#im writing fanfic about my source that has to be a sign of something right

[arson-beloved]

I actually wrote something for once and im gonna post it on ao3 as like. Motivation to maybe finish. Thats not important. Whats important is the bullshit tags that exist. Ive taken so much damage just looking at the results that show up. God save me

[antimony-medusa]

heyy im thinking of joining ao3 with my works, but they’re not fanfics, they’re original writings. do you think it would still get accepted/viewed by folks? bc from what i see on tumblr it sounds like ao3 is mostly engaged with fanfic, i could be wrong but thats what it sounds like lol

Ohhh, original works on Ao3 my beloved.

Okay so there are two general baskets of Original Works, and one is "everything original people are putting on Ao3", and one is the one that people do in exchanges, where people sign up to write relationships like "Teen Who Is Turning Into A Werewolf & Her Sister" or "Retired General/His Arranged Marriage Spouse Who Was Formerly The Enemy General".

In my experience people broadly speaking do not really find the stuff in the first basket on Ao3. I'm in the tag right now and a lot of these works have very low hits. The stuff in the Second basket, which is things tagged interestingly enough that they catch people's eye, with a fun high concept— maybe? Some of these works clearly have a following!

Okay so there are 286,322 works in the Original Works tag, with something like over a hundred works posted a day, and there are not hundreds of people hovering in the tag looking for whatever gets posted, because honestly, like half of it is people posting vent fic. The spectrum of quality varies WILDLY, like it does in any big tag, and there is a lot of stuff that is people just starting out. Also a lot of it is people writing niche porn. Original Work is a very horny tag. So you have to find a way to rise into people's vision.

And this HAS been done— I'm subscribed to two people on Ao3 specifically because I loved their original works, I have an original work that's sitting at 200 kudos, there's an 86k novel I read in chapter updates last year that updated on fridays where I was like "ohhh it's friday it's jewel day" for ages and it's sitting at almost 2k kudos. I have read a published novel that started as an OW on Ao3, though I can't find the title now. But again, this is the stuff that rises to the top of the 286k fics in the tag, this is not everything. So how do you rise to the top and get seen?

My first advice is luring people over from another source. So if you already have a following from other fic, some people might follow you to original works? And then if it's GOOD, they'll stick around. This is the equivalent of "this romance author I liked is trying thrillers— I might try it?" So not everybody is gonna follow you, but some might. And if you already have people following your blog where you talk about your writing on Tumblr, you can say "check it out on Ao3", and people will head on over!

And then my second advice is that if you tag and do the summary interestingly, people might click when they see you. But you have like 2 seconds to catch people's attention, so how do you maximize that?

A) if do your relationship in an interesting way that tells people something, that helps. "Original Male Character/Original Male Character" just tells me it's M/M. "Supervillain Working As A Barista/Flirty Superhero With A Caffeine Addiction" tells me a LOT more. If you can cram your whole story concept into 100 words there, you can do a lot to hook people.

B) same as you do for any fic on Ao3— your summary and tags written in an interesting way. This is the equivalent of having interesting cover copy in a bookstore— why would people want to pick up your story? Certainly not if you say "this is kinda bad but please read it", they'll put it right back. But if you say "Alice is a woman on the run from the mafia with a dark secret— she's slowly turning into a vampire. Can she find a community, learn how to feed herself without endangering her soul, and maybe even find a girlfriend or two before her past catches up with her?" Well then people know what your story is about and are much more interested.

C) you don't want to become that person with a wall of tags nobody reads, but if you do tag the right tags so that you show up in OTHER tags people might be searching: if I find your fic when I'm looking for "asexual character" or "alternate universe - high school" or "meet-cute" or "fluff and angst" or "open/bittersweet ending", or alternately, a lot of really specific porn tags, and you've made your summary and relationship and tags interesting, I might click through.

And then my third advice is to do exchanges. A LOT of exchanges do include an Original Works component, and if you can write short stories, you can lure people into reading your work because you're writing "Lonely God & Baby Abandoned On Their Altar" or Lighthouse Keeper/Siren Trying To Wreck Ships" or something, because people DO click around exchanges reading the original works because they're fun and there aren't 286 of them, there are 12 of them in an exchange. If you like writing for a challenge, you can get people to read your work if you write it for an event.

So I'm not an expert in either original works or getting my work seen, I am not good at search engine optimization, but that is some stuff I have seen other people doing. Good luck!

[imagineflurry]

(Hiya! Nothing to be afraid of here, just a good old pinned post with basic info.)

welcome to my funky little writing blog!

I am Mint, and I love- Well, writing! I'm usually most active as a roleplayer, but thanks to some self reflection, I've sorta decided to give something a bit more... idk, easier to freestyle and more flexible to focus on right now instead. I still lurk around on old rp blogs, but I wanna try doing something more relaxed, even if just for the sake of my own sanity lol. I want to keep improving, telling stories, and sharing them with others, so yeah. We're doing this shit now as well. Deal!

What I'll be doing on this particular blog is basically shorter, character, or similar inspired writing requests. These will not be full, mile-long marathon fanfics. I am going to do headcanons, oneshots, and drabbles for requested characters, done accordingly to any sender's wishes- but ONLY AS LONG, AS MY BOUNDARIES AND RULES ARE BEING FOLLOWED.

I know, the capitals make that sound a bit intimidating, but! I promise, I do not bite or eat children. I just want to make my point very clear straight off the bat. I may appear snappy due to having lots of experience, having seen loads of shit. This is not anybody's fault, but it totally has shaped me into who I am here now.

FANDOMS I AM FAMILIAR WITH /CAN WRITE FOR:

Friday Night Funkin' (plus *some mods)

Helluva Boss

Villainous

Lego Ninjago

Unikitty

Deltarune

Undertale (some aus included!)

(yes, in case it wasn't made clear by it, Im a cartoon enthusiast with issues lol. I'm very aware of how short this list is, but am also equally aware of my trash memory. I might have forgotten some! If what interests you is not on the list, don't feel ashamed to ask me about it.)

Mao Mao Heroes of Pure heart

Five Nights At Freddy's (most probably Security Breach, but I am familiar with the previous games to an extent too :) )

CAN DO: Platonic, Familial, Romantic, Self/OC inserts or ships, AND amateur edits or icons! these, can feature a FAR broader range of characters/sources, as long as theres visual for me to use of it.)

WON'T DO: Requests about OCs that the sender can't confirm are their own, high explicit sm*t with no consultation

*(No minor characters will feature in any category above platonic.)

**(Things MIGHT get a bit suggestive/mature for some ships aka requests, but I have my limits. Nothing explicit will be shown on this blog. Implied at best.)

Call me Mint, I use any pronouns, I have loads of issues that may make me take unexpected breaks, I am an aroace and trying my best. I struggle with reading tones sometimes and would appreciate if requesters could use tone indicators when speaking with me, and try to be as clear and to be point as possible so we can avoid any unfortunate mistakes.

The DNI/Rules are pretty basic, honest. I tend to just block any nasties on sight as soon as I've sniffed them out, but I may fail to notice them sometimes. @ you all are free to let me know if I have been interacting with a bad egg. /gen

PLEASE never rush me, I hate having to block people for silly shit like that!! You're FREE TO CHECK IF YOUR ASK WAS RECEIVED, But RUSHING isn't.

"CAN I CHECK UP ON MY REQUEST?"

YOU CAN! If it has been a WEEK since you've requested, you can send me an ask, anon or not, OR a direct message, that must contain the following: Hello! Have you received my request? It was: [insert description of said request here]

*It is important to add the descriptions of your requests in these little "nudge" messages because there is always the possibility that tumblr's eaten your ask.

AAAND-- That's the end! thank you for reading this far! Boosts are appreciated, and I wouldn't mind you leaving a like on this post as sign that you've read it.

[starlightshore]

im kinda want to get into this sort of thing so is it okay to ask u a few questions? if not just delete this, but here goes? would u reccomend game maker studio 2, and how hard is it to use in ur opinion? and is there anything u wish u knew at the beginning of making ur fangame?

aw anon you’re so sweet! don’t worry about asking about this, its really exciting to make games and trying new things! i would not say i’m an expert, and i wouldn’t even say i know gml like. at all. i just understand a how the code is used, but now what the code itself is or what to type exactly. like, i understand the theory more so than actually doing it. which is, eh, fine? i’m getting by, and i’m still learning. i’ve only been using gms 2 for 2 months now.

also, i’m using a fangame engine! i feel its kinda like cheating lmao, but its just meant to be a framework to build your own thing off of. and i still need to learn gms2 to use it, and i plan on doing more advanced and complicated things (ie: changing how battles even work structurally.) so. i’m not good at gsm2 yet, but uh, really once you understand coding its not any harder than i’d imagine w/ other professional game engines. compared to unity, i like this better because it seems built on the idea of making 2d sprite games. its SO much more simpler and the userface (while. i’m not a fan of how it has its workspace but whatever) is simple and easy to grasp.

i can’t say for certain if i recommend game maker. its very pricey and doesn’t go on sale often. (big sales i mean, it goes on 15% somewhat frequently) i really, really recommend doing your research first. 

so here i talk about what game engines i’ve used over the last year. (also i hear Godot is good!)

at the end of that post i said this: “TLDR; figure out what kind of game and story you want to tell/make. i could of saved a year’s worth of work if i just sat myself down and realized i wanted to make a completely new fangame separate from my old blog stuff. and that i wanted to make an rpg specifically.“

and so! past me has good advice. figure out the scope and what story do you want to tell. with AL, I know it has 2 chapters, and rn i’m only concentrating on chapter 1. chp 1 has 7 nights and one area where you fight enemies. its very story/character driven and is more so like. a deconstruction of the rpg genre than an actual rpg game. (i know that the word deconstruction is over used as hell, but it is what this is.)

it builds off the themes of the original, while focusing on things that i want to focus on and develop. ut, at it’s heart, is about stories and grief, i’m just taking it to a different extreme and angle.

uh, anyway, i really wish i knew what i wanted to make and understood the source material more and what i wanted to make. i’ve. thought really really hard over what UT means, what message toby was trying to convey, how he did it and what I thought about it. understanding what YOU want from and for your project is the most important thing. WHY do you want to make this? WHAT do you want people to feel and think about when playing? or even, after playing? it doesn’t have to be super deep either.

so, figure out what you what to make, and then you can work on the how. really plan your story, but honestly i wouldn’t recommend planning it in super big details right off. also, super helpful to have a friend help you brainstorm and plot check things for you. (shout out to my friend the sniffer

anyway, don’t plan things TOO detailed because things are GOING to change no matter how well you plan! just try to get get an outline done, then rewrite it 5 more times and then MAYBE you’ll be ready to tackle a more detailed version. then write it 5 more times. i can’t stress enough how important planning is, and how you shouldn’t expect everything to work out even on draft 10! things will work, and when they do, draft 10 is going to look like bad awful nonsense cause you’re at draft 20 now and everything is much more coherent and better. games aren’t written or consumed all at once on the fly. its not a piece of fanart, a fanfic, a comic. its not updated more than once. its out, and then its just out. plan for it.

and real quick, don’t worry about art assets! depending on how you do the art, that’s most likely going to change and its going to be polished LAST. i could go more into how you should think of art when game developing, but thats another topic. just. honestly use shitty art assets and worry about it later.

kris’ place holder sprite for deltarune ^ it don’t need to be pretty, it needs to be practical.

second advice: start SMALL!!! i feel i should of done this, and frankly i probably will have to sit down and do this lmao, basically, you should make boring small games to learn the basics. I know, i know, nobody really wants to recreate asteroid when you got big ideas of making stories and animations u wanna make. but like. you really need to figure out how the program works and how the code works in theory and practice.

ok so like, think of coding like this. i got this from a skillshare video series, so uh. i’m going to retell this but in a shittier and likely less nuanced way. sorry

ok so imagine. you’re telling this guy who is trying to get to Gary’s house. now, Gary’s house is just down the road, few houses down, now, you can tell this guy that and he’ll likely find the house just fine. but if you’re telling a robot it’s not going to understand what “down the road” means. what road? how long? it needs instructions that are simple and work in a language it understands.

so you tell the robot “go down two houses, stop at sign until x seconds pass, turn right, go forward 1 house, turn ect. stop at house, ring doorbell. IF Gary answers, go inside; ELSE: do not go inside, wait;

so this what i mean by understanding the theory behind the code rather than the code itself. yes there’s complexities and differences in each language, but they’re ALL based on the same concepts. different program languages are less like different speech languages, but rather different dialects of the same. (uh, like us english vs uk english) its just different rules and “spellings” of the same core concepts.

next advice: don’t be afraid to ask for help! but also! do so within reason! if people are OPEN for helping, be sure do so in the right environment and within what time works for them. compensate people for the time and effort if you can. ALWAYS try to figure out the solution yourself first. often with coding, it can be a simple solution that you could of thought of yourself if you took the initiative to. google is your friend, youtube is your friend! (ok, youtube isn’t, but in this case! yes!) the answer might not always be easy to find, and its perfectly fine to look for help but its good to at least try on your own first!

speaking of which! LEARN LEARN LEARN! be ready to devote A LOT of time to watching and reading about game development. this goes to every game making program, not just gms2. i watch. so many videos on gms. i rec having the video play at 1.5x or 2x speed to cut down time. obvs you still need to retain the information, so speed might be not a good idea then. and its REALLY GOOD to pause and type out the code and follow along. but its also good to just understand the concepts, and theres no harm in rewatching once you’ve understood it  better at a different speed.

things WILL click and work out for you, and its going to be a very time consuming and long journey to get there. i LOVE making this game and telling this story but I also had no idea what i was getting into! and i probably will have more advice once i’m further in, (i’ve only used gms 2 for 2 months!) but thats the best i can say for now! i hope you pursue your dreams and start making things!!! you can do it!!! 

the best time to start is yesterday, the second best time is right now! even if you put a little effort into it everyday, you’ll  build up progress and you can learn SO MUCH over time and theres this whole world of possibilities out there! the world NEEDS your story and your perspective, and i think creating it in anyway you can is necessary for humanity! your work will mean something to someone someday, and i am so excited for you to start your journey!

[huntypastellance]

Yeah, We’re talking about this now.

If you’ve been in the she1thdom for a while now & have followed popular she1th accounts, you’ll have noticed them occasionally posting something.....weird.

Posts vaguely complaining about a certain unnamed person who seems to despise the she1th fandom, use it for profit & doing all sorts of unsavory things behind the scenes in private DMs & discord servers.....

That person is Lee CA (Glossolalia on ao3), writer of those 2 fics that have invaded every she1th fan’s dash at some point in time (”Alien Sex Fiend” & “Picosecond”).

He’s the Cassandra Clare of the VLD fandom if CC had been caught being a creep & not just being a manipulative egotistical plagiarist obsessed with marketing.

Lee CA is about as much of a she1th fan as the infamous anti klanced is -- they ONLY care about it as a tool to boost their own popularity & will spend endless amounts of time bashing she1thers.

There’s a lot of posts about his whole sexual exploitation of naive minors & the whole thing blew up late February of 2019, but We’re here to talk about Lee’s entire history. (Notes: there will be some sources, but a lot of this is really old stuff or stuff only mentioned in private servers, so they’ve been lost to the sands of time or are just things heard through the grapevine.)

To preface all of this: NOBODY saw any of this coming. At worst, Lee was a narcissistic plagiarist high off the fumes of his own success, but his attitude at no point gave off any signs that he would exploit minors in that way. (Exploiting them for profit, though - that’s basically his whole shtick).

Lee was/is a very popular writer in the she1thdom (with fandom picking up the fanon “Shiro calls Keith ‘cherrybomb’” from his fics) & would charge professional rates for his works on his patreon, raking in around $1300 to $1600 PER MONTH for almost 2 YEARS on she1th fics alone (that isn’t counting his commissions either: he charges $125 for a 5000 word fic, $150 for a fic with porn). If he doesn’t hit his goal of $1600 a month, well, that’s clearly YOUR problem for not sponsoring him enough, not his.

Yeah, sure you could save $25 for the porn-free version, but reading a Lee work without any smut is like trying to eat a bowl of nails without any milk in it.

And then he would bitch & moan in DMs to other she1th creators about how “disgustingly underpaid he was”, “how ungrateful [she1th fans] are” or whine in she1th discords until his sympathizers ponied up enough money to pay him for another commission. Hell, he even admitted to MANY she1thers that he didn’t care about she1th, he didn’t like she1th & he was FURIOUS that how DARE not all his she1th fans were eager to throw their money at his original works (which forced him to go back to writing for she1th, even though he literally quit his dayjob to write fanfics full-time).

“Gruelingly underpaid” is apparently “professional rates for writing” so maybe Lee’s making a statement about the writing industry. Or maybe he’s just a dick.

As an ex-supporter of his patreon, We can tell you just how horrible his tiers are. And how tiring his whole gimmick of “I’m that edgy she1th writer! Sex workers! Drugs! Alcoholism! Cheating! Keith & Shiro hating each other but having sex! Christianity is evil & homophobic! -obligatory mention of Gucci because I’m trying to insert subliminal messages in my works to get my readers to buy me stuff!-” quickly got.

Essentially you’d have to pay $10 per month to see anything that wasn’t basically stuff you’d see on his twitter feed or tumblr. (”Pay me $5 a month & I’ll post my notes & let you know what I’m up to!”).

You also had to pay for updates to his she1th fic “Picosecond” if you wanted him to update at a speed faster than “1 chapter every 2-3 months” -- which is already stupid since it’s his fic, but if you’re unlucky & you “didn’t pay him enough”, he’d mention it on the post update that it’s YOUR fault that this chapter wasn’t longer*!

But it’s totally fine, because he said it in a joking tone & so that makes it okay to throw shade at his commissioner like that~!

*minor issue but he artificially inflates his own word count by waxing on about the scenery or filling the chapter with long monologues, so he was ripping people off even more while shilling how “deep” he was

Lee later threw a fit again about how ungrateful, uncaring & cruel the she1thdom was. Why? Because his newest fic about witch!Keith, paladin!Shiro & the cursed tree with crying baby heads for fruit didn’t get over 100 kudos within the span of three days.

And if you were a new fan to she1th & wanted fic recs? He’ll literally just rec his own fics & only his own fics! (Despite having connections to basically every she1th fic writer in the fandom).

Calling Lee a narcissist is a bit of an understatement.

He was also caught plagiarizing another she1ther’s band fic. And, key point here:

The original fic was posted for free on ao3.

Lee’s version was patreon-only until he posted it to ao3 (after ignoring his patreon subscribers who were like “hey what the fuck, i’ve read this before”).

You had to PAY to read Lee’s version (& this is just a personal opinion, but do you think you’d want to pay for a passionless uncaring version of the same fic? His whole disdain towards VLD & She1th leaks out all over his writing, but he’s so good at marketing his stuff that people don’t really notice it - they just think he’s being “dark & edgy”).

He then claimed to have no prior knowledge of the fic only for people to dig up his ao3 account & find out that not only had he bookmarked the original fic, but he had also kudosed it. (Yes, he’s deleted that bookmark by now. Can’t delete the kudos though!)

Lee tried to spin the whole thing as “fighting for the freedom to write whatever you want” just like how he tried to spin his condescending tweets about the Hanakotoba zine’s selection process as “rewarding those who worked hard at their writing” like it wasn’t just a blatant “im only picking me, my friends & popular folks & calling them the best the fandom has to offer” cash grab.

He eventually took down the fic but not before loudly insisting that he was in the right. The other author just wanted the drama to be over with so the entire incident was settled & forgotten without much fanfare.

And then someone spoke up & mentioned that Lee had begged for nudes from underaged fans. And a whole storm of threads poured forth, many of Lee’s whiteknights vanished into the wind & the she1th blogs who had been vaguing about him for years finally gave up on him (you can only avoid someone so much if they’re that popular & basically in every single she1th event promo & whatnot).

Essentially, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Or is it?

In the grand scheme of things, this hasn’t really changed much for Lee. People did write to his publisher, Oni Press, (as Lee was working on Dream Daddy with them) & while there was a response, there hasn’t been much information as to how it concluded.

His patreon follower count did drop quite a bit, but Lee still has many fans who will willingly throw tons of money at him. (Besides, he was already losing followers after VLD ended - tons of people lost interest in both the canon & in fan content).

So yeah, things haven’t really changed that much for Lee other than some people now refusing to support him financially or make art based on his works.

Twitter threads & posts about the whole incident:

http://archive.fo/HxI0H

http://archive.fo/N1thM

http://archive.fo/caVOs

http://archive.fo/YjBA5

http://archive.fo/2GgnG

http://archive.fo/454Ww

http://archive.fo/50f9A

http://archive.fo/EhBIQ

Fail-fandom threads about Lee CA’s attitude towards his own fans & his semi-illegal patreon (illegal in the sense that he never discloses on his account that he’s writing VLD fanfics for money):

https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/265625.html?thread=1492373401#cmt1492373401

http://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/264405.html?thread=1485573845#cmt1485

https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/321513.html?thread=1844915433#cmt1844915433

Lee CA’s plagiarism of another author:

http://archive.fo/TM25C

http://archive.fo/ioMRF

http://archive.fo/3kymS

http://archive.fo/yw6io

[crashingmanicwave]

hey so u know a lot about Ryden, right?? im v v new to the panic! fandom so it would be lovely if u gave me a quick run down on what the fuck happened. you dont have to, im just confused and curious

Of course, anon! I’m flattered that you seem to think I know a lot! Really, I just have spent far too much time delving deep into bandom history and reading many, many fanfics.

But anyway! This ended up being more of a mini-essay, though I tried to skim over too many complicated details to make it more palatable for reading.  I combed through the tag in my blog and other sources to provide relevant links :)

Now, let’s get down to it.

I’m not sure how much you do know or don’t know, but as with anything, it’s best to start at the beginning.

A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out (2005)

Panic! of the Disco was signed by Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy in 2004 with members Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, Brendon Urie, and Brent Wilson. They were signed literally right out of highschool - one of the agreements was that they had to graduate first!  Ryan Ross wrote the entirety of their first album, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, released in 2005 to massive popularity.

(And when I say they were children, I really mean children.)

Brent Wilson ended up getting replaced as bassist by Jon Walker, who’d been playing with The Academy Is up until that point.  And the rest is history, boom, bam, the boys are together!

Now, this time period is what we all refer to as ‘Fever era’ and we were blessed with SO much.

Aesthetically it was just an awesome era! Ryan Ross and his makeup! The dancers! THE STAGE GAY.

One of the most important pieces of ryden lore during this era was Myrtle Beach.

Some of my favorite Fever era ryden content: 

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥   ♥  ♥  ♥  

(I want you to know that I really had to restrain myself with how many links I put here.)

–

** Now, there’s an era technically in between AFYCSO and PO which we refer to as the ‘cabin era’ during which the boys locked themselves up in a cabin for months and wrote the now scrapped album Cricket & Clover. Most of this album is impossible to find, but here’s a song performed live from it to give you a taste as to what it might have sounded like. **

Pretty. Odd. (2008)

After the scrapped album came Pretty. Odd.!  It’s basically their Beatles album; has a very similar sound and aesthetic to 60′s rock.

We got many, many gems from this era, and MANY important pieces of lore.

Now, this next topic is deserving of its own subcategory purely because of how vital it is to we ryden conspiracy theorists with our tinfoil hats:

-

Northern Downpour

This song is absolutely VITAL to ryden lore.  Vital. 

It’s popularly believed that the lyrics were written by Ryan Ross after the infamous Seattle incident, a staple of ryden lore (and my personal favorite).

Shortly after the split, Brendon had difficulty performing this song on stage and would frequently get too choked up to sing, having to stop and apologize to the audience.

Hey moon, please forget to fall down is one of the most popular lyrics from it, and has been interpreted to mean both ‘please don’t let this night end’ and also delving into the sun & moon symbolic dichotomy widely accepted by most ryden theorists. (Ryan is the moon ☾, Brendon is the sun. ☼)

-

(Cape Town is another popular piece of ryden lore from this time, with The Young Veins even having a song titled as such.  Cape Town being the location of their final performance before the split makes this compelling.)

Some of my favorite Pretty Odd era ryden content:

♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥

–

The Split (2009)

Not much of an era, but it marked a lot of change for the band as a whole.  Jon Walker and Ryan Ross left the band due to creative differences, claiming they wanted to continue on with the 60′s rock sound of Pretty Odd whereas Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith did not.

However, based on numerous accounts what we do know is that the split didn’t happen solely because of creative differences.  Tensions were high between everyone, and everyone was fighting and not getting along.

This is more than likely what led to the eventual split and parting of ways.

–

The Young Veins (2010) / Vices & Virtues (2011)

Ryan Ross and Jon Walker formed The Young Veins, releasing Take A Vacation! in 2010.  Unfortunately, the album was something of a failure and the Young Veins went on a seemingly permanent hiatus not very long after.

Panic! at the Disco, at this point consisting only of Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith, released their official third studio album, Vices & Virtues.  

During this era, frontman Brendon Urie was known to have been going through a deeply depressive slump, his state of mind reflected in the bonus tracks on this album.  In interviews he stated that the split left him depressed and upset.

As far as we know, Ryan and Brendon still spoke to one another at this point, at least through Twitter interactions.

–

Ryan Ross & The Catfishing Incident (2013)

This is something of a low point on this timeline.  To give you the quick and dirty version, an obsessive Brendon fan obtained Ryan’s phone number and texted him while pretending to be Brendon.

It worked. Ryan believed her.

They spoke for a while, the catfisher uploading screenshots of their messages. 

Ryan was interested in rekindling his friendship with Brendon.

However, as most things don’t stay secret forever, it came out that the person Ryan was texting was not, in fact, his former best friend and was completely horrified.

As such, the next time he and Brendon saw one another, with Brendon interested in rekindling their relationship - Ryan ended up never responding.

–

Present Day

At this point, as far as we know, Ryan and Brendon don’t speak to one another.  We could write until the cows come home about how they’ve vagued one another in each of their respective song lyrics.  There’s a lot of mystery as to the true reason of the band’s split, and why no one seems to speak to one another.  Why there’s still lingering bad blood.

What we ryden conpiracy theorists believe is this -

Essentially, a relationship was had at one point between Ryan and Brendon.  How deep this relationship went or how far it went is the part up for contention.  I personally believe that it was a short-lived but passionate affair - since Ryan had a girlfriend during most of his career with Panic!.

But you can take a look at the evidence for yourself, decide what you believe!

[majesticmarais]

Not The One To Blame (Z.H)

Summary: Zach tries to move on from a tragedy that will forever alter his life

Warnings: Death and sadness LOL

Word Count: 3.3k

Tags: @whydontwe-fanfics @electricseavey @lovableherron @the-headass @averysgarl @heyowdw @dailydoseofherron @handsomeherron @angelseavey @lovablebesson @huggingholland @ijustreallylovethem

A/n: SO THIS IS SAD BUT I LOVED WRITING IT Y’ALL KNOW I LOVE WRITING DARK TOPICS BECAUSE IM WEIRD ANYWAY ENJOY AND TRY NOT TO CRY TOO HARD! ITS NOT AS GOOD AS I WANTED IT TO BE BECAUSE IM IN ONE OF THOSE MOODS WHERE I SERIOUSLY DOUBT MY ABILITY TO WRITE BUT WHATEVER ENJOY

Just like any other ordinary day, I made your way off campus after class to get back home to my small apartment that I lived in with my best friend.

Zach had left for tour a few weeks ago, and despite the ache of not having him around, I still managed to live my life day by day in a more or less normal fashion.

I was stopped by someone once I made my way to the parking lot, the familiar deep brown eyes glaring into mine for what must have been the 5th or 6th day in a row.

“Hi Brandon,” I muttered as politely as I could as I tried to continue walking to the car while avoiding too much conversation.

“Hey Y/n, what are you doing tonight?” he asked, once again, for the millionth time.

“I’m uh, just studying I think,” I shrugged, wanting to keep the conversation short and sweet, which never really flew by with Brandon.

Since we had started taking a class together, he always tried to get really close to me despite knowing I was in a serious relationship. I brushed it off as him just being flirty and trying too hard, and once I got home I never thought about him. Just another dumb boy.

“Want to go out sometime?” he asked, a loose curl falling out of place as he kept his stare attached to me.

“I told you I have a boyfriend,” I chuckled, shaking my head as I turned around and went to my car.

“I’m telling you, Y/n, I’m better for you. I’m here if you change your mind,” he smirked before finally walking away, allowing me to release a sigh of relief as I climbed into the front seat of my car, throwing my backpack on the seat next to me.

“So determined,” I mumbled to myself before finally getting home.

As time went on, Brandon began showing up everywhere.

He didn’t always talk to me, most times I would just see him in the distance, his gaze cold as he looked my way.

I saw him at school, at work, and even when I went out with friends.

The constant appearance of him began making me feel uneasy, and left a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

I mentioned it to Zach a few times, but he always tried comforting me and reminding me he probably just had a crush and it’s probably nothing more than coincidence that I see him all the time. I knew Zach was right, but I couldn’t shake the feeling lingering in my gut.

After a long shift in the evening, I made my way back to my apartment, being met with silence as I walked in as opposed to the usual chatter of the TV.

“Emma?” I called, wondering where she was on a night she’s usually home.

I slowly trotted to my room, setting my bag down and changing into my pajamas as I heard a creak from down the hall.

“Em?” I called again, cautiously stepping out to see if she was there, but was of course met with an empty, dark hallway.

I crawled into bed and messed around on my phone before shutting the light off, the soft sound of cars passing outside my window as I shut my eyes.

Just as I drifted into sleep, I was awoken by the sound of a door slamming, and as my eyes shot open I saw nothing but a dark silhouette standing beside me, their breathing shallow.

Before my body was able to move, there was suddenly a pillow over my face, my intake of air shortening as I flailed my body around in an attempt to escape.

I managed to get away for a split second to notice that it was Brandon who was hovering over me, the pillow over my face cutting my air supply.

I tried screaming, but what came out instead was nothing but a slight wheeze.

“You did this to yourself,” he snarled from above me, “you don’t deserve to live if it’s not with me.”

No matter how hard I tried to protest and fight him off, it suddenly became too difficult. Every movement took so much energy, and every struggle for breath felt like I was drowning.

My body suddenly became limp, and before I knew it I was unconscious.

Emma returned home late that night, stumbling through the front door after a night out with some of her friends. She giggled to herself as she fumbled for a light switch, kicking her heels off and hitting the wall in front of her.

Everything was slightly spinning around her, but she still went to check on Y/n like she always did once she got home at night.

After finding the door knob with difficulty in the pitch black, Emma was met by an empty bed, her best friend not where she was usually to be found at this time. 

The moon was the only source of light as it glimmered through the slightly parted curtains.

“Y/N?” Emma whispered before checking the bathroom, tripping as she crossed the hallway.

When she entered Y/n’s room once again, she noticed something wet seemingly shining on the edge of the bedside table. Emma suddenly became stone cold sober, her giggly mood vanishing into thin air as she took a step forward and peeked on the other side of the bed.

“Y/n!” she screamed as she bent down to her level, picking her head up in her hands as she shook her slightly.

A small pool of blood had formed around her head, a slight indent on the side where the crimson liquid was coming from. Her lips had been tinted blue, and her eyes were gently shut.

“Oh my god, oh my god!” she panicked as she checked for any sign of life or a pulse from her best friend, but was met with nothing.

Her hands shook violently as she searched for her phone, realizing it was in her purse that she had left in the foyer.

Emma sprinted down the hall, her bare feet slapping hard against the ground, her heart beating out of her chest as she called 911, not sure how to explain anything at all.

Zach spun his mic around in his hand, shaking out his limbs as he got ready to go on stage and live out his dream like he got to do almost every night.

“How we feeling?” Jack asked as the boys stood together backstage, the soft sound of their voices echoing throughout the room as they warmed up.

“Feeling good, excited,” Corbyn answered, earning a nod from everyone else.

The door to the room opened, and the expected stage manager was replaced by a man in a police uniform, scanning the room quickly.

“Are one of you Zachary Herron?” he asked, not knowing who he was supposed to be looking for.

“That’s me,” he answered with a hint of confusion, lifting his hand briefly, “what’s wrong officer?”

“Can we sit down somewhere?” he asked Zach, and together they left the room to sit somewhere privately.

Zach’s anxiety grew with every waking second. Why was a police officer needing to talk to him?

“I’m sorry to inform you,” the police officer began once they sat down, his hands resting on the table as he looked at Zach, “but it seems that your girlfriend has died a few hours ago. The family has been informed already.”

Zach stared blankly at the police officer, holding his breath as his body went numb.

“An investigation still has to be conducted, but it seems that she was killed in her apartment by an unknown suspect,” he added, the word killed feeling like a blow to Zach’s chest.

“No,” Zach said sternly, his eyes stinging with tears as the back of his throat tightened.

“I am very sorry for your loss, Zachary,” he continued, “if you need anything I can give you a referral.”

“I-I need to go,” Zach choked out, the chair squeaking underneath him as he stood up and left the room without another word.

Zach made his way back to the dressing room, feeling both weightless and heavy as he ran to his best friends. The boys stared at him curiously, waiting to hear what the police officer had told him.

Zach felt like he was in a dream, or more like a nightmare, a lump forming in his throat as he tried to find the words to say to his best friends. Her best friends.

The tears in his eyes began increasing, but he fought them back just long enough to be able to tell the boys. He didn’t want to break their hearts, but he knew he had to.

“What happened?” Jonah urged after the long pause.

“Y/n’s dead,” Zach choked out, a single tear rolling down his cheek from the brim of his eyes as the words burned his throat as they left.

“What? What do you mean?” Jonah stuttered, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“She died a few hours ago,” he confirmed, his voice coming out as whisper.

A loud sob filled the room, coming from Daniel who’s hand covered his mouth as tears poured down his cheeks, his head shaking in denial.

The boys all approached Zach, holding each other in a big group hug as they cried together, the air heavy with sorrow as their sniffles and sobs filled the room like a thick cloud of smoke.

“I have to go. I have to go home I have to see her, I have to go,” Zach panicked, grabbing his stuff from the room as he ran out, Jack grabbing his arm from behind him.

“Slow down, Zach, we’ll all go together,” he said calmly, his voice cracking through his tears as he tried to be strong for his best friend who just lost the girl he loved.

“I can’t wait Jack I have to go now I-I have to be with her,” he rushed before coming to a dead stop and clutching his stomach as he sprinted to a garbage can and threw up before collapsing to the ground beside it as he cried, the agony in his chest becoming unbearable.

Jack lowered himself to where Zach was sitting, wrapping his arm around his best friend as he rubbed his arm comfortingly, his own tears being muffled by the loud shrieks escaping Zach’s mouth, every sound making it feel like his heart was being twisted inside of his chest.

“I’m so sorry, Zach,” Jack whispered, his lips trembling as he spoke.

“This can’t be real. This isn’t happening, this is a dream, or a joke, or something. She can’t be dead, she can’t be,” Zach tried to rationalize, shaking his head rapidly.

Jack sat quietly, not knowing what to say, the other boys eventually coming out into the hall too, their bags accompanying them.

“We’ll catch the next flight,” Corbyn said softly to the whole group.

Jack tried to help Zach off the ground, but Zach’s legs continued to wobble and give out under him as he cried, having no energy to do anything.

Jonah scooped him up easily in his arms, and Zach cried into his chest, Jonah’s own tears accidentally sprinkling Zach’s hair as they walked out the back of the venue to get to the car they had called for.

Fans shrieked and cheered once they were seen outside the venue, and the boys ignored everyone as they rushed to the car, sitting in silence as they drove to the airport.

They were missing most of their belongings and their luggage, but Tyler promised to get everything for them and get it back to the boys. 

Zach didn’t want to waste any more time in a different city. He couldn’t be away from where Y/n was.

By the time they left the airport, the sun was beginning to rise, the orange and pink colors blending together beautifully which left Zach wondering how something as mesmerizing and gorgeous as the sunrise could be happening at a time like this.

As they rushed to Y/n’s apartment, they noticed the flashing of red and blue lights surrounding the apartment building, a thin layer of early morning fog making the scene even more surreal.

Zach noticed Y/n’s best friend and roommate, Emma, who ran to him once she caught his eye, throwing herself into his arms once she was close enough.

“I’m so sorry,” she choked, crying into his shoulder as she squeezed him tightly.

“Who did it?” Zach asked, his eye staring at the cement under his feet.

“I don’t know. I saw someone outside as I was looking for my phone, I couldn’t get a good enough look though,” she answered through her tears, wiping them with the back of her hand even though they were constantly pouring down.

“I just don’t understand,” Zach whispered to himself, trying to wrap his mind around living in a world where Y/n didn’t exist. It was not a world he wanted to live in. “Why her?”

“It’s my fault. I could have saved her,” Zach confessed as the boys sat together on the couches in their LA home.

“Don’t blame yourself, Zach, it’s not your fault,” Jack consoled, putting his hand on Zach’s shoulder as he pulled him close.

“If I was here with her she wouldn’t have been home alone. She wouldn’t have been unprotected. I could have saved her and stopped it,” he repeated, his voice shaking with every word he spoke.

“You don’t know that, it’s no one’s fault except the person that did this to her. And we will get justice for her,” Jonah said, his voice being the most confident out of all of them.

“I can’t be without her. I can’t do this. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this alone. How are we supposed to move on?” Zach rambled, all the emotions and thoughts pouring out to his best friends as they came.

“I don’t know,” Corbyn answered, “We’re gonna have to take it one day at a time. We’re strong, we can do this as long as we have each other.”

“I need her. I just need her here,” Zach whispered, the fresh tears flowing again after having stopped for only a short period of time.

Zach sat alone in his room, watching the clock change as the minutes passed, the morning getting closer. The words of the police officer repeated in his head as he pondered living a life without her in it. Nothing made sense.

He sobbed as he held Y/n’s sweater close to him, her familiar scent bringing him a drowning feeling of melancholy running through his body.

“I miss you so much,” he said to himself, looking out the window at the stars, that lit up the dark and desolate room he was in, hoping that somehow, somewhere, she could hear him.

“I love you so much, I don’t know how to do this without you. Please come back,” he cried, his tears escaping silently this time, no longer waking up the boys with his ear piercing sobs.

“The trial is tomorrow. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to be reminded of the fact that you’re gone. That he took you away from me. I don’t know if I can do it. I just want you back,” he whispered to himself, his eyes wandering around the room.

Eventually, Zach’s eyes became heavy, fluttering open and shut as sleep took over him, the white cast of the moon over his face.

Zach’s POV

I stood in Y/n’s apartment, the floor creaking under my feet as I walked to her bedroom where she sat on the carpeted floor, her bright smile lighting up the room.

“Y/n?” I asked, taking a careful step closer to her.

“Zach,” she replied, lifting her eyebrow as she pat the floor in front of her, indicating for me to sit down.

“I’m sorry I was taken away from you,” she said calmly, her smooth and calming voice like a wave crashing against the shore.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” I replied, reaching out, hesitating before grabbing her hand in mine, it’s familiar warmth sending goosebumps across my body.

“You’re not the one to blame, Zach. Not you, not me, not Emma, not anyone. You have to know that,” she pleaded, her eyes glistening as they looked into mine. Her free hand reached up and caressed my cheek, allowing me to melt into her touch.

“You can do this, baby. I believe you can do this. The trial, everything. I’m with you, I’m here. I always will be. You have to go on without me,” she begged, the breeze from the window behind her blowing her hair forward as it swirled in the wind.

“I can’t do it without you. I need you, I love you,” I cried, holding her tighter, scared to let go, scared to face reality.

“I love you, Zach. I love you so much and that will never change. I need you to move on. You have to make peace with what happened. It’s not your fault, and there was nothing you could have done. We had an amazing few years together, and even though I’m gone our love will never die. I’m with you forever, Zach. You have to live for me now,” she whispered, the sound of her voice hanging in the air as she finished speaking.

“I want to. I don’t know how,” I replied.

“You will. You have to be strong. It’s not your fault, don’t blame yourself. You can make it through this, I need you to make it through this. You have so much you want to do, and do it for me,” she explained, running her thumb along the back of my hand in circular motions.

“I’ll try, Y/n, I promise,” I choked out weakly.

“I love you, Zach,” she whispered before vanishing in front of me, the place her hand once was now feeling cold, and empty without her there.

“Come back.”

Zach let out a loud gasp as his eyes shot open, his head whipping up as he stared at the soft cream ceiling. The few seconds between being asleep and awake causing him to look beside him, expecting the nightmare to be over and for his girlfriend to be there next to him.

Reality felt like a punch in the gut, her absence feeling heavy as it did every day.

“Live for her,” he told himself as he stood up, rummaging through his closet for something to wear to court today, his breathing short and sharp as he tried to shake the sadness away.

He put on his suit, tying the pink tie around his neck that he knew was your favorite. His fingers traced along the front of it, your favorite color bringing a fleeting feeling of joy before he was broken out of his thoughts by the door opening, causing him to jump back.

“Ready to go?” Jonah asked as he poked his head through the door, giving him a sympathetic look. The area surrounding his eyes were dark, a purple color as he looked flushed of his usual color.

Zach nodded and started towards the door, stopping abruptly as he looked at the framed picture of him and Y/n that sat perfectly on his desk.

“I love you, Y/n, I always will,” he whispered to the glossy photograph, as if talking to her directly before leaving the room that once held so many memories of the love of his life that was now gone, leaving him spending nights alone, feeling empty without her next to him.

The pain never got easier, but he promised to be strong and live for her, and Zach was never one to break a promise.

[shoushatohaisha]

review: hajimari no kyojin (osaka 6/1)

so. hello. i usually write up my butai thoughts as, um, 100+ tweet threads in the immediate wake of whatever i just saw, but this time around i thought i'd work them out into a proper report, of a sort. if you, too, have seen this show already and want to talk about it... please. any time. always.

about reviewing: this is my very favorite 2.5D franchise, ever. but this is also a review, not a cheerleading exercise, so not every single thing i have to say is unrelentingly positive. having said that, i respect kinoshita, wada, suga-zachou, and the staff at large more than just about any creative team in this corner of japanese theater fandom so like. i'm not here to drag, lol.

about spoilers: i talk about the plot elements covered but try to avoid spoiling any of the fun production surprises. :) happy to do a more spoilery play-by-play later if folks are curious.

about length: i just checked and it's 2400 words im so sorry.

without further ado...

first of all, i admit that based on the preview clips i doubted, and i was swiftly taken to task for doubting. IM SORRY WORRY-SAN i trust u implicitly and i should have known better. after the major changes in shinka no natsu, i was concerned that bringing back the revolving stage and the original opening theme would feel stale/regressive. it did not. while they did bring back the revolving element they also extended the stage backward and added a second level behind a full stage height projection screen – the second level was used to do some neat staging for flashbacks/parallels and the screen was used to, how shall we say this, up their projection game in a major way, which i frankly did not think was possible. i will not spoil the details but it was pretty great, on a purely technical level.

i also realized that a lot of the repetition – opening with the bike scene, bringing back the original opening credits music, the staging, etc – is the "look back" over the last couple years that i'd expected to come this fall. they are very obviously already preparing for the end – you could think of this as part one of their last show, with the fall as part two. the show opens with a restaging of sixth grader hinata seeing the little giant on tv for the first time – then the current karasuno team take the place of the tv and hinata joins them for a team jog. "karasuno, fight!" "oh!" "fight!" "oh!" only then each character calls out their signature line from the show so far. "uchi no renchuu wa chanto tsuyoi" / "mou tobenai karasu nante yobasenai" / "murabito b mo tatakaemasu!"

and haha. let me tell you. BOY, DID I FEEL THINGS. a lot of things. i think yachi got me the worst but they were all real bad. (i have so many feelings about yachi's story and what a beautiful job saitou ami did with her character on stage. god. ;_;)

the theme of this play was the role of captain – what makes a good captain, what a captain does for the team, and how to step into those shoes when the captain is gone. the johzenji match is fun, but here, in a sense, it exists more or less to set up the wakutani match – (re)establishing daichi's importance so that his absence feels like the gut punch it is. and fully settling the weight of that responsibility on ennoshita's shoulders, as both daichi's substitute on the court and the captain-in-waiting.

with that in mind, the rival schools: imo it wasn't strictly necessary to cast full teams for each school – each match got its own dedicated act, and unlike, for example, nekoma/datekou in karasuno fukkatsu (which had a similar story structure), there aren't really any individual characters on these rival schools who have a role as such other than terushima and takeru. (you know, the captains. see above. XD) so in theory one could get this done with, like, one actor for each captain and then an ensemble cast playing the rest of the team across both matches. HOWEVER, having all those bodies allows them to do super cool stuff visually, and why force yourself to create the illusion of a full team if you don't have to? i.e., /i/ sure am not complaining, isn't it nice to have $$$ to achieve the max vision of your choreographer. XD

i also have no doubt that the kids playing these other characters are doing whatever they can to create a character within the ensemble, and i suspect there's plenty for repeat viewers to pick up on, esp during say the johzenji match (see below). however for the first time viewer following the main flow of the story it's more or less a very large ensemble cast.

the johzenji chaos was well expressed, haha, there was so damn much going on all the time that i hardly knew where to look. (i've also seen opinions on j-twitter that that diluted the impact and i can see that too – it worked for me as a "funny" match that didn't cross the line into comic relief, but ymmv.) i thought the final scene with misaki would pack more of a punch, but i fully expect them to cry at daisenshuuraku so that might fill in the last 10% that's missing rn.

wakutani are another Good Dance Team. one did get a sense, stylistically, of fukurodani- and nekoma-lite with johzenji and wakunan, respectively – i assume that was intentional. mirroring the cats vs owls match, as it were. yanagihara rin's takeru was like… scary?? i had to rewatch those episodes this weekend to see if i'd just forgotten something, but no, stage takeru is not so much reliable middle brother as scowly quiet tough guy. he looked like a kyoutani tbh, and looking at the kid actually cast for kyoutani, one wonders if someone in casting mixed up some paperwork or something. having said that, yanagihara was great at being the character he was, i enjoyed what he did on stage. i'm just not sure that character was takeru. XD (edit: ok having just rewatched, i have to revise this somewhat, i think a big part of my impression was due to being too far back to properly see his expressions the first time around -- up close he was much smilier, and bc i was thinking about it i noticed some nice details like him going over for a family hug afterward.) otoh big post-match scene – all of wakutani, actually – was really good. v effective, i heard sniffles around me.

during this match, johzenji reappeared dressed as takeru's family: FUCKING HILARIOUS omg, everyone involved has clearly learned how to do this right wrt blocking, the very fine line between comic relief and intrusion, etc, after the, er, shaky shousha to haisha experiment of kuroken doubling as oikawa's fangirls. seichou shita na, errone.

also, some great wire work for hinata and takeru – you could tell kenta is really comfortable up there these days. the first time the wires came into play one of the women behind me went "UWO!" which, when a japanese theatergoer makes a noise out loud, that's a true sign something's impressive. XD

nekoma vs fukurodani: Yeah, That Happened. it is a testament to how well done karasuno vs wakunan was that i didn't just spend the entire time screeching BRING BACK CATS VS OWLS because fjkdajfkdlsfjd KYAA. another good staging moment – they used mirrors to create the effect of two full teams playing at a crowded gymnasium, it was brill. i won't spoil some of the fun details but vvjakdlfjdf. and tbh i think the best performance of the four was probably shouri's?? not that this is news but istg idk how someone so soft offstage does THAT on stage. is it this "acting" thing you speak of.

new bokuaka: i mean it was clear some of this material was meant for yoshimoto kouki and i did kinda miss him – i appreciate higashi-san's pinch hitting and he did a solid job. but. ah well. HAVING SAID THAT. fucking "michi wo tsukurimasu yo" i mean we should all be grateful it wasn't kouki and yuuki or it would have just been a fucking fanfic on stage. it was still bad and i don't even go here. XD

and last but not least, arita ushiwaka kenji: not exactly the world's most natural line delivery but that's fine because, i mean, he's ushiwaka. and his physical presence was perfect. which was about all he was called on to do in this particular show, ahaha.

now, for karasuno. and specifically, for my son, kawahara kazuma. remember what i said approximately a thousand words ago, about captains and captains in waiting and stepping up to the plate? (or onto the court, as it were.) ennoshita's story was the heart of the wakutani match and kazuma carried the second act. he was. so. good. he had good material to work with, of course, but he made it even better. i was saying to a friend that in retrospect i think this is one of the very very few parts of the series that actually played better and more emotionally affecting on stage than in the source material (as opposed to differently good/differently affecting). in the manga/anime, you can only see what the paneling or the frame shows you, and those initial paneling/framing choices are focused on the drama of CAPTAIN DOWN. but on the stage, daichi goes down… and off to the side you see ennoshita freeze. and from that moment on, for kazuma, it's go time. he doesn't let up until the end of post-match scene in (here) the locker room – which, jesus, that scene. it packs ten times the punch it does in the anime. because of kazuma.

sorry if i sound like a crazy person here ahaha. but like. like, imagine you have been acting since childhood, you've studied dance with famous choreographers and innovators, you had a main role in The Franchise That Changed 2.5D as a teenager, you've done a solo album, you have a serious history in performing arts... and you get cast in what was initially the smallest role of the entire karasuno team. and you take it! and pull your weight! kazuma was a team player for three years and he deserved this chance to let his actual skills shine so much. ;_; because i don't necessarily think he would have been better in any of the other roles than his actual teammates – but i do think he is a much better actor than several of his actual teammates. and he finally got the opportunity to show that.

anyway, when it came time for curtain calls, the applause swelled noticeably for kazuma – a louder ovation than anyone except kagechan and kenta. and one of those people clapping her hands off, say in row 20, just a random row choice, was definitely tearing up at the same time.

IN OTHER KARASANEWS. kt-san. LIVE IN PERSON KT-SAN BACK IN THE ROLE HE WAS MEANT FOR cries into my hands i love him daichi-saaaaaaaaaan. very occasionally his delivery reminded me he's a model not an actor, if you know what i mean, but like, for the vast part it didn't matter because he is naturally such a perfect fit. have i mentioned i love him.

new suga: mmmmm. he looked and moved fine but his line delivery did not convince me. tbf it's not like suga has a huge role to play in these matches so 1) it's not a huge deal 2) he didn't get much chance to get into the character. either he'll get better or he won't, and if he doesn't it's not going to sink the next play or anything. he seems like a nice enough kid, i wish him well!

kageyama tatsuya: still can't yell and enunciate at the same time. loved that they brought back the archer analogy from shinka no natsu though!! it was one of my favorite things about his kageyama, and it's nice that it's something he "owns" instead of imitating/inheriting from tatsunari.

tsukishima & yamaguchi: miura kairi continues to get even better, i'm so pleased. <3 also, i love love love that they still use the musical motif from shousha to haisha for yamaguchi's jump float serve. it was the same in shinka no natsu, it's the same here. THE TSUKKIYAMA WAS REAL CUTE, great detail work before and after the serve as well as after tsukki's block(s). as for tsukishima, much as they brought back kageyama's archer imagery, they brought back tsukki's fancy katana kill block. (they didn't waste kondou shouri, either, i'll leave it at that.)

last but not least, MY ACTUAL SON AND FEELINGS TWIN, SUGA KENTA: ok like. to set the scene here. i have mad respect for this kid and also love him to death as a human. i think he puts more thought into this production than anyone else in the cast – he is practically worry-san's AD. and he clearly has a lot of real deep thoughts and feelings about the source material. so deep in fact that it took a while for me to come around to his hinata because while, for example, tatsunari's kageyama could have walked straight off my television screen, kenta went down to the manga and built hinata up from there. he didn't have a choice – he's nothing like murase ayumu's voice. all too often we, and i include myself here, think of the two dimensions in 2.5D as anime, rather than manga... but just as there's a big gap between the two dimensions of animation and the three dimensions of live theater, there's as big a gap again between static black-and-white drawing, and movement and color and sound. and when i looked at kenta's hinata as something created solely from furudate's art style, it all slotted into place for me. (naturally, ymmv.)

it also took kenta longer than some of the others, i think, to portray all of what he wanted to. shoen hinata was pretty yelly, and pretty single-register yelly. hinata is a yelly character, of course, but the balance between that hinata and Serious Match Hinata was out of whack at first. this got better and better with every show. and then—

his encounter with ushiwaka here. was IT. it was what i was looking for all this time. his delivery of hinata's big line there was like – i think maybe i clapped my hands over my mouth, unclear, bc it was like the final missing piece and i was so happy. kentaaaaa. ;____;

part of me wonders if this is what kenta's always had in his head but maybe couldn't get his face/voice to express the way he wanted it? OR, IT'S KENTA, SO MAYBE IT WAS ON PURPOSE and his previous Serious Hinata was meant to be like, just a feral hunger child whereas this is the kid who experienced the heartbreak of losing to seijou. i would love to ask him tbh. XD

anyway, my son, after five plays continues to grow in his portrayal of this character. kenta is the heart of gekidan haikyuu in so many ways, and i will be at their graduation show if it kills me.

(breathes out) i think that's. everything. a best setter award to anyone who read this far, and feel free to ask if there's anything specific you want to know about? i will be seeing it again this weekend for daisenshuuraku and will be sure to report back on who cried, etc. all hail volleyball stage the end. 🏐