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gofancyninjaworld · 4 years ago

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2020 in One-Punch Man. Part 1: Manga

How shall I describe this succinctly?

It's like ONE and Murata looked around them, saw a raging pandemic, massive disruption to all walks of life, uncertainty of when, if, or how it might affect them, took a massive drag of their cigarettes and said: “Fuck being conservative. Let's go wild. Fuck making our current arc a webcomic retread with fancier fights. Let's introduce more lore, let's have more characters interact in ways one would never have imagined, let's have characters do things that hadn't previously been thought of and make this really exciting.“

If you were holding onto the webcomic as your guide to what next, 2020 was not a good year for you.

723 pages in 24 updates (including revisions) changed the status quo ante in deliciously unanticipated ways!

Where we left off in 2019, we were following the webcomic pretty faithfully, with most manga-original elements being removed at a fast clip. Phoenixman was dead, the mercenaries had died a brutal death, the ninjas had been resurrected but had run off buck naked, Orochi was dead, G5 was very much destroyed, Drive Knight had appeared but had obligingly limped off, taking Nyan with him. The S-Class heroes were in trouble with the cadre exactly as expected and Saitama had met up with Flashy Flash. Tatsumaki had finally found Psykos. Yup, no real changes here.

2020, HAHA!

Awaken!

Throwing manga-specific elements away? As if! They took the great opportunity that preparing chapters for publication to critically review and revise the story so as to first, make it move at a faster pace and second, to be enriched. It’s meant that chapters for volume 22, 23, and 24 (to come) have been redrawn to accommodate the changes and we got the benefit of many of them between April and August of this year.

We started with Phoenixman’s fight with Child Emperor. It started innocuously enough with Phoenixman resurrecting, but then we got a much more interesting chunk of knowledge -- the existence of a metaphysical world modelled on one’s on psyche where the assault on Child Emperor’s sense of self took a much more existential nature.

From a purely physical battle (and some nifty cool info about the Subterraneans) to an otherworldy battle happening in parallel with the physical battle:

It ended up a very interesting examination of Child Emperor’s character and his relationships with other heroes, as well as telling us something else freaky about Saitama’s ability to be anywhere he damn well wants to be.

Ah, and Phoenixman lives. Albeit as a little chick (for now). He’ll probably be back, but not just yet.

The mercenaries were next. They didn’t die. Not because Amai Mask had a change of heart, but because Iaian listened to the niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach and turned his team mates around to intervene just in time.

As you’d expect, trying to guide the mercenaries back to the safety of the surface has been an incredibly challenging ordeal for the disciples. It’s revealed much more about the way the disciples trust each other and lean on one another, and yet, when there was no option to do so, Iaian stepped up wonderfully to fight to save the mercenaries.

We’ve also learned something interesting about why mercenaries exist at all in a world supposedly at peace. I look forward to seeing where this plot might go next.

Elsewhere, we got to learn a little less about Puri Puri’s dancing and swimming lessons, but we got some really awesome nods to the mythical in Bakuma (the baku is a long-nosed creature formed out of all the bits left over after creation that eats dreams) and Electric Catfish Man’s sudden sense of doom is both reference to the way catfish are supposed to detect earthquakes and just damn cool.

A monsterised exploitative business man taking the form of a demonic dream-eating monster that consumes weaker monsters so as to exploit their abilities is so appropriate on many levels (and unreasonably hot!).

Yes, Waganma does make it to the surface, along with Saitama and Child Emperor. Saitama gets chased away by a Sekingar outraged that there’s a clueless hero just wandering aimlessly around. Child Emperor goes back underground and I loved to death Waganma being pierced with remorse as he realises that the hero is going to go risk his life anyway. He’s spoiled, but his keeping quiet came from a place of being a scared human being desperate to be saved (a surprising number of fans did not like that -- they preferred to think of him as a psychopathic monster incapable of remorse).

Orochi still has a date with a gloved fist, but he’s getting to live a little longer than he did before.

Overall the story is tighter and there’s a lot more interest as well as future plot hooks than there were. I’m interested in seeing how it gets tied up in the next volume sometime in 2021.

Reddit did not take it well. Summary of discourse:

sorry not sorry, I lost patience around the 500th whiny post

Advance!

What about the new chapters we got? Also here, ho ho ho, that status quo has gotten a good kicking!

Orochi came back. Not the most surprising surprise in the world, given how carelessly Saitama punched him. Also not surprising that he came back stronger; Phoenixman had wonderfully demonstrated that monsters can bounce back from near-death situations much stronger. But his form... such a disgusting, slimy, ever-shifting mass of tentacles and dragons, consuming all in its way led to the third craziest development: his fusion with Psykos to launch a new monster.

I’ll spare you the disgusting intermediate stages but the end result has been the birth of Psykos-Orochi and with that, what had been a total sweep for Tatsumaki turned into a much more dangerous enterprise where every mistake of hers got punished brutally.

Why is that only number three? Because Tatsumaki raised up the entire base to try to encompass the whole monster (and it turns out that she was thinking far too small -- the monster had actually eaten large sections of City Z) and Psykos-Orochi uses the space to launch a beam so powerful that it literally cuts off part of the Earth itself. It was a real I see it, but I don’t believe it moment.

if you didn’t spend a few seconds just staring in disbelief, you’re not paying attention. OMG. Boy is the Earth in trouble.

Why is that only the second craziest thing? Because of why this fusion monster was able to do as it did. ‘God’ doesn’t just go round looking like a semi-tangible being giving random homeless men magic powers. Yup, the Earth really in in trouble if some supernatural being is smushing monsters together to make a stronger one and then granting it extra powers. Just like that, the struggle has turned cosmic.

Tatsumaki trying to figure out how to fight back and save City Z from being swept away by a tsunami, save the heroes, and save the planet from further damage by the beams all at the same time was one of the most spectacular fights to date.

As I said earlier, this monster has presented Tatsumaki with a real fight where the slightest mistake on her part leads to severe punishment. She wound up in trouble when she underestimated how extensive the monster actually was and let up on twisting it too early, only to have it come right back and skewer her hands.

Thankfully, Genos came in and saved her from that pinch, then held the monster at bay long enough for Tatsumaki to finish saving the strike team so she could give the monster her undivided attention.

Which is a very tame way of saying that that was an incredible development in capability. That some of the fandom had trouble accepting (they suck). Watching their protests has been an exercise in special pleading. They have no trouble understanding how Murata uses scale...until it came to accepting the size of the explosion resulting from Genos smacking away Psyko-Orochi’s execution beam then it had to be a fisheye lens (visibly incorrect, but who’s talking facts here?). Have had no trouble understanding how Murata portrays escalation... until it came to accepting that Genos is strong then no, somehow the monster had to be weaker. Have had no trouble with the freeze frame language that Murata uses to portray things happening at great speed... until it came to accepting that Genos could move really, really fast. For some people, the new is only welcome when it confirms and validates preconceptions. Anyway, that’s my rant done!

the most unlikely of partnerships and they’re still going despite having taken a hell of a battering since this scene

Guess who’s back?

We’ve also been seeing more heroes come back to the fray. The emergence of the Tower of Doom acted as a clarion call to every hero around and able to move. Metal Bat sneaked out of hospital to come running back. Tank Top Master hitched a ride with Mumen Rider to go to City Z. He intended to stick around and save people, but seeing how much wider scale the fight was, he literally threw himself into battle.

Drive Knight decided he literally had to have a piece of the action, took up a ton of power from the nearest substation and came flying in to intercept a desperately escaping Psyko-Jet... ah, I didn’t say? Yes, the monster turned into a machine to run away once hard-pressed.

And we finally got to see what Blast actually looks like, courtesy of a flashback of Amai Mask’s. He definitely looks the part of a caped superhero and it’s little wonder he’s stuck in the imaginations of so many. But now I’m even more interested in seeing what his deal is and what is he’s like now

The one thing we know for sure will be happening is that Garou will not be denied his destiny. He’s coming. But what else is happening? Ah, that’s all in the air.

Bring on 2021!

#OPM #review #long #2020 #so much has happened #so much still to come #manga #Garou is coming BACK #13th #December #December 13th 2020 #so many incredible developments #Genos coming back far stronger than he's ever been and then hanging tough despite overdoing it #the unquestionable appearance of a meddling godlike entity #the Psykos-Orochi fusion and all its crazy permutations #the massive loss of life in Z-City: such an irony between heroes killing themselves to save a few individuals when mass death is all around #Not mentioned; Saitama Flash and their misadventures with Manako

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8requiems · 4 years ago

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A Webcomic Review of “Garden Club Detective Squad”:

Oh God Oh Fuck did someone just die?

By: 8Requiems

The Description:

“Gardening and solving crime aren’t what straight-A student Yeon Han thought she would be focusing on at her new school. But when she discovers a notebook that contains clues to a 15-year-old murder mystery, she and the other members of her new gardening club realize the murderer not only has access to the school -- they probably work for the school. Can the gardening club squad figure out who committed the murder even though the principal and their teachers seem desperate to cover it up?”

Now, this description is quite detailed, maybe a bit too detailed.

This comes down to personal preference, but personally, I don’t like seeing the plot in thorough detail before reading the story, especially if it is a mystery.

If it were me, I would write the description as:

“In her attempt to not become a backwater girl, Yeon Han eventually decides to become the President of the Gardening Club. But she’ll soon realize that maybe she might have bitten off more than she could chew”

This description may be a bit rudimentary, but it shows an idea of what my ideal description for this webtoon would be.

It says just enough about the story while also leaving enough to imagination. But the current description at present shows what the first 3-4 chapters are. Had the description not even mentioned the teachers, I probably wouldn’t have considered they were trying to cover anything up to begin with.

That being said, I did read chapters 1-3 of the webtoon blind. And I have to say, I didn’t expect the unassuming colorful cover of this Webtoon to show such menacing and dark panel off-rip.

(A panel from the first scene in Chapter 1)

But, let us familiarize ourselves with the cast, shall we?

Characters:

Yeon Han - The Brain:

Yeon is an honor student who moved outside of Seoul, presumably due to not having enough money to stay. Despite this turn of events, she doesn’t want to become a “backwater girl”. For the sake of her academic record, she decides to settle on becoming the class president. But her peers are just amused at how cocky she was despite being new to the school.

(A panel in the middle of Chapter 2 ^)

When that fails, she decides to settle on becoming the president of an after school club. But forget becoming president, they wouldn’t even allow her to join on the basis that she is too qualified. BRO, THE LITERATURE DISCUSSION CLUB HAS THREE MEMBERS. ONE INCLUDING A BODYPILLOW FOR FUCK SAKES. Part of me wanted to laugh but part of me also felt insulted for her.

I expected her character to be the “genius that finds a niche that she enjoys compared to other activities they would usually dominate at”, but she is already fed up with how hard gardening actually is. Not to mention the amount of faculty and students who ask favours from her.

It was a very pleasant surprise, because now I can rightfully assume that while she works on her cases, she might pick up skills from the gardening club. Dare I say, she actually comes to appreciate and enjoy it as a hobby? I guess only time will tell, as this is still a very new Webtoon, with 12 Chapters out as of this review’s conception.

The one thing I have on my mind at the moment, is if her range of skills she currently has will be useful when tackling the murder case.

Whether or not that is the case, I have high hopes for her as a character.

Mirim Shin - The Spiritual:

Although I said I have high hopes for Yeon, I think Mirim is my favorite character. As the daughter of a priest, she is in tune with her spirituality on a whole other level compared to her club mates.

An interesting tidbit about her is that she decided to practice all forms of faith before her baptism. I can only assume it’s so she could have an idea of what could have been, before deciding to lock in on one specific faith.

Honestly, I genuinely didn’t expect for her to say something like this, not because it sounded ridiculous, but because up until that point, it felt like her spirituality was just a running gag that came with her character.

It was nice to see her character expanded upon, and I hope the other characters get the same treatment, even if it is only brief.

Baekji Kang - The Muscle

Then there's Baekji, who easily wins in cool factor.

I can’t say much other than that in addition to being a part of the garden club, she is also in the Judo club. Although the story doesn’t technically address it, I feel like she fills the role of pseudo-leader / Vice-President of the club.

She’s cool.

Saessak - The Green Thumb’d Romantic?:

Ssaesak is a soft-spoken girl who attends to the garden's needs as one of the two members of the garden club.

She is unexpectedly a romantic, being interested in bad boys.

I only found her annoying for a brief moment because it seemed like she was going to hold back information on her latest crush, Hyeonsu Jeong (the lunch guy), before finally finding the resolve to give a possibly game changing piece of evidence to Yeon.

She’s alright.

Execution:

Despite the mostly positive things I have said in this review, my first impressions of Garden Club Detective Squad were more negative in comparison to the opinions I shared at present.

When I read Wizard of Arsenia, I had overblown expectations because my editor Nen had already recommended God of Bath, a webtoon I have now come to really appreciate. I assumed I would love it in the same way.

My expectations were what held me back from what I usually do best: Sit down and just enjoy the show. Granted, I still hold opinions about it that I believe hold back the story, but the opinions were way fairer than what I could have said.

This time around, I made a similar mistake.

I decided on my own to read Garden Club Detective Squad for this review, and held expectations for the mystery element of the Webtoon, which was reinforced by the first panel I showed in the review. Thankfully, even if the webtoon didn’t live up to whatever expectation I had, I know that I could still appreciate it for what it was because I just went with the flow. At worst, the mystery could come across as contrived.

(A panel from the first scene in Chapter 1)

That being said, somehow, I was disappointed. Even a bit annoyed 5-7 chapters in. Disappointment is one thing, but why was I annoyed?

At first, I was thinking it was because the story had a problem with how it presented tension. After all, the webtoon is categorized as a mystery, so I criticized it as such.

In my original draft, I wrote the following:

“The webtoon is categorized under mystery, but I don’t really feel the urgency of the case whatsoever. I feel like I am getting whiplash between moments that I feel are supposed to be serious and moments that are just ‘slice of life’ hijinks.”

I hadn’t taken into account that, although it was a “mystery”, it functioned more like a “comedy”, like God of Bath.

I feel as though the Webtoon was miscategorized. I use God of Bath as an example because it could have easily been categorized under “Action”, because of the Ttaemiri battles. But despite these battles, because of the way dialogue is presented, it is understandably under the comedy genre. Moreover, the action was more of a vehicle to tell the stories and values of the characters themselves. In other words, even if you were to take out these action elements, God of Bath would be fundamentally the same.

But according to my logic, does this mean that if this webtoon didn’t have mystery elements, it would be fundamentally the same?

No, and I do not think it would be the same if the webtoon didn’t have the comedy elements either.

To be perfectly clear, just because I think Garden Club Detective Squad is a comedy, it doesn’t mean that I think it shouldn’t present mystery elements, or vice-versa. But I wish Webtoon could at the very least categorize it as both a “mystery” and “comedy”.

Who knows, maybe my opinion will change as more and more chapters get uploaded. Or rather, I hope it does.

Personally, despite my position towards the webtoon being a comedy, it isn’t all that funny.

And as of the currently uploaded chapters, I think the mystery is all right.

In my opinion, what makes a good mystery is having all the clues presented to the characters and the reader to be able to solve the case. To understand 52chu’s take on mystery, I’ll break down the first suspect, Hyeongsu. Take this scene the beginning of episode 6 for example:

This scene is trying to insinuate that Hyeongsu is the killer. The dramatic irony of this scene, Saessak’s photo of Hyeongsu dumping bones in the garden, and the story deliberately pointing out that there are no cameras in the cafeteria/garden area are the three pieces of information the story provides to help the indirect claim.

(A panel from Episode 8 ^)

(A Panel from Episode 9 ^)

(A panel from episode 8 ^)

But it was all a misunderstanding. Whoops, my bad. “I was just trying to help you all”.

(A panel from episode 9 ^)

It's almost comical how much the plot just wanted to frame Hyeongsu, I can’t help but laugh.

All forms of evidence lead to Hyeongsu, except the fact that the bones were the remnants of ribs from past cafeteria specials:

(Panel from episode 9 ^)

If you were able to pick up the possibility, then great. But somehow, Hyeongsu’s mini-arc just fell flat for me. Whether you knew this one detail or not, it feels like I’m going to be dragged from suspect to suspect in the future. Everyone one of them will be the “killer” except for that one contrivance that makes them innocent. Honestly, I firmly believe that it isn’t any of the faculty.

You know what, here's my Trademark 8Requiems theory. The culprit is Chair Juyeong.

(A panel from Episode 6 ^)

I don’t mind the club reaching dead ends, but if there aren’t elements that could at least help me identify who the real culprit is, I doubt I could enjoy it as much as I’d like to.

Conclusion:

Reading and understanding this Webtoon has been somewhat of a ride. Although it is still ongoing, I have mixed feelings on whether or not I want to continue reading. But despite the gripes that I have with it at the moment, I think I will continue reading it just to see where 52chu takes the story.

You will likely enjoy this Webtoon if you like stories where the plot focuses on the reader having fun with the misadventures of the cast.

But what do you guys think? Do you think my criticism was unfounded? Do you think it really *IS* a mystery, and that I am looking at this Webtoon in the wrong light? Talk about it in the comments below.

And as always,

Arrivederci Brothers. May you attain your grain.

#Webtoon #Webcomic #Webcomics #Garden Club Detective Squad #GCDS #WebtoonReview #WebcomicReview #WizardOfArsenia #Wizard of Arsenia

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somegirlsnerdywords2 · 4 years ago

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Anime i’ve Watched

That begin with a H (Part 3)!

Yep this is how i’m going to bring over all the anime and manga i’ve watched and posted about on the old blog. It’s not so detailed but it will have to do. Anything new I watch or read from this point on will have their own posts.

Hetalia Axis Powers:

Genres: ONA, comedy, historical, parody

Synopsis: What if nations were people? What traits would they have? What would this mean for historical events? Hetalia Axis Powers takes these questions and runs with them, personifying countries into characters. The show takes a comedic and light approach to politics and historical events while educating the viewer. Taking place primarily during the events of World War I and World War II, the story focuses on the Axis Powers and occasionally throws the spotlight onto the tumultuous relationship between the Allied Forces. The Axis Powers feature the titular character North Italy, who is clumsy, carefree and loves pasta; Germany, who is very serious but easily flustered; and Japan, who is stoic but has bizarre interests. Based on Hidekaz Himaruya's widely popular webcomic turned print manga, Hetalia Axis Powers is a historical comedy that pokes lightly at culture, examines the relationships between nations and breathes fun into history. [Written By MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2010 with a total of 52, 5 minute long episodes.

My Thoughts: What an odd but fun concept. I originally did episode reviews for this one and unfortunately was unable to ever view the remaining seasons. Can’t really say whether i’d suggest this one or not but it certainly was interesting. Could potentially be something that someone who was really into world history would be into.

Himouto! Umaru-chan:

Genres: comedy, school, seinen, slice of life

Synopsis: People are not always who they appear to be, as is the case with Umaru Doma, the perfect high school girl—that is, until she gets home! Once the front door closes, the real fun begins. When she dons her hamster hoodie, she transforms from a refined, over-achieving student into a lazy, junk food-eating otaku, leaving all the housework to her responsible older brother Taihei. Whether she's hanging out with her friends Nana Ebina and Kirie Motoba, or competing with her self-proclaimed "rival" Sylphinford Tachibana, Umaru knows how to kick back and have some fun! Himouto! Umaru-chan is a cute story that follows the daily adventures of Umaru and Taihei, as they take care of—and put up with—each other the best they can, as well as the unbreakable bonds between friends and siblings. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2015 with a total of 12 episodes.

My thoughts: Now this was a comedy anime that I loved! The character deign was adorable and the comedy was enjoyable. Something light hearted and fun for your viewing pleasure!

Himouto! Umaru-chan R:

Genres: comedy, school, seinen, slice of life

Synopsis: Umaru Doma is a model student who has a hidden side: when she gets home each day, she puts on her hamster hoodie and turns into a sluggish otaku fond of junk food. As Umaru continues these daily antics, the friendship between her and her classmates—Nana Ebina, Kirie Motoba, and Sylphinford Tachibana—deepens, and more and more interesting events begin to unfold.Of course, these events give rise to numerous questions. What did Nana ask of Umaru's brother Taihei? Who is the mysterious girl with the diamond hairpin? And most important of all: why does this girl seem to know Umaru? These questions and more will be answered in Himouto! Umaru-chan R![Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2017 with a total of 12 episodes.

My Thoughts: The comedy continues into the second season! Though to be fair I felt that something about it was just the slightest bit off... like a small bit of its original charm was missing. Still and extremely enjoyable season overall but not as amazing as the first. Or perhaps my taste had simply changed.

Hinamatsuri:

Genres: comedy, sci-fi, seinen, slice of life, supernatural

Synopsis: While reveling in the successful clinching of a prized vase for his collection, Yoshifumi Nitta, a yakuza member, is rudely interrupted when a large, peculiar capsule suddenly materializes and falls on his head. He opens the capsule to reveal a young, blue-haired girl, who doesn't divulge anything about herself but her name—Hina—and the fact that she possesses immense powers. As if things couldn't get any worse, she loses control and unleashes an explosion if her powers remain unused. Faced with no other choice, Nitta finds himself becoming her caregiver. To let her use her powers freely, Nitta asks Hina to help out with a construction deal, which goes smoothly. But while this is happening, a rival yakuza group covertly attacks his boss. To Nitta's shock, his colleagues later pin the blame on him! Tasked with attacking the rival group in retaliation, Nitta steels himself and arrives at their hideout. But suddenly, Hina unexpectedly steps in and helps him wipe out the entire group. As it turns out, Hina might just become a valuable asset to Nitta and his yakuza business, provided she does not use her powers on him first! And so the strange life of this unusual duo begins. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2018 with a total of 12 episodes.

My Thoughts: Any character in a comedy that has a completely deadpan expression and generally colourless tone of voice is sure to be my favourite. This is entirely true of Hinamatsuri, though to be fair I loved the entire cast of characters. The characters, art and comedy are all strong points of this anime. Another light one to enjoy when you may be feeling a bit down!

Hitorijime My Hero:

Genres: drama, romance, school, shounen ai, slice of life

Synopsis: Masahiro Setagawa is a hopeless teenager who is often used by the neighborhood bullies as an errand boy. Defenseless, Masahiro knows that nobody will ever save him. However, his life drastically changes when he meets Kousuke Ooshiba, a man known as the "Bear Killer," who takes down neighborhood gangs. A year later, Masahiro and his former friend, Kensuke Ooshiba, attend high school, only to find that Kousuke is their math teacher. While the three grow closer, Masahiro starts to view Kousuke as his "hero," and Kousuke develops an urging desire to protect Masahiro. However, their normal lives take a turn when Kensuke's childhood friend, Asaya Hasekura, returns, seeing Kensuke as more than just a friend, much to his surprise. Will the three boys be able to live a regular high school life? Or will forbidden love keep them apart forever? [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 7/10

Finished airing in 2017 with a total of 12 episodes.

My Thoughts: Not an amazing shounen ai but certainly one of the better ones that have made it to anime. None of that creepy dubious consent or abuse here. Bit of an age difference but there isn’t any racy, sexy time so it’s all good. A cute and mostly innocent romance. Nothing amazing but fine enough.

Honobono Log:

Genres:

Synopsis: Some of us are fortunate enough to have a partner to confide in on our bad days. In even the most devastating times, we can depend on our comrades for support. Others are incredibly lucky to have a special someone that they can just randomly embrace. No matter the situation, there always tends to be a close ally to help us get by. Honobono Log showcases the best and worst of couples and families, enticing romantic-comedy lovers with various relatable situations.

My Rating: 7/10

Finished airing in 2016 with a total of 10 episodes.

My Thoughts: Bite sized glimpses into the romantic lives of a handful of characters. Cute and occasionally touching. Nice artwork.

#hetalia axis powers #anime #himouto! umaru chan #himouto! Umaru chan R #hinamatsuri #hitorijime my hero #honobono log

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homespork-review · 5 years ago

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Homespork Act 1: The Note Dawdling Tension Plays (Part 3)

CHEL: John heads outside, finally, but finds the mailbox empty and the car locked with a package inside. It seems he’ll have to confront his father to get the game he seeks. And then, we get the internet equivalent of a splash page, with ominous wind chimes, slow-pan animation, and lyrical text.

You have a feeling it's going to be a long day.

Regarding the term “ominous”, it applies in ways Hussie intended, implying the strangeness to come, but also in ways he may not have. Notice anything absent from that animation? Go on, guess.

FAILURE ARTIST: John’s neighborhood is more bland than Privet Drive.

CHEL: True, but “character” wasn’t really what I meant. What would one expect to see at least one of, in a nice suburban neighbourhood, even a bland one, in the daytime, when we know John’s dad is home from work, even if through a window? What are we not seeing here?

FAILURE ARTIST: No people and not even any pets.

CHEL: Hot dog, we have a wiener. Not character, characters. There are no signs of life at all. Not even a wild bird. Now, John is the focal character here, so that might come under the heading of unnecessary detail, but considering what happens later, this becomes very creepy. The big dangerous thing has not happened yet, so there should still be people in the neighbourhood, and the sound of wind chimes implies at least one of those houses is inhabited. But we don’t see them. Come to think of it, John never mentions his school at all, nor any other friends apart from the other kids featured in the comic, and nor do they. It’s as if they literally sprang into existence on that day and got plopped down in place just in time to be in the comic.

FAILURE ARTIST: Given that John is home in the middle of what would be a school day I think he might be home-schooled.

CHEL: That didn’t occur to me. I’m a Brit and I guess I was thinking “Easter break”, but the school year pattern in the US is different. But that raises further questions. Doesn’t he know any local kids? His dad works full-time and he has no other family - when does his dad find the time?

FAILURE ARTIST: Maybe it would be Spring Break in Washington State. I don’t know.

CHEL: Regardless, it’s eerie. If he’s home-schooled, he still ought to have some local friends or at least be on wave-hello terms with neighbours, unless he really is stuck in his bedroom almost all the time. I’m tempted to add an ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY point for the implication that John’s been raised locked in a room, but that’s just silly speculation so I won’t.

While on the topic, John does live in a literal suburb, but I’m not going to give points for WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM here. That count is for when the characters’ behaviour comes across as white/suburban/wealthy and that contradicts how the author is trying to present them. John is supposed to be the everyman figure with an ordinary life, living in a regular respectable town.

Let’s move on. It’s time to confront the Parental Figure.

TIER: John finds himself heading to the kitchen to retrieve his game, and it's now that we get a good look at his dad, along with one of the neat little details about Homestuck's world being brought to the forefront.

I am of course, talking about STRIFE!

"[S] John: Enter and Strife!" (Watch on YouTube)

The more or less fighting system for lack of my vocabulary, and seemingly a thing you just do in this world.

CHEL: John gets to actually use his “hammerkind” weapon, and Dad’s preferred method of combat is offering yet more cake.

FAILURE ARTIST: John threatens his father with a hammer. In the real world, this would be horrifying. But it’s not in this video game world. The other Beta Kids have “STRIFE” with their parents and in only one case does it end up as being treated seriously. Yet that will wait to be seen.

CHEL: One case which is significantly less disturbing than one of the other cases, in some ways. But yes, that’s for later. To be fair, John could have been trying to hit the cake with the hammer, not his dad, but most parents still wouldn’t be pleased to have their kids waving hammers in their direction regardless.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 2

TIER: After a short few rounds, John manages to properly distract his dad and successfully gets to his mail. A winner is you Johnny boy. Then we find ourselves with another hit of sylladex fuckery happening, joyous.

When we get back to John's room, it's pesterlog time, this time with a little sneak peak at the last of our fabulous foursome of thirteen years olds, gardenGnostic, or GG! They're only present for three short lines, but damn if they aren't pretty telling. From what little is seen they're an overall pretty chipper person, and to me at least adorable with those emojis.

CHEL: The beta’s finally in John’s hands, after all that effort to get it. So what do we do now? Why, it seems like a great time to go waste some time reading an entirely different imaginary webcomic promoting Hussie’s other work! Though, to be fair, the Midnight Crew will turn out to be relevant later. Keep that name in mind.

FAILURE ARTIST: The Midnight Crew actually started as the OCs of Problem Sleuth fan Mayonka who paid to have a extra episode.

CHEL: And then, FINALLY, he installs the thing, and it... gives us a loading page, and he goes off to read up on data structures and fuck about with his fucking sylladex some more!

TIER: The sylladex thing really knows how to wear its welcome thin with the shenanigans, thought I'll admit that John getting a razor embedded into the face of one of his posters was amusing in how dangerous the dang thing can be.

GET ON WITH IT!: 3

"Get on with it! (Monty Python)" (Watch on YouTube)

CHEL: Because I’m feeling bitter, I’m adding another point too!

HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 5 The Lost Sock - wherein the plot is too slight Here the main conflict is barely adequate to sustain a Partridge Family episode. Remember that this drama has to carry the reader through 300-odd pages. The central dilemma of a novel should be important enough to change someone’s life forever.

Our main plot hasn’t been introduced yet, so as far as the reader knows, what’s happening now is the plot. Getting a video game out of the kitchen should not take this long and is not much of an epic adventure! By now, Hussie’s committed almost all of the sins listed in HNTWAN’s section on beginning a story! NOTHING IS HAPPENING!

Okay, something happens. It’s not plot, but it’s adorable. John opens the birthday present from Dave, to discover a souvenir of his favourite movie; the very stuffed bunny prop featured in Con Air. Look at how happy he is!

TIER: I do believe that up to this point, there hasn't been much of a plot, just people doing stuff. It's boring in the same way that someone telling you about an average day is, not much going on to be honest.

FAILURE ARTIST: I enjoyed reading Act 1 when I first read it but I was coming in under no expectation. Homestuck as a deep meaningful story hadn’t begun yet.

CHEL: Okay, NOW a thing is happening. The game is installed, on comes the loading page, and… Well, that’s peculiar. Now, at last, we see what the big deal with this game is. It permits TT, who installed the “server” section of the game while John installed the “client” section, to reach into his actual bedroom with the cursor and move things around, place bizarre-looking machinery in the rooms, or even add parts to his house a la The Sims. Now that’s a game worth the hype it got! Too bad it took almost 140 pages to actually reveal this.

The kids don’t seem very surprised by all this, yet the reviewer hadn’t heard the game could do that. One would think even such a disaffected dudebro would be curious about that, if he knew. Maybe the game really does have some kind of built-in failsafe to keep adults away?

FAILURE ARTIST: This is a world people have inventories instead of pockets and an RPG battle starts every time you argue with your parents.

CHEL: Does that apply to all people in it, though, or just the lead characters? They are, as it turns out, special already, and we never see a person who’s not involved.

John wants to try moving things around, but he needs the “server” CD-ROM to do so, which is still in the car. TT’s attempts to help result in not only a large machine called a “Cruxtruder” blocking the front door, but also the toilet, which John earlier accidentally filled with cake during sylladex shenanigans, being ripped out and dropped in the yard, and the bathtub similarly ending up in the hallway, which is pretty funny, I admit.

EB: you can see me, right. EB: tell me what is wrong with this picture.

Perhaps sylladex shenanigans could be trimmed without being deleted entirely. SBurb shenanigans, similarly, are funny but might possibly do better to be compressed into fewer pages, but that’s not as big a deal, I think. The shenanigans aren’t entirely TT’s fault; she keeps losing her internet connection due to bad weather. GG’s earlier mention of an explosion near their home implies that things are starting to happen around them, too. Meantime, John finds a sledgehammer, a much better weapon, the implication being he’s going to need one, even if he turns out to be unable to lift it. TT helps him to hit the Cruxtruder with it, and said machine produces a glowing… thing and starts a four-minutes-and-thirteen-seconds countdown. Countdowns are never good in this context.

The glowing thing is a Kernelsprite, which needs to be “prototyped”, so into it goes the harlequin doll, causing it to take on the shape of a harlequin’s head and hand. Attempts to use the mysterious machinery TT has deployed result in the production of a shiny blue cylinder called a cruxite dowel and three green cubes labelled by the game as Perfectly Generic Objects, using up the game’s abstract building currency dubbed Build Grist. Wasting time playing with the machinery proves to be an unwise idea, however, as John looks into the sky and sees…

Even worse than the meteor heading directly for his house, Dad is coming back!

FAILURE ARTIST: THIS is where I came in. It is the most impressive flash animation so far. It is still awkwardly animated compared to later ones.

CHEL: I think it’s one of his earlier efforts, so I wouldn’t say it was bad. It succintly gets the point across and it’s better animated than anything I could do.

John messages TT again.

EB: oh man who cares about the bathroom, now there's a meteor heading for my house!!! TT: I see. TT: Do you suppose it has anything to do with the game? EB: i don't know, maybe! what do i do! TT: I think it's very likely. TT: The walkthroughs vaguely suggest an impending threat before they end. TT: The already poorly constructed sentences become even more curt and ambiguous. TT: As if written hastily and with a sense of alarm. TT: Actually, their dedication to updating the walkthrough under such circumstances is admirable.

TT concludes that if the meteor is caused by the game, succeeding at a game objective must be the way to stop it, and investigates while John talks to TG, resulting in one of my favourite conversations in the comic, but also leading into another count.

EB: we'll talk later if i am still alive and the earth isn't blown up. TG: like the size of texas TG: or just rhode island TG: theyre always throwing around these geographical comparisons to give us a sense of scale like it really means anything to us TG: but its like it doesnt matter its always just like: WOW THATS PRETTY FUCKING BIG TG: like mr president theres a meteor coming sir. oh yeah, how big is it? its the size of texas sir TG: OH SHIT TG: or, how big is it? its the size of new york city sir TG: OH SHIT TG: sir im afraid the comet is the size of your moms dick TG: OH SNAP TG: sir are you familiar with jupiter TG: you mean like the planet? TG: yeah TG: well its that big sir TG: hmm that sounds pretty big TG: i have a question TG: is it jupiter? TG: yes sir, earth is literally under seige by planet fucking jupiter TG: OH SHIT TG: anyway later

I don’t know if TG is supposed to believe John here. If he is, then we get another count:

HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 1

FAILURE ARTIST: Hate to be a killjoy but the line about your mom’s dick is transphobic.

CHEL: My original intention with the PROBLEMATYKKS count was to point out cases where it wasn’t justified by the character saying it, so I wasn't going to count this. Thirteen-year-old boys trying to be witty say all sorts of awful bullshit. Though the writer’s old enough to know better and it didn’t ever get called out, so yeah, okay, I’ll expand the original intention.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 4

The rest of it’s still funny, though. Besides, I was more immediately concerned with the fact that TG seems remarkably unconcerned about the possible risk to his friend’s life. There isn’t really anything he could do about it even if he tried, obviously, but one would expect he’d at least say “oh shit, run!” or something. This will become a recurring pattern in the comic, as will be shown fairly soon, hence the DO NOTHING count.

FAILURE ARTIST: I think that conversation is also from real life. Hussie and a friend talked about meteor movie conventions and Hussie decided to use it. However, I assume during that conversation they weren’t threatened by an actual meteor.

CHEL: Possibly he’d have done better to make it clearer that TG did not believe John actually had a meteor heading for him. John is a known joker, after all. It would be quite easy, and I would have assumed that in a comic which had had fewer unremarked wacky happenings already.

Dad Egbert is also remarkably calm about the bathtub in the hallway. TT’s attempt to move it is foiled when her connection is lost, causing her to drop it in front of John’s bedroom door, trapping him inside. John is now on his own.

#homespork #homestuck #homestuck meta #literary critique #sporking #homestuck reread #homestuck review #homestuck let's read

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chemicalmagecraft · 5 years ago

Text

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 2

A/N: Wow, thanks for all you guys who left nice reviews and stuff. Sorry it took me so long to update, but I had a play I had to go to a lot of practices for, which was especially annoying because of the four scenes I was in, I only had an important role in one.

To LadyCalus, I have no idea how to do that.

To the user known as Iliekfishes, I would like to say that, while I do not appreciate your tone, I do appreciate that you gave me some criticism. Now, to address what you said, I said that I hadn't seen any My Hero Academia/Gamer fanfiction, which was at the time true. I have, however, checked some out after you pointed that out to me. If it bothers you that much, though, I can edit it if you ask nicely. As for the formatting, I do admit to using Ryuji's The Games We Play as a sort of reference for the formatting, as I remember that that fanfic was very faithful in formatting to the original webcomic and I couldn't remember how exactly it went. Now, while I can deal with you insulting me to a certain point, I would prefer you not call the other viewers names. I also have no clue what "almost all the tension is midigated by cannon" means. Finally, while I didn't mean to make it seem like I was anyone's gift to fanfiction aside from my own, much less God's, I do apologize if I unintentionally gave off that vibe. If you can possibly think of any tips to not sound like a jackass, I would be willing and grateful to hear them out. Sorry for putting you on the spot like that, but you did call people who were nice to me dumbasses, which I very much do not appreciate.

To Voltrasin, I understand your confusion, but the reason why Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady had ? for titles is because Izuku can't see the titles and levels of anyone fifty or more levels over his. Should've made that more clear, sorry. And yes, all heroes will have their hero names as their titles.

Also, I forgot to include map and quest log to the main menu. Fixed it, but I figured I should let you know

Now, on with the story!

xoxoxo

I stared at the pile of sludge in front of me. "Well, kid, seems like you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately for you, I need a disguise." Ping. I looked at the new text box.

A new skill has been created through special action! Repeated exposure to bloodthirst has created the skill 'Sense Bloodthirst' to sense ill will.

Yeah, no thanks. I jumped out of the way as he lunged at me. "Observe"

Name: Kurosawa Shou

Title: Sludge Monster

Level: 26

HP: 1600/1600

MP: 500/500

STR: 30

VIT: 39

DEX: 34

INT: 16

WIS: 6

LUC: 6

Quirk: Sludge Body

Emotions: Grateful, bloodthirsty

Status: Sludge body

"Itadakimasu!" the slime said as part of his body shot out and stuck to my ankle. I gasped and quickly bent down to try and tear him off of me before he could do anything more to me. Unfortunately, my fingers slipped through him with little resistance. "Get over here!" he yelled, and I was yanked into him. As I was painfully dragged across the ground, I heard a ping, but I was a little too distracted by the sludge villain trying to eat me or something. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get away from him before he submerged me in himself and started trying to force himself down my throat. It was at this moment that I noticed something in the corner of my eye that I could somehow see perfectly fine.

HP: 184/250

MP: 275/275

And the HP was slowly going down as I struggled with the sludge villain. That was not a good sign. I struggled harder, but I couldn't get out. I thought I was going to die there. I heard another ping and looked up, hoping it was something I could use.

A new skill has been created through special action! Through repeatedly enduring damage, the skill 'Physical Endurance' has been created.

Due to struggling while unable to breathe, your VIT has raised by one!

Crap. Normally that would be good, but I couldn't use them to escape. My HP was still draining and my vision was starting to go dark. "Am I going to die here?" I thought. Just before I blacked out, though, I heard something.

"TEXAS SMASH!"

xoxoxo

When I came to, someone was lightly slapping me on the cheek. "Hey! Wake up!" a familiar voice said. I groaned and looked up to see... "Whew! Thought we lost you there!"

LV?

Toshinori Yagi

The name wasn't familiar, but there was no mistaking who the large, muscled, blonde man was. "ALL MIGHT!" I scrambled to my feet, now aware that I had been rescued by my idol. "Can I have your autograph?" He grinned and pointed at my hero analysis notebook, which must have slipped out of my backpack during the struggle. I opened it to the All Might page and beamed at the autograph that he'd written on it. "THANK YOU!"

"Good to hear it, kid! Always great to see a fan! Nowifyoudon'tmindmeIhavetogoturnthisvillainin!" He rushed out that last part while pointing to two soda bottles that the villain was stuffed in and then jumped away. Of course, by then... "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, KID?! LET GO!" I had stupidly grabbed onto his leg.

"If I let go I'll die!" I yelled back over the wind.

"GOOD POINT!" he said. He landed on a nearby roof and let me off. "I have to go now! Knock on the door and someone should let you down!" He made to jump again.

"Wait!" I yelled and closed my eyes. "All my life, I've looked up to you. I've wanted to be a hero just like you. But... my Quirk has only just surfaced. I'm sure it has potential, but it's going to take a lot of training for me to be able to use it as a hero. Even with potential, though, the exams to get into Yuuei are in ten months. Do you think I can still get into Yuuei?" I looked at him for an answer, but... "WHAT!?"

All Might

LV 9

Toshinori Yagi

If it weren't for the title confirming it, I'd have thought that he was a different person. Sure, he was blonde and very tall, but he was almost literally skin and bones! I guess whatever the hell just happened to him to make him a scarecrow was also what lowered his level, but... "Observe"

Name: Toshinori Yagi

Title: All Might

Level: 9

HP: 500/500

MP: 1100/1100

STR: 11

VIT: 4

DEX: 19

INT: 52

WIS: 35

LUC: 9

Quirk: One For All

Emotions: Annoyed, concerned

Status: Totally Fucked Up

"What happened to you, All Might?"

He sighed, then coughed up some blood. "Before I say anything, I need you to promise me you won't say a word of this to anyone. Don't go blabbing about this online, don't tell your friends, don't even say anything to your family. Got it?"

I nodded vigorously. "I won't tell anyone. It's obviously a big deal."

He sat down and raised up his now-baggy shirt, revealing a giant wound on his... everywhere... that could only be described as "Totally Fucked Up." It looked like someone took a fusion between a sledgehammer and a blender to his chest. "I was in a really bad fight five years ago. Took the villain down, but not before getting this ugly thing in return. By all rights, I should've died by now. Luckily, I 'only' got off with constantly coughing up blood and only being able to do hero work three hours a day."

"Toxic Chainsaw couldn't do that do you!"

"You really know your heroes, huh? No, it was another fight. I made sure nobody would hear about it, otherwise there'd have been a lot of panic. Kid, if you wanna be a hero, maybe you should wait a bit. Put it off 'til college or something, when you can actually use your Quirk." He got up and left through the door. I just stood there, stunned. Then I saw a giant explosion. "That's either a villain or Kacchan snapped," I said. "I wonder which one." Ping. "What's that?"

A quest has been created!

A quest?

What Now, Kacchan!?

You just saw an explosion! Maybe you should investigate.

Time limit: 30 minutes.

Well, I had nothing better to do... I looked down to see what I assumed were the rewards.

Completion: 2000 EXP, ?, ?, ?.

Failure: Bakugou Katsuki dies.

Okay. Definitely doing that now. Even if it could be considered vigilante work, I really didn't want Kacchan to die. I decided to run for it.

xoxoxo

When I got there, I saw a crowd of people standing just outside of the safe area. I pushed my way through the crowd to see the sludge villain from earlier in the middle of a flaming street, struggling with someone who was inside him. "Did he get loose when I grabbed onto All Might?" I thought. "Is this my fault?" I looked at the titles.

Sludge Monster

LV 26

Kurosawa Shou

Lord Explosion Murder

LV 14

Bakugou Katsuki

It was Kacchan in there! Before I knew what was happening, I was running in there. Ping. I looked at the text box.

New objective! Save Bakugou.

Welp. Looks like I made the right call. I focused back on the sludge villain in time to see him turning towards me. "You came back for some more, huh, kid? Well I'll kill you if you want it so badly!" The sludge villain looked like he was about to lunge, so I threw my backpack at his face. He flinched and yelled at me. I ran up to him and started tearing at the sludge around Kacchan's face. I heard a ping but didn't stop to look at it. I managed to get the sludge off of Kacchan's mouth. He gasped, coughed a bit, and then yelled, "GET AWAY, FUCKING DEKU! YOU'RE GONNA DIE!" That was either a death threat or he was actually concerned about me. Either way, my response was the same.

"What kind of hero would I be if I let you die?" I would've said something else, but my Sense Danger activated and I jumped back just in time to not get hit by a gooey punch.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" The sludge villain yelled. I would've done something but then I heard a pair of pings.

"I'M PATHETIC! DETROIT! SMASH!" a familiar voice yelled. A rush of air extinguished all of the fires and somehow blew the sludge villain apart while leaving Kacchan untouched. A few seconds later it randomly started raining. I looked to where the blast originated and saw All-Might standing there. "I'm sorry, boys."

xoxoxo

"What were you thinking!? You could have gotten yourself killed!" The heroes were not happy I rushed in there. I didn't really want to pay attention to their lectures, so I just looked at my text boxes. One of them congratulated me on how I made some sort of ripping skill my tearing the sludge off of Kacchan. It didn't look too good, but maybe I could work with it. The other one, though...

Congratulations! The quest What Now, Kacchan!? was completed!

Completion Rewards: 2000 EXP, Increased closeness with Toshinori Yagi, Access to the Skill Grimoir system, 3000 Skill Fragments

Your level has increased by one!

That... was something. At least I was level six now, even if I had no idea what a Skill Grimoir system was. Or what the heck I do with Skill Fragments. All I knew was that a bunch of balls like Munny from Kingdom Hearts swirled around me before getting absorbed into my body after All Might hit the villain, which apparently everyone saw and I had to explain that I had no idea what the heck happened there to the heroes. Turns out that random balls getting absorbed into the idiot kid who stupidly ran into the villain attack is normally a red flag of some sort. Specifically that, apparently. That is a really specific scenario to be wary of. At any rate, they eventually let me go when I promised that I wouldn't do anything too stupid without adult supervision. I was walking home when...

"HEY! DEKU!" A fuming Kacchan shoved himself at my face. "I DON'T EVER NEED YOUR HELP! IF YOU EVER TRY TO BAIL ME OUT LIKE THAT AGAIN, I'LL KILL YOU!" Just to make his point, he let out an explosion aimed at the sky as he walked away. I sighed and continued along my way... for all of five seconds before All Might ran out in front of me.

"I AM HERE!"

"All Might! What are you doing here? Weren't you speaking to the press?"

"HA HA HA HA! I STAND FOR JUSTICE, NOT SOUNDBITES! FOR I, I AM ALL MI-plghght!" He started to go on this big speech before spewing out blood and shrinking down to his civilian form. I gave him a few minutes to clean himself off before he said, "Young man, I came to thank you and apologize. If you hadn't told me that you couldn't use your Quirk, if you hadn't ran in there... I would've been a worthless bystander, too afraid to do anything. So thanks."

"All Might, I-"

"I'm not done. You told me you couldn't really use your power, so when I saw this boy who might as well be Quirkless try to save a life, it inspired me too. There are stories about every hero, how they became great. Most have one thing in common. Their bodies moved before they had a chance to think, almost on their own. And today, that's what happened to you." I'm not going to lie, I teared up at this part. A lot. "Young man, you too can become a hero!"

"I-I don't know what too say! Thank you!"

"And I'm going to give you my Quirk, too!"

"Wait, what?"

"My Quirk. It's called One For All. It's a special power that can be passed on from one generation to the next, cultivated by one user then given on to a successor." He patted the OH GOD wound. "I won't be able to be a hero much longer, so I've been meaning to find someone to give One For All. It's actually why I came here. So, kid. Whaddya say? Wanna be the next All Might?"

midoriyaizuku.exe has stopped working. Reboot? Y/N

"WHAT!?" I yelled.

"I want you to be my successor. I'll also help train you to use your Quirk even if you don't want my Quirk, so don't worry about that."

I bowed. "All Might, I'd be honored!"

"Great, kid! Let's trade phone numbers." All Might asked me for my phone number. ALL MIGHT ASKED ME FOR MY PHONE NUMBER! I gave him my phone number and he gave me mine. "I'll call you when I get everything ready. See you then!" He then walked off. I spent the rest of my walk home in silence, contemplating what just happened today. It was so crazy! But one thing was for sure. One thing that I had to do the second I got home. I walked in the door and immediately said, "Mom! I have to tell you something!"

Mom immediately came running and said, "What is it, honey?" She looked a little nervous.

I gulped. "Mom," I said, "I have a Quirk." The look on her face, that look of relief, joy, and excitement, was something I knew I'd cherish for years to come.

xoxoxo

A/N: Oh, snap! Ain't this a twist! Yeah, I'm way too much of a wuss to deal with the implications of Izuku being able to print money and I didn't know how to get Izuku magic without flat-out introducing magic otherwise, so I just combined the two problems into one solution. Izuku's going to figure out what that Skill Fragment and Skill Grimoir thing does soon, and I won't say anything more until them. Also yes, Izuku is going to make progressively more video game references if I can remember to do it. Seriously, the Gamer needs game shout-outs!

Anyways, I'll see y'all next time! Let's hope I manage to update this thing sometime within a month next!

#The Gamer Hero Deku #Gamer Hero Deku #fanfiction #GHD CH2 #BNHA

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dragonheadskilax · 6 years ago

Note

Whomst may you be boi

Ah so ya want my biography eh, here we gooo:

I’m currently an art student somehwere in LA to get a career in doodling. As far as my creative input I am very flexible with materials. So I am proficient in charcoals, paint, fabrics, and styles. Here’s the last costume I made

Despite my tendency to wanna isolate myself to my desk I have the tendency to go places, heres an image of me at the upper balcony at a premiere for short films expo which Ive designed a poster for one of them

For three years I’ve worked on my own webcomic called Schmaltz. It was spawned from my extensive knowledge and research in LGBT+ history before the 1950s, especially the early 20th century tee hee. Sometimes I think i’m adding in more stuff that should be allowed but after reading the biographies of Quintin Crisp and Bruz Fletcher, two gay men from the 1930s, I was totally historically accurate pppfff history was sure a lot gayer than folks give credit for.

But this is all just my art stuff, other things I do is play lots of video games and posts videos. One game that’s a special interest of mine is the CD-ROM The Museum Of Anything Goes. If you love the obscure and surreal then you should check out the blog I made to archive everything and make edits of!

Another hobby of mine is the collection and restoration of just about any antique I get my hands on. One of my prized pieces is a 1940′s melodeon I’ve spent the most on keeping in good condition. If you wanna see more old things or my fitting 1920′s-esque fashion sense you can go lookie on my Instagram

So with all this info, you wanna know more of just who I am… I’m just a young guy who lives with a family of four in a one bedroom apartment. I’m bisexual, mixed racial (black, mexican, cambodian), and a transguy with Big Dingus Energy. I still am very lonely when it comes to getting a hold of friends in real life because I’m selectively mute for various reasons, and no solidified social skills. Despite all this and the traumas i’ve had growing up I have a strong urge to only be a positive force for folks, making as many friends as possible and to only think positively, even clowning around at the worst of times…

So I guess this is whomst i am

#me #ask #dragon talk

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distractedhistotech · 6 years ago

Text

Rare Crossover

I have yet another weird crossover idea. Here we go!

It’s a Mystery Skulls Animated/Grrlpower (It’s a webcomic.) crossover! Sydney Scoville Jr. from Grrlpower is the fourth human member of the group. If you haven’t read Grrlpower, go give it a look, especially if you’re a huge geek and like superhero comics. The basic idea behind it is that superheroes are real, and Sydney is a huge comic geek with severe ADHD who works in a comic shop and stumbled upon some powerful artifacts that gave her powers, allowing her to join a superhero team. There’s also a lot of lampshade hanging.

Hm…explaining what’s going on in the videos requires a lot of backstory so we’ll start when everyone was in elementary school. Sydney’s family had recently moved to Tempo, and she was starting partway into the new school year. A few boys decided to establish dominance over the much smaller girl with the weird name. She won the fight.

The fight kind of alienated Sydney so the only kid she could eat with at lunch was the other odd new kid: Lewis Pepper. They discovered that they both liked spicy food and started combining and sharing their lunches while talking about their likes and hobbies. They had enough in common that the two started spending time together outside of school.

The Peppers happen to live in a former funeral home bordering a cemetery. Lewis is used to playing in said cemetery, especially since he’s a medium who can interact with ghosts. When Sydney starts coming over, he brings her along even though she can’t actually interact with the ghosts. She still believes him about ghosts hanging around, and that’s enough for him.

After a few weeks, Lewis realizes that some of the ghosts are avoiding her and some have gone missing, including some of the nastier ones. It isn’t until he sees one particularly depressed ghost hanging onto Sydney and realizing said ghost is fading away that he figures out that Sydney is causing it somehow.

Lewis asks Sydney. All she can do is shrug her shoulders because she has no idea what is going on. Lewis tries asking the ghosts instead. They’re not sure what’s going on either. It doesn’t seem bad. They just get sort of tired when they’re around her. The nastier spirits seem to be outright repelled. Only that one ghost that’s hanging onto Sydney actually faded away. The other missing ghosts just decided to relocate because they found Sydney’s presence uncomfortable. The few times Sydney’s father has come over, he’s given off the same aura, but when the kids asked him about it, he didn’t know what they were talking about either. Eventually, they just write it off as an unexplainable ability like Lewis’ medium abilities.

The two stay friends and in middle school Lewis notices a bunch of nasty spirits following around a particular depressed student. The two decide to try and hang out with him so Sydney can keep them away. After a few weeks, the student has become more comfortable with Lewis and Sydney and they become friends. That student was Arthur.

Shortly afterwards, Arthur introduces them to his friend Vivi. He met her because he gets protective charms from her father and grandmother. These two figure out that Lewis and Sydney had special abilities but decided not to bring it up. Vivi is happy to see Arthur is making more friends besides her and welcomes them whole-heartedly. Besides, Mystery seems to like them, and he is an excellent judge of character.

The two become close friends and spend their free time with each other. Vivi invites them to join her ghost hunting club in high school, which would eventually evolve into the Mystery Skulls, especially after she figures out that her three friends all have relevant abilities. It was yet another way to spend time together so no one ever complained.

Then the cave happened. Sydney took the lower path with Vivi and ended up seeing Lewis die and get her memory zapped like Vivi. Unfortunately, Arthur’s hand managed to get away from Mystery, landed on Sydney’s face, and ripped out her right eye.

It took a few months to recover, but the remaining members of the Mystery Skulls eventually decide to do a couple of easy investigations, nothing that ought to be dangerous, just something fun to get back into the hang of things. It’s just that on the way home, their van broke down in front of an obviously haunted mansion.

Additional head canons:

Sydney Scoville Sr. is pretty much a taller, male version of his daughter. He’s actually originally from Australia, but moved to America as a young man because his family has a history of getting themselves killed by the dangers of Australia, and he had a traumatic encounter with a platypus. Mrs. Scoville is actually pretty normal besides her attraction to Sydney Sr.

Lewis was led to the Peppers’ house by a friendly ghost. That is literally his first memory.

This Arthur has the same basic backstory as the Cult Arthur I posted about at an earlier time.

Lance Kingsman isn’t actually Arthur’s uncle. He’s more along the lines of a second cousin, but both felt ‘Uncle Lance’ was easier. Lance also has an unholy fusion of a Scottish and Texan accent.

Vivi comes from a long line of spiritually gifted ninjas. However, she isn’t particularly gifted in the ninja arts and her spiritual abilities still refuse to awaken. Her father and grandmother have reassured her that her powers should awaken eventually and there are other options besides being a ninja, but Vivi just wants to get her powers already!

Vivi doesn’t know about Mystery because family tradition states that you don’t get to know until you understand and appreciate how dangerous the supernatural world can be. This is to keep word of Mystery from reaching Shiromori. Vivi still hasn’t been told because she freely talks about her friends’ special abilities.

Sydney actually went blind in her left eye due to infection. However, her living friends found a wish granting shop and traded half of their left eyes to fix hers. She considers this a symbol of their bond.

Because of the damage done to Sydney’s eyes, she is unable to have her memories of Lewis restored. All that could be done was removing the block, although she does have some emotional connections. Vivi got all her memories back but not the emotions that are associated with them.

After he dies, Lewis is just as affected by Sydney’s powers as any of the other evil spirits they ran into. He was in denial as to what it meant at first but eventually had to admit that it meant he’d come back as something nasty. Even worse, he can’t hug Sydney anymore because it actually hurts him.

Also, DaveB, let me know if I’m not allowed to use your characters in fanfics! I’ve seen fanart so I figured it was okay…

#Mystery Skulls animated #msa #grrl power comic #crazy crossover #au #extra party member #What do I even call this?

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sevenlovescats · 7 years ago

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ooohhg you watch dramas? can you recommend me one?

whoo ok. i’ve mostly watched korean dramas just bc i haven’t found any other super interesting ones, so i hope that’s ok?*just a forewarning: i’m putting links to kissasian here, and that might cause a lot of popups for you. i use adblock so it doesn’t affect me. i’m pretty sure all of these dramas are also available on dramafever as well ^^*under the cut bc this is some long shit sorry.

My very first drama was Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (featuring baekhyun from exo!). Moon Lovers is about a girl named Go Ha-jin (played by IU!) from the modern era who manages to drown and get thrown into the Goryeo Dynasty, in the year 941. she becomes this girl from the past whose name is Hae Soo, and she meets all these princes from the ruling Wang family. and of course she falls in love with one prince but some other things happen and a whole lot changes. but anyway, it’s not a super tear jerker, but it’s very sad in some parts. there’s also a couple episodes with lashing, and torture, but it’s not too explicit. i definitely recommend it if you enjoy historical korea. (also there are a lot of beautiful people but that’s just a bonus).

Another one i would recommend is Blood. this is a drama about vampires, but mainly about doctors but also mainly about vampires… i can’t really tell which is supposed to be the main theme lol. anyway! the leading actors are actually married now! and they started dating while/after (i’m not sure when they started dating lol). honestly they’re both so gorgeous and such a cute couple. anyway, back to Blood. Park Ji-sang (Ahn Jae-hyun) is a doctor specializing in hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery in a cancer institute. He’s the vampire. Yoo Ri-ta (Gu Hye-sun) is his colleague and the niece of the hospital owner. she’s very snotty actually lol but there’s some past between her and jisang even tho they don’t know it yet. (was that a spoiler?) um anyway, it’s pretty good, i personally loved it but it’s probably not the best drama ever.

next is Legend of the Blue Sea. this is like my second favorite drama. i loved it so so much fjdakgjdg. anyway. this one is about a mermaid and a human scenario that’s kind of similar to The Little Mermaid. except that the ‘prince’ is actually a top-notch con artist lmao. a mermaid (Jeon Ji-hyeon) who is later named Shim Chung falls in love with con-artist Heo joon-jae (played by the talented, the cute, the handsome, the amazing Lee Min-ho). (can u tell i love lee min-ho?) anyway, she falls in love with him and after he goes back to seoul, she follows him and searches all around seoul for him (resulting in some frustrating “damn, so close” moments). so she’s living with him, who is a con artist, and he’s trying to keep the fact that he’s a con artist from her (which isn’t hard bc she’s a mermaid she doesn’t know what a con artist is lol) and his two con artist friends are also living with them. it’s a very manga scenario tbh. anyway, this is some good shit, it’s not too mushy for those of y’all who don’t like romance, but it has a good bit of romance in, but it also has a lot of family drama that happens later. 11/10 would watch again.

next is Cinderella and the Four Knights which also has Ahn Jae-hyun in it. this is a lot more romancey than the others i think. but it’s not too bad. so this girl hates her life due to her new step-mother and step-sister, and she’s working all the time to pay for herself and she really wants to go to college. (i think. i watched this a long time ago lol). anyway, as she’s working in a convenience store, she meets this rich boy hyun-min, who eventually hires her to accompany him to his grandfather’s nth wedding. she does, and a whole bunch of shit involving the family happens, she gets roasted by hyun-mins half?cousin and then she gets hired by the father to uhh either house keep or try to help his three grandsons. anywho, this is a toned down version of boys over flowers but it’s pretty good for a day when u wanna look at handsome men and watch some cliche family drama go down.

this is getting really long i’m so sorry.

anyway, next is W: Two Worlds. THIS IS SOME GOOOOOD SHIT. at least to me. i’ve been told i have no taste so lol. anyway, this was super interesting. oh yeon joo is a surgeon whose father is a webcomic artist. he does this webcomic called W. the webcomic is about a guy named Kang Chul, who was framed for his parent’s and sister’s deaths. he was proven innocent, though, and ends up being the president of a company. so yeon joo one day goes over to her dad’s place and goes into the room he draws in. she sees a scene of a dying kang chul on her dad’s drawing tablet. she reads a note, and then a hand grabs her and pulls her into the world of W. she ends up on the rooftop of a hotel, where kang chul has just gotten stabbed by the murderer of his parents and sister. and that’s where the crazy shit begins. this is such and interesting show, with a really unique premise. i def recommend.

ok these next two are actually movies, and they’re gay-themed so.

Night Flight is really fckn good. but! it is also really not happy. like at all. no fluff here. this deals with the SEVERE bullying that was apparently very prevalent in korea at the time this was made (and probably still is but i’m not sure). if you don’t want to watch bullying/bullying towards gay people, please skip this one. Shin Yong-joo, Han Ki-woong and Ko Ki-taek were all close friends in middle school, but Ki-woong becomes estranged from the other two, and becomes a jjang, one of the strongest fighters in the school and starts hanging around with the school gang (the bullies). Yong-joo is hiding his sexual orientation (he’s gay) from everyone, and Ki-taek is being bullied by the school gang. like i said, this is pretty brutal in terms of bullying, and it could make you uncomfortable, but it is a good watch. it’s also directed by Leesong Hee-Il, who is openly gay :)

The King and the Clown is set in the late 15th century during the reign of King Yeonsan. these two comedians, Jangsaeng and Gong-gil break away from their troop after Jangsaeng had enough of their manager prostituting Gong-gil (who’s feminine and super beautiful) off to rich customers. so, after they break off, they run away to seoul and form a new troop with three street performers. they come up with a skit that mocks the king and members of his court. but then they get arrested and are told they have to make the king laugh, or they die. the king and the clown was really frustrating for me, because it had one of those “is this happy?” endings, ya know? but anyway, it’s a good watch, definitely. the homosexuality isn’t the main point, and there isn’t even much of it there, but you can tell that jangaeng has a thing for gong-gil. this movie was actually based off a stage play “Yi” (which means You) that was about King Yeonsan.

honorable mention: Boys Over Flowers. it’s based off a manga called hana yori dango, which is also a japanese drama with three seasons. anyway, it’s about a poor girl who goes to a rich people school, and she gets chased after and harassed by falls in love with with the cocky handsome school idol. it’s kind of cliche now, but it’s an early 2000′s drama. it’s good tho. give it a watch.

and this concludes my recommendations. if you read this far, go you. you’re a true trooper.

#lol this took an hour to type #i'm so sorry #anon

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polyamradiotranscripts · 7 years ago

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ep.10 Polyamorous Parenting with Tikva Wolfe

polyAM Radio Episode Ten-Polyamorous Parenting with Tikva Wolf

[Begin Transcript]

[Sophie]: Hello everybody and welcome to polyam radio the best show on the internet about polyamory that weird relationship thing you do with lots of other people

["Crazy little thing called love" by Queen plays]

[Sophie]: hello everybody welcome to polyamradio my name is Sophie Last-Name-Redacted and I'm here with a very special guest this week why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself

[Tikva]: Hi I'm Tikva Wolf

[Sophie]: I use she her pronouns

[Tikva]: I use they them pronouns

[Sophie]: cool cool I gotta tell ya I am totally geeking out over here because uhh Tikva is one of my absolute all time favorite like polyamory heroes pretty much everything I know about polyamory that doesn't come from my own ya know personal foolish mistakes comes from Tikva's comic Kimchi Cuddles, I do wanna let listeners know that this is the second time that we've tried to record and just this morning my computer totally puked on me uhh so I am working with a spare that I rented from the library and uhh we're doing the best we can but all of my show notes all of my everything is gone so we're gonna make the best of a bad situation and kinda plow through this but that's what we've got going on over here so if it seems like maybe things are a little different this tim uhh that's whats up, so I'm guessing though that despite some potential sound quality problems that this is gonna be our best episode yet because we've got Tikva with us

[Tikva]: yay, yeah hopefully the technology will cooperate with us this time, if not we'll just have [uninteligable] conversation [laughs] [uninteligable] [laughs]

[Sophie]: yeah you caught me there's no podcast this was a trojan horse I just wanna talk to you and be your friend

[Tikva]: aww [laughs] again, this happens to me all the time [laughs]

[Sophie]: ya know somehow I believe that so our topic this week is gonna be polyamourus parenting but before we get started, Tikva why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself because ya know not everyone has internet stalked you like I have so uhh ya know they may not know every little detail or certainly they may not know anything about you and that would be a real shame so uh why don't you give us a little exposition ya know

[Tikva]: well I write a webcomic about polyamory which I really is just about relationships and my relationships happen to be in a polyamourus container umm I so I write largely just about my own life experiences and umm uhh people seem to think that it's relateable uhh I think that uhh the the medium of uhh comics is a good umm way to convey ideas and experiences because they happen in such a small little uhh snippet so there really easy to digest and it's really easy to convey uhh uhh an experience or umm like a complex idea in a way that is umm yeah just easier to digest

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely I think you're spot on ya know uhh I think comics are a really effective way of conveying a kind of slice of life ya know we always think about umm ya know maybe books and movies and other kinds of media but certainly even podcasts I mean it's hard to crank out good media on a reliable basis I mean I'm doing a podcast ya know one podcast for every ya know shove out an episode every other week I mean and you're cranking out what ya know two or three comics a week I mean that's

[Tikva]: well when I first started I umm I didn't think anybody would read it but I just started putting I always made comics about my relationships and I had a partner who uhh said you should write a you should write a webcomic about polyamory and I just started putting them online as a joke between us but umm and then all of the sudden all of these people were reading it but when I first started putting them up I had a bunch of them so I was just putting up like two of them a day so very quickly I had a lot of content in like the span of a couple weeks and then I calmed down and then I started making like I think for a while though I was making like one a day umm for quite some time and then uhh it went down to like umm like like two or three a week and recently I've been like writing a bunch of other things so it's been more like one a week umm yeah I've been working on a lot of articles and graphic novels recently umm so that's been taking up a large chunck of my time umm and it's it's amazing to me like remembering when I first started I was like I was a young mom [laughs] and, so I had a baby that I was watching all the time and I was also, ummm, I was also an art teacher at a camp so I was like doing that uhh part time but I so I was like writing these comics, like, at like two in the morning in the bathroom [laughs] it was just like a time that I had to do that umm which is why they look so shitty like go back and look at the original ones it's hilarious to me cause I'm like woah look at this but umm but yeah people like them [laughs] so I kept going, I'm still doing it

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely ya know you really have your finger on the pulse of what it feels like to be ya know in a polyamorous relationship and your comics uhh show showcase that very well ya know I remember a few weeks ago there was one that really spoke to me and it was uhh oh ya know my partner has this new partner I have a new metamour, I actually talked about this on the show, listeners might remember, but this new partner they're so or this new metamour they're so fancy and they're so put together ohh boy is that what they like is, oh man cause I'm just kind of a slob and ya know I'm ya know I'm pretty bad at putting myself together and getting all dolled up and everthing and uhh actually umm I'm going to try to do that later on today because today the day we're recording this listeners is actually my birthday so we're gonna try to go out later and ya know have a bit of a fancy nice evening

[Tikva]: it's your birthday

[Sophie]: yeah today's my birthday

[Tikva]: well happy birthday

[Sophie]: well thank you

[Tikva]: next monday is my birthday

[Sophie]: oh well happy birthday

[Tikva]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: I'm guessing that in a few months when this comes out we're both gonna get a lot of belated birthday wishes uh uh yeah I just I just really wanted to say again I really think you have your finger on the pule of what it's like to be in a polyamorous relationship ya know I don't think I've ever looked at one of your comics and gone oh that doesn't really resonate with me, even when it's dipicting situations that I've never been in uh it ya know it's really just incredible how it, uhh, how universal some of these feelings and experiences are

[Tikva]: thank you yeah it's I think its interesting that it cause I think of the comic as primarily as being about non-monogamy but a lot of people that follow it regularly are monogamous people who feel like it's helpful for them to and have uhh has uhh situations that are applicable to their relationships as well

[Sophie]: yeah ya know well we always talk about on this show that ya know this show is explicitly polamourous and it's very important to me that everything we talk about is through the lens of polyamory because frankly there's more than enough people out there giving relationship advice to monogamous people and with a monogamous perspective ya know stuff like oh well you'll find the one and everything like that uhh but ya know uhh I don't think that there's ever has been or probably ever will be even a single episode that won't have some good little nugget in there that a monogamous person could ya know take away and use and apply to their life right I always say that I think that ya know this advice is applicable to everyone ya know good advice is good advice and certainly not ya know all of it is applicable ya know things about ya know how do I interact with my metamor maybe aren't all that ya know uhh applicable but ya know uhh this show is explicitly queer too uhh just like your comic and I don't think that there's anything or I should say that I think that there are very few things in here that would not also benefit a straight person and I guess ya know another thing I wanna bring up is that ya know your comic is so intensly queer

[Tikva]: [uninteligable] queer [laughs] yeah I'm pretty intensly queer that makes sense

[Sophie]: well ya know a lot of the media we get is far from perfect and a lot of the queer representation that we get is uhh ya know really problematic and just uhh not the best and ya know this is something that's made by and for queer people and I think it's something that's really special, so Tikva let me ask you umm when you started out ya know you're a parent and you're polamourous and when you started out as a parent were you intending on ya know raising your child by yourself were you intending on uhh working with somebody else ya know as part of like a two person team or were you always planning on having a small polycule kind of ya know helping raise this child ya know how did that start out because I think for a lot of people umm ya know they have a child and then find themselves engaging in polyamory and everything and most of the time I think people don't really find themselves starting off of saying okay yes I'm going to have this kid and I have a team that's working with me ya know for this and we're all going to raise this kid as a polamourous situation together, I think that that's pretty uncommon so if I can ask, how did it start out for you, were people starting off involved with it or did you kinda rope people in as time went on because not that there's anything wrong with it but I think a lot of people find themselves getting roped into a family and that's ya know their introcution to it

[Tikva]: right yeah [uninteligable] that'll happen a lot even in just monogamous relationships because of step parents and things like that um which is actually how I started out as a parent I am a step parent umm that my uhh the person who I was romantically partnered with at the time and who is my co-parent and umm uhh and uhh one of the main characters of my comic umm he had a when I met him he had a son who was about eight from a previous maraige and umm that kid is super awesome he is not a kid anymore he is in college now umm but so I started out being a step parent and having all of those types of experiences sort of like umm I mean very similar to what a lot of people in monogamous relationships would have experienced being a step parent umm and I just happen to be polyamorous and we actually when we started our relationship I was openly polamourous and he identified as monogamous umm but we tried to find a balance inbetween those things so we sort of at first I was in other relationships and then we took a time period where when I wasn't in any other relationships at the time we took a few years where it was just us when I got pregnant myself umm because that was what seemed like it made sense at the time and umm then eventually the two of us just happened to get into a relationship with another couple who were polyamorous we all just sort of fell in love with each other so that we were just all of the sudden this quad and they loved our child we just sort of fell in this very sweet co-parenting situation where there were four adults to one baby she was about maybe one or two I think two when we met them umm we're not all together anymore actually not with any of those people anymore in a romantic context but umm what he he my original co-parent obviously still my co-parent and a very important person in my life umm and he ended up uhh feeling like being, romantically monogamous was important enough to him that he wanted to do that umm not with me, because it's something that is important to me to be not doing, umm so we we ended up finding that our relationship works better, at least for right now with the romantic elements, not there, and which is like worked out surprisingly well we sort of think like our, society sort of tells us that uhh the romantic part of the relationship is neccecary for you to be emotionally connected and like if the romantic part isnt there the sexual part isn't there then like its there's a problem or like theres a, like you're supposed to be mad at each other and all these things and I, don't think that that's true

[Sophie]: ya know, uhh, when we talk about polyamory and relationship anarchy and things like that it's important to remember that aside from being a gift, and a bottomless resource love is also infinitely varied and takes many forms some of these forms are platonic and we tend to call these people friends and everything uuhh some of them are romantic and we have other words for that but I think the term friend for some of the relationships that I have it's not the right word and I wish we had a better one uhh because the feeling I lo- the feeling of love I have for some of my ya know quote unquote friends is so intense ya know I would go to the ends of the earth for some of these people uhh even farther perhaps than some of my casual partners which feels weird to say but the reality is is that these people are your family, ya know that's who you've chosen to build your life around uhh and that's ya know a wonderful beautiful thing ya know and that doesn't mean just because a relationship is no longer romantic doesn't mean that uh a failure by any means ya know

[Tikva]: yeah

[Sophie]: we talked about breakups in a previous episode and uh ya know in those situations where a relationship ends that doesn't nececarily mean it was a failure and just because a relationship continues that doesn't mean it is a success there are a lot of relationships that continue uhh pretty much ad nauseum [laughs] and are in no way succeses at all and ya know I think that that's very important to remember uhh ya know there's a whole lot more to a relationship than it just continuing forever, so let me as you ya know uhh if someone's thinking about becoming a polyamorous parent or inviting someone into uh to help them parent and and kind of starting to have that kind fo polycule parenting structure or thinking of joining one themselves is thre any advice that ya know you'd want uhh that you'd want to give to them when they're just starting out

[Tikva]: mmmm, well I guess that there's so many variables I don't think that there's like one particular thing that would be like universally helpful but I think I keep telling people, cause I run a a polamourous uhh meet up group in the ashville area and umm there are a lot of parents in the group who want uhh resources about umm about polyamorous parenting and umm sort of like how do I, x, y, z, and a lot of the specific things that they bring up in the group are not actually neccecarily polyamorous questions they're more like they're more things that are about step parenting and things like that like combining families like kids who come from different parents like those kids getting along or not getting a long and things like that and combining households and sharing resources those types of questions and like and I think that there are I mean there are a lot of resources that exist that are not written for us but it doesn't matter [laughs] they're for there are a lot of resources out there for step parents and for for people who are combining families like in in a monogamous way but ya know like bringing in kids from another partner and things like that and so becdause there are a lot of reosurces that already exist for step parents umm I feel like we can just use those resources that already exist and take out the things that apply to us and our families and it doesn't matter that they're written for monogamous people because it's really just a lot of it is the same stuff concerning kids and like bringing in kids from other families and having, being a parent to a kid that is not from your body like these sorts of things like the same sorts of things can come up in a monogamous or non monogamous relationship so using the resources that alreday exist I think is a good idea and also there are new things coming out all the time umm I think doctor sheff, is a good resources doctor elizabeth sheff has done a lot of research into polamourous families and has written a few books on that topic umm

[Sophie]: is that chef like yes chef cut the vegetable chef or-

[Tikva]: of uh it's spelt s-h-e-f-f

[Sophie]: [laughs] okay cool yeah no I just thought our listeners might wanna be ablso to google that

[Tikva]: yeah look up doctor sheff she's done a lot of writing on polyamorous families based on reserach that she's done umm that spans decades so it's good stuff umm she wrote a book the polamorists next door which is helpful also I think just like one of the main things that can really help people who have any sort of difficutly just like having other people to talk to about it and umm so like being a part of a like a poly meet up group and maybe even if like maybe in your area if there's a poly meet up group and there isn't already a family specific subgroup you can start one, like anounce to the group like hey I'm a polyamorous family I want to hang out with other families maybe we could have like play dates or like um maybe we just hang out and talk about uhh like sort of form a support group around a specific topic can be very helpful

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely so the next question has to do with stigma uhh ya know families like ours and relationsips like those that we engage in aren't always the most widely accepted I guess I'm just wondering ya know for you how has ya know polyamorous stigma played a role in ya know your ability to have a family and make it feel like a cohesive unit and ya know feel like uhh ya know feel like you belong within a larger society

[Tikva]: umm I think it varies family to family especially depending on what where they live and who they're surrounded by what they're life looks like, I have been very lucky in my life to be in a part of the country that like is pretty open minded and surrounded by people who are also open minded my family is very open minded so I haven't had a lot of difficutly myself I'm very luck in that way, there was one incident in which a neighbor uhh like found out that I wrote a webcomic about polyamory and was very concerned and like called social services on us to like get to be investigated to see if any shady shenaigans were going on such as sex duneons in front of children and stuff like that which was obviously not [laughs] what was happening and like someone came to the house to interview us about that which was stressful and just because of the I guess it's not neccecarily a inherently stressful situation but it's pretty understandable that that would be stressful like social services suddenly showing up all things considered it wasn't as stressful as as it sounds [laughs] because umm the woman who showed up was very nice and she was very understanding and she and I was like woah this is so bizzare and umm she was like so you write this webcomic about polyamory I was like yes lets- I'll show you the one I wrote today it was like something about like my character Marco like [laughs] telling like saying something about like how it's okay to have the emotional experience that you're having she was like oh this sounds very grounded and good advice sounds like you're a great parent actually here I'm wasting your [uninteligable] [laughs] kind of like, it was funny because it was so bizzare and I didn't feel like I was in danger of losing my child or anything like that so like that part wasn't frightening but it was irritating that it was wasting this person's time and like this person who should be doing important work for other families that actually need the help was being wasted on this situation and becdause of beuracracy she had to come back a couple of times or at least twice something like that happened

[Sophie]: well and it's invasive

[Tikva]: sure yeah

[Sophie]: sounds like the neighbor was a real asshole

[Tikva]: yeah [laughs] I mean this person was like, uniformed because of stigma this person like heard the word polyamorous assumed that it meant umm like sexually uhh something some dramatic thing about sex and which it is also some people are have a lot of sex and that's fine but I'm not really [laughs] it was so funny like at the time my child was younger umm she's almost eight now she was like three at the time when this happened three or four or something like that and umm [laughs] it was like it uhh a moment in time where I the social worker was asking questions about sex she had all these questions about sex like you have sex uhh like uhh do you have orgies in front of children and those types of things and I'm like no like I'm at a place in my life where I just don't even have sex [laughs] like I'm a young mom like I just

[Sophie]: yeah if you're a young parent you're pretty much not having sex that's pretty much the end of it

[Tikva]: [uninteligable] like seriously like how many young parents like really have a lot of sex like I don't have time to have sex and [laughs] I, and and there's certainly nothing wrong with parents who do have lots of sex and do go to sex duneons and things as long as it's not in front of the kids but it was such a bizzare experience cause I like wasn't even having very much sex and like these questions it was just like it was very surreal and umm and funny but um but yeah so there's certainly a stigma around being polyamorous linking it to sexual deviance which in our culture which is so puritan still and afraid of sex can be problematic because then people make moral judgements about you based on sex which is like awkward if you are a person having a lot of sex or it's awkward if you're just aperosn having average amounts of sex and it's for me in times when I it was especially aggrivating to me when I felt people would say thin- like make little comments make little jokes about something along the lines of like like not neccecarily slut shaming but like something on that spectrum those types of jokes about being polyamorous at me [laughs] and my response internally would be like I'm probably having less sex than you monogamous person and just like have that response like I just always thought that was funny and it's something that still happens with people that i know like friends of mine people still make umm just uniformed little jokes cause they don't actually really understand yeah it's certainly annoying that there's such a stigma aroung sex in our culture umm in a way that like makes it weird if you're having too much or not enough sex ya know accoring to whatever, whoever's keeping track [laughs] there's a- people like think there's something wrong with you if you're having more or less than whatever is the appropriate average and like and the label polyamorous umm like certainly gives people like an assumtion a lot of the time about where you are on that which can be awkward for people who do have a lot of sex too because umm because there's this stigma so people I think it seems like a lot of polyamorous feel a pressure to like make themselves seem quote unquote normal when they talk about their relationships and like emphasize oh it's all about love and all this even though that's true umm I feel like there's this pressure to talk about it that way and sort of minimize the sexual component too which is also not good and like really whatever is nourishing for people in their relationships should just be fine and it's not anybody else's business

[Sophie]: ya know and I think it's very interesting when we're talking about it from our perspective because we're not just polyamorous, we're queer and certainly not all queer people are polyamorous but a lot of polyamorous people are queer and uhh ya know there is an aspect of added stigma there ya know we really are only what five years if that ya know from people having very public very heated and uhh kind of horrible conversations about whether or not any queer person is fit to be a parent at all ya know and ya know now it's getting to be more taboo to say that but ya know certainly we are not far removed from that so I think it's not at all surprising when we talk about the struggles that polyamorous people go through and when we talk about polyamorous queer people ya know people who are part of both of those groups are gonna face some added stigma and it's unfortunate but it is what we're dealing with right now so moving back into our main topic ya know I love where the tangent when but as someone who uhh sees myself helpfully going where you are in a few years ya know I just have so many questions ya know I uhh I'm not a polyamorous parent and I never have been like I said a minute ago I see myself going that direction but I'm not there now and so when I think of like benefits that come from it I can only really speculate and I guess some of them that come to mind for me ya know there's that old adage it takes a village to raise a child and the more positive adult role models you have as a child I think the better off you are and then of course if you are struggling with some sort of disability having kind of a team of people that are on your side and are helping you out and everybody's pitching in ya know a little bit can make it a whole lot easier than kind of trying to do it on your own but in your experience ya know aside from maybe those things uhh exactly ya know in your experience what uhh ya know what are the real benefits to a polyamorous parenting situation

[Tikva]: umm well for me like when I was talking about before when I was co-parenting with my my uhh with my partner and then suddenly there were four of us uhh and my child at the time was two that was amazing because it was during a time where I was, being a young parent is or a parent of a young child is difficult it's a huge life transition and I was tired all the time and it's just constant constant attention is required and so having extra people around or not extra but having more people around than just one othher person was extreemly helpful because not only did it relieve, it provided us with more time to be able to do other things like sit down [laughs] like pee by myself or hang out with my partner which is huge like you unless you like are in a position where you can you have like family helping you or you are able to get child care a lot of the time when you are raising a child with just one partner you don't really get to hang out with that partner ya know like it's which can be a big strain on the relationship and umm and like for like a lot of parents will just hang out when the kid is asleep but a lot of times when the kid is asleep you wanna be asleep so you just sort of there's a lot less time to connect to each other and it's important to have time away with each other and having three partners that are with people talk about umm like people who are imagining polyamory are like how do you have enough time to connect to theese people and it's funny like in that situation I felt like I had a lot more time to connect to all those people becdause the other people were there to be with the child sometimes and it felt like a really good windshield to have four adults to one child I was like oh because after two years of it being two adults to one child I was like oh this is like [laughs] four adults to one child seems like a really good ratio [laughs] and certainly things are different when there are multiple children and once children are old enough to start playing with each other it changes everything too umm I ended up later having a girlfriend who had a child who got a long with my child and that was a whole different awesome situation because I mean for obvious reasons like our children got a long with eachother so we could like hang out and have play dates for the kids which were also dates for us mom dates with each other, cause like otherwise a lot of time I had to like to go on a date with somebody I had to like arrange with my co-parent or like find child care somewhere or like my child was not yet in school at the time and so having a girlfriend who also had a kid who got along with my kid just made it so we could hang out and the kids were playing didn't need our attention constantly and so we could all hang in the same space and she and I were able to have a conversation and so that was really nice

[Sophie]: yeah and well I think ya know the more positive adult role models a kid has the better off they're going to be

[Tikva]: yeah for sure and also like a different examples of like different examples of how to be an adult I think is helpful to kids umm

[Sophie]: yeah ya know I think you're absolutely right uhh I saw this comic one time, I don't think it was one of yours it was ya know a guy at a bar talking to a girl and was like oh you're not like other girls ya know and she was like my dude I am an amalgamation of every girl I ever thought was cool okay and I think you can take that and extend it to ya know adults in that case and I think that ya know saying listen I am an amalgamation of every adult I saw as a kid and went wow they are incredible ya know they are well adjusted whatever I wanna be like them and I think giving kids the greatest diverstity in who to pick from in who they want to be like and to chose their own role models is very important so uhh ya know on this show we try to talk about both sides of the issue when it comes to polyamory and certainly ya know I'm very polyamours I love polyamory I think it's wonderful and certainly I think it's the best option for me personally but ya know sometimes there are some things about polyamourus situations that make them require a little more nuance and be a little more difficult to navigate when compared to a ya know monogamous situation so ya know are there any uhh kind of problems that in your mind fit that bill when we talk about polyamours parenting is ya know when we talk about poly or co-parenting is there any kind of extra things that you think come up that polyamorous people often have to deal with

[Tikva]: umm [laughs] the immidiate thing that came to mind was in regards to sharing holidays with like a standard monogamous family umm [laughs] I'm just thinking about one specific example so I'm just gonna say that so this upcoming valentines day I have a partner who had had an idea of planning this surprise thing to do together and then mentioned it to me like will you be able to come and do this thing with me and he doesn't live in the same city as me so he had to make sure that I would be able to actually be in the same city for it to work before hand so he said hey I want to plan this surprise thing can you come on valentines day and do this thing with me and I was like oh that's really sweet but I had already had the idea that my co-parent would want to be with his partner umm on valentines day I know that like that's more important holiday to him than it really is to me [laughs] so I had already like offered to watch the child and uhh so and my first thought was oh can you bring your girlfriend to this thing that you had thought that you and I would do together and like all of that like I just I mean I guess this isn't really a problem but like for somebody else like I thought that wholel situation was very sweet like if everybody involved really cared about celebrating valentines day like if things didn't work out like if once person had to stay in town to be able to be with the child because the other person really wanted to leave town I can just imagine a scenario where that would be difficult I think I don't have a good answer [laughins] to that question, I'm not immidiately thinking of anything that is inherently a problem that's like poly-specific although it's like it's interesting I brought up doctor sheff's work earlier she did a lot of reserach into poly families umm case she was looking for like she had the assumtion that there would be poly-specific problems to poly families and her reserach pointed to uhh actually that like the opposite polyamorous tended to be more have a lot more strength because of and be more resilient because of there being more adults around to be able to do things and that all of the problems that those families had were problems that already were problems anyway like are problems that monogamous people have to like none of the problems were she didn't come accross and new problems that were poly-specific is my memory from her reserach and I thought that was very interesting

[Sophie]: huh, that's very interesting I'll have to pick up one of her books, so were runnin a little short on time here so I think I'm gonna have you plug your stuff now if there's anything that you'd like to plug

[Tikva]: well I have two books that are out right now the first one is ask me about polyamory which is a compoliation of the webcomic that I've been talking about the Kimchi Cuddles webcomic so the first book is ask me about polyamory and the second book is sort of remenicint of the webcomic but it's a different sort of storyline it's based on people from my actual life so it's that it has that in common but instead of being a series of little comics it's one whole story it's the whole book so it's a graphic novel called love retold it's a polyamours love story and I have a new book that's coming out this year which is not written yet [laughs] well it's not drawn yet I've wrote it but so all these books are through thron tree press and uhh the third one that's coming out is based on a class that I've been teaching when I go to poly conventions which is about theraputic comic drawing and people really like the class it's sort of like a going through process that I have done for myself of uhh processing through my emotions through the use of comic drawing and I sort of I wrote a book walking people through the process it was really fun to write and I'm going to have a lot of fun drawing it and I think it's going to be an amazing book when it's finished and that one is called it's okay feelings I got you

[Sophie]: well you know Tikva I just wanna say I ya know I've been able to pull it together pretty well this whole time but I really have been geeking out over here not just because I like your comic and you're creating relateable content and stuff like that but ya know I have relationships now that are ya know that are still going that I genuinely believe are only still going because of your comic and because of things that I've learned from it and things I picked up along the way that you have kind of put out there and so your art is incredibly meaningful and incredibly powerful so it's just really important to me that you hear that and I'm sure you do all the time but I wanted you to hear it from me because I think that you create really really amazing content and I think it's important for you to hear that it helps people in a very real way

[Tikva]: thank you that's really meaningful I uh I mean I put things down on paper and it's helpful to me too cause I don't always know those things [laughs] just knew it in the moment I wrote it down so it's really helpful to me it's funny I have a snarky partner who's amazing but sometimes like sent me links to my own comics and like ya know [laughs] like god dammit

[Sophie]: that's really excelent so before we get going I just wanna remind our listeners that we have a patreon which you have the link to on your cover art you also have the link to our facebook page our twitter account and our email uhh which is an email address not a link and you can't click on them becdause it's an image that's how images look I'm told but you can type them into the search bar and go visit these places and boy would we ever appriciate it if you did and I want to give a shout out to our patrons thank you to Mitch hamilton, Marissa alexa mccool and ari stillman, thank you to Jade, thank you Vlad and thank you miles kataro, y'all are seriously awesome uhh that's all the patrons we have at the time when we're recording this so if you're hearing and you go what the hell I donated money and I didn't get a shoutout it's comin don't you even worry about it, if you're lookin to get your name on the show that starts at just one dollar a month a five dollars a month you get access to some bonus conent we've uploaded and at ten dollars a month you get all the episodes a week early and everything else from the other levels obviously ya know you're not gonna miss out on the bonus episodes for upgrading that would be weird but ya know I just wanna give all of our wonderful fans a shout out and a wonderful thank you because you all absolutely make my day whenver you listen to this and I just wanna say if you enjoyed the program that absolutely fills my heart and you should share it with at least one friend or partner this week just download it on their phone for them because they'll forget the name, I think it's catchy but ya know when you're just being told about it at the gym or whatever it is hard to remember so just do them that favor give them the gift of this show and my horrible sense of humor download your favorite episode on there for them and let them listen to it and if they like it then that's great and if they don't then thats not on you you're not repsonsible for their poor taste so yeah I think that's about it this time thanks again for oh and I also wanna mention we have advertising slots on the show email us to find out more information about that they start at just five dollars an episode so thanks again for listening and remember don't date your best friend's dad and don't date your dad's best friend

[Tikva]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: see ya next time folks

["Good old fashioned lover boy" by Queen plays]

[Announcer]: This show was part of the trans podcaster visibility initiative

[End transcript]

#polyamradio #polyam #polyamory #polyamorous parenting #kimchi cuddles #tikva wolfe #queer #trans #ep10

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