#instone-dragon ask

[thehuggamugcafe]

time to ask out beloved barista for a proper order! can i get a cup of peppermint cappuccino, warm mocha, strawberry milk, and steamed espresso, please~?

How can I not prepare a hot cup of answers for one of my regulars!

peppermint cappuccino—what’s your favorite genre of movie, tv show, or video game and why?

Horror, all the way. I don't even want to look at anything if it doesn't get my heart (or mind) racing. Halloween? Love it. Scream? A classic. Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street? They're real bloody gems. I'm also fond of Stephen King and R.L. Stine is still a big inspiration for dipping my toes into this genre at all, and if I could ever meet him and thank him for it, I absolutely would.

As for cult classics in video games, it would have to be Silent Hill and Resident Evil; I still hold these two series close to my heart.

warm mocha—would you rather be in a sunny field of flowers and grass, or would you rather be in an ambient café with rain outside?

While I would appreciate the view of a sunny field of flowers and grass, I can't deny the appeal of sitting in a café while it's raining outside would strike me as more close to a vibe I could click with. There's nothing like being indoors, in a coffee shop, sipping at a hot drink while rain is pattering against the window.

strawberry milk—what’s your way of showing someone you love them, platonically or romantically?

I like to think it's how I'll do my best to cheer them up. Admittedly, I feel like I fall short of accomplishing what I set out to do with this goal, but I hope that my loved ones would know that as awkward as I undoubtedly would seem, I do care about their well-being.

steamed espresso—do you like roller coasters and other thrill rides at amusement parks? why or why not?

Oh god, war flashback. I was on a roller coaster once, a long, long time ago, and I hated it. Hated it with the passion of the sun itself. It was the constant twists and turns, and don't get me started on how it'd go up only to suddenly drop down. I couldn't wait to get off and I swore to myself I'd never get on a roller coaster ever again. I don't think I'd fare any better at other thrill rides, like the Ferris wheel and such.

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

Divorce and Remarriage in the Church by David Instone-Brewer. Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, no, I’m absolutely not considering this. Friend is going through this and said it should be a general read in the Christian community because it also teaches theology and what questions you ask when reading the Bible, and how not to say things like, “Well, guess you can never get remarried,” to your friend going through divorce because it isn’t true. That prelude being said... I’m still not done yet, but I’m at least 3/4 through and it is blowing my mind almost every chapter and I will be reading this book aloud and posting it to Youtube, as I’ve been doing with other books recently, because it’s THAT important.

A Map of Days by Ransom Riggs. I’m not entirely sure what to think of this book. It definitely made me feel better about the too-many-coincidences-helping-our-heroes-out issues of the previous book. I think I’ll trek with this series a bit longer (she says, having come to the end of the book which cliffhangers off, promising ANOTHER in the works).

Watership Down by Richard Adams. I read this book a few times as a child and then again as highschool required reading (I was mortally offended when classmates referred to it as “the bunny book” as if it was some cute little hoppity hop hop fluff novel). It’s pretty much how I remembered it. Gritty. Puts you in with rabbits and the mindset of the animal (can’t really count higher than four, get to know each other through touch and smell and breathing rate and play, revere stories of tricksters, etc) and is overall a wonderful and absorbing read. I also greatly appreciate the inclusion of a glossary of terms in the back whenever the text doesn’t immediately explain a word. 2/3 through my re-read and it’s a comforting book to go through again, after all these years. My copy doesn’t even have a front cover anymore and the back cover is dogged and all the pages are near-brown and all the swear words are blotted out from my super puritanical phase where I wanted to censor all my books as a teen. It’s a lovely relic of bygone days and a comforting read. Though now I’m irritated at myself for all the blotted out words jarring me out of a good reading flow.

On Deck: Trauma Stewardship by Laura Van Dernoot Lipskey and Connie Burk.

Shows

Watership Down (Netflix). (before re-reading the book) I guess this could be classed as “miniseries” or “very long movie broken into four parts”. Last time I read Watership Down was in high school for assigned reading, though I had already read it as a morbid little kid and loved it. I can’t remember all details, but whoever made this show quite obviously loved the source material. It does similar things as the book, like dumping you into the rabbits’ vocabulary without explaining and allowing you to pick up what things mean as you watch (or hoping you read the book and already understand the words). Nothing rings very false to what I remembered. This is a well done adaptation. It’s a little hard to distinguish most of the rabbits from each other, but stepping back and watching with a general comprehension (instead of getting absolutely stuck on figuring out which rabbit is which) is useful in this case. Overall? Good watch. (revision of opinion post re-reading the book, see above point) So I’m starting to see where the Netflix version took a bit of a left turn. It did a fairly good job, though actually the book didn’t drop us into the terminology as sharply as I thought I remembered. The thing that stands out to me the most is that Netflix brought more females to the front of the story and that does actually bother me to a certain extent, and here’s why: where is the sense in dropping human morality onto an animal STORY? An animal FABLE is a whole different kettle of fish. An animal FABLE is like Animal Farm, where animal characters are intended to stand in for human counterparts to deliver hard truths. An animal STORY is like Watership Down or The Promise of the Wolves or Venus Among the Fishes and all stories that take place WITHIN the animal world as if we, the reader, are experiencing things from the animal point of view entirely. In the book, Watership Down, the female rabbits (does) are looked on mostly as acquisitions to be made and are not very plot relevant beyond that, but this is understandable because, simply, they are animals. This isn’t about human morality, this is about prey mammals figuring out survival, both day to day survival and survival of their warren. To this end, the males (bucks) do most of the planning and fighting and trickstering wherein lies the action of Watership Down. By bringing the does to the forefront, it feels like Netflix was trying to shoehorn in some human morality because saying otherwise would be distasteful to people watching. But. It’s. About. Animals. So this is a bit of a sticking point for me that does bother me. However, overall, I saw nothing that truly gutted the heart of the book and still consider it worth a watch.

Steven Universe: The Recent Upheavals. I don’t know. I love the new fusion designs. I absolutely adored That Scene (got chills when he shouted). But I’m not sure how I feel about a lot of the rest. Very conflicted.

Ditched after one episode list: Dragon Pilot (Netflix), Last Hope (Netflix).

Movies

Albion: The Enchanted Stallion. Okay, I guess? Writing was kind of mediocre, but another one where they were obviously trying with beautiful sets and costumes.

Shrek. It’s been a long time but it was a good rewatch. The gross stuff always gets to me a bit, but the thing is they built it to be totally in character and part of this creature’s fairytale existence which earns it more points. Shrek has always been one of the most loving fairytale deconstruction mockery movies and now I want to rewatch the second one because I remember it being superior in every way to an already wonderful first movie.

The Prince of Egypt. It’s been a long time. I was struck again how beautiful certain songs on that soundtrack are (any of the large chorus songs and the Heaven’s Eyes song especially) and the utter despair of coming to repeated dead ends, but how in spite of that, no. God was always there. I have a million questions about why the dead ends and heart-hardening was necessary in the first place BUT. God was still always there. And the Jews exist to this day. This movie isn’t, of course, completely accurate but it is beautiful and it reminded me of things I needed reminding about.

Games

Life is Strange 2, chapter 1. Conflicted on a couple of points. Character Caricatures don’t sit well with me in general. But it’s beautiful and gripping and I’m looking forward to continuing with chapter 2 soon.

[thehuggamugcafe]

Time to do this! G, K, Y, and Z!

Hello, Rae! Always a blessing to see an ask from you!

G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it

Do I ever! It's Tea Gardener and Yami Yugi.

K - Say something nice about someone in any of your fandoms

Kishou Arima did nothing wrong. Now, before y'all come at me with torches and pitchforks, lemme explain myself first.

Kishou did some very questionable things, without a doubt; the man killed and ripped apart families for a living, for God's sake. Could anyone blame him if he ever looked in the mirror and all he saw was a monster? Could anyone blame him for hating himself, especially considering that all he did was take from others and was heaped mountains of praise for something he hated doing?

I'll die on the hill that if he had a say in being anything, a ghoul investigator would not be it.

Having said that, could anyone blame Kishou for wanting to press a reset button on the world? Could anyone blame him for doing anything that he did behind the scenes? Could anyone blame him for wanting to give V (and his bastard father) the middle finger and leave something behind for a change, instead of continuing to snuff out lives?

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)

I'm familiar with fandoms like House of the Dragon and I sometimes see a couple Lord of the Rings floating around on my dash, but that's about it, really.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged)

Oh boy. You really wanna open this can of worms, do you? Geez, where do I even begin? Um... I'm really no good at this. sweats

Here goes nothing.

In no particular order:

Original characters should be supported, unless they are causing actual harm to their creator or their creator is shutting down the opinions of others.

I don't support an original character or their creator being ostracized or ridiculed for being an OC or for creating an OC. I can't count how many times I've seen well-rounded original characters being tossed aside like trash and dubbed as "Mary Sue's/Gary Stu's", or they say the OC reminds them too much of a canon character. I know the thought isn't mutual for everybody and that's their choice, but I try to give everyone's OC a chance.

I love seeing people come up with anything: prompts, writing, art, you name it. Variety is the spice of life, and the more I see it, the more I want to see it.

For as much as I think fandom communities can be divisive and cause unnecessary tension at times, I also think that it's great that they can bring people together. Meeting people you otherwise would have probably never met if you hadn't joined this or that fandom, sharing ideas and scenarios and headcanons, you know?

[thehuggamugcafe]

your turn to answer, dear: 21, 29, 38, 49, and of course your take on 4

4. Which cryptyd being do you believe in?

Jokingly, I'd say Mothman or Bigfoot. But in all sincerity: none of them. It's true that we don't know much about this planet that's been around longer than humans have, but if anything like Chupacabra and the like existed, we'd have evidence and whatnot to back it up. So as for them being actual, living creatures? No, I don't believe in them.

21. Something you've kept since childhood?

It would have to be a tie between 3 things: a gold pendent my grandfather (my mother's father) made for me shortly after I was born, a brown teddy bear I got after a car accident in grade 6, and a jewellery box my aunt gave me for my 12th birthday.

29. How do you like your shower water?

Considering that I curse the left feet I was born with instead of a right foot and a left foot, I'm way too nervous to even consider the possibility of standing up to bathe being a good idea, so I'll switch it out for bath water. Optimally, I prefer the water I soak in to be not too hot, but definitely a bit warmer than warm.

38. A soap bar that smells good?

It would definitely have to be Dove's shea butter soap bar, without a doubt.

49. Can you skip rocks?

Lord, I wish I could skip rocks.