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blackbatcass · 6 months ago

Note

hii linden! i kinda needed some help

so, i wanna read some comics based on:

donna troy, cass cain and wally west

but i have literally noo idea where to start 😭 ofc ik the basics but i was hoping you could suggest something?? thank you so much if you do and have a wonderful day!

yeah i gotchu!! those are literally my besties lol i can definitely give you some recs. i'm not sure what you'd consider to be the basics so i'll just include all the big stuff to be thorough

donna troy:

first rec is always new teen titans as you probably would have guessed lol. it is a very long and arduous undertaking though so some more specific recs would be vol. 1 #38, #50, vol. 2 #18-21, #50-55.

i've gone into more detail on her appearances in darkstars, green lantern etc but honestly though they are important to understand the status quo & what was going on with her, i don't think they're very good comics to just read for donna. my next rec would probably be wonder woman (1987) #126-136, which is a VERY important arc for her. it goes into more detail on her origin, reconnects her to the amazons & diana, and i believe is where she officially passes on the wonder girl mantle to cassie. and she appears frequently throughout the rest of that wonder woman run after the arc if you want to continue on!

titans (1999) is another big one, beloved beloved comic. lots of good donna content.

titans/young justice: graduation day #1-3 YIKES! unfortunately pivotal to her story lol

dc special: the return of donna troy look. i know I gush about this comic like it's my full time job. but honest to god i adore it to pieces, it's a love letter to donna and her history and it's one of my favorite comics of all time despite only being 4 issues. begging everyone on the planet to read it rn

cass cain:

cass was famously introduced in batman: no man's land! now that event is very very long so it might seem tempting to skip straight to bg 2000 but i'm here to tell you to not do that. if nothing else it is PIVOTAL that you read her introduction issues (mark of cain pts 1 & 2), batman #567 and detective comics #734. probably the coolest most metal introduction of any comics character in history, it's that good. if you're interested in cass's role in nml but not the whole thing, here's a list of her appearances:

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #120

Azrael: Agent of the Bat #56

Azrael: Agent of the Bat #57

Batman Chronicles #18

Batman #569

Detective Comics #738

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #124

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #92

Detective Comics #739

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #93

Azrael: Agent of the Bat #60-61

Detective Comics #741

i think nml is essential reading for cass and it makes me sad that a lot of people skip it.

next is, of course, batgirl (2000). it's her character bible it's god's (kelley puckett's) gift to mankind it's maybe the best comic ever written. what more can i say

she's also a fixture in gotham knights! cass was a part of most batfamily events in the early 2000s, ex. officer down, joker's last laugh, war games, bruce wayne: murderer? and bruce wayne: fugitive. it's pretty easy to find them since they mostly cross over with her batgirl run.

detective comics #790 is only one issue but it's. ough.

aaaaand then we get into the evil cass arc stuff which just sucks and isn't worth it. she's pretty much written out of the story for a while, other than red robin #17 & #25.

she does show up as black bat in gates of gotham! i really enjoy that story, and it's only 5 issues.

that gets us to new52. i would completely disregard her rebirth and batgirls appearances honestly. she is a part of the current birds of prey ongoing! and while i am not kelly thompson's biggest fan i do think she gets a lot of cool moments and for the most part she's done right.

she is also featured sporadically throughout ram v's gotham nocturne storyline (it started way back in detective comics #1062 if you want to read the whole arc, it's VERY good). i have to give a special shoutout to #1084, which has a backup story that's focused on cass and it legitamately blew my mind. like i couldn't believe my eyes when i was reading it, maybe it's because cass has been done so dirty over the years that anything makes me happy but to get a cass-centric story featuring shiva that cares about her as a character in 2024 was crazy 2 me i will rave about it forever. thank you alex paknadel.

wally west:

the good news is my wally reclist is WAY less complicated. as is predictable for me, pretty much the only wally rec I have is flash volume 2 (1987). it is for all intents and purposes The Story of Wally West tm. it's his character bible it follows him throughout nearly a decade of his life. because it's so long my specific rec would be to read waid's run on it, from #62-142. if you want more context to his life at the time you can start earlier in the comic, i think #31 is a good jumping on point if you want to experience some messner-loebs but not too much messner-loebs lmfao.

he's featured in titans (1999) until about issue #20, iirc. wally is just fated to quit titans teams lol. there is some good stuff with him up until that point though!

that is honestly about all i got until you get to more modern flash comics. after rebirth he's reintroduced in flash vol. 5, and #768-800 is the jeremy adams run.

he's also the main focus in si spurrier's flash vol. 6! aka the current flash ongoing. which... as i have often said, i am a big fan of.

AND THAT’S MY LIST!!! i hope it helped you out at least a little lol!

#ask #comic recs #donna troy #cass cain #wally west #I THINK ALL THIS IS RIGHT. CROSSING MY FINGERS

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fictionyoubelieve · 8 months ago

Text

This is a VERY long text post.

thanks @squareallworthy for giving me the excuse to make a House of Leaves post!! I'm going to try to make this accessible to everyone, so:

If you haven't read HoL, feel free to bail if this goes too deep or stops making sense. Personally, I don't think you need to worry about spoilers because it's not that kind of book (it usually spoils itself anyway), but if you'd rather go in knowing nothing, slam that J key now.

If you have read HoL, feel free to skip ahead to the theories. You're presumably good at tuning out extraneous information by now. :)

What is House of Leaves?

House of Leaves is a novel by Mark Z. Danielewski (MZD), published in 2000. It's an example of postmodern literature, which according to Wikipedia is:

a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues.

...all of which is House of Leaves to a T. Rather than capturing a single narrative, the book's text layers multiple stories, which refer to both each other and to external (e.g. mythical) stories, and which often reference the fact that they are stories in a book.

You can find it archived here, though unfortunately that scan/OCR seems to mangle the text in ways that will be hard to distinguish from everything else it's got going on.

Overall, I think the book is really cool and interesting, but maybe not worth sinking a ton of time and effort into. It's not a fun or easy read. Definitely worth checking out, but don't be afraid to skim or abandon it if it's not your thing.

The layers of HoL

The innermost layer is The Navidson Record (TNR), which is ostensibly a documentary but effectively a found-footage horror film. It's a series of films about the Navidson family--an unmarried couple with two young children--moving into a house in Virginia, and discovering that something is very strange about it. First subtly and then dramatically, the interior of the house grows and changes, in defiance of physical laws. One closet in particular becomes an eerie and seemingly infinite labyrinth, which they explore at their peril. (Don't worry--the overall novel is creepy and sometimes upsetting, but not outright scary. I'm a weenie about horror and had no trouble.)

The next layer is a pseudo-academic text about TNR by a blind man named Zampanò. He recounts the events of TNR, but also meanders on long tangents about other stories or academic works.

The third layer is the primary one we experience as the book House of Leaves. A character calling himself Johnny Truant discovered the disorganized and incomplete manuscript in Zampanò's apartment after that man's death, and he has assembled and edited it into this book, as well as added an introduction and lengthy footnotes relating stories from his own life. Johnny often contradicts himself, freely admits to making things up or changing the previous layers to suit his whims, and appears to mentally deteriorate over the course of the novel. He also says he can't find any evidence that TNR actually exists.

There's a thin layer added by "the Editors," who supposedly received the text from Johnny, and published it while in contact with him. They add some appendices and minor notes throughout, mainly to provide English translations for certain excerpts or to state that something the text refers to is missing. They include a purported still frame from TNR in the appendices, with no comment from Johnny.

All of the above, of course, was actually written by MZD, the real-life author of HoL. He self-published the earliest version of HoL to the internet, before publishing the full version as a physical book. He also produced some teleplays related to the work, and a collection of letters from Johnny's mother. The letters were originally published separately, but now most of them are included as an appendix to HoL. MZD's sister, the singer-songwriter Poe, also released the album Haunted around the same time as HoL, and it serves as a companion or counterpart to the novel.

The final layer is us, the readers. We interact with the text and also with each other, like I'm doing with this post. MZD's website still hosts forum threads from the time the book came out, where readers deciphered and theorized about it together. This is an important and intentional aspect of the work, as I'll explain in more detail later (see "The Meta").

Sub-stories

There are a few smaller anecdotes within the text which almost serve as their own layers, but don't fit neatly into the hierarchy above:

The Chiclitz play The Minotaur, on p110-111

The story of The Atrocity, on p297-300

The story of the changeling/cyanotic child, on p518-521 and referenced obliquely on p48-49

Themes and motifs

A non-exhaustive and highly subjective list, ordered very roughly from the most to least prominent:

The Greek myth of the Minotaur and the labyrinth

House

Madness, memory, and meaning

The sea and the sky

Darkness, absence, emptiness

Yggdrasil, the world tree; trees, leaves, and paper; the Cumaean Sibyl

Fidelity (in multiple senses of the word)

Colors, especially red/blue or red/blue/green/yellow

Death and rebirth, procreation, the womb

The biblical myth of Abraham and his sons

The biblical myth of Jonah and the Whale

The eye, cameras

Head injuries, holes in the head

Families, especially parents and twins/pairs of siblings

Note that there are connections and overlap between these themes. I'm going to argue that the first few in particular are strongly intertwined.

The Meta

Most of the fan theories I've seen are focused on the usual concerns: "what do you think really happened in the story? what does this mean for the characters?" That's reasonable, but since HoL is extremely aware of itself and its readers, I think it's also worth asking what the text expects from us or what it's trying to communicate directly, if anything. IMO those questions are easier to answer than nailing down the events of the story, and that's on purpose.

While rightfully regarded as a challenging and puzzling book, HoL actually is pretty blatant about helping us "solve" most of it. Heck, it color-codes its major motifs. There were many instances where I was like "oh, this reminds me of that other part from a ways back" and then the footnote would tell me to refer back to that part I was remembering. When there's an encoded message, like the Morse code or first-letter sections, Johnny typically makes a comment providing the key to decoding it--and in some cases also tells us the "hidden message," like in his conversation with the band near the end of the book.

The book straight-up tells you how to read it. On p115, just before it starts getting really wild with the typesetting in a section structured like a maze, Zampanò's text gives this advice for navigating mazes:

In order to escape then, we have to remember we cannot ponder all paths but must decode only those necessary to get out. We must be quick and anything but exhaustive.

The next footnote (139) also warns: "[in a maze,] the faster you go, the worse you are entangled" and "If one reads too quickly or too slowly, one understands nothing."

And of course, the book provides an extensive (albeit somewhat playful) index, so that if you have a theory about a certain word or concept, you can easily go back and look up examples. I believe the page numbers also match up across editions, so that different readers can more easily confer with one another.

All of this strongly suggests that MZD very much wants us to view the text as a puzzle to decode with other readers. He makes sure we know there are patterns and hidden messages to be found.

The madness of analysis

Like I mentioned above, Johnny's mental state deteriorates over the course of the book. A lot of his story also has to do with his late mother, who was committed to a psychiatric institution when he was young, and who shows similar quirks and inconsistencies in her letters to Johnny. The reader is quickly clued in that Johnny is an unreliable narrator, and by the end of the book it's nearly impossible to untangle what "really happened" in Johnny's narrative because there are so many revisions and contradictions.

Zampanò's writing may seem like a sharp contrast to Johnny's, since it is stuffy and academic rather than casual and coarse. But the two strongly parallel each other, as do the two characters. They both ramble and are prone to lengthy tangents based on tenuous connections; Zampanò seems to make things up and messily add and redact just as Johnny does with his stories. Both seem haunted by and obsessed with the manuscript in similar ways.

Other HoL readers have called it a satire of academic texts, but I'd go a step farther and say it's drawing a parallel between (perhaps overzealous) academic analysis and psychosis: seeing patterns or connections where there are none, jumping to wildly different and sometimes bizarre conclusions from the same experience, getting lost in theories with little connection to reality, communicating in ways that are hard for others to understand.

It even encourages its readers to engage in the same behavior, by hinting at many different patterns and connections yet making them inconsistent, uncertain, and contradictory. It goads you into trying to analyze it, but you'll just end up like Charlie in the Pepe Silvia meme:

Derrida's Deconstruction

Wait, so does that mean it's futile to try to analyze House of Leaves? Well, sort of, and the book tells us this! Remember that part (see "The Meta") that was giving us advice on how to navigate a maze, i.e. the book? On that same page, p115, it also says:

Unfortunately, the anfractuosity of some labyrinths may actually prohibit a permanent solution. More confounding still, its complexity may exceed the imagination of even the designer. Therefore anyone lost within must recognize that no one, not even a god or an Other, comprehends the entire maze and so therefore can never offer a definitive answer. [In the Navidson house,] any way out remains singular and applicable only to those on that path at that particular time. All solutions then are necessarily personal.

This sounds a lot like Deconstruction and Post-Structuralism, which isn't a coincidence given that Derrida was just quoted on p112. From the Wikipedia page on Deconstruction:

Derrida's deconstruction strategy is also used by postmodernists to locate meaning in a text rather than discover meaning due to the position that it has multiple readings.

It's probably also relevant that most of the book is about Johnny interpreting a text after the literal death of the author.

Footnote 140, which comes after "even the designer" in the above excerpt, includes this, in red and crossed out:

Or in other words: shy from the sky. No answer lies there. It cannot care, especially for what it no longer knows. Treat that place as a thing unto itself, independent of all else, and confront it on those terms. You alone must find the way. No one else can help you. Every way is different. And if you do lose yourself at least take solace in the absolute certainty that you will perish.

This ties the more general advice on interpreting texts back to the specific narratives in HoL. Before we dig into that more in the next section, note that Derrida was also a fan of putting things "under erasure" by crossing them out. Hmm...

Madness and the Minotaur

In multiple ways, the Minotaur is associated with absence. Most obviously, text mentioning it by name usually only appears in red and crossed out--Johnny says these are sections he recovered after Zampanò tried to erase them. The Minotaur also seems to be absent within TNR; the labyrinth of the House suggests its presence through growls and slash marks, but a beast never actually appears, and instead, things within the labyrinth seem to gradually fade out of existence. In myth, of course, the Minotaur was removed from society by hiding it in the labyrinth, and was eventually slain by Theseus, obliterating it forever.

On p335 we get footnote 295, again in red and crossed out:

At the heart of the labyrinth waits the Mi[ ]taur and like the Minotaur of myth its name is [ ] Chiclitz treated the maze as trope for psychic concealment, its excavation resulting in (tragic[ ] reconciliation. But if in Chiclitz's eye the Minotaur was a son imprisoned by a father's shame, is there then to Navidson's eye an equivalent misprision of the [ ] in the depths of that place? And for that matter does there exist a chance to reconcile the not known with the desire for its antithesis?

(The footnote continues, making the shape of a sword with large gaps in the blade.) Empty brackets in this section supposedly denote burnt holes in the manuscript, but since they are consistently used to make puns, it's clear that at least one of the authors is being intentional. We could read the gaps here as literal: the name of the Minotaur is [nothing], the labyrinth conceals the treacherous [nothing] in its depths.

The chapter that footnote appears in (Chapter 13), which is titled The Minotaur, begins with a quote that is translated as so (p313):

a slow shadow spreads across the prairie, but still, the act of naming it, of guessing what is its nature and its circumstances creates a fiction, not a living creature, not one of those who wander on the earth.

In this poem, El otro tigre, Borges compares a tiger in a poem, made of words and symbols, to "the other tiger" of flesh and blood, out in the wild. No matter how he tries to capture it with writing, the real tiger will always elude him.

So the Minotaur is connected to absence, nothingness, emptiness, and so on. This chapter draws additional associations with death and madness, which of course are also forms of loss or absence--both of self, and of meaning.

Is Johnny the Minotaur?

Johnny is strongly associated with the Minotaur, but his exact relationship with it is more complex than simply "Johnny is the Minotaur" or "the Minotaur represents Johnny". He is stalked by the creature in various forms, and he has nightmares or delusions in which he is the Minotaur. Raymond, the abusive foster dad, calls Johnny "beast". I think it's most accurate to say he is scared of the Minotaur and scared of being or becoming it, especially if we're interpreting it as nothingness or madness. And we know how his story ends.

There's another association I make with Johnny which isn't as explicit and doesn't seem to have been discussed as much, and that is to Icarus. There are hints of this early on--his father is a pilot, he's strongly associated with the sea and drowning, his fantasy when he meets Thumper sounds like flying--but it's brought home in the story about getting the scars on his arms, on page 505, and all the allusions and imagery. He burns and then drowns.

Zampanò, likewise, is like Daedalus. He built the labyrinth that is the manuscript, and which traps both Johnny and himself. There are some suggestions in the text that he and Johnny are like figurative (or in some theories, literal) father and son. But Daedalus, unlike Perilaus, was able to free himself from his own invention, and it seems like this wasn't true for Zampanò.

(This may be too much of a pet theory; I'm not sure it's as well-supported as the other parts of this post. But there's something there, I'm pretty sure.)

House

A house is a structure that defines empty space and imbues it with meaning by separating it from the greater nothingness. The novel is likewise a structure that gives form to a particular nothingness (fiction) by defining it and separating it from the greater nothingness (everything else that has not happened).

As readers, we follow a narrative "thread" through the text, but encounter only the Minotaur (nothingness) within. Just as the Minotaur in Chiclitz's play was portrayed sympathetically, the absence does not need to be bad or monstrous--it's just nothing. As we see in the key shape of footnote 123 (p110-111), the Minotaur is the key, but there is no Minotaur. There is no key. The key is crossed out (both the text comprising it, and the key itself, by being split across two pages). Perhaps we "slay" this Minotaur by imposing our own meaning? Would that be noble or tragic?

The house itself is what matters, but the house is blue, and blue means open to interpretation--what a blue screen meant in the 90s, before digital film became the norm. Everyone projects their own thoughts and fears onto the house, and it reflects those back at them. It's meaning and memory; you get out of it exactly what you bring. Blue is shifting and unfathomable like the sea. You could lose yourself in its depths.

Though "out of the blue" specifically seems more like a deus ex machina, because I'm pretty sure the blue of the sky is associated with God, eyes/cameras/observers, and us (MZD and the readers), though I don't have examples prepared to back that up. "Shy from the sky" (see "Derrida's Deconstruction") could then be taken as "don't look to the author for answers".

But if there is any meaning to be found, it also can't be found looking only within the text and the world it defines, without considering those final layers. The stories all intertwine and even loop back on themselves, as when Navidson and Johnny both encounter their own book. Using the HoL to light your way through HoL will lead nowhere. You'll need help from the outside.

So?

Okay, okay, okay. So what?

"SO?" asks the text (p103), and maybe you do, too. Sew buttons, says the Morse code of footnote 119 on the same page. Dismissing the question? Or suggesting you work hard to secure your buttons with a whole spool of thread, as Johnny does near the end (p514) to avoid losing them to the labyrinth?

Shortly after, on p516, Johnny writes this:

Wasn’t darkness nothingness? Wasn’t that Navidson's discovery? Wasn’t it Zampanò's? Or have I misconstrued it all? Missed the obvious, something still undiscovered waiting there deep within me, outside of me, powerful and extremely patient, unafraid to remain, even though it is and always has been free.

This (and some of his other writing late in the story) reads to me like possibly an acknowledgement or dim awareness of reality outside the book, but I'm not sure. I'm just going to point to it, and also the part a little further down the page, where he describes a sunset as "Reds finally marrying blues."

How do we reconcile red and blue? Is it about reconciling ourselves to the lack of true meaning, as in Nihilism? Or choosing to focus only on the "real", refusing to lose ourselves in the endless cycle of interpretation?

I don't know. There's probably more that can be built on this foundation, but this is as far as I've gotten. If you actually got through all that, wow, thanks for reading, and by all means let me know your own thoughts.

#hol #house of leaves #theorycrafting #literary analysis

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married-to-google-translater · 9 days ago

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My dear opossums <3

This year marks five years since I started writing. I would like to thank everyone who is still here.

This hasn't always been easy… It's hard to be creative 24/7 and not demand too much from yourself. However, it's wonderful that you all are sharing this journey with me.

Maybe we don't have a tight community because I'm shit at answering questions because part of me thinks it's pointless and no one cares… But I'm glad you're here

I was never supposed to write for five years. My original plan was to write for only three years. However, 2023 was terrible for writing. Then I got art block and couldn't write anything. Don't be stupid like me and write three posts a day for over a year. If you also start writing, don't set a goal of 2000 notes every day. I knew I didn't want to stop even though I meant to. Luckily I didn't because 2024 was great writing-wise. The art block went away and I was able to find the pleasure of writing again. I'm really happy about it.

I don't have time to write all the requests… However, the ones I do, I write with love.

It seems incredible that a blog that started as a joke and that I thought would last a couple of months is this "big". If someone doesn't know I had just discovered the fanfic genre and I was bored. That's how I thought, "What if I start writing crap with google translate". I didn't think that my idea would be successful or that I would be able to do it for more than a couple of months. I had NEVER written anything before that… I wrote the first yandere headcano during the lesson and tried not to laugh at myself too much.

It feels incredible that this ALL started as a joke… All the friends I've made over the years, all the celebrations when my post breaks records, the day I got 1000/2000 notes for the first time in a day, all the great ideas and memes,

that one hellishly difficult conversation where I had to explain to my mother what fanfic and yandere definition is, ALL the happy memories, the moments when I've had to learn about myself, the frustration when I feel like Tumblr itself is trying to hide my blog and the pride of everything we've achieved together.

If you have received from me "Thank you for starting to follow me" message and you are reading this, you are og. (I sent this to my first 2000 followers but stopped because it was too hard. )

There is still a long way to go and thank you for joining us.

I lov u all <3

#admin werty

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grim-the-dog · 1 month ago

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Music themed Five asks!

A song that reminds you of your Five and why

A nostalgic song for them and why

A song that would play over a fight scene for them.

A song that reminds them of [pick a or multiple favorite characters] and why

A song that they love to run to

A song they don't actually like but a close friend LOVES so they pretend to like it

Any specific bands/artists that they're super into

Songs they constantly request Radio Abel to play and what Jack and Eugene think of those songs

Songs they constantly ask Sam to play and what he thinks of them

Who at Abel does your Five think has the best music taste and why

You're gonna regret this, I have so many songs picked out for him. Might link a playlist with the answers here.

• "A song that reminds you of your Five and why"

Dead Bite by Hollywood Undead, July by American Murder Song, and Despicable by Grandson. All 3 songs reflect his struggle with being seen as a monster and untrustworthy, plus his self depreciation. He will, however, embrace that "monster" side later on.

• "A nostalgic song for them and why"

Dynasty by Rina Sawayama. He can't remember much about his life before the labs, but he remembers that his parents fought a lot and also put a lot of pressure on him. He deeply resonates with the song and wants to leave his own mark, not his family's.

• "A song that would play over a fight scene for them."

STFU! by Rina Sawayama, Wolf in Sheep's Clothing by Set It Off, and good ol' Monster by Skillet.

If you want angst, Est-ce Que Tu M'aimes? by GIMS when [spoiler: finding Sam after Moonchild], and Yellow by Coldplay for his final stand, when it comes.

• "A song that reminds them of [pick a or multiple favorite characters] and why"

Sam: So Far Away, by RED. Sam was the first person to approach Five without fear, and has since become a rock in his life.

Janine: Fireproof by Pillar. She's very strong willed, and he deeply respects that.

• "A song that they love to run to"

RUNRUNRUN by Dutch Melrose, and Runnin by Adam Lambert.

• "A song they don't actually like but a close friend LOVES so they pretend to like it"

Sam absolutely makes him run to HOT TO GO by Chapell Roan.

• "Any specific bands/artists that they're super into"

Rina Sawayama. The hyperfixation is through the roof after watching John Wick 4. Also any edgy early 2000's music. I'm talking Linkin Park, Three Days Grace, Skillet, Simple Plan- any edgy Pokemon or Sonic AMV you can think off, those songs.

• "Songs they constantly request Radio Abel to play and what Jack and Eugene think of those songs"

He makes them play and lot of Måneskin, and honestly it gets everyone hyped because of the rhythm. It does get a bit old after a while, however, so he switches to Raury to mix things up a bit.

• "Songs they constantly ask Sam to play and what he thinks of them"

A lot of Rina Sawayama, mainly XS, STFU!, and Eye For An Eye. But if he's feeling vulnerable enough, he will ask for Chosen Family and Holy (Til You Let Me Go). Lots of trauma for this boy, especially regarding his gender identity and sexuality.

Sam can tell if Five is going to ask to stay at the comms shack that night just by the music he's asking for.

• "Who at Abel does your Five think has the best music taste and why"

Janine, as she introduced him to a lot of classic and modern Rock and Alt music. He will spend the majority of his free time with an old iPod she let him have. He has definitely found solace in music, the louder the better.

I loved this ask, and I swear I put way less songs than I wanted to. Thanks!

#grimthedog #zombies run #rina sawayama #sam yao #5am zombies run

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mur-art · 1 year ago

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A Calivada Essay in Song Lyrics

Lowkey inspired by @sleepdeprivedsimp234's song lyrics posts I decided to let my instincts win and put together a post full of song lyrics that are Calivada-coded to me. (Since the latest episode got me fully back on my Calivada bullshit. You could say they took a high-speed rail straight into my heart. )

The songs are roughly in order with how I picture the progression of their relationship. It starts with the early days of the Gold and Silver rushes and the Wild West, marked with periods of stormy and reckless whirlwind romance. Then it progresses into the early 20th century, with them growing apart, and yet together: Nevada finding his identity in casinos and sin, and California giving into the hedonism of Hollywood. Somewhere along the line, they became on-and-off again FWB, coming together when they're drunk, or lonely, or hopeless... or all of the above, locked in a frankly toxic and tumultuous co-dependent relationship. Not quite enemies, not quite lovers, definitely not friends... (or so they'll say).

Just... them. Anyway...

A bunch of these have been compiled from suggestions from various people over the past year-ish and some are just my shitty millennial taste in mid-2000s pop rock.

Link to actual playlist here

PART 1: "We're meant to be together like silver and gold"

California and Nevada meet for the first time. There's an immediate attraction to each other-- is it really love or is it simply a lust for the sparkle of silver and gold? Either way, it's a force of nature when they come together.

Silver and Gold- Parade of Lights (Cali's perspective)

Can you let me in if I take you home? / I'm never giving up 'cause I can't let go / I feel it in the air, feel it in my bones / We're meant to be together like silver and gold

Silver Stallion- The Highwaymen (Cali's perspective)

I'm gonna find me a reckless woman / Razor blades and dice in her eyes / Just a touch of sadness in her fingers / Thunder and lightning in her thighs

And we're gonna ride / We're gonna ride / Ride like the one eyed jack of diamonds with the devil close behind / We're gonna ride

Reckless Love- Bleachers (Nevada's perspective)

So give me a chance to remember / What I've given up to defend ya / I would burn my dreams away / Just to stand in the thankless shadows of your reckless love

gold rush- Taylor Swift (Nevada's perspective)

What must it be like / To grow up that beautiful? / With your hair falling into place like dominos / I see me padding 'cross your wooden floors / With my [49ers] t-shirt hanging from the door / At dinner parties / I call you out on your contrarian shit / And the coastal town We wandered 'round had never / Seen a love as pure as it / And then it fades into the gray of my day old tea / 'Cause you know it could never be

Stardust- MIKA (Nevada's perspective)

I could put a little stardust in your eyes / Put a little sunshine in your life / Give me a little hope that you'll feel the same And I wanna know if I'll see you again / See you again Funny how the time is rushing by / And all the little things we leave behind / But even then, in everything I do / Is a little bit of me, a little bit of you / When will I see you again?

Addict- Silva Hound (I think this is from Hazbin Hotel lmao) (Nevada's perspective)

So what if I misbehave? It's what everybody craves / You already know / So come if you're feeling brave / And fancy yourself a mate

You want it, I got it, see what you like? / We could have it all by the end of the night / Your money and power, my sinful delight / A hit of that heaven and hell, a hell of a high

PART 2: "We are brief summer lightning (we are sparks that spiral upwards in the darkness in the night)"

As they spend more time together, their affection for each other grows. They'll deny that they were ever in love, but the history between them doesn't lie.

Wild as You- Cody Johnson (Cali's perspective)

You're like wakin' in the morning by a mountain stream / You're like watchin' an eagle floating on the breeze / And as I listen to you dreaming by my side / I wish I could call you mine

But you belong where the four winds blow / Out where the untamed mustang roam / Like a sweet summer rain passin' through / Never seen anything wild as you

Hymn for the Weekend- Coldplay (Cali's perspective)

Oh, angel sent from up above / You know you make my world light up / When I was down, when I was hurt / You came to lift me up / Life is a drink and love's a drug / Oh, now I think I must be miles up / When I was a river, dried up / You came to rain a flood

Summer Lightning- Garnet Rogers (Nevada's perspective)

We are brief as summer lightning / We are swift as swallow's flight // We are sparks that spiral upward in the darkness in the night / We are frost upon a window / We won't pass this way again / In the end only love remains

Peaceful Easy Feeling- The Eagles (Cali's perspective)

I like the way your sparkling earrings lay against your skin so brown / I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight / With a billion stars all around

Death Valley Queen- Flogging Molly (Nevada's perspective)

Death valley queen where have you been? / Since they crowned you in glory / Filled your head with dreams / But it still goes to show in every desert / There's a rose that's bloomin' for all to be seen

House of Memories- Panic! At the Disco (Nevada's perspective)

Those thoughts of past lovers, they'll always haunt me / I wish I could believe you'd never wrong me / Then will you remember me in the same way as I remember you?

Baby, we built this house on memories / Take my picture now, shake it 'til you see it / And when your fantasies become your legacy Promise me a place / In your house of memories

Joy Ride- The Killers

(I showed enough restraint to wait until ALL THE WAY DOWN HERE to include a Killers song. Y'all should be proud /s )

It's gettin' close to sundown over the Sierra / Stranded on the heatwave, burnin' with desire / She was on the sidewalk, looking for a nightlife / We talked about the real things and drove into the fire

Headlights on the highway, the desert wind is howlin' / Rattlesnakes and romance are spillin' with the rain / Candy apple red dress, bleedin' when she kissed me / Heaven a ragtop, take away my pain

PART 3: "Just call me angel of the morning, angel..."

The relationship has lost its initial shine and turned tumultuous. Difference in personality emerge and disagreements become common. And yet, they still can't keep their hands off each other... maybe they both like the drama. They are both performers, after all...

The Way it Was- The Killers (Nevada's perspective)

I drove through the desert last night / I carried the weight of our last fight / Elvis singing "don't be cruel" / And I wonder if you feel it too / It's like we're going under

Somewhere outside the lonely Esmeralda county line / The question of my heart came to my mind

If I go on with you by my side / Can it be the way it was when we met? / Did you forget all about those golden nights?

Bend and Break- FM-84 feat. Ollie Wride (Cali's perspective)

Leave your reason at the door / 'Cause the writing's on the wall / The sunshine's gone / Maybe it's too soon to call / But we've both been here before , so I'm waiting on

No our music it ain't done, 'cause I found our revelry / In the highways and the dancehalls that filled our history

Angel of the Morning- Juice Newton (Nevada's perspective)

There'll be no strings to bind your hands / Not if my love can't bind your heart / There's no need to take a stand / For it was I who chose to start / I see no need to take me home / I'm old enough to face the dawn

Just call me angel of the morning, angel / Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby / Just call me angel of the morning, angel / Then slowly turn away from me

Body- Jordan Suaste (1st part- Cali's perspective; 2nd part- Nevada's perspective)

Body, let me see your body / Take off all your makeup and your clothes / Trust me, why don't you just trust me? / You're the only beauty, show me more

You're not a dime a dozen / Oh, your skin is golden / Let me show the whole damn world / You're one in a billion / The only thing you're missin' / Is some tape over that mouth

BABY SAID- Maneskin (Cali's perspective; Nevada is "baby")

Baby said "When you're talking, I go dead" "Shut your mouth, give me your head" (uh-uh-uh-uh) I know you really want to Baby said "Let me taste your silhouette" "You can talk between my legs" (uh-uh-uh-uh) I know you really want to

Faithless- The Airborne Toxic Event (Cali's perspective)

I wake up early my head ain't right / It's the fever dream of what we did last night / I flex my fingers and feel my age / Fifteen minutes till we take the stage / And I call you when I wake up drunk / My arms are cold and my head is sunk / They say the lights go up at ten PM / Just make sure you're okay by then

Neon Medusa- The Midnight (Either one tbh)

It's a highway, highway to the dark / And a neon medusa's got your heart / Sweet canyon lullabies, don't look straight into its eyes

Alone Together- Fall Out Boy (Both)

Cut me off, I lost my track / It's not my fault, I'm a maniac / It's not funny anymore, no it's not / My heart is like a stallion / They love it more when it's broken / Do you wanna feel beautiful, do you wanna? / I'm outside the door, invite me in / So we can go back and play pretend

and also

This is the road to ruin, and we're starting at the end

PART 4: "I only love you when I'm drunk"

Fast-forward to today (well, the past few decades, really), and they're THOSE TWO drama-Filled Frenemies With Benefits (although the benefits are debatable at this point).

Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts- The Killers (Nevada's perspective)

Why did you roll your dice, show your cards? / Jilted lovers and broken hearts / You're out on the wind and I'm still waiting to be found

Yeah, will I ever win? / Only time will tell / You've gotta suffer to remember how well / That our ideals never really marched in time / That's the bottom line / Jilted lovers and broken hearts

Getting Even- White Lies (Cali's perspective)

If you're getting even, you're getting even / Trying to get even, better start believing / I can forgive and we can forget / Even after all this wrestling of conscience / I can forgive and we can forget / Even after all this love and other nonsense

Love You When I'm Drunk- MIKA (Both)

Don't get me wrong, last night I didn't change my mind / It was the drink, it was leaving me blind / And when I kissed you, it was such a big mistake / A couple drinks, that's the chance that I take

We All Get Lonely- The Wrecks feat. TOMI (Nevada's perspective)

You're so in love with self-destruction / You're bringing me down

Why'd you come over? / Are you sober? / Are you playing around?

You touch me gently / But it's empty / You should figure it out

Don't say, say you love me, need me / Until you've had your fun / Use me when you get lonely / We all get lonely / You're not the only one

FUCK ABOUT IT- Waterparks (Nevada's perspective)

I like you but I need some space / I like you kinda far away / It's not hard to kill a day lookin' at your face / I like you but I need some room / Been givin' me your attitude / It doesn't always stay that way / I hate the aftertaste

Ancient History- Set it Off (Both)

Damn, pick up the phone, I know I'm drunk again / And you, know my intentions 'cause it's two a.m. / It's fun and games until we both get hurt / We play with fire 'cause we like the way it burns / No use in patching up a sinking ship / This is the last time we do this, baby / This is the last time you taste my lips

I know, I know how to drive you wild / You know, you know how to make me smile / But I need you to be / My ancient history

I know, I know who you really are / You know, you know how to break my heart / But I need you to be / My ancient history

Walk Me Home- P!nk (California's perspective-- despite everything that's happened between them, he still goes to Nevada when he's hurt and lonely)

Walk me home in the dead of night / I can't be alone with all that's on my mind / So say you'll stay with me tonight / 'Cause there's so much wrong going on outside

Till It Shines- Bob Seger (Nevada's perspective; reflecting on California's loneliness)

Storm the walls around this prison / Leave the inmates, free the guards / Deal me up another future / From some brand new deck of cards

Take the chip off of my shoulder / Smooth out all the lines / Take me out among the rustling pines / 'Til it shines / Oh 'til it shines

Like an echo down a canyon / Never coming back as clear / Lately I just judge the distance / Not the words I hear

and this part:

See the rich man lost and lonely / Watch him as he dines / Sitting there just testing all the wines / 'Til it shines

AND OF COURSE...

Waking Up in Vegas- Katy Perry

I think this one speaks for itself, BUT...

Spare me your freakin' dirty looks / Now don't blame me / You want to cash out / And get the hell outta town / Don't be a baby / Remember what you told me

Shut up and put your money where your mouth is / That's what you get for waking up in Vegas / Get up and shake the glitter off your clothes now / That's what you get for waking up in Vegas

#i MAY have thought about this a bit...#these two always live rent-free in my head #wttt calivada #long post #song headcanons #wttt california #wttt nevada #mur headcanons #yeah i went a lil bit unhinged on my love for calivada #i can't help it #wttt #welcome to the table

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13eyond13 · 10 months ago

Note

For book ask game, no. 13, 14, 18, 25, 26. Thx :D

Ooh thanks for sending me more book asks!

13. Name a book with a really bad movie/tv adaptation:

Watchmen (2009) by Zack Snyder was a pretty mediocre adaptation of the graphic novel by Alan Moore, from what I remember of both of them (haven't revisited either of them in a long time, but distinctly remember having this opinion back when I first read it... like oh ok, so THIS is what it's actually supposed to be like).

I feel like as a director Zack Snyder is very good at creating epic movie trailer moments or music videos with stylish visuals (this trailer for it looked pretty exciting to me at the time it was new):

youtube

BUT then once you go to the theater and try to sit through one of his movies they usually just end up being just the most soulless drawn-out superficial and boring stuff, like watching a 3 hour long commercial. From what I remember a lot of the creative and innovative storytelling and the depth in the original Watchmen comic comes entirely from how it is presented to the reader on the page, too (with stuff like the layout of the panels and the stories-within-stories "Black Freighter" chapters that were cut out of the film entirely that cleverly parallel the present-day action, etc). Definitely recommend reading the graphic novel over watching this movie!

14. Name a book where the movie/tv adaptation is better than the original: Requiem for a Dream (2000) was a better experience as a crazy edgy depressing movie than it was as a novel by Hubert Selby Jr. to me:

youtube

I first saw this movie without having any idea what to expect when I was about 16, and even though it's pretty shocking in parts and upsetting to watch I remember really loving it back then and thinking of it as one of my favourite films at the time (I think I had a higher tolerance for certain kinds of edgelord stuff in my stories back in those days sometimes too, haha). This movie has always felt bit like a comic or a live action horror cartoon to me somehow? I think that it kinda goes too far a bit and nearly verges on comedy instead of tragedy at the end due to just how absurd and nightmarish it gets, but perhaps that almost unbelievable heightenedness of it all is kind of why it often feels a bit like a comic or a cartoon to me, too. And I still think there's quite a bit here to enjoy even despite the edginess as well. I think the acting is often very good, the soundtrack and the sound effects and the stylish visuals are great, and that the whole thing effectively creates a lot of very strong emotions like tension and dread and tenderness and wistfulness and loneliness and horror. It's maybe the only Darren Aronofsky film I actually like?

HOWEVER whenever I read the book that it was based on a few years ago I could barely get past the stylistic choices of the writer to enjoy what was being said (he wrote it in the 70s in sort of a dated stream-of-consciousness type writing style without many paragraph breaks or any quotation marks for separating the dialogue or the inner monologue from the prose, which I just found really annoying and off-putting to read). And the part about the book I liked the best, which was the colourful and extremely memorable dialogue and the slang that the characters use, was taken almost verbatim from the book and brought to life well on the screen too, so the whole time I was reading it I was just wanting to hear it said by the movie characters again instead. idk, I think it's a movie I'd definitely watch again sometime, but not a book I'd ever read again. Just more entertaining and less of a slog that way.

18. Which character from a book is the most like you?

Oh, very good question! Hmm... there are certain characters I relate to a lot for various reasons, but i don't know if anybody would say I'm extremely like them, probably? Of the books I've read more recently I feel like I'm sort of a bit of a Frodo character or something, maybe... his personality and his peaceful lifestyle before he gets sent on his adventure just feel very much like how I'd probably be living and socializing with everybody in the Shire myself, and the way he handles stuff like the burden of the ring on him and his reasons for doing things and how he worries about his friends who insist on sticking by his side and acts sort of secretive and more reserved feels relatable to me as well.

25. If you could be a character from a book for just one day who would you be and why? (Bonus: any specific day in the story?)

I want to be Wilbur the pig from Charlotte's Web getting a buttermilk bath and then eating the trough full of leftovers he gets (as a kid I remember thinking the lengthy descriptions of all the table scraps he was eating sounded really good for some reason, and the buttermilk bath sounded delicious to me as well lol).

26. If you could be a character from a book for their entire life who would you be and why?

I think it'd be pretty fun to be Lestat from the Vampire Chronicles because from what I remember he never feels guilty or angsty about much for too long, and he just knows how to have a good time no matter what. Even when he gets super bored or super depressed and then goes catatonic for a while he always eventually manages to bounce back and find something or someone new and interesting to get enthusiastic about and involved with again. He experiences things deeply and in an open-minded way while still never getting too burnt out by it or jaded about it either. If ever I were cursed to become immortal then I think his is the kind of personality that would make it the most enjoyable, anyway.

[bookish asks]

#ask #anon #books #movies #p #vmpcs

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totaleclipse573 · 10 months ago

Note

Okay but so can you make (or link me to) a post going over your OCs cause i am in constant confusion whenever i see them 😭

Well, if you want more info on the more lore-heavy oc's (Terios and Doleon) to get somewhat of an idea, they each have tags! They're :

#terios lore

#doleon lore? (with the question mark lmao)

Has a bunch of stuff there on them. I'd link you to the Terios lore post from some time ago but some of the stuff on there is really incomplete/some parts are inaccurate due to that now. I'd be happy to tell you about my silly little oc's though! (And maybe a refresher in case anyone needs it)

I'm warning you. This WILL be long 😅 Mainly because of Terios. It's all part of an alt canon of mine (Oc Universe au) and I have a lot of oc's. GRAB SNACKS.

DOLEON

Starting with him, because he plays a HUGE part in Terios' lore and story

Essentially, he's the Black Doom of this au. (Fun fact : he was created because I had no idea how to draw actual Black Doom, nor had the energy to learn, so I made him a hedgehog/alien thing. Then I got to thinking and now he has his own separate lore jhsdbfbkjdb. It's a bit complicated.)

Centuries ago, he had six other brothers (who also each have their own tag, just their names) https://www.tumblr.com/totaleclipse573/739530015615664128/can-i-dump-some-lore-on-yall-real-quick-actually?source=share

This explains everything pretty well I think. Still check out the tag itself if you'd like more info! (You should probably know for later, this guy right here is the definition of "I ALWAYS COME BACK >:D")

Personality wise, he's very egotistical, has a burning hatred for humans and humanity, and is always seeking power. He tends to see himself as much more intelligent and overall better than others (even though some *cough cough Starline cough* perceive him as dumb due to not knowing much about Earth or how things work on this planet.) While sometimes impulsive, he also really knows how to put up a good battle strategy wise. As of now, he (along with Shadow, Eclipse and Terios,) are the only remaining Black Arms left. (ALSO AS OF NOW : he met Starline, WHO IS TOTALLY ALIVE AFTER ISSUE 50, and they decided to form a partnership for each others own secret benefits, planning to stab one another in the back afterwards. They never do 😭 They're just really gay 😭)

TERIOS

(Cw for child abuse)

2000+ years after the Doleon shards incident, Terios is the accidental twin to Shadow, the initial project being rather mysteriously cloned. The only real explanation found had something to do with energy. This "clone" looked a bit off, with features that pointed to the idea that it seemed to hold more Black Arms DNA (ex. long pointed tail, all sharp teeth, green blooded, clawed fingers.)

But Doleon takes notice to that little mistake in the process. He can use that to his advantage. A pact is rather forcibly made, once the now two projects are finished, Doleon is entitled to one of them to use for his own purposes. He's part of the reason they even exist. He can make things happen if he doesn't get his way. (Geraldoom divorce arc /j)

He takes the black and white-striped one (who doesn't seem to want to be away from its twin it only JUST met, annoyingly.) It seems to be the exact opposite of it's twin, who is loud and confident. It (he can't keep calling this thing an it, for Supreme's sake...his name is Terios now) should be easier for what he has planned.

So while Shadow grew on the ARK, Terios grew on the Black Comet. And uh..............it was rough. He's essentially a victim of child abuse and a hell of a lot of manipulation. Brainwashed for years.

Doleon has Terios for his future plans now, but the downside on his end is that he now actually has to "care" for this small child until he’s old enough to begin his training.

But uh. Well...

Here's something from his lore tag regarding...a certain huge part of his lore

And some art of bitty him

Terios (and Shadow) grew rather quickly (in terms of appearance.) Doleon took that as a sign of "he's old enough" and the brutal and quite frankly traumatizing training began. He would be the BEST, and this was the way to make sure of that. He could never mess up, never make a mistake, he had to be perfect. And he made sure Terios knew that too. Every mistake he made would get him clawed at. The more severe the mistake, more likely the deeper the gash. (Learn how to heal yourself with that energy...or don't, and suffer. Sometimes, if his mistake was so bad, he wouldn't even be allowed to heal with the energy.) It was always on one of his arms or on his face. More often would he get shouted at, grabbed and tossed to the ground like some kind of rag doll. The lesson he eventually had to learn?

Don't ever mess up. On anything. Expect pain and suffering otherwise.

There's also this one other little habit he was eased into...

He doesn't hate his father for these things though. He still cares deeply for him and doesn't ever wish to disappoint him, as he's been doing. Father's doing this for a good reason...! Terios would soon be passed the honor of the power the Shards of Chaos hold, he needed a lot of training and discipline to be able to handle that...!

And that's what he told himself. Every. Time.

This goes on for a few years, and he's gotten much better with his training (he pretty much had to, the injuries weren't healing fast enough.) He rarely speaks unless told to, he's terribly obedient, he's tired, he's hurting, but it doesn't matter. He's what he's supposed to be! He's finally near perfection! (Except for these weird sparks and bursts of shard energy he gets whenever he feels sad...or angry...maybe he could just drown that out?)

Then things get crazy bc Tikal is here now. LET ME EXPLAIN PLEASE-(I first made Terios' story when I was like, ten years old? XD He's a revived oc)

Short summary : In this AU, Tikal is more like a free-ranging spirit. Tikal knew Doleon and his brothers, way back then. She was a ghost and could somehow get through the strange barrier of this little area the brothers were confined to, so they became friends! Tikal, Kieran and Doleon specifically. She wasn't around for when the others were killed, but the last person she saw was Kieran once the barrier was no longer there. That wasn't the only thing that was broken.

Since she already knew Doleon and what he had done in the past, she knew he had no good intentions. While he was away from Terios, she appeared before the Darkhog, alerting and telling him of what the shards really were, and what they could do to a person. And Terios, of course, started to panic. Was he being corrupted right now? Was he ALREADY corrupted? He needed to escape. But how? There was no escape.

Luckily for Terios, Tikal’s spirit was able to transport him back to where he was created, the ARK (not without Doleon putting up a fight of course.) Unluckily, however, at the time he was transported there, the whole ARK fiasco was going on, and Maria had already sent Shadow down to Earth and stuff. Now there were only G.U.N. soldiers, and they spotted him, calling him “Project Shard," for some reason (He had a separate file. There can't be TWO Project Shadow's) So he tries to run from them, but can’t, and they catch up to him. Soon enough, they lock him up in a facility, putting him into cryostasis.

Skip about...54 (???) years (4 years after SA2) and Terios is about to be released for nothing good. And guess what.

There's a one shot for one of the parts I randomly felt like writing out one day :D

This leads up to months of subtle brainwashing (aGAIN) and being brought back to his old mentalities until Terios just HATES that one hedgehog he's never met (gee doesn't that sound a bit like another irrelevant plotline of mine-) He's fully loyal to the Black Arms and to his kind only! Finding the Shards...for Doleon...that's his destiny. That's why he exists!

And so when they finally arrive to conquer earth (and find the remaining shards,) Terios is sent out to do his job. Except he meets people. Whoops.

The first person he ever met was Rouge, out on the streets of Westopolis. She just kind of...appeared? Upside down? Flying? Apparently, she'd seen him around. The things he could do...and she'd like his assistance in a little something. She was getting in his way, he could NOT be sidetracked by some bat.

He got sidetracked by some bat. The power of Rouge everybody. (But its okay because he didn't realize it. No panic attack here.) He still found one of the Shards afterwards! She led him to it, almost...surely a coincidence. Unless she was looking for them too? For some reason? WHY WAS SHE BEING NICE TO HIM ANYWAY??? WHAT TRICKERY WAS THIS??

...Not bad, though. If his tail would stop MOVING LIKE THAT FOR AT LEAST FIVE SECONDS, THOUGH, IT WOULD BE NICER.

Going back to Doleon with the shard, he should've expected somewhat of a lecture for socializing with allies of the enemy. AND OF COURSE, he got that. He's lucky he came back with the shard...he won't be punished.

After that, Ter, being sent out to the same place as a current horde of Black Arms soldiers, runs into Tails after going astray. Lecture down the drain, somewhat. What’s his name? Why is his tail so long? Can he use it in battle? Does he have any powers? He could ask questions all day if it weren’t for Terios starting to look overwhelmed by them (which gets an apology)

All the sudden, that horde of Black Arms start raiding the area Tails and Terios are in, so Tails, knowing this as current danger, grabs Terios by the hand and tells him he knows a safe, inside place.

A more simplified summary of events that come after all this because this is getting too long already sdbjbjkacvhjj

Terios says he has to go and this happens :

(that last part will become relevant in just a bit....)

More shard hunting

Doleon is harder on Terios now that Shadow is out of the picture. He isn't STUPID, Terios, he KNOWS what you've been doing. You keep derailing. Making mistakes. You know exactly where that leads.

Terios is quite literally beaten some sense into and this is the result :

Terios soon realizes Doleon PROBABLY isn't actually trying to help him at all, and instead joines the heroes in an attempt to stop him. He's with them for a while, starts to get somewhat comfortable around them...enough so that his real self starts showing.

And it confuses most. So you mean to say, this weird looking alien hybrid thing that only first showed himself in an attempt to brutally murder Shadow, had an alliance with Doom and the Black Arms from the start, and showed nothing but pure loyalty to them, even to go so far as to declare his actions in their name for the better? He's actually just this...guy. That was really, really badly manipulated.

Look at the way he came in. Even if he wouldn't specify where all those injuries came from, he was obviously treated like garbage. Just something to be used and then thrown aside. But oddly enough, he felt safe around these people. They were supposed to be the enemy!! Just another lie. He could change!! He could be better. Not the kind of better Doleon expected him to be, the kind of better that really just felt like the right thing now.

But hoooooooooooo when Doleon finds out about this.

Terios goes back into the comet after a while of being gone, its noticeable and he's mentally beating himself up about being so stupid. It's part of the plan, though. He'll go in first, so that the others remain unnoticed. Doleon has known about everything. And, if this kid won't LISTEN, he'll just have to MAKE HIM. His mental barriers were always weak anyway...he was the one to really mold the Darkhog into that for convenience.

Um.................angst...............it naturally follows :

When the others see him walking back out again they're confused. What is he DOING?? This isn't part of what they planned at all!

Until Doleon makes himself known as well and says something like "I only took back what belongs to me! It was rightfully mine from the start..." or some other CLEARLY rage-inducing thing. It gets on Shadow's nerves specifically sooooooooo bad, the way Doleon is speaking of Terios. Doesn't matter what they do, though. Terios won't listen. He won't speak. Everything else is blocked out. He belongs here. It's where he's always belonged. He's safe now. This is all he needs. He's home again.

And if it's what the Master told him, wanted of him, he would do anything to prove his loyalty. Anything.

He's forced to fight them, and they're forced to find some kind of way to snap him out of it before he can hurt anyone. He seems to be specifically going after Shadow for the kill, though.

Once he DOES get snapped out of it, he feels IMMENSE guilt. He can see how he hurt some of them, even if it was only a little. And that hurts him

APPARENTLY DOLEON OVER HERE WAS JUST HAVING SOME FUN, BECAUSE ONLY AFTER THIS DOES HE BRING OUT THE SHARDS AND GAIN A NEW FORM ENTIRELY TO FINALLY ENACT HIS END GOAL. Luckily Shadow has the Chaos Emeralds >:D Terios, though? Still terrified, and even more so now. WHAT IS A SUPER FORM?!?!?! He might need some help...

So they have to defeat Doleon in their super forms but Terios is still very new to the concept of chaos energy and super forms and such (he's far more shard energy than chaos energy,) and there may or may not be a scene somewhat reminiscent of that one SA2 scene in my head except no one dies. HOORAY!

And after all that, Terios can finally learn to be himself with his new allies, which leads to his redemption arc!

This part of his story moreso revolves around Terios learning to break free from what had happened before, and learn to better himself with the help of others. He also needs to learn some decent self care (whether it be simple things like taking better care of his fur, or more complex things like learning to accept help with his current mental state.)

At first, he’s still a bit paranoid about everything that happened. He’s worried Doleon could somehow come back at any moment, that the Black Arms could return along with him, that he would be forcibly dragged back in again, even after his life had only just started getting better (oH the nightmare scenes.) Luckily for him, though, now he has people that can actually help with these fears, and he eventually does feel ready to try and move on. Then he feels comfortable enough to start meeting people, and interacts with more of the cast!

This is also the time where he meets Eclipse and the Dark Arms! Short summary : Terios wants to do a Steven Universe and help Eclipse the way all the others helped him. Terios just kinda randomly stumbled into him while he was out one day and got VERY much lost. Eclipse doesn't like him and his sappy “I can help you bc power of friendship!” attitude at first, but then he's able to sense Terios' connection to the hivemind. It feels a bit different than Shadow. So now he's pretty curious as to why and starts asking Terios questions. Eventually Eclipse kinda grows to like Terios, this hybrid is actually nice to him, for some reason. But then Shadow finds them. You can probably tell where that goes (It’s bad for a long while, but it eventually ends with Shadow, Eclipse and Terios all living together bc they're brothers, it’s my own little canon and I can do as I wish XD)

Some redemption arc stuff I've talked about :

Aaaaand a little something about the way he behaves, even now :

Theres one more relevant story arc for him after this, and thats the "Doom arc" I rarely talk about. So shortened version : Shards of Chaos need a new host, they literally POSSESS Terios to do so (since he already has an established connection to them,) Doleon ends up being revived by the energy anyway, due to corruption, Tikal comes back, Espio becomes a sort of mentor for Terios post-possession so he can learn how to manage his newfound unstableness, aaaaand...yeah XD Like I said, this part is more in my head than written. The possessed form is still able to be accessed, very rarely, since Ter can't control it in the slightest.

And so now he's....the way he is! He is him :D He's shy, lacking in confidence, somewhat naïve due to wanting to see the good in everyone, and rather pacifistic, a surprising trait for that of Black Arms descent. He's very sweet, but can be angered on rare occasions. And when that rare occasion happens : start running.

I also gave him a speech disorder, specifically trauma-induced stuttering. He doesn't like it since it makes him sound nervous all the time, but otherwise, he doesn't mind, barely ever notices anymore. I did a lot of research just to be able to portray it accurately (I hope)

I know this was long, but I really just wanted to be able to explain everything clearly. I have other oc's that are FAR less complex, which is most of the others, so if you want, that'll probably have to be like a part two post 😅 Hope you found my oc rambling at least somewhat interesting! (I also hope it isn't too confusing 😭)

#sonic the hedgehog #sth #sonic fandom #sonic oc #ask box #sonic au #total rambles as usual #I FEEL KINDA BAD FOR HOW LONG THIS IS DSJVHSBKDVS #check some of these tags if you're interested though! ->#terios the darkhog #doleon doom #terios lore #doleon lore?#oc universe au #if you have any other questions feel free to ask!

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ernestelm · 8 months ago

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Black Cat Detective movie rant

Ever since I made that video about black cat detective I've realised how much I despised the movie. It missed the mark so badly that after I vented I felt like I had more things that I hated about t.

Im not going to urge people to watch the video because I am cringing at it but I also want people to find it and maybe have more people be interested in black cat detective.

I'm going to be honest, that video made me never want to make a video again. Im just going to be mostly text based, I might start posting animations or something some day but don't expect too much from me.

Useless rants away, Im going to get to the point.

Im starting from the beginning since Im kinda hoping no one reading this watched the video. Bcd is widely considered a classic by Chinese people created in the 80's. I didnt grow up with it, I was more interested in western shows , but I did see people from 2000's which is my age range say that they did. To me this was kind of a red flag, you see, liking western shows means my norm is watching the newest rendition for a series. For example, I watched tmnt 2012, I didnt grow up with the 80's one. So colour me surprise when I started trying Chinese media and they had so little good kids shows that after the 2000's they were still referencing shows from the 80's.

By that point I've already started watching more kids shows, I just didn't want to sit through anime and tvs shows and feel drained in the end anymore. So it was definitely a surprise when the main character started absolutely obliterating the villains. It also showed the more dark side of nature, like praying mantis eating their mate so their offsprings can have more nutrition. The whole show as a concept was kinda cool, my only gripe was that they didn't kill off the main villains despite killing smaller villains you know, typical hero movie tropes.

In 2015 they created a movie, which was where it all went downhill. (It might also be the series's season 2 but I couldnt bring myself to watch it so Im not counting it) They movie was loved by a lot of adults because they toned down the violence. Whatever, its fine, a show didnt have violence as long as they have good plot.

The movie didnt have good plot.

Characters

The characters, weren't good. First off, I didnt like how they added thick eyebrows for bcd and like he still barely had any expressions.

the whole thing about animation is that you can distort facial expressions, surpass what humans cannot do in real life, even the original series had bcd puff up from anger.

Im going to do another section just based on animation later

Other than that they added gag characters like a goddamn duck that keeps coming in with underwears on. It was so goddamn annoying, they even repeated it several times as if taunting me. I find it to be a problem with chinese cartoons in how they dumb down humour for children despite China supposedly being smart. I might bring this up for another rant on a show that I might do in the future but you'll understand what Im saying if you watched any chinese children show in recent years.

They also brought back the iconic villain, one ear, who is both unlikable and barely entertaining, his voice was annoying, I never liked it when he was on screen, he was mostly useless either way.

They also brought in a new "one off villain" a gorilla who's story sorta had potential. He basically got pissed at a friend over a misunderstanding, thinking that his friend was selfish trying take the credit of both of their work despite his friend mostly using "us" and "we", while the people back at base used "you found it". It could've been a pretty good lesson on miscommunication. Other than that, he also started thinking he should take all of the credit, a good lesson on how jealousy can blind a person. Everything was in place and yet they still messed up. I liked how even after seeing his friend apologise to him through a hologram he still couldnt forgive him. He wasn't like the best villain but he was certainly a step in the right direction.

Alright now for the main character, yup that's right, bcd wasnt the main character. It was a pig kid. With a hedgehog for a mother, which is a goddamn pun that can only be translated in Chinese. 豪猪 hedgehog and 猪 pig. Weird design choice aside. The goddamn kid is the most annoying little shit I've ever seen.

Alright Im going to start with the positives, the kid could be a good example on stress on children, which is also a theme for another pig related kids show that I hate, might talk about it someday but I didnt like the show so I'm probably going to take a while. He goes to tuition every single day, his mom honestly kinds of neglects his interest to be a policeman. Only allowing one poster of bcd in his bedroom, giving him tons of homework in one scene, it would've been a good chance to show the stress he is in, already having so much pressure to succeed in life despite only being in primary school. Instead, the show decides to play it off as a gag, haha relatable, dont you think this is funny? As someone who grew up in a competitive Chinese school, I would say no. Story for another day tldr, it ruins your mental health and your relationships if you're not careful.

Now for the negatives, the kid is annoying. Well immature traits are annoying to me, so I might be biased. First off, the kid keeps trying to save the day despite it being wildy out of his capabilities. Exhibit A, trying going against 2 adults, one being a prisoner who escaped from a high security prison. He was lucky that his idol, bcd arrived in time to save him. Bcd even told him that he shouldve contacted him instead of facing 2 dangerous adults alone. And yet the kid kept going in and save bcd, being a kids movie they of course want everything to go well but his presence did cause the two villains to escape containment at one point. His presence did cause bcd to have to hand over a dangerous item as he was held hostage, why? He decided that instead of calling bcd to warn him about his battery being stolen and probably being used to escape, he goes on his scooter to warn him. Mind you, this show has phones, they had a gag were a girl liked bcd and asked for his number, which he replied with China's emergency number so contacting him via phone was an option. In the end everything works out, he was even rewarded for being reckless, now assuming this show was targeted at kids ( based on the juvenile jokes ), what message would this send to the children watching? It certainly isnt a good one now is it.

He also doesnt freaking tell bcd about the plan of the villains instead kept telling him how much he likes him and shit and waiting until he gets asked before splurging out the information. He also made the high stakes feel so much weaker as people's lives were at stake when he was freaking stanning and crap.

There's also his friend who was only introduced to give the kid a vip ticket so he can be at the scene when the 2 villains arrived there despite it not being opening day yet. His friend is absolutely underutilized, his father is the curator of the green star which was the place, and the weapon that the villains used, yeah the event was held on a spaceship, which the villains were planning launch to space as some sort of sick revenge. High stakes that were absolutely underplayed by the protagonists but I digress.

He never went to check on his friend who, as stated was in the location of a crime. He was supposed to be the "best friend" and yet he never contacted his friend after the incident. I cant even entirely blame it on him as after the main character met his idol and "helped" him, he never contacted this friend to tell him about everything or something. Which made their friendship even less natural and making the fact that he was merely a plot device even more obvious.

Plot

After seeing how his friend was treated you already know the writing of this is going to be a treat right? I expected so much from China, who force their kids to memorize Chinese classics and read so much literature, you would think that the place that supposedly invented paper would have better writing but no, its absolutely garbage if you cant tell from my sarcasm in my first sentence.

Now now, Im going to start with the obvious, any writer or like writing enthusiast would know about the quote "show dont tell". Yeah, tell that to the writer of Mr Black: Green Star. Sorry I didnt being up the name of the movie sooner but, I dont like the name at all and was procrastinating on even typing out the words. They continuously repeated this elite group of policemen (yes, from what I can tell they were all male) yet never showed them, I had to go on 知乎 to even find any information about it. Even so, I wasnt even sure if it was official.

Other than that there was this plotline where bcd won his first award at 14 for defeating professor strange (generic ass villain, dr strange wannabe, can you tell how much I hate this movie?) look as much as it messes up the timeline, I might excuse him as maybe being younger in the original series causing him to be more violent. Like maybe he got more responsible causing a more child friendly new gen bcd but that's expecting too much from the writers.

I really, really wished that they started with a movie of him joining the elite team and defeating professor strange or something instead of whatever this is. It would've established his character. Maybe starting with a more feral and hostile bcd, maybe even mourning for his friend who died in the original series and wanting to kill the villains but being told killing is not the solution. It would've been a new chapter, it would've saved a few seconds of my life from listening to characters repeating the same thing, that could've just been in a movie.

Moving on, we have logic. There is barely any. Oh Ern! Stop being such a soggy cereal, can't you just enjoy a movie without debating the logic? No, not when they both cause stupid behaviour and ignore a goddamn chance to be educational which links it to the edu part of the original series. First off stupid behaviour, the kid drives a jet because his dad is a pilot, thats not how it works, I bet the writers thought they were smart like, chekovs gun moment! Remember how the friend made an offhand remark on how the main character's dad is a pilot? Well yes I do. But also I don't drive a boat because my dad is a fisherman because it doesnt work like that.

Other than that g force. Gravity altering device, whatever, I could care less but bcd withstanding 8 g force without equipment? Real shit. They couldve said something about how cats can handle higher g forces or something. Whatever , theres thankfully not much information about that but one thing I am sure of is, the goddamn jet the kid was driving also had g force. Why wasnt that brought up. Why cant the kid handle the device but could handle a jet? They could've thought the kid about g force and make him experience it himself. Maybe do a flashback on it when he was on the jet. It would've been an upgrade to bcd teaching him how to shoot and making the final scene about him never being able to aim well but dealing the final blow perfectly. The shooting part could've been more talent or something honestly, I dont care much of it.

Enough of the g force. Talk more about plot. What else is there to say? This whole thing is just a shallow movie, what am I gonna talk about, the one lff minion who was basically just there to fill in the chase scene? There is barely any substance in this movie, it felt more like a cash grab but like itt can't even sell merch because the character designs were mid and most of them are unlikable other than bcd but that's just my opinion.

Animation

Shit was weak, as I said they never utilised the fact that they used 2D animation. The animation techniques used felt more 3D than 2D.their smear frames are just a white blur. Their expressions are boring. and the side characters looks like this

Ive seen passion projects on youtube with better quality screenshots than these. I would rather it have self inserts of animators. Heck I've seen better quality animation in Bilibili productions. LOOK AT TGCF, HECK, LOOK AT WHITE CAT LEGEND. Those aren't even national culture icons, they weren't even released in theatres and yet look at the quality.

The worst part? They used 2D animation to honour the original series. It didn't feel like honour at all, in fact, it felt like an insult. I feels like the people who watched it only watched the series a few times as a kid and didn't even rewatch it to write the new show.

Anyways, I hope I never think about this movie ever again.

#black cat detective #movie rant #chinese animation #mr black: green star

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eiirisworkshop · 1 year ago

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Eiiri’s OC-tober 2023 - Day 10: Mark In a Different Time Period

Read on Ao3 here, original prompt list here. ~

Mark Blanchet was born in the year 2000—one of his dad's pet names for him as a kid was “millennium bug,” which Mark had spent all of his teens thinking was corny and stupid but, by now in his twenties, he was just starting to think was sweet after all.

Now, Mark's best friend, Jack, was born in '98. Jack's other best friend and older-brother-in-all-but-blood, Collin, was born in '88. Arguments abound over who, if any of them, counted as a “nineties kid.” Mark didn't, that much was agreed upon, but….

“I was born in the nineties!” Jack insisted, talking over Collin while Mark laughed. “You weren't!”

“It's not about when you were born, it's when you grew up,” Collin said for at least the forth time, with less patience with each reiteration. “It's about the shit you remember—Blockbuster, dial up internet, being weirdly entranced by those too-short crushed velvet shirts all the girls had cuz they wanted to look like the Spice Girls.”

“I'm not so sure that last one woulda affected me anyway, but I'm a fuckin' farm kid!” Jack gestured emphatically. “We only had dial up out on the ranch 'til I was in high school and you know it!”

“Hang on, hang on,” Mark interjected before Collin could retort. “Did we have a fuckin' Blockbuster in town?”

Jack shook his head. “Nah, we had Uncle Vic's Video with the porn section behind a curtain in the back, and I am still mad it closed before I realized that's what that was.”

Bonus:

Summer of 2019, in part to celebrate Mark finishing high school, he and Jack went on a road trip, no real direction or destination, just go, have fun, be careful, send pictures, call or at least text every day so Mark's mama don't have a heart attack and Jack's mama don't come find you her own damn self, make sure you're okay.

They wound up down in Texas, at some rodeo, sitting near the gate to the arena, halfway watching the barrel racing competition. One girl done up in red and white show gear blew through on a chestnut mare so fast her scarlet hat came off on her way back out the gate—Jack hopped down to grab it before it got trampled by the next racer. The girl reined her horse back over, much slower now, let Jack hand her hat up to her, put it back on with a sunny smile and polite little nod, then rode off again, leaving Jack grinning dopily after her.

It took a second for Jack to notice Mark looking at him, one eyebrow arched, sucking at the ice-packed dregs of his coke.

“What?”

“Jack,” Mark said with teasing slowness.

“What?!”

“I thought you were gay.”

Jack let out a breath and deflated into his seat. “Yeah, me too.”

“But I definitely just saw that happen.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“So!” Mark gestured in the direction the girl in the red hat had gone. “Are you gonna go talk to her?”

“I— Ennis—”

“Has not texted you back in how fuckin' long?” Mark challenged. “By what you've said he's made it damn clear you're not dating him anyway, so go talk to the pretty girl.”

With a huff, Jack grabbed up his own drink again. “If I see her again, maybe.”

#eiiri made this #eiiri's oc tober #oc-tober #original character #mark blanchet #modern AU

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folkdances · 2 years ago

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okay im locking merilance and roscobell in a room for 24 hours. if they can survive without insulting and/or killing each other then they win any prize of their choosing. at the 12 hour mark i introduce valerie to keep things fun. how does this play out

oh my god ok so for convenience's sake we are going to say this starts and ends at 8:00 am and this is how the day will break down:

8:00-9:00 - this is the period of time where if you get a new pet you have to let it get accustomed to the environment so they mostly just hang i think .. roscobell takes stock of the apartment and merilance alternates between sitting badly on the couch and bothering roscobell.

9:00-11:00 - things start getting funky. by this point merilance is definitely thinking about all the ways this endeavor is wasting her time and she's starting to get moody about it. roscobell has found a 2000 piece double-sided puzzle and has quietly spent the morning working on it.

11:00-12:00 - conversation time. they've both gotten bored enough that they can actually cancel out all of their layers of complexes and actually chit-chat with each other. 9/10 mostly pleasant.

12:00-1:00 - lunch time! there is a brief spat about which microwave lunch to prepare because merilance wants frozen pizza and roscobell wants frozen macaroni. in the end they put the macaroni on top of the pizza as a compromise.

1:00-1:30 - someone has to do the dishes and no one wants to take responsibility for it. this is where the seeds of discontent are planted.

1:30-2:30 - some sort of argument happens directly after the dishes have been cleaned and they have to both part ways for a half hour so they don't kill each other.

2:30-7:00 - they realize at mostly the same time that now they're lonely and bored so they get back together and the rest of this time period spends in largely amicable silence with only a few brief moments of terror (merilance wants to try her knife throwing skills; roscobell wants to see if she can knock the knives out of mid-air by growing lily of the vallies but Big. this constitutes the most life-threatening incident)

7:00-8:00 - really awkward time period of realizing they are actually chilling and enjoying each other's company; they both immediately put their layers of complexes and repression back on and spend the next hour much the same way they spent the second hour. roscobell breaks the puzzle and restarts it from the opposite side while merilance looks out the window mentally reciting the lyrics to high hopes by panic at the disco in-tune and backwards as a mental endurance test

8:00 - A NEW OPPONENT ENTERS THE RING - VALERIE WISHES TO CHALLENGE! well first they would have a strange awkward late dinner during which merilance is trying very hard to be polite and valerie is trying very hard to say something that'll make her do something funny. i'm placing this either shortly after or during the exile arc.

8:00-12:00 - things are not looking very good. valerie has gotten merilance and roscobell both to make facebook accounts and has now introduced them to the concept of vagueing which they will be very occupied with for a short period of time until someone says something and then everyone is mad at each other and at least one phone has been broken. there will also be at least one bitch session over what music to play in the background. we wrap up the early night hours with the decision to watch a movie.

12:00-2:00 - movies chosen by each party: roscobell wants to watch tom at the farm, merilance wants to watch the rock (1996), and valerie wants to watch zootopia. they do a dice-roll to see who wins; it is, according to the real-life dice roll i just did, valerie. merilance mistakes 'zooTOPIA' for 'zooLANDER'; valerie makes a "haha that's you" comment the second one of those jokers shows up on screen; merilance's kill switch is activated; merilance tries attacking valerie in a warrior-cat style; roscobell tries pulling them apart but in the process gets implicated in the fight; total injuries include one broken nose two black eyes and one cracked nail along with various scratches and bite marks. they have officially lost the contest 😢

some variables: if fenyan had been there, he would have made them all sit quietly and do biology-for-kids worksheets all day 10/10 very amicable everyone leaves happy. if adilene had been there, the contest would have been lost at about 9:10 am.

#SORRY FOR HOW FUCKING LONG THIS IS #chelseahotel2004 #acorn missives

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kaoarika · 4 days ago

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I wish I was far more normal and that my woes about my computer (and everything related to it) would be FAR more normal than what I imply they are, and all because I have had issues (to several degrees) in ALL of my own computers since 2011 (I would say quite earlier, but the one I had during high school had power related issues - not my fault and were more easily solvable than ALL the others).

I'm this close to add Chrome again as browser. Firefox, for all the good it is (not being based or forked from Chromium), and all the nice commodities it has given to me in the past couple of months, I know it's much of a "work in progress" (Mozilla might be a big company?, but it doesn't have Google's BIG money), there are bugs that they do not consider "priority" over others... but imagine me, being a 15-year-old Chrome user (I'm in my 30s, don't GET ME WRONG), and only testing Firefox in... maybe a month or 2 during the late 2000s, the change is drastic... but, also, I mean... I HATE Chrome. Firefox has been all learning steps to me. BUT ALSO, it has many annoyances that I wish they were prioritized as well.

I wish some devs will improve the Spanish-language options. Like... for real. I am not sure what dictionary they are using (it's the same that LibreOffice uses, that's for sure), because it marks me "wrong" words that ARE NOT wrong. AND I KNOW IT (and the same dictionary would give me potential issues of 'I should give it MUCH more attention' in the future when I edit texts in LibreOffice... but what others available dictionaries are there, I ask?)

Did you know what when a video's reproduction is "blocked" in a new tab, it says "Reproducción Bloqueda"... when it should be "Reproducción BLOQUEADA"? AHHHHHH.

And then, there's bugs like random htm files getting created (which I didn't have), and NOW I had a ".part" variant in the past few days that I WISH I remember where I got them from (although, for reals, I believe they were Tumblr/uBlock/smth FF related... how?, I wish I knew... although my theory is smth along the lines of old tumblr blogs ... and it is definitely turning me off of using the private session again, for example, I'm realizing just now). There's also stuff about downloaded files that, for some reason, sometimes? they marked me as "failed", and GOSH DARNIT, I SAW THEM "COMPLETE" when I was checking the DL tab thing on the bar???! AND the files (which are all images!) aren't BAD???? AT ALL??? I DIDN'T GET THROUGH THIS IN CHROME. NEVER.

It's... annoyances (also, smth smth about Google sabotaging Firefox, so imagine that Google, YT and Gmail all failing together for various minutes because Google and Firefox).

And, like... I understand that there's also not ethical consumption about Google. Changing from one damned browser to another MIGHT be good, and the change feels good because they have been doing stuff here and there that is basically BAD for everyone involved? But... I mean. It's the smallest things. THE SMALLEST THINGS.

It's the annoyances. They are minor. They should be minor. It's not only stuff like bugs... the few shortcuts I am soooo used in Chrome, the way I select the text in a website (ie Tumblr) using the keyboard works differently (it gets annoying because I'm not even sure what ELSE it is selecting when ALL I want to do is copy and/or cut or delete. Forcing me to use the mouse much, much more.

I'm seriously considering using a Chromium-based browser again. Might be even Edge, at this point (GOOD LORD, that new tab page is a mess and a half... I can't even select "page settings" since it becomes a blinking mess unless I go directly to the option in Settings >.>. I also wish it would stop asking me if I wanted it to be the main internet browser, like, NO man, there's a whole reason I don't... and your picky news DO NOT HELP)

And... mixed with that... I had a few jumpscares last night. Something about "oh, maybe I shouldn't have", "I messed up bad", that looks like it was stuff more related to freaking Windows 11, which is another can of fucking worms (thumbnails from programs w/o preview suddenly getting blurry... maybe because I was doing a Windows Defender exam? going through the search tools in Explorer?; icons from the start menu from the recommended docs not appearing... *SIGH* who thought that start menu was a GOOD idea...... and if I "delete" the option, it basically meses up my recent opened docs in OTHER places like Paint or LibreOffice, apparently?)

Just a mess.

And I don't have elsewhere to vent about this. It gives me anxiety and the sudden urge to never use an electronic ever again.

#kao's nonsenses

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nerdgatehobbit · 1 month ago

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All right, I want to do a semi-silly post, especially as it's both Leverage's 16th anniversary and The Librarians' 10th. I suspect it's a coincidence, but given the off-screen & on-screen overlap it wouldn't be a surprise if it weren't. However, I'm going to (for now) sidestep the crossover concept between them, because I want to wonder how the teams would deal with the Pokémon world.

Kanto & Johto: The Leverage team would 100% end up dealing with Team Rocket, culminating with them going after Giovanni. Sophie and James would absolutely talk theatre, though. Hardison and Bill likely would geek out together. Parker would have fun trying to locate Legendary Pokémon just because she wants to see if she could. Nate likely has complicated feelings regarding Professor Oak, especially if it turns out that he used to listen to his radio talk show with Sam.

Orange Islands: There's probably not much to draw the Leverage team's attention here, outside of the incident that makes up Pokémon 2000. They would go after Lawrence III to ensure he can't repeat his scheme.

Hoenn: I have a feeling they might not quite realize the seriousness of what Teams Aqua & Magma are up to until they enact their plans. Hardison gets a Castform after a job at the Weather Institute (to Parker's smugness). Other than that, though, I haven't determined which Pokémon the team members would have- I suspect they'd start out with just one and gradually gain more as they travel the regions.

Sinnoh: At first, the team probably doesn't realize the extent of what Team Galactic is up to until Hardison gets access to their systems. After that, though, they do their best to be involved in stopping them (I am unsure if the canon timeline is also happening or not). There's probably a job done on Mount Coronet other than the final battle. I suspect there would be a couple of jobs involving museums, featuring Hisui artifacts.

Unova: It starts out with the Leverage team going after Team Plasma cells for stealing Pokemon, but matters snowball from there.

Kalos: Sophie definitely has a blast in this region, also she has a crush on Diantha but keeps insisting that it's merely viewing her as a role model, to the others' increasing doubts. Nate grows fearful that Lysandre is a dark reflection of himself (I'm unsure how well the others can dissuade him of that). Parker climbs Lumiose Tower at one point.

Alola: All right, in the thought that inspired this point, the team absolutely has a job going after Viren. Depending on whether it's game or anime canon, their level of concern over the Aether Foundation would vary greatly. Either way, though, Hardison gets into a vicious feud with Faba. If the Ultra Rangers are a thing, the team probably won't be too concerned, as I'm going to mash up some genre expectations here (i.e., Pokémon as a whole has kids shouldering major responsibilities as audience surrogates and it's not meant as an indictment on the adults). They would also fall in with Team Skull, teaching everyone (including Guzma) healthier coping mechanisms about not fitting in. Parker would encourage Robin Hood style thefts rather than the grunts going after school kids. There'd probably be some serious discussions about trying to figure out how to determine when a societal structure isn't the best fit for you specifically versus being flawed enough in general to warrant change and/or being ended (further complicated by how Alola's structures are different from other regions and therefore is in fact being non-conforming to begin with).

Galar: Chairman Rose is very much in line with the Leverage team's typical mark, so they would absolutely go after Macro Cosmos. I think Oleanna and Sophie would have a rivalry. If this is an AU rather than just dimension hopping, Sophie would be from here. Dimension hopping is on the table, though. If so, Looker & Anabel would be reoccurring characters (somewhere between Taggert & McSweeten and Sterling in terms of seriousness and competence).

Paldea: Hardison and Nate would have So Many Issues with Turo & Sada; more on the Evil Science side for Hardison and more on the parental neglect for Nate. Luckily, Hardison would also have Penny as a mentee, with Breanna acting as a big sister figure. At some point Breanna & Harry will be joining in on the fun, but I'd have to figure out the timeline and also have actually watched some Leverage Redemption to get a better grasp on their characters. There's probably a lower stakes job at Artazon featuring an art exhibit with Maggie present.

I don't know enough about the 'minor' regions to say anything serious about them. Tara Cole will be filling in for Sophie for a while still, but again: I'd have to figure out timeline stuff to determine when.

Meanwhile, over with the Librarians team! At the moment, I'm acting like either these are two different AUs or the two teams are oblivious to each other somehow. Or I'll take a third option to combine them but again, that would involve far more pondering than I currently have done on the matter. This post is basically a first draft.

Judson, Charlene, and Jenkins are all still immortal due to Legendary shenanigans. The main Library is probably in Nimbasa City, although I'm not sure where the Annex would be located. Part of me wants to put it in Sootopolis City for its isolation (which would make tactical sense) but then maybe putting it in Eterna City would make thematic sense. Also, I'm guessing that Hoopa would be the in-universe influence for the Door in this version.

Flynn, Eve, and the LIT trio would be more focused on protecting Legendary & Mythical Pokémon from threats than collecting magical artifacts from being misused, given the total lack of a 'masquerade' in the Pokemon world. They work with the Champions when they do need to check in on ensuring certain objects are secure (the Red and Blue Orbs being a prime example).

They scramble upon learning of Project Mew, but there's still a close call with Mewtwo (if Ash isn't around, it likely features Cassandra reaching out to him). For favoritism reasons, Flynn has a Lugia along with a Grotle, an Absol, and an Salamence. He would start out with just the Grotle as his starter, gaining each of the others over his time as a solo Librarian. I haven't decided yet if Excalibur looks like a regular sword or if it's an ancient Honedge.

Eve has a Lucario, a Charizard, and a Glaceon. Jake has a Smeargle and a Mudsdale. Ezekiel has a Zorua, Rotom, and a Ralts (yes that last one is meant as a neon sign at Ezekiel's hidden depths). Cassandra probably has been unwilling to get any Pokémon due to her brain tumor. It's a toss-up if that changes before or after its removal at this point. I think she'd end up with an Abra and a Fidough. Although it'd be a good moment if she did get a 'classic' starter Pokémon as well, to highlight how she's reclaiming her life and dreams; I'm just unsure which one would suit her best.

There's at least one incident featuring the Burned Tower. Sinnoh is very much a hotspot for incidents due to the quantity and strength of its Legendaries. I think it'd be funny if by the time of the series, Flynn has developed a friendship with the Swords of Justice, regularly meeting up for picnics to compare notes on the events of their travels. When they first tag along, Eve, Jake, and Ezekiel would be baffled but Cassandra would be charmed by the almost fairy tale vibes of the situation.

By the end of the main series, I think the others would all also have a Legendary or Mythical Pokémon. I'm leaning towards giving Ezekiel a Celebi due to the events of "And the Point of Salvation", even if that situation plays out differently in this AU.

I don't think Estrella would be a vampire in this AU, but she would have powers of some kind. Maybe she lives in/near the Glimwood Tangle, ergo having a Galarian Rapidash? Regardless of where she lives, she'll definitely have a Crobat as a nod to her original self. Also, this will be a Lamia Lives AU. She has a Flygon, a Litten, and an Umbreon. There'll still be a betrayal from Dulaque, but a Legendary Pokémon intervenes to save her life (which one will depend on which region the events are happening in).

I'm going to have to finish season four before I'm willing to guess at what sort of Pokémon Nicole would have as well as what her situation would be in this version of events. Particularly as this is a lighter & softer AU, as can probably be surmised by now. Maybe Lamia and Nicole will be a duo doing their own thing, not fully part of the Librarian team but not hostile either?

The globetrotting is much easier to justify here due to the Door the Librarian team has access to, which wouldn't be impossible in the Pokémon world, especially if the Library has more access to magic than most. There's likely still a clippings book, but Flynn's bigger priority is his calendar app that lets him know which key site needs to be checked in on this month. It'll be a tossup if there's still an incident at the Tree of Life or not.

The Ultra Beasts and Paradox Pokémon will cause a lot of headaches for the team, particularly in making sure nobody gets hurt on either side. The former can be returned home, but the latter cannot. I wonder if Flynn and Cassandra could convince Mewtwo to welcome the Paradox Pokémon to Mount Quena?

This was probably a silly way to celebrate, but I had fun with this! I don't know if it'll go any further than this post, but even if I don't, it was fun to play with the concept here.

#leverage #the librarians #pokémon #my rambles #long post #i'm not getting any more specific in my tags to prevent cluttering

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tonyschiavonesearring · 4 months ago

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I'm not a fan of Dwayne Johnson now but I was a big fan of The Rock growing up. I saw a comment by a Stone Cold mark saying The Rock was not even close to Austin in popularity. A few years ago, I think everyone would've accepted that but instead these new fans jumped on him. Rightly so.

Personally, I would probably rather watch an Austin match than a Rock match. But I watched pro wrestling the whole Attitude Era. WWE spent the last 25 years making it seem like Austin was the biggest thing ever and eclipsed even Hogan. Its nonsense politics because Austin has always been loyal while Hogan and Rock abandoned Vince.

Austin's legacy is that he's the biggest MERCH seller ever. And you can argue that he's the most over wrestler ever because he always gets the biggest pop when he comes back. But thats also because who his fans are: grown men, not kids and younger fans. Austin was super political and refused to work with tons of guys who would outshine him and rarely did jobs or played heel. So yeah he's going to get a special babyface pop.

But the fact remains that The Rock is definitely the biggest draw ever. And I'm talking about BEFORE he was a Hollywood actor. Austin was on top 1996 to 1999ish. He came back late in 2000 when Rock was clearly a bigger star, which is why 2001's WM was booked in Texas so the fans would cheer Austin through the match. Austin was the top guy when WWF was the #2 company getting beat by WCW. Fact. And right before he left, The Rock was equal in popularity despite being a heel. When Austin was gone, he became a face and steadily became a bigger draw and made WWF beat WCW in ratings.

Rock got tons of mainstream attention that Austin just didn't get. He was more like a WCW star like DDP, Sting, the NWO and Goldberg. No one else in WWF was really on that level. When Rock became the guy, their whole roster changed to be more like him (colorful, funny, sexual, in better shape) and less like Austin (cursing, angry, lots of "realism" and anarchy). Also, WWF lost Vince Russo as the headwriter, which helped. I kinda like Russo but he makes niche entertainment.

Rock was the guy. The ratings were better. The attendance was better. Rock hosts SNL. Rock's in big commercials. Rock's filming a movie. Austin comes back and beats Rock. Austin blames the fact that he turned heel, but he was on top for a year without The Rock and ratings dropped. Austin inherited all the angles Rock was in and they bombed. You can't say the same about Rock taking over all the opponents Austin had. He actually wrestled way more people. Austin wrestled Kane and Taker to an absurd degree in so many forgettable matches. His Rock matches were really what he's remembered for.

But beyond that, Rock has main evented more WMs than anyone except Cena and I guess Roman is climbing up there. And each one was a big success. Austin came out of retirement for a match and it was a big deal but didn't break any records. Rock just tagged in a match and it pretty much drew the house. To be fair, Austin's comeback was a surprise so people would watch Night 2, but still.

As a worker, I think Austin is better. Maybe even as a person, Austin is cooler. Lots of wrestlers still imitate Austin but the biggest stars have imitated Rock: Cena, Batista, young Brock, Miz, Roman, LA Knight. WWE has tried desperately to recreate the Rock more than they've tried to recreate Austin. Because Rock is the guy who made WWE mainstream again... and he did it AGAIN. He also did it back in 2011 with the Cena angle.He doesn't have to be your favorite to accept no one in wrestling is bigger or will ever be as big as The Rock. Hogan and Flair are more iconic to wrestling fans, but The Rock represents wrestling to the global audience.

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lorahgames · 11 months ago

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Let's talk about: Pokemon Day 2024

First off, I went into this direct with high expectations. My predictions (for games) were:

A Pokemon Legends Game

A Remake/Ported version of a mainline series game (specifically, B&W or Johto)

The livestream addressed a few things that I am not too familiar with/don't use, so I won't be going into that. This includes Pokemon Horizons: the series, Pokemon Masters EX, and Pokemon Cafe Remix. I can't provide any opinions on if these announcements were exciting or not, so not bothering trying!

Let's begin with the announcement of the Gen 1 Tera Raid Mightiest Mark Battles for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. I will be playing these! I got the mightiest mark charizard when that raid first dropped, so would love to get the other mighty Kanto starters, especially my long-time favourite, Blastoise. Long live the water starters!!!

Next up, Pokemon Trading Card Pocket. I didn't think much when I first saw it, but the game premise is really growing on me. After all, I am such a sucker for gacha games. Yeah. Anyone remember Quidd, the sticker trading game? Had me in an absolute chokehold, so I feel like this is right up my alley. I'm not sure if I'll actually battle people besides friends, but I'll be all over opening the packs up. I'll definitely be giving this a try.

Fun Side Story Time! I used to be obsessed with the trading cards. I had a collection of hundreds of cards from the early 2000s, with a lot of rare ones thrown in there. Always took them to school to play around with the other pokemon kids. I WAS ROBBED. One of those playground losers stole my entire collection, plus a Webkinz from me. I have been too sad to get involved with the cards since then.

Then we got the new playable pokemon added to Pokemon Unite that include Miraidon, Falinks, and Ceruledge. I have actually revisited Pokemon Unite in the last week. It's still kicking, with enough players to fill matches, and still pretty fun. Forever a Mew main. My only thoughts on this announcement though, is why Falinks? I never played Sword/Shield, so maybe Falinks has some secret hidden fanbase I just never heard of? Also, way to leave Pokemon Scarlet in the dust, Nintendo. You couldn't of added one exclusive from each of the Gen 9 games instead of pulling both from Violet? Oh well.

Surprisingly, I've been using Pokemon Sleep for the past two months, so I'm actually kind of excited about the game receiving legendaries! I think I'm too new to the game to actually come across one in a reasonable amount of time, but it's nice to know it's a possibility.

Now we have Nintendo's grand finale: Pokemon Z-A.

My first thought was, the hell is this?

So I have never actually played Kalos. I was a broke kid whose mom did not think they needed a 3DS, as I already had a DS at home (DS lite WAS NOT the same, Mom!). There was no way 12 year old me was going to scrape up enough pocket money to buy it, so just never bothered. So I have absolutely no emotional connection to Kalos whatsoever. I was jealous of the people who got to play, though. They got Sylveon, an adorable new addition to the Eevee line, and a complete powerhouse! It's one of my favourites.

Honestly, all expectations aside, this game looks good. Legends Arceus was an absolute game-changer in the pokemon series, With a complete new storyline and game mechanics, and I have in fact been waiting for another instalment in the Legends series. Although I had (severely) high hopes for Unova, I'm excited to visit Kalos for my very first time! I can't tell at all if this game is set in past or future. I initially thought past, but not as far back as Legends Arceus. More like, right before major city development takes place. But everyone else seems to think it's super futuristic! I don't really see that working though, if it follows a similar plot to Legends Arceus, since the pokedex would already be completed, as well as most major pokemon research developments. It's all speculation, I'm no expert at all, but that's what I got from the trailer.

I will admit, I am terribly disappointed by the lack of Unova :( If you know me, then you know I am a hardcore Gen-5 stan, so I was praying to the pokemon gods to PLEASE GIVE ME THIS. I'm honestly surprised they avoided remakes completely. Could it be because of the backlash from BDSP? People hated the chibis (personally, I didn't love them but it wasn't awful) so maybe they thought to hold off on remaking more. I just thought with the amount of pointers from the Scarlet/Violet DLC, we would've gotten SOMETHING. A girl can only hope.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Pokemon Day 2024. Lemme know what you guys think!

LORAH

#pokemon #legends z-a #legends arceus #pokemon day 2024 #pokemon tgc

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