there’s no way to go back. No way to unknow. Only an endless summer, a stretching eternity of pretending, and Lela can’t stand it. With barely a few months between, she’s pulling that fabric in the opposite direction trying to get back to the girl who captured her mind and her heart, currently in a failing relationship. And then she has to go back. She doesn’t want to. Mack seems to wish she could stay, if only for Lela’s own sake. She and Tanner return to their own universe, but not before Mack tells her that she can control her own destiny and shape her universe to her whims. Lela takes this to heart, becoming the solo star of the film. It’s too much. The thin fabric separating her universe from the primary one tears as she severely alters its timeline, allowing her to throw Mack a leather jacket matching her own through a movie screen, and shoot her a sly wink as she dances along to the movie. This is the end of Teen Beach 2, and oh boy, do I have sequel ideas.

Here’s the setup: so. Lela goes home. Whoever wrote the movie she’s in has long since abandoned caring for the universe they never bothered to build a world for, and their grip is weak. It’s easy to wrest the pen from that loose hand, to bend her world around her until it suits her desires, and she writes a great story. But it still feels empty. Lela is the queen of the beach, but her friends still seem their happiest playing their new roles, over and over again. She ascends to godhood, taking the reins of her own universe, but it’s lonely at the top and she’s as high as a person can go. She is peerless. She has nothing but time to ponder the nature of everything, and to yearn for the only equal she ever had.

The final film doesn’t open with her, though, and this one’s a fuckin’ doozy. Think Infinity War (the comic, not the movie, and maybe a little bit of Marvel’s Illuminati plotline too) meets a lesbian pulp novel. It opens with Mack, a few years later, now in college studying oceanography. Things keep sort of... glitching out. The camera pans past a character or scene from Lela, Queen of the Beach, or maybe even Wet Side Story, but when Mack looks back at it it’s always normal again. She decides she’s being silly, and it’s just been awhile since she watched her favorite movie, so that night she makes some time and puts it on. Lela herself steps out of the screen after one of her numbers and restores Mack’s memories of the timeline that got dead-ended by Lela’s alteration of her own universe. Mack is thrilled to see her after so long, and they hug, Mack explaining what she’s been doing in the time they’ve been apart. For Lela, it’s only been a year, and she never aged to begin with. Lela tells Mack how she took her advice, she changed her movie, but things were still so unbearably lonely. She tells her that whoever created their multiverse is cruel, that they had no regard for the people within, but that it’s alright. Lela knows how to handle indifferent creators, after all. She’s going to merge it all into one universe, no hierarchies, that she personally will oversee. She’s come to ask Mack to rule at her side.

Mack is afraid of her power and afraid of her ideas. She tries to talk Lela out of it, but to no avail. Lela is deeply sad that Mack doesn’t see things her way, but out of love for the other girl and a genuine belief that she’s too powerful to be stopped, once again forging her own destiny, she folds the necklace into Mack’s palm and returns to her own universe to continue her work.

Mack and Brady went their separate ways after high school, not on bad terms, but because a long-distance relationship didn’t seem realistic. This is the first time they’ve spoken since she left for college, but Brady is her only hope for someone who might understand. She manages to jog his memory, and they have to work together to try and prevent Lela from remaking all of creation. There are posters throughout which serve as markers of how close she is to achieving her goals, shifting gradually closer to their final form: Lela in iconic pink jacket leaning against the side of a motorcycle on a black-sand beach, a galactic sky behind her. The title reads, “LELA: QUEEN OF THE MULTIVERSE.” This is also the working title of the third movie.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s all I got! How does it end? I don’t know! Probably Lela doesn’t merge the multiverse into one place, because that’s never a great plan. Maybe she just gets to live in Mack’s universe and go to college and find a girlfriend and have a good life? And her movie’s about Tanner and Bucky now (bc holy god there’s not as much of a story there but Tanner is fucking gay as hell), but it has the same story as the original? That might be good. Could also be called “Mack and Brady Save the Multiverse” idk.

[elle-eedee]

dcom daddies: ranked

whats up sluts i’m here to give you the content you did NOT know you needed: a foolproof algorithmic ranking of a mild selection of disney channel dads!

beast (descendants)

hotness scale: extremely tall (over a foot taller than me! this is Very Important to the scale) and he seems to be a mere thread’s width away from Unhinged at all times, which i love. i also think it’s very sexy of him to still have such a monstrous way about himself (what with the roaring and the growling) 20something years post-curse.... makes me wonder very vividly if such energies carry to the b*droom........ *clears throat* 10/10

quality of character scale: it eternally amuses me that beast seems to learn almost Nothing over the course of this trilogy. he’s literally pro-isle the ENTIRE time jsjdndjdjd..... not great considering it puts him directly at odds with his son (and, like, with social progress) but he Does seem to act the way he does with the kingdom’s safety in mind! plus when he’s not accidentally supporting magical fascism he’s super dorky. i love his goofy dance moves 7.5/10

total score: 17.5/20...... with this score alone you can tell this system isnt rigged bc if i had it my way he’d be winning

hades (descendants)

hotness scale: i hate his party city clown wig but i’m a total sucker for guys in makeup (EVEN THOUGH A DECENT SHADE OF LIPSTICK WOULD HAVE BROUGHT HIS ENSEMBLE TOGETHER. WHY DID THEY PROPOSE IT ON THE CHARACTER DESIGN WALL IF THEY WERENT GONNA FOLLOW THROUGH!!!) and i think the fact that hes Very Sleepy and doesnt own a dog makes him my dream guy 9.5/10

quality of character scale: he literally sings a song about how cool he thinks it is that he’s a shitty dad............ but he DOES come through when his kid needs him, so that’s nice i guess. i would have liked to see more of him but i’ll settle for reading and writing intricate fan works that delve into a hypothetical personality for him that’s mainly conjecture 7.25/10

total score: 16.75/20 i wanna see him in some preppy auradon clothes

jafar (descendants)

hotness scale: i wish i had nicer things to say about this man. he just....... bears so little resemblance to the original jafar it makes me :( maybe if he was more gangly, or if he carried himself w the same potent gay energy that og jafar has? itd also help it he wasnt a racist caricature. 4.5/10

quality of character scale: again, very much a racist caricature. jafar doesnt steal!!! why would This be what he chose to do with himself! but he does seem to be, perhaps, the least bad of the core four’s parents, which counts for something i suppose. 3/10

total score: 7.5/20 sorry bud

dr facilier (descendants)

hotness scale: listen. it’s dr facilier. what am i supposed to do, NOT give him a perfect score on the sexy scale? 10/10

quality of character scale: he just loves his daughter and wants to make sure she’s getting what’s hers!!!!! his dynamic with celia makes me really happy they seem so fun! though i guess you could argue it sucks that he’d send his darling babey dohter to do errands for big mean scary hades considering that Everyone on the isle seems to quake at the sight of him. but im sure facilier only does that to ensure that celia can hold her own! 8/10

total score: 18/20 and it’d probably be higher if we’d seen more of him

mr smee (descendants)

hotness scale: not only does this man fuck, judging by the ages of his kids he fucked RECENTLY. get it baby live your truth 7/10

quality of character scale: he seems to be SO kind and sweet to his baby sons..... holding their little hands and such!!! and judging by how nervous the kids are i’d imagine it was primarily smee’s idea for them to go to auradon. extremely noble sacrifice for their benefit even though he’ll miss them 10/10!!!!!

total score: 17/20 i want to kiss his hand, if he’ll have me

zevon necrodopolous (zombies)

hotness scale: every time i look at this man i think of this post. he’s the perfect amount of frumpy for my tastes and his voice is so unique!!!!! i’d let his z-band malfunction so he could *** ** ***** * ******* **** 9/10

quality of character scale: really really cares about his kids and wants them to be safe!! he raises his voice once which im not a huge fan of but i suppose it was justified given the circumstances. also that shot of him goofing about with d*le in the end scene shows remarkable capacity for forgiveness after decades of trauma and discrimination! what a guy. 9/10

total score: 18/20 an absolute dilf!!!!!

dale (zombies)

hotness scale: looks like an uncrustable. 0/10

quality of character scale: a fucking cop. die bitch! 0/10

total score: 0/20 get in since you wanna act clown

coach jack bolton (high school musical)

hotness scale: honestly pretty young for my tastes. and i literally Always swipe left on athletes, so..... fine looking, but not for me. 5/10

quality of character scale: obviously he grows as the series progresses but i feel like jack is Always in the way of troy getting what he wants, which sucks. i like that he’s kinda goofy on his off hours with his family exactly as much as i Hate how much he yells when hes on the job. i do wish we lived in the timeline where he and miss darbus actually had that duet about their disagreements, though. 5/10

total score: 10/20 truly an Average dcom daddy

vance evans (high school musical)

hotness scale: due to personal reasons i will be having bad taste. however, this man’s fashion sense in IMPECCABLE. i mean, the colors??? the unbuttoned collar???? come on now. there is also the gratuitous use of the d-word to consider......................... anyways 7.5/10

quality of character scale: it’s hard to tell how much of his interest in furthering troy’s career is out of sincerity and how much of it is sharpay nudging him. but either way the result is a man who supports his daughter unconditionally! he could be nicer to ryan, though (plus he’s an evil capitalist) 6/10

total score: 13.5/20 i feel like he and fulton have had Relations

mr gifford (lemonade mouth)

hotness scale: listen, i’m a simple guy. i see a basic-looking man pursuing age gap romance in the midst of a mid-life crisis, i support him unconditionally. also i am just Really vibing with that oversized denim shirt on him!!! there’s an egregious amount of arm hair poking out that just works. good for him! and this is a small moment but i’m very flustered over his natural Touchy Feely instinct after wen pokes out his eye... however: man has no eyebrows. 8.5/10

quality of character scale: i’m not a child of divorce so i don’t know how this stuff works, but i feel like he springs a lot of major decisions on wen? not ideal. on the other hand, we DO stan that he has sydney move in before they’re married. this is not a christian home!!!! 6/10

total score: 14.5/20 probably my favorite lemonade mouth dad, but mostly because he’s like the only one paid any attention by the narrative

mr banjaree (lemonade mouth)

hotness scale: men really have beautifully sculpted noses and we just let them, huh. i’m definitely overusing the word Handsome in this list, but in this case? i’m justified. mr banjaree’s beard suits him SO well and his hair looks so soft...... and we love the implicit cleanliness of a man who wears socks in the house! 8/10

quality of character scale: i super SUPER dont agree with this man’s Smothering-Adjacent Methods (and also i know firsthand that strict parentage just drives kids to be more rebellious, lmao) but all things considered he really just wants the best for his family PLUS he’s willing to meet mo halfway at the end! :’) 6/10

total score: 14/20 the way i feel about him is the way i feel when i get crushes on pastors in that You Are Complicit In My Trauma But We’re Gonna Kiss About It way

mr delgado (lemonade mouth)

hotness scale: OOOOH GLASSES! 5/10

quality of character scale: it’s sort of implied that the Wacko Energies of charlie’s family are mostly the fault of his mom so it’s cool of this man to distance himself from that. he is, of course, still complicit in Whatever The Hell Her Deal Is unless he is constantly fighting with her offscreen 6/10

total score: 11/20 would have loved to see more of him

mr yamada (lemonade mouth)

hotness scale: another chapter in the saga of unbuttoned collars! doesn’t get a lot of opportunities to show off his strengths but i appreciate that he is not the thinnest dad in town 6.5/10

quality of character scale: WOW fuck this guy. very dismissive of stella’s aspirations!!!!! i don’t like that he feels the need to talk Over her to her mom when he’s asking about her vegetarianism. dude she is right there.... however it’s a lil touching when he holds her guitar up at the end, so... 4/10?

total score: 10.5/20 *thinks about his slightly protruding tummy in his last scene* *thinks about his slightly protruding tummy in his last scene* *thi

bob duncan (good luck charlie: it’s christmas!)

hotness scale: in keeping this Specific to the feature-length xmas special, i will say that bob duncan is QUITE handsome! disappointed that he was wearing a shirt in the scene at the pool.... ill bet if this movie came out post-workout/makeover he’d have been shirtless >:/ i feel robbed... spare tummy, sir? spare tummy? additionally i love a man who rolls up his sleeves AND a man who stans kaiju movies!! also i love that he, quite literally, canonically fucks 8.5/10

quality of character scale: he’s about as charmingly incompetent as he is in the show, but the difference here is that he literally did not do a damn thing wrong! all he wanted to do was be civil with his inlaws and he frankly deserves MUCH better. its clear from his banter with the kids that he loves them very much (also i love how frequently he feels the need to jump/dive for things in this movie. silly slapstick icon) 8.75/10

total score: 17.25/20 this man’s mere presence oozes nostalgia

jerry russo (wizards of waverly place: the movie)

hotness scale: this man was MADE for me. the bottomless collection of hawaiian shirts....... the TWO tummy out scenes..........the fucked up evil thing his voice does when the kids try to steal the spellbook!!! he really has it all. also i love that he is truly just trying to have some beach intercourse 9/10

quality of character scale: i love that even when he doesn’t remember the kids he still maintains a little dadly rapport with them? the instincts...... it’s also incredibly good of him to relive his decision to give up his magic without hesitation once he realizes the severity of the situation :’0 10/10

total score: 19/20 i’ve never seen an episode of the show but im really about to start

neil morris (dadnapped)

hotness scale: handsome....... mr morris makes me feel simultaneously like a sapiosexual AND a morosexual because although he completed enough schooling to become a dentist, he also threw it away for a writing career like an absolute champ. also i find it unbelievably charming how Along For The Ride he is about the idea of being kidnapped. a man after my own heart 8.25/10

quality of character scale: this is a tricky one...... neil DOES show active concern for his daughter’s safety when push comes to shove, but he also has my least favorite type of redemption arc: “you THOUGHT i was neglecting you, but actually i was thinking about you the whole time and just never expressed it! we good?” so like. bleh. but he’s pretty mild mannered which i deeply appreciate in a man! 6.5/10

total score: 14.75/20 maybe talk to your daughter instead of writing a macgyver ripoff, dumbass

major joe mason (princess protection program)

hotness scale: prime dad bod, very believable for his line of work. also he has such a Gentle Way about himself when he’s around princesses....... i love all the hand holding when he’s escorting rosie. absolutely my type 8.75/10

quality of character scale: gosh.... where do i even BEGIN!!! his whole dynamic with carter is so ideal... i was apprehensive at first because his job would require him to be Absent a lot of the time, but upon reflection it’s clear that he’s raised carter well enough that he can totally trust her to be on her own, and also she’s only sad to see him go because she sincerely enjoys his company. everything about his profession is so noble and i love the way he can carry himself as casually or as politely as a given situation calls for. worst thing he does is say “i might have to stop calling you ‘pal’” because his daughter is wearing a pretty dress. i wish he was my dad but i’ll settle for him being my husband 9.75/10

total score: 18.5/20 i almost made a ppp self insert this morning specifically for Him

ted thompson (zapped)

hotness scale: athletes arent sexy!! this guy’s face screams The Only Websites I Know How To Use Are Facebook And Reddit and also he’s a dog person BUT he is sporting quite the tumbey if i do say so myself and for that i shall let him live. 4/10

quality of character scale: ok i know the whole point of this movie is Boys Bad but i hate men who are loud and i hate dads who get Weird about the inherent femininity of their daughters. when he calls zoey “sport” and then cringes like he’s made a mistake? dumb and unnecessary. HOWEVER all of his efforts to bond with zoey are really really sincere. like when he fixes her music box? that has NOTHING to do with the app he just Does It!!!! the movey mightve rubbed off on me a little too much but there are multiple ways to show love and just bc im not used to his way doesnt mean it has no worth! 6/10

total score: 10/20 mr thompson sir im sorry i doubted you at the start of the film

rob adams (radio rebel)

hotness scale: this man dresses 5-10 years younger than he looks and i respect that for him. but i was expecting him to be a bit more of a slimeball considering how tara talks about him in the opening scene... and you guys know how much i love slimeballs. regardless, pretty handsome! 6.5/10

quality of character scale: it’s nice that he goes to such a Public and Corporate effort to connect to his stepdaughter! even if it’s in a way that financially benefits him, it’s pretty clear that he cares about this family and wants to do right by them. nothing exceptional, though 7/10

total score: 13.5/20 i GUESS i’d be down to smash if he asked

ralph bartlett (read it and weep)

hotness scale: ok i was gonna say something mean about the fact that he’s balding but honestly he has really nice arms........ in addition he’s really quirky and optimistic which i am going to admire into my grave!! when he gets excited about having customers during the finale his voice quirks with an almost charlie day-esque charm. handsome. ALSO he calls jamie “princess” which is!!!!!!! something 7.5/10

quality of character scale: the way ralph parents his kids is Very 2000s in that he kinda babies his daughter but gets to pal around with his son, but i guess both dynamics come from a place of love and he could be doing much worse. plus he’s an honest hardworking small business owner! i support him 7/10

total score: 14.5/20 i would definitely go out for pizza with him

dr james hartley (how to build a better boy)

hotness scale: THIS. THIS IS WHAT DCOM DADDIES ARE ALL ABOUT. gosh..... this is truly the Most dad ive ever seen in my life. i love how his hair is always mussed..... how he’s so Desperate to relax that he falls asleep after Fifteen Seconds of smooth jazz..... and also. like. hes a scientist?? hello??? pretty sexy of him. i want to give this man the relaxation he deserves 10/10

quality of character scale: ok so,,,...,, kinda fucked up that he lied to his whole family (with the possible exception of his wife—sidenote, WHY did they make dr hartley married? his wife never comes up except when bart says she’s out of town. let him be single so i can slide into those dms) and EXTRA kinda fucked up that he works for the government? what a scab. BUT it’s very very clear that he cares about his kids (and gabby) and prioritizes their safety above all else! also, did you SEE how happy he was when mae won homecoming queen....... he loves her so so so much! :’0 8.5/10

total score: 18.5/20 i thirst tweeted about this man and roger bart replied ‘Aw, thanks!’ so i dont know where to go from here

[3koboldsinahoodie]

Hello! I have a silly little question about "until you get sick of me"

First of all: I love your work, I love your interpretation of poolverine and your writing, youre doing a great job!!

Second: How's your feelings toward canon Jean? You know, I understand the hate she gets with the old x-men movies, she was...a mess 💀 but while reading Logan's memories about her in your work, I was like "omg scott is USELESS and jean is evil af" and then it hit me the feeling of making a woman bad for the sake of a mlm couple while the othet part was just as bad, but not recognized as one, but...

It's probably because Logan's memories towards Scott tends to keep making excuses for him ?? idk, I just want to hear your thoughts about it :))

Hellooo thank youuuu !!!

I am not a fan of Jean in most interpretations, especially not the movies - there may be some interpretations where she comes off better but shes not my cup of tea as a character, although she does have potential to be really interesting

However, the version of Jean in this fic is obviously something way worse than that. In the Scott pov fic it will become a lot more obvious when i get to that, but definitely was not my intention to just be like "woman bad because shes in the way of gay couple".

But this version of Jean from Logan's og universe is incredibly evil, and Logan is 100% valid in feeling that way. Scott is also Not Great and fucked up (as did Logan honestly but we'll get to that - and not to same extent) but in the story I'm creating its definitely not a case of Logan making excuses for Scott - honestly, with some of the context Logan is unfortunately missing, he may feel differently about a lot of things, but not Jean (if anything she probably will come off even worse). All 3 of them fucked up in some way, but this version of Jean is pretty easily the worst.

But like, not necessarily true of all versions of Jean, and its not my intention to have her /just/ be an obstacle! This is just a version of her, and its more because I wanted to explore how fucked up her powers could be if used by a terrible person, more than wanting to just get her out of the way or something. Like I don't like her, but I also feel like her whole deal is very under ultalised in the movies

Also just wanna say, as I post more stuff you will likely notice I have a bias towards writing mlm couples, but I wanna just be clear that that is because I am a gay man, so like thats what im naturally gonna gravitate towards reading and writing. I'm never gonna be intentionally placing a woman as just being an obstacle (not saying thats what youre saying I'm doing!! but just wanna be clear hahaha), though I am aware with the Scott pov its kinda situtionally ended up looking that way plot wise

None of them are entirely innocent, and its definitely not just Scott being spineless/useless, but also dont wanna pretend like Jean is at all redeemable in this version of herself cause like if youve been picking up some of the stuff ive been putting down, shes very much not

Ok sorry that was the longest ramble for that question and i feel like i repeated myself way too much but I hope this answers and also it makes sense hahaha

[flying-elliska]

Hii Ellie. This is kind of a personal question and it’s totally okay if you don’t answer it. How did you come to terms with your sexuality? How or when did you know you were bi? I know that it’s not about putting tags on people or anything like that, it’s just that I’ve kind of been struggling with it and it’d be nice to read your experience if you want to share it

Ooooh anon do you have three hours ? lol. Of course I want to talk about it if it can help anyone even a little. 

The tl;dr is : in stages, I struggled a lot, and bi characters were super important to me. 

So I think as a kid/teen I always had this vague notion that ladies were very pretty, but I was not a lesbian bc I liked boys too much, and besides I had these horrible ideas in my mind about queerness being immature and yucky, it was bad. I think I pretty much did have crushes on several of my girl friends but I just didn’t understand that’s what it was, just super intense friendship and being jealous when they got boyfriends hmmmm. Also my ‘fashion folder’ was full of pics of Keira Knightley in a tank top, cause that’s the height of fashion, am I right. I also wrote a letter to a girl I met at camp telling her her voice was so soft and eyes were beautiful and full of stars...do you wanna be friends ? Lol I was so obvious I swear, but it’s funnier in hindsight. 

Then when I was 18 I met this older girl in my circle of friends who was bisexual and I thought it was really cool, but I didn’t really connect the dots. I am ashamed to say, I thought she was saying that to give herself a vibe. 

Then when I was 19 i bingewatched the series Torchwood  ( a Doctor Who spinoff) and it felt like an absolute revelation. Jack Harkness, the MC, is this incredible badass rogue time travelling adventurer from the future who charms women and men left and right without any issue about it. (I think he’s...omnisexual or something ?) But this is the first time I saw the possibility of being attracted to multiple genders as something that’s actually valid. Seems silly now but this was almost 10 yrs ago, lol. It was the dark ages in terms of queer rep back then. And it’s such an integral part of Jack’s character, and he’s just so cool and it really struck a chord with me, this idea that in the future anyone can love whoever they want. There was the idea of a society that is founded on those principles, and well, I am very political in nature I guess, and i was like. yes. i can see it now. but it remained theorethical. 

Then the year after that, Erasmus exchange and I meet this girl. Like, it was bam! in your face, I fell head over heels. Now, tbh, I don’t get attracted to people all that often, but when it came to her it was absolutely indeniable. Now, she was already with someone else, so we remained just friends and it did suck a little, but I’m not sad, because it taught me a lot about myself (and she was just such a cool person in general I’m glad I met her). I just couldn’t get past it, yeah she was cool and stuff but I didn’t just want to be her friend, I was attracted to her, I daydreamed about being in a couple with her, doing romantic stuff, etc. And it was super validating to learn she was also bi a little later down the line (she was such goals in general, god.) So then after that I was like...um am I a lesbian ? Like I do have a lot of issues with men. And so I spent a lot of time having this wishy washy thing in my head.  Also that year, I was in Amsterdam taking all those gender studies classes. And it opened up my mind in a radical way - learning about queer history, the fact that sexualities are socially constructed, feminism, activism, etc etc....it allowed me to let go of a lot of my crappy internalized prejudices. I also wrote an essay on burlesque with in field research because i ‘liked the costumes’ yeahhhh right okay. The levels of denial oh my god. ANyway. 

Then i got really, really into Supernatural for a while (sigh...it was better back then, I have to say). This was s8 and the high moment of the ‘let’s prove Dean Winchester is bi’ meta palooza on tumblr. And spending so much time hunting for clues and reading so much about people explaining their own experiences of being bisexual and not realizing it until later I was like....wait a minute....That’s just so me. Dean probs will never come out of the closet, because they’re cowards, but I certainly did, so yay, I guess. I looked over my past and I was finally able to understand. I wrote the meta of my own life. Lmao. And I was able to come out to one of my friends on the phone. I felt so fucking powerful afterwards. Then to a few other friends. And it felt good. 

Then I came back to Amsterdam and I was like, alright, time to stop being a coward and actually get involved in some real life LGBT stuff. So I joined a student association and man. It was so fucking scary. I remember, they had this meet up at a bar every month, and I actually went twice, and every time I just was too nervous to actually go inside, i stood in front of it, and I went home. So in the end I actually signed up to be a member and for the integration day, so I just forced myself to show up. And I did. It was so incredibly nervewracking. I met up with a group of students holding up a rainbow flag in front of the central station and we had these series of challenges to do - take a pic with a rainbow flag in front of one of those bible thumpers, stage a harry potter duel in public, order a starbucks drink with the name ‘Vagina Jensens’, mimick the titanic scene where they’re on the edge of the boat...it was so silly and fun and everyone was so nervous in the end, it was awesome. I ended up on the newsletter committee of that association and I had a blast, interviewing people, writing book reviews, etc...I did have complexes though, that everyone was more cool and gay aware than me lol. But it still did a lot for me and helped me come out to my family. (at a restaurant for my 25th birthday because i am a drama queen lol.). At the same time it was very...mainstream gay frat house lol. Focused on partying and drinking and being sociable in a way that can be exhausting to me, and a little light on the politics, which has always been important to me. After that I volunteered for the Eurobicon as I spoke about earlier and it was so important to me, that being bisexual is such a worthy identity to have in itself and important to me beyond being just queer, it was really cool. 

I’m not totally there yet I guess, because I find relationships in general difficult, it’s been a while, I often feel like i don’t have enough experience to call myself bi, I’m nerdy and awkward, I don’t fit the cliché of the seductive bisexual, etc etc. i sometimes think that i’m a little bit on the ace spectrum too or at least demisexual because i don’t seem to be into people as often as most of my friends, and even then it’s very emotionally-focused. I also feel very weird about gender in general so that’s also a whole other thing. And my brain is wonky and i feel it interacts with all that.  I still have moments of ‘oh what if i’m actually a lesbian ! straight ! ace !’ looool.

But less now. I’m learning to let myself just...Be. ahahahahaah. And also I have more and more bi friends and that helps a lot, to just randomly swoon over multigendered celebrities and learn to be very casual about it. 

Anyway my point is. I included all those messy (kinda embarassing) details because : getting to terms with your sexuality is fucking hard. The wow i figured it out young and then came out and it was great thing ? still not for everyone. I think a key part is, we grow up with these ideals of the perfect life, of what it means to be the protagonist of your life - and most of the time still it involves hetero couple, marriage, babies - and to look beyond that, for a while, it feels like you’re going off track, disqualifying yourself. So it’s hard. Sometimes you actually need several moments of revelation, of it sinking in. It’s fine, it’s all fine. You’ll get there. No pressure. Don’t try to fit your story into a certain pattern. It’s yours, so it’s valid. 

[fanfiction-ho]

Dissipating Resentments

To say that Sebastian was pissed was an understatement. He was so mad, he was furious at Chris and that stupid Glamour interviewer. It was a stupid mono tone interview that Chris had given about his future potential wife.

Sebastian was going through social media, reading tweets and seeing himself become a meme, those never seem to end. His twitter notified about Chris. He had muted all his notification except the ones involving Chris Evans. He had every right to know what the internet was telling about his boyfriend.

He kept calling Chris but the latter didn't seem to answer any of his texts or voice mails and that only aggravated Sebastian more.

Chris was glad that his interviews were over; he couldn't take that shit anymore. He was tired from all the stupid questions he had to answer. There were some good ones, talking about his family cheers him up automatically but almost all the questions irrespective of what interview, they seem to focus on his love life.

Both Chris and Sebastian decided to be quite about their relationship; Chris was not even out to his mom. He was sure that she wouldn't object, and probably she already knows but he still kept it as a secret.

Instead of going to his home, he decided to take a detour and visit Sebastian; they were going to meet the next morning anyways.

Now that Chris was outside Sebastian's hotel room, he felt stupid. He wasn't even sure whether he would be in. His mobile had been buzzing nonstop for the past hour but he figured it'll be some fans tagging him in stuff.

He knocked the once, then twice. He heard shuffling from inside and a string of cuss words as the door opened, Chris chuckled at the silliness of his boyfriend. He loved how Sebastian was always smiling and just being around him would lift your spirits. Words cannot do justice of how lucky Chris felt being with him. When Sebastian smiles it's like...Holy Shit! What is this magic!? And Chris made it his goal to make him smile all the time

"Now what do they want?" Sebastian muttered to himself dragging his lazy ass out of the bed. He stubbed his little toe against the table. He let out a series of curse words opening the door.

There stood Chris, rather a very happy looking Chris and that pissed Sebastian off. He slammed the door as soon as he opened and sat down on the table next to the door grabbing his stubbed toe rubbing it with his palm hoping it wouldn't hurt so much.

"Sebastian? Are you ok? Open the door baby..." Chris kept asking what was wrong and why wasn't he opening the door. Sebastian finally gave in to his pleads and opened the door.

Chris sported a worried look on his face but Sebastian paid no mind to it. He opened the door and walked inside without even looking at his him, Chris was beyond confused.

"I get that you're mad...but I need to know why" Chris followed him inside closing the door behind him and locking it.

"I understand completely that you're not out yet... but you could've just lied in the interview"

"What are you talking about?"

"The Glamour interview that you did..." Sebastian said his voice so quite. He felt stupid that he was mad at Chris for such a petty thing. Chris did what he had to do to maintain his straight image but that kinda hurt Sebastian too.

In all honesty Chris didn't even remember when this interview happened let alone remember what he said.

"I've done so much shows these last few weeks I don't remember this baby...Can we just let this go?"

"Let it go as in just sweep it under the rug and forget all about it? I can't just let this go Chris!" Sebastian snapped at him, the annoyance clear in his voice.

Chris all though was tired he held onto his patience and let Sebastian have his little melt down.

"What did I say?" Chris took a hold of the younger one's shoulder and gave it a little shake.

"'I want a woman who wants to be a mom' you want kids!? And you also said that you'll take care of her!" He yelled. "What about me then? Just throw me to the side when your precious woman comes along?" He sat down on the bed taking deep breaths trying to calm down.

"You're pissed off because of that?"

"Oh there's more!" Sebastian scoffed. Chris should've just apologised but he had to ask.

"You apparently have a thing for Boston woman? Well news flash Chris, I'm neither a woman nor am I from Boston! And Tom Brady who the hell is that?" Sebastian yelled at him.

"He's a quarterback for theNew England Patriots team." Chris held back his laughter, jealous Sebastian amused him more than it should.

"And you like women who insult you? What?"

"No I said I like women who poke fun at me...a girl that I can have fun with" Chris said in a defensive voice.

Sebastian sighed dejectedly and fell back on the bed. Chris sat next to him, he reached out to hold his lover's hand but Sebastian pulled back his hand rubbing his temples.

"Look I know this is hard..." Chris wanted to tell him that no matter what happens he's never going to leave him.

"Do you?" Sebastian snapped cutting him off. "I'm sorry" He quickly added but Chris just waved it off.

"It's just... you keep lying to everyone about us...sometimes I think all of this is not real" Sebastian rubbed his face tiredly. Chris pinched Sebastian's thighs and the latter hissed in pain.

"Real enough for you?" Chris teased him chuckling but Sebastian kept his mean grumpy face and Chris shut his mouth.

"I'm sorry Sebby...I don't need a woman. I need only you" Chris said rubbing the sore spot where he had pinched him.

"It was all for the camera you of all people should know that. How do you think I feel when I see you kissing men on screen?"

"Not happy I guess" Sebastian mumbled

"And I plan on telling my mom about you...I'm sure she already knows that I'm gay" Chris said

"She knows" Sebastian nodded like he knew that already

"I didn't tell her...did you?" He asked

"Somehow moms tend to know all these stuff. My mom knew I was gay even before I realised that I was"

"You're still mad?" Chris asked hoping that he wasn't.

"I was never mad...not at you" Sebastian answered honestly

"Sebastian Stan...jealous is a very hot colour on you" Chris mused stroking his beard

"Christopher Robert Evans...cocky definitely doesn't suit you" Sebastian shot back leaning up pecking Chris' cheek to which he just scoffed brushing off the playful insult.

"Whatever" He rolled his eyes.

They ordered room service eating their stomach full talking about how their day went, obviously avoiding their little fall out just under an hour ago.

It was almost midnight neither of them showing any signs of sleep, they sat side by side watching the local channel, but it was just background noise to them as they kept talking

"There's one more thing about the interview that caught my attention..." Sebastian said

"Oh God don't get mad again"

"No...It's about your tattoos. I wanna know what they mean. You said that they were too personal to discuss..."

"Did you memorise the whole thing?" Chris joked earning a smack on his arm from Sebastian.

"What does this one mean?" Sebastian asked Chris while tracing invisible patterns over his right bicep over the tattoo. Chris was sitting with his legs stretched in front of him and Sebastian on his right same as Chris.

"It means 'Family'. All I am today is for my family" Chris leaned down to face Sebastian capturing his lips, the latter blushed. He felt a warm feeling filling his chest. He was his family. Sebastian moaned when Chris bit his bottom lip and Chris slipped in his tongue fighting for dominance. Sebastian pulled away; his focus was on the tattoos on Chris and not making out.

Chris made a disapproving noise asking what was wrong, no words were needed the look on Chris' face said it all. Sebastian gave him a smile that assured Chris that nothing was wrong.

"What's this one?" Sebastian poked the tattoo which was above the Chinese symbol that meant 'Family'

"It says 'Loyalty'" Chris sighed knowing that he was not gonna get to kiss his boyfriend but instead talk about his tattoos.

"What about this one?" Sebastian sat on Chris' lap taking hold of his left bicep.

"That's my mom's star sign Taurus" He replied patiently.

"Who's Bar...Bards...Is that an 'E'?" Sebastian couldn't read the tattoo properly. It was in the upper right portion of his torso making it hard for Sebastian to read as Chris was sitting.

"Bardsley...It's for my friend Matt, he passed away in an accident" Chris said silently. It still was a fresh wound

"Best friend or was he more?" Sebastian asked trying not to sound jealous. He was very possessive of Chris.

"Just a friend Sebby" Chris grabbed his face placing a chaste kiss on his lips, Sebastian responding quickly.

"A damn good one I guess..." Sebastian bit his lips leaning down kissing Chris where the tattoo was.

"Yeah I miss him..."Chris thought out loud making Sebastian feel stupid about his petty jealousness for the second time that day. He looked up; Chris was smiling down at him amused by Sebastian's curiosity over such mundane things like his tattoos.

"Wipe that grin of your face Evans!" Sebastian warned him but slowly he started to smile too.

"You didn't ask about this one?" Chris took the younger one's hand and placing it over his collarbone. Sebastian read the writing, a look of knowing passing his face

"This is by Eckhart something isn't it? I forgot his full name" Sebastian asked Chris was genuinely surprised by Sebastian's question.

"Eckhart Tolle. How did you know?" Chris asked

"I used to read all these pretentious literacy books when I was young. Moving to a whole new country when you didn't know English wasn't a smooth ride. I was twelve and a lot chubby that time..." He wasn't exactly bullied but communicating with the other people was tough.

"When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself you lose yourself in the world..." Sebastian read it out loud.

"How come you don't have tattoos...you seem to be enjoying mine" Chris asked

"I'm not really that into tattoos...never was" He slid down from his lap getting out of bed as his phone rang, that was never good news. Chris made a noise of protest but Sebastian shushed him.

"Yeah sure I'll be there..."He cut the call mumbling goodbyes.

"Do you have to go?" Chris asked already knowing the answer.

"I'll be back in two hours I promise. They just want me for one scene. You know I can't help it Chris" He tried to reason with him but he knew he was gonna pay for this some other time.

"Two hours...that's all!"

"Thank you thank you so fucking much baby" Sebastian kissed him in the lips quickly leaving with his jacket.

[callsignbaphomet]

For the ABC OC Ask, randomly selected: C # 1-5, D # 1-5, F # 1-5, G # 1-5, I # 1-5, M # 1-5. It's a lot of questions, take your time & feel free to answer as few or as many as you want. :)

Ooh, no worries, I looooove lots of questions. Also sorry, wasn’t ignoring this. I’m a scatter brain with no sense of time management. Since a lot of these are repeated I’ll skip over them since they’ll be in the previous post. Also I’ll give the answer to whichever OC I think best fits the question.

C: Comfort1. how do they sit in a chair?Angelus sits horribly in any chair especially if he finds it uncomfortable since he’ll be twisting and turning every which way until he finds a comfortable enough position.

3. what is their ideal comfort day?For Jelani it’s a quiet day where his phone doesn’t ring and he can get up at whatever hour he wants though even if he tried he can’t really sleep past 8:30 and he can spend the rest of the day in the art room reading while his husband is drawing.

4. what is their major comfort food? why?For Angelus it’s totally steamed dumplings. Just had one shitty day once and was taken out to eat but he wasn’t feeling up to eating much but nibbled on a few and loved them instantly so from that moment on every time he sees steamed dumplings it’s like instant serotonin.

5. who is the best at comforting them when down?Abigail? LokeLoke? JelaniJelani? LokeAngelus? GingerGinger? AngelusTrevor? LokeTre? TrevorLatoya? Abigail

D: Decoration2. how would they decorate their child’s room?So Fae is actually a graphic designer and in her spare time an interior designer so when she head her first baby, Leah, she went overboard with the latest trends but made it cute and neutral since she wanted it to be a surprise. Now with the triplets she wanted to know their gender for sure given the fact that she was dealing with triplets. Again went with the latest trends turned cute but she stuck to neutral designs anyway.

3. how do they decorate their own room?Ginger and Abigail have a bit of a gothic theme to their whole apartment but their room is especially heavily themed. The rest of the place is subtle but not their room. We’re talking Victorian goth, black silk sheets, dim lighting, dark reds and deep purples and lots of black.

4. what type of clothes and accessories do they wear?Okay so for a while now I’ve been sketching and writing Angelus as a cross dresser and idk I think it fits him well plus he’s super into cute things. Any kind of skirts though he heavily prefers short and really short skirts, especially loves heeled boots, thigh high socks, baggy sweaters or any cute tops really. He mostly sticks to soft and pastel colors. Men’s clothes he’ll go with darker colors.

Accessories? He’s really into bows, flowers and really subtle bracelets, necklaces and earrings. No, he isn’t trans, he’s very cis. He just likes to cross dress and no, he isn’t doing it as a way to mock trans people he just really likes how he looks and feels while wearing women’s and girl’s clothes.5. do they like makeup/nail/beauty trends?Going with Angelus again, yeah he loves that stuff especially makeup. He’s gathered a pretty big collection of it over time gotten dozens of nail polish of all kinds of colors, and has a ton of makeup. He’d wear acrylic nails but 1) he’s super clumsy and 2) I’m not so sure it’s a good idea for a werewolf to do that.

F: Fun1. what do they do for fun?Most of them just really enjoy getting together, ordering a few large pizzas or just buying a bunch of tacos and bring a bunch of beer and soda and spend a few hours playing video games. Bringing their own consoles to have more people playing and if they feel silly enough probably stream it for friends who couldn’t come over to watch. If they don’t feel like going to one apartment they stay in their own and meet up online on whatever game they wanna play at the moment.3. who would they have the most fun with?Honestly a lot of them have known each other for literal centuries and have grown close and sometimes intimate so really they all just have a lot of fun together.4. can they have fun while conforming to rules?They can but Loke and Jelani are constantly holding the group back from making any idiot mistakes. Unless it’s to defend one of them they’re pretty chill when out.5. do they go out a lot?Not that often really. With the job sometimes they’re out for weeks and even months and when they finally have some down time they’re too tired to do much of anything else. They do go out though but just not when they’re on call.

G: Gorgeous1. what is their most attractive external feature?Jelani? Everything!2. what is the most attractive part of their personality?Abigail’s ability to always be encouraging and her bubbly personality just triples that.3. what benefits come with being their friend?Jelani: spoils friends and family every chance he gets, is always just one text or call away no matter if it’s an emergency or for fun, and is faithful to the end. 5. what parts of others do they envy?So out of all Angelus has the lowest self-esteem and he just thinks the worst of himself. He wishes he was as good a person as Loke is or as talented as Ginger or as confident as Jelani. Not just personality wise, he genuinely believes he’s some ugly monster that needs to be hidden (was raised to believe that and unfortunately stuck). He just wishes he wasn’t him on bad days but he’s been working on all of that and has done really well to the point where he doesn’t feel that way about himself all the time.

I: In-the-closet1. what is their sexuality?Angelus: gayJelani: pansexualAbigail: lesbianLoke: bisexual (demisexual)Latoya: pansexualTrevor: pansexual (aromentic)Ginger: bisexualAlly: ace/aroSanaa: queerIngvarr: bisexualJørgen: queerMason: gayTre: straightLeah: bisexualAnette: lesbian2. have they ever questioned their sexuality?Well, shit a bunch of them have at one point or another. Some took a little to settle their feelings while some took long years to realize certain things about themselves.3. have they ever questioned their gender?Asher did for long years though he wasn’t sure of what was actually happening and why he was so confused over a lot of things. Wasn’t until much later that he finally figured himself out.4. would/was their family be okay with them being LGBT?Angelus’s abusers, if they ever found out, would just use it as another reason to hate him even more though I won’t really touch up on that. They’re just incredibly hateful and abusive people.

M: Maternal1. would they want a daughter or a son?Loke wouldn’t care especially considering that they may end up being trans. He just wants one or two at the most.2. how many children do they want?Angelus wants none. He doesn’t hate kids or anything like that, he’s pretty good with them, really soft spoken and patient with kids. When Jela babysits his cousins he goes with him and helps out especially since it’s a teenager and three 7 year-olds. He’s just scared to death that he’ll end up abandoning them like his parents abandoned him (when I mean I abandoned I mean sold him) or worse that he’ll be like his abusers and he wouldn’t want any child to go through what he went through. Luckily his husband doesn’t want kids either.

As for Jax they’re Angelus and Jelani’s hypothetical child. Just something I wanted to have fun with. A Maker and a werewolf end up making a demigod hellhound btw!. Would this change in the future? Hell if I know, man. Maybe, maybe not.4. what would they name a son? what would they name a daughter?Trevor eventually ends up becoming a single father, accidentally but nonetheless he was super happy about it and will be a pretty great dad. He ends up having a son which he named Damien and had it been a girl he woulda named her Rosemary. If it wasn’t obvious Trevor is a huge horror nerd.5. would they adopt?Ginger and Abigail have talked about it a lot and since neither can have a kid (vampires in my setting can’t procreate, they’re very undead) they’ve decided to adopt but not yet. Not till they feel like they can be fully prepared.

[jojo-shojo]

Day 1!

Hey everyone this is only my 2nd time writing a fic so I hope it’s ok! I hope you like it!

Josuke’s hospital room fell quite as his best friend was trying to figure out what he had just said

“Oi- what do you mean you told her the truth?” Okuyasu asked quietly,

“ I mean, I told her. about Kira, about stands, about Mr. Jostar....about everything” a worried look formed on Okuyasu’s face. Josuke hated making others worry, but it seemed like that’s all he’s been doing for the past 48 hours.

“Come on man, what should I have told her? I’m hurt too bad to say I got in a fight at school and it not like anyone can heal me...” Josuke had already been scolded by Jotaro for telling Tomoko about the events of the past few months.

“I just couldn’t keep lying to her.... she deserves to know what’s going on in my life. We’re too close for me to keep big stuff like this from her...” Josuke’s was a bit shaky now. He hasn’t been emotionally stable for the past few days but that’s to be expected... Josuke had just been through so much trauma with his best friend almost dying on him and getting so hurt after fighting Morio’s most prolific serial killer and only barely making it out alive...

“Did you tell her about the hand?”

“Well kinda, it’s more like she guessed that you had one and when she guessed I kinda just nodded” Josuke felt sick now, was it ok that he told his mom about Okuyasu’s stand? Was Okuyasu gonna be angry with him? Was it something that he wanted to keep to himself? His mind was racing “I didn’t tell her what the hand did though, i-if that makes a difference at all “ Josuke losing confidence with each word

Okuyasu thought for a second before speaking.

“ I guess it don’t matter too much” he stop and thought more. “ I mean that you told her about mine, it’s still a big deal that you told her in general..... so how did she react? To all this new information?”

Josuke felt so relieved that Okuyasu wasn’t mad at him. The sick feeling starting going away now. He cleared his throat “ s-she didn’t believe me at first!” He almost yelled making the wound on his side hurt, Josuke gently grabbed it to try to numb the pain “ aaahhhhh, fuckin” he looked back up to Okuyasu and continued “ I couldn’t get her to even kinda believe me without providing it” Josuke was huffing remembering the stressful conversation with his mom.

“ How didya get her to believe you? She can’t see Crazy D” he said bluntly

“ oh I that was easy, I smashed my followers and fixed them again, of course I told her that Cazy D can’t fix me before she could even ask and-“ Josuke was cut off by Tomoko entertaining his hospital room not bothering to knock. Both boys looked at her feelings a bit awkward about just having been talking about her.

“Ah, hello Okuyasu dear.” Josuke’s mom was always very friendly and sweet to Okuyasu. Josuke figured it’s cuz she knows Oku hasn’t had a mother figure in a real long time so she tries to be that when she can. “ I’m sorry,did I interrupt an important conversation?”

“No not at all!” Okuyasu said quickly and a little quietly

“Yeah kinda.” Josuke said over him bluntly and kinda irritated “ were talking bout personal stuff “ a small amount of blush grew on Josuke’s cheeks, he felt like a kid, whining to his mom about privacy but he couldn’t help it right now.

Tomoko was obviously trying to read him, she noticed the blush for sure “ ahh, are you telling him about our talk earlier? “

“Yeah, kinda...” Josuke mumbled

“Honey I didn’t think you’d confess to him so soon, I didn’t mean to barge in on THAT kinda talk, I’m sorry dear.” Tomoko said kinda embarrassed herself

“NO MOM NOT THAT TALK!!!!!” Josuke was sputtering his words out frantically, face bright red “WE WERE TALKING ABOUT STANDS MOM NOT THAT WHY WOULD YOU THINK-“ he stopped mid thought and look at Okuyasu who seemed wildly lost trying to keep up with their Conversation. Josuke just hid his face in his hands, this sucks, he can’t even run from this embarrassment he has to just sit here in his hospital bed.

“OH, YOU DIDNT MEAN, I’m sorry josuke.... yes the stand thing you told me about of course that’s what it was, silly me haha well I’ll leave you two to talk about it then!” Tomoko set down the lunch she had made in a chair and hurried out of the room.

“Mom! Don’t leav-!” And with that she was gone.

“Oi, Josuke, I don’t think I followed that conversation too good... what other important stuff did ya tell her since getting put in here?what did ms.Tomoko mean by ‘confess’?” Okuyasu was concerned and confused. “ you know you can talk to me about anything, we’re best bros ya know? Or at least your my best bro... we have lots of fun together and you never make me feel bad about myself, even when you do poke fun at me I can tell ya don’t mean nothing by it. Your the person that I tell almost anything to so-“ Okuyasu was trying to say everything he wanted to before he forgot anything so he was talking a bit fast “ so tell me what’s on your mind dude.”

Josuke’s head was spinning, this isn’t the time or place he wanted this to happen at “I don’t wanna talk about it man, my hairs not even done... it’s nothing bad though! Or- I uh don’t think it is? I hope it’s not...” he force himself to look to his best friend and he tried to smile but his nerves weren’t letting it be a convincing one.

“Dude you can tell me, your hair being done up all pretty ain’t got nothin to do with this so don’t worry, just tell me so I can help!” Okuyasu said in a cheerful manner

“No way! You could hate me, you could laugh at me... a-and the hair matters to me!” Everything was so much right now, too many feelings, fear, embarrassment, physical pain, lots of physical pain actually.

“Hey, Josuke, I couldn’t hate ya... and I won’t laugh, I promise!” Okuyasu gave Josuke a tender look and gently sat on the edge of Josuke’s hospital bed.

“I- I know Oku, I’m just... nervous or maybe scared is the word...but, well you see” Josuke took a breath to collect himself, he looked up at Okuyasu “ Okuyasu, I’m gay... and I- I know your uh not gay but uh I still ended up getting a massive crush on you.” Josuke quickly looked away not wanting to look at what ever reaction Okuyasu was having.

After taking a full minute to process what had just been said to him Okuyasu spoke up “ so like, I ain’t too smart... but you just said that your gay, and you like me? Like, you like like me? Me?” Josuke nodded “ and you ain’t yanking my chain? Cuz if you are-“

“I’m not” Josuke cut him off “ look I know I’m not your type and like it’s ok that you don’t feel the same just can we still be best bros?” His eyes were welling up and tears treated to spill over

“Who the hell said you ain’t my type?” Okuyasu snapped

“Wha-“

“ my type is some who is beautiful and a bad ass! How the hell are you not that? And you assume that I don’t go for guys but you never asked!” Okuyasu was now also at the brink of tears “ Josuke I’ve liked you pretty much as soon as I meet ya! Your just out of my league so I never really tired to make a move...”

Josuke was shocked, tears now freely falling down his face “ but you like girls! You say that my mom is your type and that Reimi is really cute!”

“ so? I do like girls, I like men too, just don’t say it out loud cuz it’ll make everyone uncomfortable... and josuke, your mom is my type and your JUST like your mom... YOU are my type, josuke.” Okuyasu spoke firmly.

“Oku, you like me? Like in a romantic way?” Josuke was almost in shock

“Yeah, I’ve been feeling like that for a long time.” Okuyasu’s face was now covered in blush but he as stayed cool and collected as possible.” So like I don’t know but if we like each other then we should probably start dating right?”

Josuke just started at him for a second, was This happening? He could hardly believe it, up until now he had just assumed that Okuyasu was straight, so this, this was the best possible outcome! “ Oku, as long as your not joking around I’d like nothing more I’d like then to date you... that would make us boyfriends? Right?”

Okuyasu was beaming at the word ‘boyfriends’ “ yeah! Let’s be boyfriends! C-can I hug ya? I know your pretty hurt so that’s why I’m asking.”

Josuke looked down at his side knowing a hug would hurt a lot right now, it made him a bit sad, that it is until a different idea popped into his head. Josuke looked back up to Okuyasu’s adorable face still waiting for a response.

“ you know hugging may not be the best idea right now buuuutttt I think there is something better for us to do “ Josuke said with a devilish grin. Josuke moved over to the edge of the bed

“ here sit next to me” Okuyasu did what he was told and when he had sat down and looked over to Josuke he was leaning in....? ‘ wait is he gonna kiss me?’ And as soon a the thought came in to Okuyasu’s mind sure enough Josuke lips where on his own. Okuyasu’s eyes fluttered shut and he kissed back. It was small and shy, both of them were new to this after all. When they broke apart the kiss they just looked at each other. Taking in everything that was happening, it felt so right.

“I Aint ever been this happy before bro “ Okuyasu hummed quitely.

“Me too” Josuke said as he rested his head on the shorter boys shoulder “ I’m gonna have to thank mom for making us talk about this.“ Oku rested his head on Josuke’s “Yeah, and I’ll have to talk to her about stands! Make sure you didn’t say anything weird about the hand!” He said with such a matter of fact way that Josuke couldn’t help but laugh ‘my boyfriend is too cute’ he thought as they fell into a comfortable silence.

[patronsaint-ofthedenial]

Any thought people have about the band/people who make up their fandom that isn't canon or true is essentially a headcannon-something fandoms that have- and something that forms the basis for fanfiction/fanart.

Look, I understand the aspect of feeling squirmy about writing fanfiction about them, or seeing 'shippy' fanart. But the beauty of online spaces for fandom is that you can avoid content.

So, I really don't see how it's an issue if people do write fanfiction about them or draw art. It's their expression of love for the people in the band.

As long as the works are not taken to the people involved like, 'oh look at this!' it's completely fine. It's important to remember the FICTION aspect of fanfiction. Because no one is claiming that two men from a rock band were having gay relationships. It's a creative outlet!

The internet is a huge place, a couple of human beings writing about the Beatles having gay-relationships with each other isn't going to break anything.

It's simple, Don't Like, Don't Read, or Don't Like, Don't See. But people have to be allowed the freedom to express themselves. It's discouraging to see and be told that 'You're disgusting for fetishizing the beatles'

My intention through this ask wasn't to be rude to you or to make you feel like you are the cause for people to stop being in the fandom. You're not the first person to feel this way about such things and you're most certainly not the last.

You have the absolute right to express your dislike, and so the same courtesy must be extended fanfiction writers and artists.

There's lots of space for both aspects of the fandom to co-exist.

This is not a hate anon, and please do not take it as one, because this was not my intention :)

Have a good day!

Since this anon is written in a more civil manner I'll have the decency of doing the same.

I never meant to police anyone or stir shit in the fandom, and while I know that most people do the shippy stuff in a respectful way, I've seen a lot, and I mean a Lot of people writing paragraphs upon paragraphs trying to prove that mclennon actually happened, jumping to conclusions based on very small details. I have also seen people who are respectful and don't fetishize gay relationships.

My own experience in the fandom has left me rather spiteful and for some time I couldn't really see the Beatles the same way, and it took me a while to be able to enjoy their music again. I avoid the content that made me uncomfortable back in the day and I don't waste my time reading discourse either.

Again, none of my posts are meant to start shit and send attacks to creators, it's mostly just me ranting about my own negative feelings. I was little over a year younger than I am now when I was in the fandom with mostly adults so of course I stumbled upon some stuff I shouldn't have seen, and all the arguing and conspiracy theories kinda ruined it for me.

As for that mclennon joke I made about the satirical art tutorial, it was never meant to be a callout or anything, I was just poking a bit of fun at how a lot of artists seem to draw them. Funnily enough everyone was talking about feminizing Paul, and not about how people draw John way more buff and manly than he actually was. But I didn't even think my silly little joke would end up stirring shit, I meant it as a ha ha funny tag that would get forgotten.

And most of my posts complaining about the fandom aren't about the creators, they're more about the insanity that goes on with people who try to prove that mclennon was real or people who are straight up racist and misogynistic towards Yoko because they wanna blame her for all of John's problems (Yoko wasn't an angel but scapegoating her for everything is just shitty) and of course people who think they're entitled to knowing every bit of personal information about the guys. The shipping is just one thing

This is getting long, but I'm glad we could settle it. I never wanted to attack the fandom or any of the creators in it and I'm sure you didn't mean to attack me either. I can't stop anyone from doing their own thing and I don't engage with the fandom anymore so I don't see the stuff that goes on. I don't know if it's changed in the time I've been away so it might be a completely different community than the one I got to know

Well, good day to you too!

[gautierprotectionsquad]

Sins of the Father by Sam Burns Review (contains spoilers

Book 2 of the Wilde Love Series.

“She threw her hands in the air. “It’s our Pride special, Key, what do you want it to look like? Black cheesecake with a side of blood orange sauce? You wanna go full dark for Pride?” i can name you at least 100 queers who would fucking love this.

Keagan ends up with an fbi agent? Shouldn’t be surprised bc the last book featured a cop but i thought Keagan was going to be the dark sexy badass of the book and he was going to fall for a normal dude.

Personal preference note but not a fan that other than Casey (Liam’s best friend) all of the named women in the last book are straight. I hope this changes. It always feels weird when i’m reading adult queer romance but only men are queer. Like I see even queer authors do this. You can have your women characters dating each other. TJ Klune does it. It just feels weird.

The author, Sam Burns, is a he and lives with his husband and cat. Sam. Write more wlw into this series i beg.

I did my homework so I’m actually going to read this book now. Except i’m supposed to be paying attention to my classmates’ presentation.

I love that Owen loves the cheesecake. Both Quinn boys shitted on the cake bc of the way it looks but thought it tasted heavenly.

I like Brigit but she is a little too concerned over her friend’s dating life. As an ace, I HATE those people.

“And liking guys and eating rainbow cheesecake doesn’t mean I have to like hugging people. Later!” Owen you are 100% right but how is hugging a stereotype? Bc it’s “girly”?

Jon sees the Quinns as the enemy. This series does an exploration of the morally gray, more obvious when it had Alex, philosophy major, as the pov character. It’s interesting seeing how little the fbi knows about the Quinns and interesting that Jon talked to 2 agents who had different opinions on Keagan. I don’t like that book 2 has me with another “person of the law” bc while i can enjoy copaganda in shows, I despise it in books. This isn’t complete copaganda bc moral grayness and the book makes you love the criminals but it still views cops as “good guys”.

Jon and Alex both had their soulmate at their back and heard their voice before they saw their face.

Brigit wanted him out of there at first but I think she ships them now. Yeah. The book points out how annoying it is. Calls it the “oh my god you’re gay you should date my gay friend” look. This book uses its platform to talk about the slight annoyances of having straight friends. Imma shut up now.

I don’t want Jon to succeed in his goal and honestly the story has an easy answer. B Quinn retires. He’s old. His children won’t be his successors. The business he specifically deals in dies with his retirement. There really isn’t any point going after him or putting him in jail. Just let his career die as it will. He’s old with no successors.

I like that Jon has a good relationship with his family. I like Miles. He doesn’t have any friends though so I guess the good relationship with your family thing is just so he has someone to talk to. Liam also had a good relationship with some family but he also had friends so he didn’t talk to his family in the book.

Owen may be demiromantic.

Jon isn’t working the Quinn case anymore so less conflict than before. He’s interested in Quinn and way too honest and upfront.

This man flirted with you a tiny bit once and you switch assignments and try to ask him out. Like i would expect a little bit more flirting to happen before you go that far.

I don’t know how to feel about Jon just yet...I just realized his name is spelled like jon sims. Book made the mistake of telling me he was fbi. I liked Liam before i knew he was a cop so i could set my irl morals aside for a fictional character.

One thing i like about these books which seems it’s going to be a pattern for at least the first two books in the series is the lack of drama. Two characters decide they have feelings for each other and then nothing gets in between them.

Hmm. so the fbi and Jon and Jon’s family don’t care that Jon is dating Keagan but his dad does care that Keagan is dating an agent.

If Jon finds his job boring, why can’t he just quit? They don’t respect him and limit what he’s allowed to do bc he’s gay anyway. Just quit. Make the smart move that Liam didn’t. But if he quits then there wouldn’t be any *conflict*. Except Jon’s morals. I love these books but i’m GLAD the next one isn’t going to have a “person of the law” in it.

“I know Jenna said no PDA, but as it turns out, I’m the guy who owns the place.”

Ok their date at Wildes was super cute.

Oh i forgot an ex of Keagan’s was going to cause drama. Ick. i hate ex drama.

Keagan is so cute. He BLUSH! He blush hard!

Jon’s brother is ACE!! I knew I liked him. (Em/Miles)

This book is ok but I’m more excited to read the next book. It was through book 3 that i found this series. From the description, I think Brian is a sex repulsed ace which is AWESOME. Also, it’s clear this author did their research (if they aren’t ace themselves) bc “He’s had it, and he says it’s okay, but it’s not something he cares about. It’s like doing the dishes because you’re supposed to.” is an accurate description!

I’m headcannoning miles as autistic.

MILES AND BRIGIT ARE FLIRTING. Good. i like both of them.

Ok i like Jon now. Hearing about how shitty all Keagan’s exes were makes Jon look perfect.

Oh. Apparently his dad has hated every boyfriend of Keagans. Usually Keagan would agree and the relationship would eventually die out. But Jon was the first time he told his dad to fuck off with that shit.

Jon and Keagan have good chemistry. It took a bit to get there. I think it strongly helps that this author knows how to write jokes. The lovers being able to joke with each other and make each other laugh themselves silly and smile till it hurts is a strong contender for illustrating how perfect they are together.

So is Jon not going to tell him what he found just so he doesn’t seem like a creep? It was his coworker who suggested and looked him up anyway. It would be good for Keagan to know.

I hate every single one of Keagan’s exes.

Ugh Phil. Shut up go away i hate you.

“You’re thinking about having sex with him right now, aren’t you?” Phil asked. He looked annoyed.

“No?” Keegan couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Maybe.”

REALLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SALAD! OH MY GOD Phil’S LITERALLY EATING A SALAD IN THIS SCENE!

“I’m giving you something Phil’s never had.” What? Your undivided attention?sdfrgthydwfg. (have i been spelling Keegan’s name wrong this whole time?)

Is english major guy Brian? No his name’s Javi Bennet.

Keagan’s face is so easy to read. I can’t believe he used to be a gangster.

Mickey might be demisexual. This is based on nothing except he’s been in an on again off again relationship with a girl since middle school and he ends up with one of his closest friends.

Surprised Keagan didn’t talk to Jon about the guilt he still feels over that child’s death years ago and that they never talk about his disabled arm.

Keagan is a little dumb and surprisingly too trusting but I love that for him.

Anyway, like the last book the last words were “i love you” plus for both it was the first i love you.

END.

[sarazanmai]

Stuff I loved in 2017.

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Kyoani.

So this was a very interesting year you could say. I really put forward a lot more effort to try new things and I do think a bigger part of this year for me was learning to stop stressing myself out so easily. Not sure if I fully succeeded, but I tried. I have a lot to talk about in this post so I suggest getting comfortable. This post isn’t a ranking, I have no interest in doing a ranking. So if you question why certain things show up sooner or later in the post than others its just a random order and not a signal of my opinion on it.

Let’s get this over with, I like “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid”. Try and hear me out on this. I did not read the manga and have no intention to ever do so. Now with the anime I remember hearing about the concept and finding the idea of it rather charming. A dragon who takes on a human form and tries being a maid, it sounds adorable. Then I saw the character designs and went “oh”. But through all of the controversy regarding the anime there was still this piece of me that kept wondering about it. I am mutuals with @darlinginthefranxx and asked them about the anime because they liked it so much and despite saying I wouldn’t watch it, I did. And I really enjoyed it. This is not an anime to be judged on screen caps, you need to see the characters in motion to fully appreciate how good the animation actually is. In screen caps it looks like nothing special and their faces can look rather flat, but this is a beautifully animated show. From the colors to the character animation themselves it looks great. Kyoani if anything just excels at their animation. Everything comes together in a very seamless way. I really enjoyed the characters a lot too. Kanna is the cutest thing I saw all year and I think Tohru and Kobayashi themselves were really fun to follow. Lucoa was funny, I liked Fafnir and Takiya, I love Elma, this was a good cast. The seiyuu are great too, I’ve always loved Daisuke Ono so hearing him as Fafnir made me happy. And Yuichi Nakamura as Takiya was amazing because he doesn’t actually sound like I’m used to him sounding. I never would have guessed that was him. I also wanna give credit to Kobayashi’s actress Mutsumi Tamura, I really enjoyed her voice its very smooth and relaxing. There is sexual fanservice, but it is not the focus of the anime. In fact most of the fanservice amounted to bouncing breasts and Lucoa putting on these silly little outfits. The anime is largely a slice of life / fish out of water kind of story. Its not a harem, its not an ecchi, and even if it was I have seen harem and ecchi anime that are still good so that isn’t a kiss of death to me. As a whole the anime is composed of very funny and even very sweet episodes detailing things like Tohru’s attempts to win Kobayashi’s heart or things with Kanna at her school or Fafnir and Takiya being otaku who love online gaming. The OVA is about Valentine’s Day and it climaxes with such a heartwarming moment that I felt like I had a blanket wrapped around me. I do wish the last episode was different, its just this rather awkward tone shift into something more epic. I think if you took the last few minutes of the finale and just latched them onto the second to last episode completely removing the stuff with Tohru and her father it would be smoother. The final few minutes of the series were so good showing us that everyone has found some kind of place and seeing Kobayashi bring Tohru and Kanna to meet her family just seemed like the right stopping point. It indicated that she sees them as her own family and leaves me with a good feeling. That being said its an anime that I can understand is not for everyone. Hopefully if you’re reading this you are someone who trusts my opinion. When I sat down and watched it I realized it isn’t what I thought it was and it truly is one of the best anime of the year.

I don’t talk about music very often. And that’s because I don’t think my taste in music is especially interesting to talk about. But I loved Lana Del Rey’s “Lust for Life” album so much and its worth mentioning here. When I first became aware of Lana I was not interested, another retro female singer just wasn’t something I got excited about. But then I actually tried her music and just fell in love. The thing that people seem to lose sight of with her music and her artistry is she’s actually quite weird. Her music is strange, its haunted but she’s singing about sex and getting high and loads her songs with references to literature. And I love that. Her music is almost hypnotic. Whoever said that she sings like a horny ghost was completely right and nowhere is that more clear than on the song “Cherry”. There’s a haziness to that song that makes it so hypnotic and what sets it over the edge are the bizarre lyrics. If you’ve heard it you know what I’m talking about. When it comes to her music I honestly don’t try to analyze every lyric she writes. Like I’m not gonna be all “hm yes when she says ‘I’m crying while I’m cumming’ she’s speaking to the way sexuality is tied up in female suffering”. I’m not that kind of person with music. I don’t need to know her every waking thought process behind her music, I just feel it. I wouldn’t consider any of her songs lacking in substance though. My favorite track off the album is the one I’ve linked up there called “13 Beaches” and when I first heard it I was just hit by a train of emotions. “Get Free”, the last track, is hands down one of her best and has a very moving message about moving past your demons and into something more promising. On this album she collaborated with Stevie Nicks for the song “Beautiful People Beautiful Problems” and Sean Lennon on “Tomorrow Never Came” and those tracks are both beautiful as well. Its hard to say how this compared to her other albums as I enjoy all of them, but this one I keep reaching for.

I didn’t see "The Handmaiden” in 2016 when it came out, but ultimately its a film that was worth waiting to own on blu-ray. It is stunning. I’m a big fan of Park Chan-wook’s film “Oldboy” and when I heard about the production of this one I was instantly interested. Its frankly bizarre to me how many bloggers and critics tried to act like the lesbian content was some plot twist when this was literally used as a selling point. The Korean lesbian revenge thriller. I find that description to not do it proper justice at all though. Its more than just a movie about women taking revenge and women being defiant and boiling it down to such a movie is just wrong in my opinion. So much of the film is about the voyeuristic and predatory nature in male sexuality and the male gaze and how it damages women. To paraphrase Chan-wook himself, during Hideko’s reading scene those men don’t lay a finger on her but they cause her deep pain because she has been made a sexual object. A thing for them to be amused by while she silently endures humiliation and performs her way through it. The romance between Hideko and Sook-hee is handled in a way that is not only believable, but it feels natural. Them falling in love did not feel like a twist as it felt like the natural course the movie was taking. There’s so many layers and so many things about this movie to dissect, but all people want to talk about are the “yaaas queen” revenge scenes and the sex. The revenge aspects to the film are emotionally and dramatically satisfying, but the amount of focus on them while failing to deliver a more nuanced discussion of it disappoints me. Its frankly easy to focus on the revenge angle and ignore the more thought provoking substance and I’m not fond of that. The sex scenes I felt were beautifully shot and knowing the levels Park Chan-wook went to in order to insure the actresses were comfortable gives me a lot more respect for him as a director. He removed all male crew members including himself from the set and provided them an extra room with snacks to go relax in should they feel overwhelmed. Compare that to other male directors making films about female sexuality and you’ll see that not nearly enough directors have that amount of self awareness or respect for their actors sadly. In terms of the scenes themselves I saw them as representative of the two ladies experiencing a freedom with each other once they’re no longer under the oppressive and stifling male gaze. The scenes are explicit certainly, but I wouldn’t consider them obscene by any means. And definitely not a male fantasy given the themes within the film concerning sexuality. Either way I think honing in on this just feels unnecessary, there is so much more to this film than seeing two beautiful women touch each other. Ultimately this is a movie I am proud to own and my favorite movie I’ve seen all year. Its deep, its emotional, its beautiful, the lead actresses Kim Tai-ri and Kim Min-hee were amazing, I fully look forward to seeing this epic story unfold for me again when I rewatch it.

“Moonlight” is a brilliant film. I had first heard about through @elegguas and I remember straight off the bat seeing the stills for it and thinking “wooooow” because the cinematography in this movie is so top notch that I am angry it did not win the Oscar for that category. I mean I can’t be the only one who thinks this movie got cheated out of that award. Much like with “The Handmaiden” I do not understand people treating the gay subject matter as a spoiler that must be kept under wraps. I watched reviews for it on youtube after seeing it and was confused about why people were tip toeing around it. This wasn’t something they tried to keep a secret, the trailer shows them leaning in for their kiss and when I first read about it I was informed by the article that it was a film exploring the life of a closeted black man. You look foolish for acting like this was some plot twist is what I’m saying. I think with all the back and forth surrounding the awards season and people putting it against movies like “La La Land” a lot of people didn’t even go out of their way to watch this film to be honest. It feels like a lot of people just weren’t watching it. I also found some people just looking for a reason to critique the movie negatively for what I can only assume is being contrarian. I actually saw someone chastise the movie because they appeared to have used eye drops for the scene with Chiron and his mother in the third act. Of all the things to zero in on that is probably the most inane one. This really powerful scene loaded with emotion is on display for you, two really strong performances, but you’re going to focus on the fact that they might have used eye drops for their tears. Its ridiculous. But in spite of all of that I will tell you this honestly is a movie that lives up to its hype. All the performances were great, again that cinematography is beautiful, its a movie where everything lined up where it needed to be and makes for a rich and moving experience. And it really is not a story you see being told in very many films. The choice to present this as a look at Chiron’s life in three different stages was a very smart one and the actors they hired all performed the role brilliantly. I never felt like I was seeing three separate people, but a person through the years. There was a cohesion throughout the three chapters and everything builds up to a finale that is quietly powerful. The writing and the performances make it all conclude in a very striking way that never felt ham fisted. There were some stylistic choices like having the actors look directly into the camera or the audio not syncing up with the footage that helped give specific moments this very unique feeling. And they did not feel random either. Some might not like that, but I did. Barry Jenkins is a very talented director and I look forward to whatever he creates in the future.

Is this the greatest anime ever made? “Legend of the Galactic Heroes” is an anime who’s strength is all in its writing. Trite as it is, especially after what happened to Star Wars, this is a series that excels at grey morality and truly showing a multifaceted group of characters. Nothing is too simple. You can’t pin someone down as a perfect hero or even evil. And the characters grow. When I finished the 110 episodes of this OVA I really felt like I experienced people evolving with time. I suppose that comes from the fact that unlike most anime this wasn’t based on a manga, it was based on a series of novels. Novels that were well received upon their release. All of this being said you always need to approach something highly praised with as clean and open of a mind as possible. Set the bar too high in your mind and you’re not going to get the story you envision. I say the same thing about “Cowboy Bebop” and “Evangelion” too. The series has a slow start, given how long it ran for its only natural I suppose. They took their time to set up this universe, these people, what they fight for, who they care about, this is a very complex situation being presented to us and it needed time to have proper seeding and development. Once things kick into high gear its like nothing else. A lot of media will try to show grey morality and ultimately fail as it always feels like this “omg who are the REAL bad guys!!!!” thing. You don’t get that with this. You really do see all these different perspectives and angles and its what makes these characters feel so engaging. I wouldn’t want Yang to be the perfect hero, I definitely don’t want Reinhard being Dio Brando in space. When characters die it really feels like you’ve lost someone special. Even characters I didn’t think I was attached to really hit me hard when it was time to let go. It appears that this is an anime a lot of snobbish people latch onto as an example of “real” art in anime while other more recent anime are junk. I always hate when that happens as it makes me want to root against the anime in question just for the sake of being contrarian. But if its really that good, then its really that good. “Legend of the Galactic Heroes” is by no means a weak anime, the fact that I finished it all in under a month (along with the introductory movie “My Conquest is the Sea of Stars”) is proof that for how dense it is you can watch it with ease. So is this the greatest anime ever made? I’m not sure I can answer that as we all look to anime with different things we want out of it. What I look for in an anime is likely not what you look for in an anime and the medium as a whole is so vast that its hard to point to one thing as the best. But the answer is probably yes.

“Tamako Market” is like the definition of wholesome. Obviously given the art direction this is a very cute, very sweet anime. And there are people who treat that like its a bad thing. What this anime does better than so many else I’ve seen is it really feels like something I can unwind to. I felt relaxed watching it. This is the hot cocoa of anime. Its a slice of life anime where ultimately there isn’t much if any conflict going on, but that’s honestly good. The series director is Naoko Yamada who made “K-On” and “A Silent Voice” and she really has talent. She is not old, she just turned 33 and has already carved out a space for herself in a very male dominated business. Watching all of those anime I listed its clear why that is. She knows how to make simple stories interesting. We don’t always need a big epic plot, like sometimes we all need to take a break and enjoy something simpler. That doesn’t make this a lazy anime though. There’s scenes that are set up very interestingly, there’s a specific moment of Tamako and her family eating dinner and its shown from above with you looking down at the table. It didn’t feel gimmicky, it didn’t feel random, in the hands of another creative team something like that would have. People seem to dislike Kyoani because they make these slice of life anime centered around cutely designed girls and I feel like that’s unfair. The amount of effort they put into their anime is staggering, none of the anime from them that I have seen felt like some cheapo cash grab with no thought put in beyond making lots of money. And I have to respect the studio for how they go about making anime. They make all of their anime in house and are one of only two studios who do not outsource (the other being Ufotable) and compared to majority of anime studios they have a very healthy system in place. People have given this anime negative reviews for being a sweet and simple slice of life anime and honestly those people just come across like they don’t have fun. That’s very blunt of me to say, but I read these reviews and just wonder why they’re so angry at something so harmless. Like this is such a strange anime to get mad over and meanwhile vulgar and even offensive anime become these big mainstream hits and no one bats an eye. This anime is great and just because its not some big sci-fi action banger that doesn’t mean its worthless junk. I even found myself getting choked up during some scenes. My only problem is that the subplot with the islanders felt like it came and got resolved weirdly easily. Like it just happened and then it was done. That doesn’t detract much from the fun I had with it. Overall this is a great heartwarming anime that I’d recommend to anyone who isn’t an elitist jackass that only cares about manly shonen anime.

“Samurai Champloo” was the first anime series Shinichiro Watanabe directed following “Cowboy Bebop” and surely he felt a lot of pressure to do something equally as great. And the direction he went was really refreshing and something that I feel only he could have made. I rewatched “Bebop” and “Space Dandy”, my personal favorite of his anime, in full shortly after completing this and its interesting to notice the ways in which Watanabe’s anime feel connected. He has a very clear vision when it comes to his anime. However they all feel distinct and not at all like they’re trying to fall back on his reputation and previous successes. Watanabe really feels like a true auteur for the anime world, there’s always this high quality to his work and no one else makes anime like him. I feel like he brings out the best in the people he gathers to work on his shows. Its also no coincidence that his “big three” if you will follow a similar format in that they’re a group of established characters traveling and encountering people and events through their journey with few recurring characters outside their respective circles. I like when anime do that, its what I enjoyed about “Mushishi”. The fact that Watanabe specifically looked to black culture and chose to merge it with the traditional samurai image is something that I doubt anyone else could have pulled off. Watching this anime it was clear he had a real respect for the music and various elements of hip hop that he was incorporating into the show. He was not concerned with this anime being nationalistic, he specifically said he did not want to make such an anime and it shows in the choices he made with it. Things like showing foreign characters and making a protagonist be from the Ryukyu Islands helped give this setting a feeling that it was lived in. It felt like this world seemed as wide and expansive as our own despite us spending the entire time in Japan. Another reason this show works so well naturally is our main characters. I’ve always liked Kazuya Nakai’s voice and since I honestly haven’t been watching the “One Piece” anime despite keeping up on the manga it felt great hearing him again. Mugen literally had to say one sentence and I was like “...Zoro?”. He seems to like voicing swordsmen who are low key stupid since I know his character in “Gintama” falls into that description as well. I thought Fuu was great, frankly I felt this was more her story than anyone’s and the way it all concludes for her left me feeling like I was about to cry. And Jin is a really interesting character in his own right, with someone else behind the character he could have been very boring honestly. Its a lot of fun following these three and when it all ends I felt sad despite the ending being positive, I didn’t want it to stop. Do I like this anime as much as Watanabe’s other anime? Yes I do.

“Wandering Son” is a beautiful anime. It follows a child named Shuichi who is a trans girl and her friend Yoshino who is a trans boy. And its handled in such a powerful and sincere way. It doesn’t feel like a gimmick, I genuinely believe this was a story that people wanted to tell because it was worth telling. Its based on a manga by Takako Shimura who’s work in general seems to focus on LBGT people, I want to watch the anime “Sweet Blue Flowers” which is based on one of her other anime and focuses on lesbians. I feel like with “Wandering Son” she managed to not only tap into something relatable, but she also made something highly thought provoking. She chose to write this story about middle schoolers because she felt there was a lot of potential to discuss puberty and how it effects trans people. Shuichi is a character that leaves you feeling a desire to protect as she’s not only a very sensitive child, but we see that the people in her life really do not understand what she’s experiencing. Her romance with one of her sister’s friends Anna becomes complicated, her sister just sees her as a weird boy that sneaks in her room and tries on her dresses and there’s a particularly emotional situation where she decides to go to school dressed as a girl and suffers the aftermath. But this isn’t a tragic story either. She grows as a person and by the end no longer seems as meek as she was in the beginning. And Yoshino undergoes an equally interesting character arc that touches on things like wanting to wear a binder and not feeling comfortable trying on a boy’s gakuran due to the effects of puberty. There’s also very interesting stuff regarding their friends and family. There’s a whole sub plot regarding a girl named Saori who has a crush on Shuichi, Anna made for a very interesting character and I was happy to see her set things right with Shuichi and accept her, and there’s a very poignant back story to an older trans woman named Yuki that our leads often seek advice from. In the end Shuichi finds it in herself to keep moving forward and be the person she wants to be and develops a good support system among her friends. I feel like what I saw in the anime was done beautifully and amounts to a very uplifting story, I felt proud seeing these character mature. And ultimately a story like this is not something I have ever seen an anime attempt so it felt like an eye opener in a very good way. Also as that screen cap shows its got a very unique animation style to itself, it evokes the art from the manga and very much looks like its own thing at the same time. The way they colored it is different and gives a painterly effect which I think was a smart move. Its weird to say, but if it wasn’t for my complete disappointment with “Yuri on Ice” I wouldn’t have ever heard of this and the next anime I will be discussing. There are LBGT centered anime out there worth your time and if people voicing dissatisfaction in one anime is what it takes to get them out there in your consciousness then I suppose I can’t see that as a bad thing.

It says a lot about a movie when my biggest problem is “it should be longer”. “Doukyuusei” is a fantastic movie. Beautiful art, a great believable romance, but its only an hour. Its based on a manga of the same name by Asumiko Nakamura and if the film is anything like the manga or her other work then she is really skilled at creating a believable chemistry. The art style for the movie appears to be the same as the art in her manga and I like how almost 1970s it looks. I know this isn’t necessarily how 70s manga and anime looked, but something to the designs reminds me of that time period. The director is Shouko Nakamura who’s worked on anime like “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex” and “Gurren Lagann” and her work here really makes a case for how skilled she is. I hope she directs a series of her own someday. And I think the seiyuu they’ve hired are worth acknowledging too. I’ve been a fan of Hiroshi Kamiya for years, he’s someone with a lot of natural charm and charisma. I hear his voice and instantly want to like whoever he’s voicing even if I don’t like all of his characters. Its hard to describe in writing, but there’s something magnetic about his voice. And Kenji Nojima I’ve wanted to see more of ever since he became Mamoru Chiba in “Sailor Moon Crystal” and it felt great hearing him in this. He’s one of those seiyuu who seems to keep showing up in anime I don’t want to watch (unlike Kamiya who just shows up in everything) so it felt good to finally encounter him in something that appealed to me. Both of their performances are great and help enhance the personalities with these characters. I’m not sure if they recorded the dialogue together, I think with anime that’s typically how its done, and if that’s the case then I really feel like they played off of each other perfectly. Now I do know there is a big chance this is considered BL to a Japanese audience just knowing what I know about the way they categorize certain anime and manga. Regardless of what label you latch onto it this is still a believable romance and it never truly felt like it existed just to make fujoshi sigh. The way the relationship is presented is very romantic and heartwarming, it didn’t feel exploitative and like a thing designed for straight women to gawk over. The more sexual moments are still handled in an intimate enough way and it never feels like sexy fanservice. With one hour of run time they managed to succeed in really every area the romance in “Yuri on Ice” failed for me. You see them kiss (a lot), they address that there’s a sexual attraction between them, the idea of this being a long term relationship and not just a high school fling is really central to the film. Its never beating around the bush about it being a love story and they even address the character’s insecurities regarding the relationship. It isn’t sloppily thrown in there because oh wait we need drama even though none of these emotions have been touched on before, these thoughts and actions feel natural. Plot wise there kind of isn’t one as the romance is the focus of the film, but I love that. Its a simple story about two teenage boys falling in love and being in love. Just a shame it couldn’t have been a half hour longer. Not because it felt abrupt, it doesn’t. But because I just wanted more of these characters and this beautiful animation.

The second I laid eyes on Anna Biller’s “The Love Witch” I knew I was going to love it. She captured the 60s aesthetic so beautifully, you’ll excuse the pun the movie is absolutely bewitching. Biller really involved herself with this production from the writing to directing to set and costume design. She experienced a lot of problems with her crew that didn’t believe in her or the project, but I’m happy she persevered and made the film she wanted to make. This is her second feature length film after a 2007 movie called “Viva” in which she starred and I hope this gained her enough attention to result in more films from her. Some might argue this retro pastiche isn’t something she can do forever, but honestly she does it so well that I don’t really care. This movie just screams aesthetic and Samantha Robinson who plays Elaine is absolutely stunning and great in her performance. Its a performance that evokes how acting in the 1960s generally were with it being very presentational, but it works for both the character and the film at hand. I hope she develops a good career for herself. What’s interesting is watching the movie as a woman all of these feminist concepts she works into the plot felt very easy for me to understand and relate to yet all of these male critics don’t really seem to get it. They understand feminism is involved with the film in some way, but they don’t seem to fully appreciate all the ways in which feminist theory shapes the film. Scenes like Elaine going “life’s been tough huh?” while her latest man is crying like an idiot or the words of her ex echoing in her mind telling her she needs to put more effort into her appearance resonated with me. Everything including the overall concept of a woman who’s dragged herself into this fairy tale state of mind is something born from Biller’s personal ideologies, yet to so many critics the film is just an exploration of sex and kitsch. I don’t think this is a movie that would alienate any male viewers, but I do wonder if the feminist theory and Biller’s self described attempts at creating a female gaze just wash over them entirely. Critics have said its a movie lacking in plot, but I disagree. It has a plot, its about a witch who wants to find her dream man and uses her magic to entice the men around her only for things to turn out very badly every time she tries. Even if you watch it as just a tribute to old campy horror films you’ll still be entertained, but its so much more than that in my opinion.

This might sound weird, but for months now I’ve been convinced I watched “Haikyuu” last year. No that was this year. The reason I held off on it for so long honestly is because sports don’t especially interest me, but after watching it and getting caught up to date on the manga I think the problem isn’t sports as a subject matter but how its executed. “Haikyuu” is a very fun and lighthearted series. You’ve got fun characters, everyone is adorable, and the actual games themselves do have a sense of tension. You also don’t need to worry about the cliched evil rival team who we hate purely because they aren’t on the same team as our protagonist. I know there’s people who like to flatten Oikawa down to an egotistical villain, but that’s a massive disservice to his character as at the end of the day he’s one of the most interesting members of the cast. I never got the feeling the series itself was trying to make anyone an antagonist, they’re just people who love their sport and want to win. Making people like that evil is just tiring and one of the reasons I don’t take movies focused on sports very seriously. Its interesting that we’re now in an era where one of the big hits from Weekly Shonen Jump that isn’t “One Piece” is a sports anime. I made a post saying that our new big three are “Haikyuu”, “Boku no Hero Academia”, and “Black Clover” and I meant it. Of those three “Haikyuu” is the best. You don’t need to go in with a deep knowledge of volleyball, they educate you on the sport through the story. Much like how one of my favorite anime “Ping Pong the Animation” educates the viewer on table tennis. I’m no sports anime connoisseur, but I think its important to inform people with no knowledge of the sport at hand about how it works. Its not just a matter of passing a ball over a net and making sure it hits within the boundary line and Furudate understood the importance of teaching his audience about the complexities within volleyball. Centering the story around someone considered too short for this sport was also a good idea. Underdog protagonists in sports media is far from new, but the way in which Hinata throws himself into the sport and how far he’s willing to go to prove he isn’t defined by his height just makes him endearing. Its hard to say what’s going to happen in the series after the current arc focusing on nationals ends, but I’m also perfectly comfortable with rolling with whatever Furudate brings my way.

This is a fun anime. I know its likely gonna be on everyone’s worst list, but I am not everyone. And don’t show me that video of Asta yelling that got really popular on here, I’ve seen it too, and I just don’t care anymore. I swear though Asta’s voice is not as bad as everyone acts like it is. When he isn’t doing that vibrato yell he sounds good and I don’t think he yells as often as he did in the first two episodes. Maybe I’m just used to his voice, but I’m really fed up with all the complaining about it. Its funny when I tried watching that video I couldn’t handle five seconds, but I understood this was one of the new big things from Weekly Shonen Jump and decided to try it anyway. I love shonen anime and manga so it just felt like there was no harm in trying it. And its fun. “Black Clover” does have a very formulaic first several episodes and we’ve seen characters and tropes like this in other shonen anime and manga. And I understand fans of the manga think the manga just pulls everything off better. But its still an entertaining anime to me. I’m sure people will tell me that this is still something that’s just too by the numbers, but I personally have too much fun with it to get upset over it. Once I got past what I consider the set up phase to the story I enjoyed it so much more. I like this setting a lot and look forward to seeing more of it. And I do like the characters for what they are. Asta is a type of character I have a soft spot for because I like protagonists who try hard. Yuno hasn’t been in a lot of episodes as of the most recent one, but he has potential to be interesting. Noelle I really love, I love that she’s designed more with beauty in mind instead of cuteness and that she’s rather prissy. I like Yami, I like Magna, I just appreciate a lot of things about this series even if its not anything groundbreaking. “Black Clover” is in many ways a mixed bag, but at the end of the day I still like watching it.

“Hibike Euphonium” is gorgeous. Kyoani never seem to rest on their laurels and keep finding new ways to improve upon their animation with each anime. I genuinely believe they aim to push the limits of what an episodic anime can be like. Like with many of their anime “Hibike” is a slice of life shojo and this one follows a girl named Kumiko who plays the euphonium, a tuba like instrument that I had never heard of before, in her school’s band club. What Kyoani understands about making a slice of life is that if your characters and their interpersonal relationships are interesting enough then you don’t need to make something especially complex. A lot of people likely feel as if Kyoani is wasting this gorgeous animation on these simple stories, I don’t agree with them. All genres of anime should look good, except hentai, so slice of life having this kind of production value doesn’t offend me in the slightest. When it comes down to the characters I found them all likeable, especially Asuka. I really loved her character and was happy to see her get so much focus in season two. And again the animation in this is so beyond what other anime are doing. I had so many moments where I went “oh my God they included a detail like that”. With this anime they aimed for something that felt naturalistic and its reflected in both the animation and audio. The seiyuu were all directed to speak in a natural tone of voice rather than the typical “anime voice acting” kind of way. When characters are inside their voices have an audible echo while outside they do not. The scenes of them playing their instruments work in the same way. We see Reina practicing her trumpet outside and the audio reflects where she is supposed to be. This level of perfectionism just blew me away. I know a film is in the works and its directed by Naoko Yamada and it isn’t a complication film either, I really look forward to that.

Surprise more Kyoani. I meant it when I said loving Kyoani was a big part of my 2017. I never had anything against them, I never even watched their anime before. But man I am happy I have. Its just in general great to try watching different kinds of anime than what you usually do. This anime is called “Hyouka” its one part mystery one part high school slice of life. Those two elements mesh together very well despite them seeming like they wouldn’t. Our protagonist is Houtarou played by Yuichi Nakamura sounding unlike I’ve ever heard him sound before. It follows him and his friends in his school’s classics club as they try to figure out various mysteries surrounding the school. It sounds simple, but amazingly enough there’s a tremendous amount of depth to the anime. A lot of symbolism behind their use of color, a lot of foreshadowing, I’ve only watched it once but I’ve been told its an anime you discover new things about upon each rewatch and I believe it. A lot of people seem to overlook the rewatch value in something and truthfully not everything has it. Some shows or movies lose their magic when you go back to them, but it takes a considerable amount of skill to create something that keeps giving and giving. Part of why I believe this has that special rewatch value is that these main characters are interesting and flawed in ways that make you want to keep experiencing things with them. Some people I guess didn’t like the way it ended, but given these characters I felt like it was a conclusion that made sense. I feel like this anime has not gotten the amount of attention it fully deserves. Compared to other things by Kyoani it seems like this one falls under people’s radar and I think that’s unfortunate as its just as impressive as something like the previously mentioned “Hibike Euphonium”.

When you hear the name “Flip Flappers” you probably imagine a Nickelodeon cartoon about talking ducks. Or at least I did. In actuality its one of the most interesting anime from 2016. I didn’t see it until this year obviously, but I remember people talking about it and how amazing the animation was. While “Mob Psycho 100″ is my favorite anime from 2016, I do think this is an anime with a lot to share too. Its directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama who directed one of the more artistic episodes of “Space Dandy” and in between that episode and this anime its clear that he’s someone with a strong vision and unique style. “Flip Flappers” is another anime that I feel screen caps do not do justice to, you need to see the characters move to really see just how brilliant the designs are. There’s something about this art style that only looks good in motion for me. Clearly they’re very striking, but the animation itself on the characters is very smooth and the way the anime uses colors makes me smile. I’m just happy anime are still using strong color palettes and not giving me this dull wash of grey in an attempt to look more serious. Story wise I can’t help but feel like “Flip Flappers” is a big Gainax homage up to and including the cartoonish animal sidekick. I wouldn’t say its exactly like any one Gainax anime though. Many compared it to “FLCL” and those are two radically different anime. The qualities people found similar between them are what I think can be chalked up to this feeling like an homage, but when it comes to the plot and these characters and what the show is striving for its really doing its own thing. You cannot tell me that this is just like “FLCL”, its still got its own identity. Some of the plot points I was able to predict as things developed, but in the end everything comes together in a very satisfying fashion. The characters I wanted to see happy got to be happy and the conflict is concluded in a satisfying way. I hope after this we get to see more from Oshiyama as I’m sure we haven’t seen the best of him yet.

Its become very clear to me that “Made in Abyss” is most people’s favorite anime of the year and I think its obvious why they love it that much. This is a really special anime and I am so proud of the team for getting a second season. I think what makes this anime so strong is that this world does feel fleshed out. We are discovering it along with Riko and Reg, but it still feels fully realized and it enhances the sense of wonder and terror that looms throughout the episodes. Its a thing that’s been said to death about anime that frankly aren’t that good, but this is an anime where the characters do feel like they’re in real danger. On the surface it looks like just a sweet show about kids wandering the forest. And I admit the screen cap I chose certainly makes it appear that way, when I make these posts I like to sometimes select misleading or out of context caps for kicks. But this anime goes to some very intense and unnerving areas. I really believed that Riko was going to need to lose her arm. When we got the flashback about Nanachi and Mitty I was shocked by how far they went. We all still talk about Nina from the “Fullmetal Alchemist” franchise, doesn’t matter which version. And as emotionally powerful as that was we still didn’t actually see it happen to her. Here such a trauma doesn’t happen off camera, you see it all and it leaves you with a feeling that is hard to shake off. This isn’t a nihilistic story though. I never get the feeling that this is one of those “life sucks and then you die” stories. As intense as the show gets there is still this feeling that something good could come out of it even after everything we learn about the Curse of the Abyss. Riko and Reg ultimately haven’t lost the spark in their eyes and that means so much to me. I don’t want a miserable experience, I want to see the characters move through their situation. While it isn’t my personal favorite 2017 anime “Made in Abyss” definitely is up there as one of the best we’ve gotten from this weird year.

One of the great tragedies of the anime world is losing Satoshi Kon at such a premature age. He still had ideas, there’s no telling what else he could have created if he never got sick. There is a gaping hole in the anime world that he left behind and nobody can replace him as proven by the complicated production for his still unfinished film “Dreaming Machine”. His movies are difficult to obtain in America, hopefully we’ll see them rereleased in the near future because to deny audiences of his work really gives me a bad feeling. I think about people who may want to watch them, but can’t because they’re so difficult to get your hands on. I really don’t like that. So long as there remains an interest in his work though I’d like to believe he will remain a figure of importance. I had always wanted to watch “Paranoia Agent” and really regret not seeking it out sooner. I didn’t even know the plot, I just knew he made it and that was enough to sway me. Going in blind my assumption based on the official art I had seen was that it was about a punk kid solving a surreal mystery in his city. I’m honestly happy I was given something far more imaginative than that. This series exists because Kon had all of these story ideas and concepts, but felt none could justify a feature length film. So he piled them all together and created a thread that connected them and this series was born. What impressed me right out the gate was seeing that the quality of animation in this show still holds up. Not a lot of TV anime from the 2000s have aged well for various reasons, but this still looks good. His style was something that I feel will always look good and its impressive to this day. And the writing and overall structure to this anime is just tight. The twists and turns and various interwoven stories were handled wonderfully. Despite how much I enjoyed this anime I will say that there was an episode that just took me out of it all. Episode eight just felt awkward and honestly goofy which is something I never associated with Kon by any means. I wish it wasn’t there as it breaks up the flow the episodes had built up. In spite of that I was happy with the anime. My personal favorite episodes were the second and third ones. And the overall message this anime carries about facing reality is something that while not new for an anime is done in a very emotional and gripping way. Kon only got to make so much within his short lifetime, but what’s there is impressive. They were all so interesting and expertly made by a true visionary. And we will never seen anything like them again.

And here is the third in the “YOI was disappointing so let’s find better LBGT anime” trio. “No.6″ is a really engaging anime. The sci-fi aspects to the story were interesting, I went in blind outside of knowing it was LBGT and found everything to be very curious. I told myself at the time to only watch a few episodes and I ended up watching all of it in one go because it grabbed me. It also helps that it stars two really great seiyuu. I always liked Yuuki Kaji and even if he’s been in pretty much every anime these days I have never had a problem with that because I don’t feel like I’m listening to Eren whenever he appears. And Yoshimasa Hosoya I knew was a good voice actor, but I had no idea he could sing that well. The characters they portray are both very interesting and seeing their relationship bloom through the episodes was one of the best qualities to the show. Like with all good romances it develops and progresses naturally, it felt like all of their interactions were leading into this deep rich relationship forming. The romance while a major selling point in my opinion isn’t all the anime is about though, its got a really interesting sci-fi plot where we watch Shion face the cruel nature of the world he lives in that he had up until then been sheltered from. With Nezumi, someone who’s lived in that cruelty his whole life, by his side Shion is ultimately forced to face whether or not the city he once called home is worth saving. I don’t want to reveal too much else about this piece of the story. Just know that its something that builds to a massive and emotionally powerful climax in which I was brought to tears out of pure relief. Its got a strong plot, a romance you actively root for, and despite being made in 2011 I’d argue it holds up very well from a visual standpoint.

Moisture is the essence of wetness. And wetness is the essence of beauty. How the hell did we get here? The swimming anime? Really? Well guess what despite its status as a meme the anime is actually really great. When this first came out I just thought it looked like the dumbest yaoi bait thing. I was wrong though. "Free” is certainly transparent about its fanservice, but that kind of gives it all a charm. Of coarse them being swimmers means seeing them shirtless a lot, but when its actual fanservice its pretty clearly fanservice and there’s something about how they did it that just made me smile. What I think the anime was successful at was just crafting a very fun and lighthearted sports anime. I think its so easy for sports to result in a lot of angst and drama and this does have some dramatic elements, but they never feel excessive. Something that was also appreciated was Mamoru Miyano not playing a douchebag for once. Seriously it doesn’t happen very often for whatever reason. There was Ling Yao, Tamaki, Riku, and that’s kind of it. Rin starts off as a typical rival jock, but as you get to know him that all breaks down and he ends up being a good friend to everyone in the second season which warmed my heart. After everything it was nice to see that and Rin was probably my favorite character as a result. These characters generally speaking were all very likeable and the seiyuu cast just got me so excited. Rei was probably my second favorite character and him being played by Daisuke Hirakawa just sweetened the deal. There are people would still think the series is too ridiculous for them, but I feel like those people never really gave it a fair try. Its a fun anime about a bunch of boys who love swimming, it never pretends its anything else. I have not watched the movies or the OVAs, I only watched the first and second season but trust me I am eating my old words. And I look forward to the third season when it arrives.

Is this the greatest anime ever made? Its definitely one of the best the 2000s has to offer. I remember when “K-On” came out and people really hyping it up, but I just never got around to it. What impresses me about this anime is how it left a very noticeable impact on not just Kyoani as a studio, but on anime in general. This anime isn’t even ten years old and there’s already proof that its left its mark. The moe boom was a big thing and I understand there’s people who don’t like that kind of anime, but what I have seen has been very enjoyable. In between this and “Tamako Market” I can’t decide which one I prefer, but they’re very close and incidentally both are made by the same team. Naoko Yamada making an anime like this when she was just in her 20s is still impressive to me, especially with how much of an improvement the second season was. Season one was great and a lot of fun, but it was season two that really brought it to a new level. The animation got a lot better and I feel like the episodes themselves had a little extra something to them. Everything just felt elevated. A lot of people seem to hate anime like this and I’m just not going to agree with them. Especially with all of the misinformation regarding these types of shows. “K-On” is about a group of girls in their school’s light music club and watching them connect, its not a skeevy fanservice show designed to sell itself to otaku that live in their mother’s basement and don’t bathe. This anime was a big hit and had a large female audience in Japan because people enjoyed these characters and its humor. They could relate to them and share in the fun experiences they have. When you watch this anime you really feel this sense of camaraderie among the girls and feel like they’ve grown once you reach its finale. Something as simple as that still makes for a great show. Big epic shonen anime aren’t this end all be all. I say this as someone who really loves shonen anime and manga, while its the most popular kind out there it isn’t the only type that matters. A big theme with the anime I discussed in this post is I don’t need a big sweeping plot if the characters pick up the slack and entertain me. This cast does that and then some. I loved these girls and seeing their banter and what they were up to. I loved seeing them grow and I loved seeing them perform. I enjoyed every minute of it. That being said its also an anime that knew when to stop. We really did not need a third season where the girls were in college. This felt like a complete experience and I look forward to revisiting it in the future.

So I said “Made in Abyss” seems to be most people’s favorite anime of the year. Well for me personally after rewatching “Little Witch Academia” its mine. I watched the first two episodes and immediately went and watched the 2013 movie and the 2015 OVA. As I was watching the episodes when they came out I was surprised to see that it was giving more of a slice of life feeling in favor of a more plot heavy tone. This is something I love about it now, but at the time I expected it to have a structure like “Kill la Kill” and midway through I stopped watching every week but fully intended on coming back when it ended. And I did and I loved it. The choice to adopt this type of writing works in favor with it and yet when its bigger plot does kick in it doesn’t feel out of place like the one in the finale for “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid” did. And it was so much fun that I watched it all again recently. This world and these characters are just so charming. Akko is one of the best protagonists in recent years, Sucy and Lotte are adorable and play off of Akko fantastically, Diana has great development, Chariot was very likeable, Croix is actually I villain I cared about. I wanted to know more about her. The problem with Ragyo from “Kill la Kill” is she was so evil that I didn’t want to know more about her, it felt like all I needed to know was she was evil and had an amazing theme song, but Croix genuinely had me intrigued. Something I want to give the anime major credit for, especially from Trigger, is they chose not to make this sexual. There is no sexy fanservice, we don’t see up the girl’s skirts when they ride their brooms, Croix is fully clothed, even Chariot’s costume in her performances isn’t actually sexual despite it being a bustier style top, after something as in your face as “Kill la Kill” I’m happy they went the opposite route and gave us something that I believe all ages can enjoy. You could show this to a kid and not have to worry about them seeing something trashy. The voice cast is great too. Megumi Han as Akko is just as fantastic as she was as Gon in the 2011 “Hunter x Hunter” anime. Diana’s seiyuu Yoko Hikasa was Mio in “K-On” and she is just great at capturing that haughty tone Diana required. Junko Takeuchi the once and eternal Naruto blew my mind as Croix. I never would have guessed that was the same voice actress as him. Granted this was the first time I ever heard her voice a woman, I’ve only heard her play boys, but she hit it out of the park. And hearing Noriko Hidaka was a real treat. She voiced Akane in “Ranma 1/2″ and Kikyo in “Inuyasha” and it just felt good hearing her voice someone like Chariot. The creator of the series Yoh Yoshinari has said he’d like to continue the franchise with a new season and even showed interest in a spinoff about Chariot or Lotte’s “Night Fall” books. I really hope he can do all the things with this that he wants to do. People did crowdfund this series so we know for a fact people wanted it and came back to tune in when it aired. And I hope as the years go by more people discover this anime because I truly think it captures a lot of things people want anime to do.

At Anime Boston in 2015 I saw this AMV and immediately knew this is something I had been overlooking for far too long. “Yu Yu Hakusho” is my favorite anime I’ve seen all year. Its probably strange to other people to find out there’s people who haven’t seen it, but some of us did not have the luxury of getting Cartoon Network growing up. I went into this anime very blind, I didn’t know anything about its plot. What I expected was this monster hunter type of story, essentially I expected “Hunter x Hunter” meets “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure”. I did not get that, but I’m very happy with what I was given instead. Let’s start with the fact that it has the best introduction to any character ever. I love seeing how protagonists get introduced. "Yu Yu Hakusho”, your protagonist is fucking dead. That’s honestly so amazing that I applaud Togashi for coming up with that. I’m happy the series didn’t drag out the amount of time it took for Yusuke to come back to life, it would have been rather dull I think to center the story around that. Also the day I started watching this anime coincidentally was Easter. Just wanted to share that. Watching this anime there are definitely motifs and ideas comparable to “Hunter x Hunter”, but by no means are they the same story. Gon and Yusuke are near polar opposites and while “Yu Yu Hakusho” never goes as deep as “Hunter x Hunter” did it also manages to pull off things that in other shonen would have pissed me off. I really enjoyed the Dark Tournament episodes. I am someone who isn’t always very engaged when watching fights that drag for episodes on end, but not here. There was just something to it all that felt right, this felt like how a battle tournament arc should be. I was also very happy to see that even in a series like this Togashi was still willing to create characters who are not intended to be placed on a pedestal purely because they’re main characters. In this and in “Hunter x Hunter” he makes it clear to you that your main characters will make mistakes, they will do things that aren’t virtuous, and you are not supposed to ignore them just because these are your main characters. But all of that is fine because your characters need flaws in order to feel dynamic. Just like with its younger brother these are characters you still feel very invested in. Much like “Haikyuu” all your characters are cute. And I really loved seeing all of them grow. Yusuke feels very unique compared to other shonen protagonists, Kuwabara underwent great development, Kurama felt like a character the shonen genre doesn’t have enough of, Hiei was always fascinating. In the hands of someone else Hiei would have been boring and that’s just not acceptable. No one writes characters like Togashi. And this seiyuu cast. Yusuke is voiced by Nozomu Sasaki who was Tetsuo in the film “Akira” and Julian in “Legend of the Galactic Heroes”, Shigeru Chiba who I fucking adore was Kuwabara, Megumi Ogata as Kurama was fantastic, Nobuyuki Hiyama as Hiei was perfect, Mayumi God damn Tanaka was Koenma, there’s so much talent in this cast. I also want to give the series credit for including some romance. Granted Yusuke and Keiko’s relationship wasn’t handled in depth like say Kagome and Inuyasha’s, but it does develop and feel believable. I was so happy seeing them kiss in the end especially after everything Keiko saw him get involved with. The fact that she wasn’t in the dark about everything was also appreciated. i know her involvement in the plot was only so much, but I liked that she wasn’t out of the picture entirely. In between this anime and “Hunter x Hunter” its really difficult to say which one I like the most, but I will honestly say that “Yu Yu Hakusho” is one of the greatest shonen anime in history. It might even be the best in history. It accomplishes all of the things I expect from a shonen while at the same time providing me with plenty of surprises and concepts I did not see coming. Arigatou gozaimasu.