#it was interesting to realize that some of these aren't actually very good matches

[deeply-unserious-fellow]

I've seen a lot of people comparing Huskerdust to a healthy version of Stolitz and it's kinda got me thinking... Staticmoth as the evil fucked up version of Fizzmodeus.

THINK ABOUT IT!!!!! The parallels between Val and Ozzie are obvious. Like that man wants to be Ozzie so bad it's insane, from the way he dresses to the way he decorates to straight up OWNING A ROBO FIZZ, Val clearly wishes he was the embodiment of Lust. But are there parallels between Vox and Fizz? Actually, surprisingly yeah. They're both showmen, like aggressively so. They're very public figures, with their face all over every product in Hell(albeit Vox is doing it a lot more purposefully then Fizz). Fizz's antagonism towards Blitzø is actually pretty reminiscent of Vox's towards Alastor(except Fizz and Blitzø have a lot more baggage lmao), and they even share some aesthetic similarities! Specifically the colors of Fizz's robotic limbs matching Vox's overall color scheme. Which speaking of robots, that's probably their biggest similarity overall: they're both partially made of technology. I hesitate to say cyborg because Idk how much that applies to Vox, since object heads aren't typically classified as cyborgs as far as I know, and we don't actually know how much of Vox is organic(also cyborg is just one of those words I have an inexplicable dislike of Idk-), but like. Think cyborg I guess. Like Vox is a LOT more of a dick and probably doesn't have a very tragic backstory? Maybe? Unclear. But the similarities are undeniable.

Okay, now that individual parallels are out of the way, how could their relationship to eachother parallel Fizzmodeus? Starting with baseline aesthetics: they got the height difference. It's not as dramatic as Fizz and Ozzie's but TO BE FAIR, Huskerdust are the same way(their height difference is obvious, but not as massive as Blitzø and Stolas'). Staticmoth is also very buisness-partners-with-benefits and some hints at deeper feelings, which is how we were introduced to Fizzmodeus. I don't think Val and Vox feel the need to hide their romantic feelings? But tbh it could go either way we haven't seen much of their dynamic yet. That's kinda where the similarities I could spot find because see previous sentence, so let's move onto the differences!

I think a good way to breakdown what makes Staticmoth toxic Fizzmodeus is actually by bringing Alastor and Blitzø back in to compare and contrast how Val handles Vox's rivalry with how Ozzie handles Fizz's. In Radio Killed the Video Star, the only reason Val tells Vox that Alastor is at the hotel is to piss him off. He clearly enjoys Vox's reaction, and keeps egging him on. Teasing him about it. Which like, friendly teasing between partners is well and good, but Val is clearly just doing it cause he wants to see a fight and doesn't care about how distressed Vox is about this. Vox goes off on his own and sings a fuckin banger, gets publically humiliated, causes a massive blackout. Val doesn't really do shit to help him out, just kinda sits there and. Idk watches? Unclear what the other Vees are actually doing because most of Stayed Gone takes place in funny TV land where Vox is capable of bending reality to his whim for the sake of visual interest. But what Val is actively doing during the musical number isn't important so who cares. What's important is that he egged Vox on, convinced him that confronting Alastor right then was a good idea, and then just sat back as Vox got so pissed off he had a meltdown. Which I SWEAR I'm not trying to dramatize this scene it just sounds really fucking bad when you write it all down from this perspective. I think it's also worth noting that all of this is DIRECTLY AFTER Vox did the exact opposite for Val, calming him down so he doesn't make a fool of himself in public.

Meanwhile compare that to how Ozzie handles Fizz and Blitzø's relationship. During House of Asmodeus, once Fizz realizes Blitzø is there, he starts publically roasting him about how shitty his love life is. Ozzie encourages him, and even gives him a little congratualtions in the background when Verosika joins in for changing the subject, but the difference here is that House of Asmodeus takes place in a much more controlled environment, so it's less likely either of them will have to face consequences for being assholes. There's also how Ozzie's encouragement is just a lot more genuine. Like "yeah babe, go insult that guy who traumatized and abandoned you whoo!" rather then "hey hey look there's that guy you hate. You should go fight with him lmao show him who's boss." Then there's the ending. At the end of both Stayed Gone and House of Asmodeus, Vox and Fizz eat shit and die. Don't worry they're both fine like immediately after, but while in House of Asmodeus Ozzie immediately rushes over to Fizz to make sure okay, we uh. Do not see Vox interact with anybody but Alastor in the direct aftermath of his eating shit and dying, which is fair because he's in his weird little gamer cave. Then we skip straight to the Vees having a meeting to decide what they're gonna do about Alastor, and we don't really know what any of them were doing in the interim between the end of Stayed Gone and the meeting, so uh this part of the comparison kinda falls flat. But again something worth noting is that Val just straight up. Does not care about Alastor during the meeting scene. He's sitting there bedazzling his fucking gun BY HAND with school glue and rhinestones, not even paying attention to the meeting, despite being the one to get Vox all riled up about Alastor IN THE FIRST PLACE.

In short: Val encourages Vox to fight Alastor without thinking it through, doesn't bother to help out during the actual fight, and then immediately stops caring the moment the fights over. Meanwhile Ozzie, while encouraging Fizz to pick on Blitzø, backs him up the whole time, and while still supportive of his boyfriend, doesn't actively encourage Fizz to do things that would get him hurt. Ozzie also supports Fizz by refusing to let Blitzø have an Asmodean crystal because he knows Fizz wouldn't like it! Which is the exact opposite of pissing your partner off on purpose so you can watch a fight!!! And if that isn't enough evidence for you, then uh. I guess you could compare how Val treats... just everybody around him, really, with how Ozzie does(but that's more individual character analysis than relationship analysis). Or you could talk about how fed up with Val's shit Vox clearly is in comparison to the mutual support of Fizzmodeus. Or how. Val throws a glass at Vox. And breaks his phone. And then Vox has to scream in his face to get him to listen-

Idk how to end this so uh. DEMON ATTACK RAH!!! 👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹

[siriusblackdevotee]

Sirius + forced Jegulus break up

...I want Sirius walking in on Jegulus and then forces them to break up, without realizing it was a break up because he thought they were just friends with benefits.

Like, he knows Regulus, he knows James and he knows his own platonic feelings for James. He just knew that eventually Regulus would see why Sirius was so attached to James. They were two peas in a pod in that craving-for-affection department.

And if they were fucking, he just knew Regulus would eventually fall for James.

It would be great for both of his brothers to actually date (...what a sentence), he'd actually prefer that and thought they'd be a match made in beaven. But unfortunately, last he checked, James was not interested in Regulus or anyone for that matter. He would have told him otherwise, right?

So it was going to end horribly on Regulus's end so by that logic, he forced them to end it. He didn't think he did anything wrong, in fact he pats himself on the back as he basically prevented his brother's future heartbreak.

He would say something like "he's not good for you/you're not good for him/I just know this wouldn't end well." He'd be very evasive or vague about it because obviously, he can't say "my brother might fall for you/you might fall for James"

But then it'd also be said in a way that... to James and Regulus, who thinks Sirius knows about their relationship now, he has no hope for them?? Does not trust them?? Does not believe in them?? Or doesn't like them for the other?? Or does not like them??

Basically they hear "You aren't good for each other." And it like, fucks them up because it's coming from Sirius. He matters to both of them immensely and by extension, his opinion.

Regulus thinks Sirius is disapproving him for James. Can't be James because James is the embodiment of the sun and he can't be bad for anyone so it must be him.

It's him that's incompatible and could somehow hurt James in the future and that's one of his already existing biggest fears or that he wouldn't be good enough for James which is his insecurity. So Sirius saying that further solidifies it??

Whereas James obviously doesn't think that because he personally knows Sirius would never think of his brother that way and he knows Sirius physically can't think of the worst of himself.

So to him Sirius' disapproval meant it was about their relationship. He didn't want them dating and if James didn't have Sirius's approval, he can't be with Regulus at all. No going behind Sirius' back either because the guilt was far too much to handle compared to the pleasure of being in Regulus' company.

So they...break up and Sirius is happy that they stop fucking!! He stays oblivious to the hurt and chaos he caused!!

When he notices Regulus Not Doing Well, he just brushes it off as him being upset he couldn't have James or that he was already slightly falling for James and wishes he could be closer.

He only realizes he may have fucked up when James, who should not be in love with his brother, is no longer his usual sunshine self.

Not really relevant to this...drabble thing but on the side wolfstar? Remus who knew about Jegulus for a while and even helped hide it from Sirius?

The couple were still new and figuring things out, wasn't sure if they'd work out and needed privacy, adding Sirius to the mix would just add more pressure and they didn't want that.

Remus didn't like hiding things from Sirius but he also loves James and Regulus so the deal was Jegulus immediately come clean once they see that the relationship was indeed going somewhere.

And yeah he thought once Jegulus revealed their relationship, there would be some dramatic rejection-but-not-actually-rejection speech from Sirius but he thought Sirius would be overjoyed for them once he calmed down.

So he'd be completely blindsided when he hears that not only did Sirius find out but he also completely forbid them from seeing each other like that.

He's like?? Yo?? That's not my boyfriend?? Did I miscalculate??

Okay well I haven't day dreamed this far into my...daydream. so Remus tries to understand Sirius and is shocked by his flippant "ehh, they'll get over it" attitude. Maybe they fight because Remus cares about James, and he can't believe Sirius would do something like that???

And he tries convincing Sirius too but Sirius isn't hearing any of it.

It's only when Sirius comes to talk to Remus about James' sad energy that they both realize the misunderstanding. Then Sirius fixes his mistake and happy ending!!

I have more regulus angst to add to this but I'm tired now, so the yappathon ends here

Edit: I just realized this doesn't have to be wolfstar. This could bitchkiller too.

Barty helps hide Jegulus from Sirius because he's Regulus's best friend. He can see that Regulus is truly being loved and he wants that relationship to go somewhere. He's a total Jegulus shipper.

Also by hiding it from Sirius, this is definitely a sex innuendo. Sure wolfstar could be the same but I don't see them that way. Remus would distract him by striking up a random conversation whereas Barty would immediately kiss him feral. Sirius with the hormonal, dog brain is very happy when things take a heated turn when he was just wondering where James went, efficiently distracted.

Barty doesn't mind lying to Sirius because it's for his best friend. He wouldn't go through a moral dilemma like Remus would. He's a chill, easy-going guy. Also like, unstable.

For wolfstar, Remus finds out, argues with Sirius, then later a different conversation, Remus corrects the misunderstanding.

But for Bitchkiller, Barty doesn't immediately find out about the break up. He probably gets radio silence from Regulus, who is wallowing in his misery, so he's a bit out of the loop. When he does find out, it's at the same time Sirius noticing something's wrong with James.

So they have the conversation at the same time. Barty immediately explodes on Sirius, he's confused and angry for Regulus, because he's protective. It's only when he literally says "Of course something's wrong with him, you broke them up!" Or something along those lines that Sirius connected the dots.

I am absolutely making them have the conversation at the same time because otherwise, Sirius would be too oblivious and apathetic that it pisses off Barty and makes their argument a bitt too angsty so I'm avoiding that.

Bitchkiller can go from 1-100 so quickly unlike wolfstar which I perceive as the softer one, not perfect, just softer. Actually no, this is just how I view Remus; understanding, empathetic and rational.

Barty can get irrational when he's emotional, like in this case, when Regulus is so fucked over and it's because of Sirius, his boyfriend thing or Regulus's literal brother. It's a mix of feeling betrayal and betrayal on behalf of Regulus. That irrationality could make him quick to verbal aggression or even violence so hence,,,I really wanna make the conversation quick.

(Sirius just responds to whatever is given to him, hence why my perception of wolfstar/bitchkiller entirely depends on his partner)

[yarameijer]

Hi, miss Yara! How are you doing? Good things, I hope! I wanted to ask you about something if you don't mind sharing? I'm really curious about your unpublished Tenma-centric fic where he's the only human and everyone is a supernatural. It reminds me so much of 'Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun!' and the similar concept is really interesting! I was hoping if you could share some things about it? If you don't mind, of course! You can ignore this if you'd like. Stay safe!

I'm good I'm good, just super busy once more, but alas that's life.

Ooh, the Supernatural AU, I haven't worked on that one in ages but I do love the concept of it still. I don't have a lot for it but I can give you some info on what I had in mind:

There's basically this societal hierarchy of creatures, and humans are firmly at the very bottom. While there used to be a very clear divide historically, for all species except humans that's been decreasing in modern times.

Racism towards humans is insane. Think of not being allowed into stores or cafés, working the least-paying jobs, certain areas of the city they're not allowed to be in unless they had the necessary paperwork. It's definitely supposed to be extreme, and based on historical examples of racism. They'd only be allowed to live in designated neighborhoods, which I was considering might have some actual fence or barrier around it - including a curfew. Again, I haven't figured out how bad it would actually be, since it's a sensitive topic and it depends on how well it would fit the plot, but there's definitely racism.

Raimon is one of the few ''all-inclusive'' schools, where all species are welcomed - they are distinguished by the colors of their uniform, though. Specifically the lightning bolts.

Some schools are more like private schools for one specific species (this is also usually the case for humans).

While Raimon does allow humans, tuition is very expensive, so there's only a handful of humans actually attending. Tenma is one of them.

Tenma is actually luckier than most, and there's one simple reason for it; Aki. They're still related, but she's not human, while he is (tbh it really depends on how much human or other blood you have that impacts what you actually are). She's as much as a sweetheart as she is in the anime and doesn't care that Tenma is human; he still lives with her instead of the human neighborhoods, and there's enough money to send him to Raimon.

While it's not against the school's rules, no humans are really part of any clubs. It's just not done.

At least, not until Tenma accidentally shows off his soccer skills in front of the team and Endou decides he's got to have this kid on his team. He tries to convince Tenma to join the team without much success, but eventually wears him down - also because Tenma being part of the team would sort of give him this protection at school? Anyway, eventually Tenma agrees to join.

The rest of Raimon does not agree with this. They give Tenma a very hard time; some of them aren't so bad (Shinsuke and Aoi) but others are pretty horrible to him.

I had this idea for a scene where multiple teams are actually present; maybe during the starting ceremony of the Holy Road, or a training weekend? Yeah, the other teams are also pretty dismissive towards him (and also make fun of Raimon,  they've basically become a laughing stock for having a human on the team and that's only more reason for them to dislike him) and there would be some physical altercation where I can just imagine some of Raimon's worse players being present and just, uh, letting it happen.

ANYWAY. Over time and through forced exposure, the team slowly realizes Tenma isn't so bad.

I actually had an idea for another scene where, just before a match, Tenma gets attacked by some opponents of theirs when he's alone and proceeds to not tell anyone about this because they've already got enough to complain about when it comes to him, and being so obviously weak would make it worse. He ends up playing in the match and Shindou would find out because their opponents mock them; he confronts Tenma, pretty pissed off, and Tenma snaps back. That's the moment Shindou begins to realize he might have been wrong, and also the turning point for the team.

In the end Raimon becomes a damn good team and Tenma gains really great friends; whenever anyone tries anything, Raimon is ready to defend him.

I had this vague idea that humans that work as servants for a non-human and are given this sort of, insignia or badge that is basically a sign that this human is protected or works for someone, that's infused with protective magic and whoever they work for has an insignia connected to it, for example to show location. It's uh, sometimes a good thing, and sometimes it's kind of like how you'd treat a pet? Like, this human is under my protection and therefore it would piss me off if someone else did something to them. Anyway, Raimon eventually custom ordering a lightning-shaped pendant and each of them having a bracelet connected to it that Tenma can basically use as an alarm button if someone bothers him, and Raimon will come running. It's also got some pretty nasty protective spells built into it.

More and more people, like the Earth Eleven, get on board with this idea and request a bracelet too. So basically if Tenma is ever in trouble he'll be able to alert like, 40 people at once who will all come running to help him. He's got a network.

He does use it, at some point, and ooh boy. No one dares to try anything for a long time after that.

Oh, Tenma still ends up as captain in this AU!

I've got less of an idea for the plot (except the start), but more individual scenes and the worldbuilding. Might get around to it again someday, because it still sounds like a fun idea to me. Hope this answered some of your questions!

[pasta-in-the-pudding]

ahsjshsj idk if i’ve ever sent you a request before but here goes

enemies to lovers w EJ? :]

Welcome to the blog!! I hope you enjoy this writing!

Also, UGH EJ <333 He's so special to me <3333 (probably because we have the same name lol)

Thank you so much for requesting!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Enemies to lovers with EJ

Being enemies with Ej is very stressful, but in a quiet way

You won't have explosive fights, you won't sabotage each other, you won't do things most enemies do

Ej is a very silent, reserved person, and this applies to people he doesn't like as well

But the way his lip twitches in disgust when he looks at you, or the way he gets ever so slightly more protective of his friends when you are around, it makes the sadness and anger in your heart flare up

Now, Slender understands that some people just aren't ever going to like each other

He tries to keep the manor a relatively positive place for people, so if it can't be helped, then he won't intervene with people's hatred for each other

HOWEVER, if it can be helped, he would prefer that people get along

And so, seeing that you and EJ have a more quiet kind of distain for each other, he decides to partner you up for the more tricky missions for the month

With his brains, and your street smarts, it should be a perfect match

You can get in, do your work, and get out

And that is Ej's plan, he will cooperate with you for the sake of his work, but personally, he still dislikes you

You however, have other plans

If you're gonna be forced to work with someone for a month straight (and knowing Slender, probably more), then you wanna at least like them a little bit

And so, while you are on a relatively slow-paced mission, you decide to strike up conversation

"Hey listen, I know you and I don't really like each other, but we have to work together so we might as well tolerate each other."

He huffs quietly "Yes, I suppose that would be the most reasonable conclusion"

You smile, knowing you at least got a somewhat positive reaction out of him "Well, the best way to start to tolerate each other would probably be to get to know each other, right?"

He side eyes you (well, yk. side "eyes") "Make no mistake, just because I choose to tolerate you does not mean I want to be your friend. If you want to get to know me, you can. However, I will make no effort to get to know you."

You frown and cross your arms. "Fine."

"Fine." He repeats, going about the mission

Despite it seemingly ending on a negative note, you decide to get to know him anyways out of spite

And quite shockingly, you find you have a lot in common!

And so, you try to sneak in little topics you know he likes in passing conversations

At first, his responses are short and dismissive, still firm on the notion that he does not like you, and is not going to make an effort to try and like you

But eventually, he starts getting more and more interested in the topics of conversations

He does not show this of course, until much later

His responses get a little more responsive, and he actually engages in conversation

He still doesn't like you, but he is beginning to see you as an acquaintance

Basically imagine the Sims relationship meter

That's how it progresses

Eventually though, you actually become good friends!

You hang out outside of work ours, you talk about topics you both like, and soon you forget all about the bad relationship you had before

Ej doesn't really get romantic feelings quickly, in order to catch feelings for someone, he has to know them inside and out

And one day, he realize that he does in fact, know you inside and out

And he realizes how you make him feel

And it shocks him! If his past self saw him now, casually flirting and chatting with someone he considers to be an enemy, he'd probably puke!

But he just can't shake that feeling

It's so strange to him, and he doesn't like it

So he decides not to act on his feelings

However if you were to act on your feelings, he'd be open to it

Just personally, he gets really ashamed of himself and kind of feels like he can't shake that past bad blood

Fun fact, this probably happened with no one else (except slender) noticing any shift in your relationship dynamic lol

[elkian]

Rereading The Murderbot Diaries now that I have System Collapse and once again struck by how Murderbot reads expression.

As an ND person myself who sees a lot of overlap with it at times, it's very interesting to me. I've repeatedly had issues where the expressions I was making or interpreting did not match other people's ideas, and my mother has never in my whole life correctly deduced my tone of voice. Not once. I think one reason I'm drawn (haha) to animated and stylized mediums is because stylistic representations of people have to have expressions that scan immediately to as much of the audience as possible.

(Thinking about that bit where Murderbot comments on humans not knowing what they're trying to express when they're in Real Life and not actors on a soap opera set.)

Anyways, it makes sense that Murderbot might have some skill at interpreting expressions and microexpressions and so on. Those are viable and valuable security skills, after all. But it strikes me how accurate it seems to be at doing so. Since the series is almost entirely in Murderbot's perspective, it's less likely to mention being wrong, but it regularly confidently refers to expressions by the emotion it inferred from them.

As someone who is not good at this, it's very interesting to me when I have a lot of traits overlapping with MB. (It's also worth discussing how ND folk, and specifically autistic people, are often pigeonholed to the point that expressing Uncommon Autistic Traits makes people believe you aren't autistic.) Murderbot talks a lot about not liking people or being interested in strange humans, but it often contradicts itself without realizing. I think one reason it claims not to care about humans is because it's often been in positions where its clients could be harmed incidentally or intentionally and it would not be allowed to intercede due to Capitalism Hell, or malice/indifference from the top.

It says it has to do what humans tell it, and that's technically true, but there's a further power dynamic within groups; the boss has all the power and, presumably, the highest level of management in a group has the authority to order SecUnits to do things against their actual design - fighting other SecUnits, ignoring safety protocol in order to save money, and leaving bleeding humans unattended to go pick up equipment are all canonical examples that Murderbot provides us. I wouldn't be at all surprised if killing or harming less influential members of the group in question were totally common and viable.

This is all to mean that it isn't emotionally safe to care about humans, because even if it does its tasks completely successfully, they might be at risk due to the negligence inherent in the system. But Murderbot spends half a dozen books trying and failing Not To Care, so it just refuses to acknowledge that it does care for a long time.

Anyways, I don't have any pithy conclusions, I just find it super interesting that MB talks about having a hard time understanding humans, and ART canonically has difficulty processing human emotional contexts when not familiar with the relevant situations, and yet Murderbot, canonically, is often successful at reading emotion in the expressions of the people around it and itself in recordings. It's not a trait given to many ND characters, particularly autistic or autistic-analogue ones, and it adds some fun texture to the storytelling.

[livelovesimallways]

"Such A Thing"......🎵

(previous)

Nearly Two Hours Later......

"So, I believe we've covered everything. I know the interview portion was long, but I promise you'll see it was well worth it. You two will easily be matched. Financial stability aside, you guys are well educated, highly successful, and very personable. Now with that being said, is there anything about open adoption that you're not fully comfortable with? I noticed you tensed up when discussing the contact options for birth mothers as your child grows." *looks at Moses* "It's completely normal to be weary. Most people aren't initially excited about that, but realize over time how important it can be."

"I definitely understand the benefits. I just know that things don't always work out as planned. What if the birth mother decides limited contact is too hard? What if she wants more time? What if our child doesn't want her to be involved anymore?"

"I'm actually glad you mentioned that. You're absolutely right. Everything you asked, and then some, has happened. Parenting isn't easy and adoption piles on more. That's why, if anything does arise, we have the counselors, therapists and mediators to help navigate as needed. Also, keep in mind that you will be the legal parents. Although we encourage visitation and contact, it's not legally binding. If it becomes a problem, you make the best decision for your child." *continues looking at Moses* "I think you would benefit from talking to our head counselor. She was a birth mother with a closed adoption and had to go through reconnecting with her son as an adult. That process wasn't easy for the both of them but thankfully they're in a much better place. While you're doing that, I'll answer any questions you have, Leah."

"Sounds good to me." *scrolls through her notes*

"Alright, Moses you wait here for a sec. Let me tell her you're coming."

A Few Minutes Later......

"I'm sorry but it really is a conflict of interest. I don't feel right talking to him. Why can't you have someone else do it?"

"Because you're the HEAD of this department! We're not lawyers Moriah...There is no conflict of interest. Just keep your mouth shut about your friend. Trust me, he's not going to ask about finding her. He barely thinks contact should be allowed for a kid. Why do you think I'm sending him to talk to you? We all need this win, so please don't fuck it up. Plus, I feel for his wife. She tried IVF, but her eggs are bad. You know I had my own issues with that. If you came to me earlier, I would have suggested someone else do this. Just pretend you don't know his birth mother and take it from there."

To Be Continued...…..

[the-way-astray]

I don't know if we're all sharing our journeys with you about how we came to our conclusions about Keefe and Fitz, but here's mine:

About a year ago I read Flashback for the first time and that was when I first started to realize that Keefe was manipulative (I know I know, it's a basic argument at this point and it makes people mad when it's brought up, but that's what I noticed, and I wasn't in the fandom so this revelation was.... revelatory?), but I still thought to myself, oh yeah that makes sense given his background (which I still do believe but now it's just too annoying for me idk), and then reading his POV in the Flashback short story, I thought to myself, 'huh, he's saying the perfect things, isn't he? Almost like it's propaganda or something....'

A bit later I went to the internet, and learned that it is very very popular to not like Fitz at all (though I had already seen that in the real world talking to other people in real life), and to compare him to Keefe a lot. So I think that's why I started disliking Keefe, the way so many people perceive him (and compare him to Fitz) just soured my opinion of him. And I know people like to say "you can like both!" And while I do agree with that I don't think that anyone who doesn't isn't less valid or less mature than those who do, which I think is the attitude of some people who make that argument.

Anyway. That is my story (I don't dislike anyone who likes Keefe and Fitz or who likes Keefe and dislikes/hates Fitz)

had to do a different graph for you since your opinion over time wasn't all over the place like summer's was.

the one summer sent was because i asked about her story specifically, but now that you mention it, i do want to know everyone’s stories about how they decided what their opinions on fitz and keefe are. i should create a tag . . . anyway send me your stories everybody! i’ll make you a messy little visual.

interesting that flashback was the book that made you see him as manipulative. i personally think it starts a lot earlier, and gets particularly bad in nightfall. and yeah, i talked about this in my rant, but shannon randomly decides to have keefe say all the perfect green flags in flashback/the short story to cover for the fact that his actions literally do not match his words.

i'm not a fan of the idea of a "basic argument" or "complex argument", i'm more of a fan of "valid argument" or "invalid argument". like if an argument is good, it's going to be repeated . . . because it's reliable? that should be a point in its favor not a strike against it. and i'd say saying keefe is manipulative is a perfectly valid argument. but i'm also heavily biased. obviously.

i’m gonna be so honest, i have no idea why people hate fitz so much. like yeah, he gets angry, but he does apologize and try to get better, which i don’t see with keefe. i don’t hate fitz haters and unlike a lot of people in keepblr, i actually respect them, but i don’t understand them.

there is definitely an attitude of people thinking you’re less mature or not as valid if you hate on fitz or keefe. i think, as long as you’re mature about it (and don’t send weird asks), you can dislike whoever you want, and you aren’t a bad person if you do. the idea of "you can like both!" is very true, but i think we do need to respect haters. and i'm not just saying that as a keefe hater. fitz haters (as long as they aren't being weird about it *cough* "Just because your gay doesnt mean Sophie is!!!" anon *cough cough*) deserve respect, as well. acting like hating a character is immature is ridiculous. they are fictional. they are not real. chill out.

oof, i just turned your ask into a rant. sorry . . . moving along . . . i, too, do not dislike you if you like keefe or hate fitz. i'm actually pretty neutral on fitz myself, wouldn't say i'm particularly insane or obsessed with him.

[sammy8d257]

[Originally drawn: May, 2021]

AvA Mafia AU! concept art! with the original idea created with @k1ttyadventurer

Here's a little rundown of this AU:

Char!Alan created Chosen as the head of the gang with Dark as his right-hand man and Victim was going to be the, well, the victim of the story in the animation. Second was going to be the frontman, basically running a small restaurant as a cover-up for the group’s illegal business. But as said above, teenage Noogai eventually gave up on the project but at this point, all of the sticks had become sentient so Noogai let them live on his desktop.

Everything is all good and fine. Everyone’s friends with each other but there’s also a nagging feeling of emptiness. They all realize, “Man, I still want to do mafia stuff” and then subsequently, realize they have access to the interweb and if they wanted, could start ACTUALLY doing mafia stuff.

They create a Mafia gang on the Interspace and Noogai is none the wiser.

And then, comes along 4 brightly colored sticks looking for an open positions in the Noogai Gang. And Yellow convinces (blackmails) them to let the Color Squad into the Family. ^^

(Keep in mind, when I mean Mafia stuff, I mean it in a very movie/video game-esque manner. Everything is very idealized and nothing is too realistic. It’s supposed to be a fun AU!)

As seen above, Purple is also in this AU but they're part of a rival gang called the "Kingdom" with it's boss, King and his "brutes".

If you wanna read the Oneshot I wrote to accompany this, you can find it here!

[The First Meeting - AvA Mafia AU]

<= v =>

Basic Character Info!

The Original 4 (the Hollow Heads): Created by a teen Noogai, have since continued using his username as the name for their Mafia organization, known as the Noogai Gang.

Chosen (He/Him): The Head Boss, has all his usual powers. The brains of the operation, Chosen spends most of his time trying to organize everything and everyone.

Dark (He/They): The Right Hand Man, the Enforcer role and a skilled coder. Dark enjoys his job a lot and doesn't like how easily RYGB were accepted into the group.

Victim (Any Pronouns): Originally supposed to be the person getting attacked in the original animation but since it never got finished, their role was never solidified. As a result, they have the ability to change their color and they use it to be a "master of disguise". Their original color is black but they switched it to a dark gray so they don't match with Chosen.

Second (Any Pronouns): The Front-Man of the group. They run a diner in the Interspace to help cover up the groups illegal activities. Don't let their warm demeanor fool you though, their hands are just as dirty as the others.

The Color Squad (RYGB): 4 stick figures from a fighting game that got bored of it and decided to pursue other interests.

Yellow (They/Them): the de facto "leader" of the group. Yellow is extremely skilled in coding and hacking. They're the one who did most of the research into finding potential mafia-style organizations to join.

Red (He/Him): Red is the hand-to-hand fighting expert. He loves getting into fights and isn't afraid of getting hurt.

Blue (They/She/He): Blue has a mastery over various poisons and other ways to silently kill. They are also the stealthiest of the group.

Green (He/They): The weapons expert. Green knows how to wield any sort of weaponry in combat. Whether it be firearms, blades, or a bo staff, Green can use them all.

The Kingdom: An older more established rival gang to the Noogai gang.

King (He/Him): The elusive leader of the Kingdom, King rules his corner of the illegal market with powerful efficiency. Although rarely spotted, some say they've seen him strike down opposers with one swipe of his staff.

Purple (They/Them): Purple is one of the higher ranking members of the Kingdom. They're usually sent out on scoping missions to make sure the Kingdom's assets aren't being tampered with.

Others:

Noogai/Alan: The creator of the hollow heads. He lets them live on his desktop and do whatever they want as long as his stuff doesn't get destroyed. In this universe, Alan never goes on to create the Animator vs Animation series and instead works on other unrelated animations. Noogai is unaware the sticks started a mafia gang and the sticks want to keep it that way. The sticks themselves are also VERY loyal to Alan and would do anything to protect him.

The Brutes: These are what people call members of the Kingdom due to the rumors of their brutality.

[solarwynd]

It's so interesting to me how hard some pjms will try to like other members. I think it really speaks of how pjms came to be in the first place. Contrary to what armys like to say, pjms aren't k-pop stans who hate BTS and token stan Jimin to hate on them. That narrative actually makes no sense considering Jimin is public enemy #1 for k-pop stans, so he's the last person they would choose to token stan. No, pjms are actually ex-armys that got fed up with all the bullshit and left the fandom. And you can still see their army roots. There's a reason pjms are the only competent solos who can actually organize and achieve things, cause before the hiatus armys used to be very good at getting shit done.

Being ex-armys is the reason pjms will occasionally be surprisingly nice towards the other members. Yes, they will drop any member the moment there's a perceived slight against Jimin cause they're still solos at the end of the day, but they'll try to like the members for as long as they can.

Pjms were never gonna be the biggest fans of Jungkook and Taehyung because there's too much competition there and all the shipping has always caused too much fighting, but they have never wanted to dislike the hyungline members and they still don't have to much beef with J-Hope, Jin and Namjoon.

Most pjms never liked Yoongi that much because of the bad taste jokes he constantly makes about Jimin, but they didn't start really hating him until the whole Face getting interrupted by D-Day situation.

Pjms didn't really love Namjoon's 'I wrote some lyrics' comment, but they don't really hate him and have been specially chill after those album exchange videos. They also appreciate him being one of the only members capable of saying actually thoughtful and interesting things about Jimin instead of just calling him cute. You will often see pjms using Namjoon quotes about Jimin. I've also seen a surprising amount of them praise Namjoon's music.

Jin is not normally on pjms's radar so they mostly don't talk about him, but when they do is not really negative (they even were wishing him a happy birthday last year). It remains to be seen how much of a grudge they'll hold over this situation, but I actually don't think it will be that much. The moment Jin does something nice to Jimin they'll get over it.

As we know, J-hope is pjm's favorite out of the six, which is a testament to how nice pjms can actually be considering his stans are worse than Namjoon's and Jin's with their whole 'who's the best dancer' competition (they're one of the main culprits behind the misconception that Jimin isn't a main dancer, so pjms are being real forgiving here). Seriously, look at the way pjms talk about J-Hope, it's so clear they used to be fans of these guys and don't actually want to hate all of them, they just want people to be nice to Jimin.

Why do you think J-hope's is pjms's favorite? It's not only cause he's the one Jimin seems closest to, but also because he's the member who matches Jimin's energy the best and is the only one who's always receptive to Jimin's affection and will return that affection (every time Jimin tries hugging another member pjms hold their breath waiting to see if they're gonna hug him back or be weirdly dismissive of him). There's never a doubt on whether or not J-Hope likes Jimin (unlike some people, I'm looking at you Jungkook), it has always been clear how much he loves Jimin and pjms really appreciate that. Like, you're never gonna see a "J-Hope HATES 😡 Jimin and here's proof" thread on Twitter (Jungkook I'm once again looking at you and I'm not looking nicely).

(Also, yes, I realize I'm proving my own point with the difference in the way I talk about the members, but despite me using 'them' when talking about pjms for the sake of the way I'm writing, I never claimed not to be one of them)

Armys's hatred of pjms and their insistence that pjms are the worst solos is so misplaced. Cause you know other solos would never be as nice to Jimin as pjms can be to other members. Jjks (the ones who are secretly tkkrs aside) specially would never try to like other members. Pjms really aren't the villains armys like to believe they are. Armys just hate pjms the most because 1) a lot of them just don't like Jimin but know they can't hate on him directly so they hate on his fans instead, and 2) pjms are the only solos who are a real threat to armys since the other solo fandoms are either too small or too incompetent.

It’s not that pjms are making an active effort to like any of the other members because they definitely are not. They can just be cordial (or at bare minimum) indifferent to the ones that are good to Jimin. Cause unlike other solos, for the most part pjms can be normal. It’s basically the same mindset any fan would have.

Treat fav nicely= stay on good side.

Yes the army sometimes does seep out in some of them cause some of them genuinely still do have a soft spot for BTS. But the other 80% of the ones who were ex armys and hardcore OT7’s at that, you’ll see the way they talk about the other members and think they never stanned at all. lol.

But I agree with you on everything else though.

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2024: Payday

Metallic Rouge

Metallic Rouge hasn't ended yet, but I am quite certain that at this point it's unsalvageable. I can give it one thing: it's going for a specific ~vibe~, and nails it. Why anyone would want to evoke the ~vibe~ of "deservedly forgotten 2000s sci-fi seasonal" is beyond me (I won't provide an example, because if I could remember it it wasn't forgettable enough), but there you go. Truly, Bones have outdone themselves with this celebration of their 25 year legacy.

It's hard to even start, but the one thing everyone is certain about is as good as any: The plotting and structure of this show is a complete mess. Some consider this "ambitious", but I don't think an ambition of "let's throw in every half baked thing we can think of and try to glue it together with proper nouns" is worth celebrating. We've got insipid and illogical worldbuilding that ultimately goes nowhere, brave political statements on the level of "slavery sure is bad but don't be rude about it", metaphor bombshells like a character who schemes behind the scenes and styles themselves the "puppetmaster" and constant plot twists that explain things long after I've given up on even trying to make sense of anything. That's where the ~vibe~ comes from: everything that has ever vaguely annoyed you in a mid anime is somehow in this one all at once.

This wouldn't be so bad if it had characters that are entertaining on their own, but here we meet the most bizarre creative decision: the one thing it has going for it is the Diet Dirty Pair banter between Rouge and Naomi, which elevates a few episodes to "decent", but of course they spend half the show seperated. And by themselves, Rouge likes chocolate and is as dumb as a brick with charisma to match, while Naomi is sassy and mysterious and that's it. The rest of the characters (and naturally, there are far too many of them) are either irritating or at best just bland.

So if this is Bones pulling out all the stops, at least you should expect the production values to be high, but even that is a mixed bag. Metallic Rouge looks quite mediocre for the most part until it's time for a dedicated Sakuga Cut™, which might be a fight or alternatively just a random one of the dozens of boring hallway conversations (that Crunchyroll of all things is treating this as a joke really says it all). And even the fights aren't all that great, because this show somehow manages to have bad sound mixing and music beds that I'd call interesting in theory but don't work well as a score. At least it has a stellar OP, but even that seemed a lot better before the show actually came out.

I might bump up the score a point if it ends exceptionally well (which it won't), but even in that case... it's still bad. Please go back to sourcing your deep plots from Weekly Shounen Jump, Bones. ~3/10

Bucchigiri...

Bucchigiri..., on the other hand, has the exact opposite problem: While Metallic Rouge is a convoluted tangle of inconsequential plot, this show is just happy to phone it in. It almost feels like a rerun of fall 2021, where Metallic Rouge is the new Fena and Bucchigiri... is the new Takt:Op. It leaves an agreeable first impression, with a bold, colorful look, unusual setting, expressive direction and kinetic animation – but everything not entirely superficial is an excuse, and a "dog ate my homework" level of excuse at that. If all you want is bromantic burly brettyboys going through the motions, get your fanfic pen ready, but don't expect the show itself to provide significantly more than character designs. It doesn't help that the main character is particularly bad, with his gimmick being "annoying disinterested horndog". These non-characters keep going in circles slapping each other's asses and being not very funny for two thirds of the show, until a very generic "sensitive best friend is tempted by evil" drama plot appears because even yaoi shippers realize that eventually something has to happen, which boils down to Matakara going around slapping everyone's asses again, but now it's supposed to be sad. And then that doesn't work at all, because for character drama you need characters. Who knew.

Of course the funny bit is that this is pretty much what I asked for. I gave SKOO shit for only being good at the wacky parts while the heartfelt drama and more fleshed out characters fell flat. Well, now the director's followup work is just the wacky bits and feels completely hollow for it, and then the exaggerated drama lacks anything to back it up. Maybe just do better, I suppose. Oh yeah, and this also hasn't ended yet but with how completely predictable it is I feel like I've already seen the final episode. ~4/10

Undead Unluck

You can take the Shounen out of the Jump but you can't take the Jump out of the Shounen. I don't usually touch the Weekly Shounen Jump brand for good reasons, but Undead Unluck definitely had one of the strongest first impressions for one in a long time, if only because it has leads that aren't Goku and Vegeta again. But it also had a flashy, devil-may-care attitude with absurd nonsense happening left and right, a bonkers setting that is actually interesting in its own right and production value to back it up. In short, it was Fire Force with arguably better characters. When it's firing on all cylinders, Undead Unluck is a very fun time.

The problem is that Undead Unluck is firing on all cylinders about as often as a Cadillac V8-6-4 with a flaky ignition distributor. Primarily it has a massive padding problem: The amount of recapping and flashbacks to things that just happened is patently ridiculous and I say that as someone who has watched two seasons of My Hero Academia. If you include things like OP and ED, I feel like calling roughly a third of this show's runtime literally repeated content is not a wild exaggeration. And that's only literally repeated content – since this is Weekly Shounen Jump, there is also a lot of restating of facts and tedious explanations. I can't even blame this just on Jump Editorial, because a lot of the time it seems to be in service of hitting the right cliffhangers – but if both source and adaptation have severe pacing issues, it all compounds to the worst pacing in any show I've seen a considerable amount of.

And then, even in the coinflip of time when it's actually doing anything, it's obviously not always at its best either. This is honestly acceptable from a show that goes wild – with these you have to take the bad with the good. I didn't care much for the lazily metafictional final arc for example, but it would be perfectly fine if it didn't (quite expectedly at this point) do its core statement twice in as many episodes in a row, only with more screaming the second time. It's good when it's good, sure, but it would have to be outstandingly brilliant to make the whole thing worth it – which it isn't, so it's not. 5/10

Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete (Gushing over Magical Girls)

My standard line regarding any extra spicy fanservice anime show has always been "you know you can find real porn on the internet easily, right". Gushing over Magical Girls (which is, aint gonna lie, a genius title translation) is a pretty good example why: Even though it is pretty damn explicit, it still isn't on the level of actual porn, and then the extended moaning and wriggling sequences just take up so much of the time that it gets tedious pretty fast. And a lot of the "other" content of the show is just blatantly an excuse to make the porn happen. There's some edgy comedy too, but I think characters like Kiwi are more annoying than anything, so that didn't do much for me either. Then the middle section of the show is an excursion where our protagonist villains go sex up a couple of more villainous villains, which feels like it's missing the point even by its own standards. Also, be aware that with hentai content come hentai production values, and this one is definitely below average. None of this is particularly unusual.

However, I kept watching this one, and the reason is pretty simple: I don't actually object to spiciness in principle, and in the beginning the show did a pretty good job of portraying Utena's awakening to a bunch of fetishes. That she then started an awkward on-and-off anonymous BDSM relationship with an actual magical girl was even better. I honestly have to say that this is a brilliant concept, even if it wasn't executed to a level where I was certain it was intentional. Also, while it's arguably the "main plot", it's a fairly small part of the show and when it didn't show up much in the middle I was sure the show had lost me. I do have to admit though that against all odds, Gushing does stick the landing, with a final episode that really pays off that plotline in the best way you could reasonably (see above) expect. It's a bit of a rough ride, but this show delivers.

So I'm two minds about Gushing over Magical Girls. If you just consider it a hentai OVA that somehow escaped to television (which is not an unreasonable standpoint), it feels surprisingly ambitious and well thought out. But as a regular TV show, it just has too many weaknesses to ignore. Still, even though I can't call it good, I still think it's a more interesting curio than the score might make it sound. 5/10

Hime-sama "Goumon" no Jikan desu ('Tis Time For "Torture", Princess)

Oh no, this has "torture" in the title, what could it mean? Yeah, I think at this point everyone knows that it's a joke (one might even say... The Joke) and let's leave it at that. It feels like every season there's some fluffy and cute comedy that I quite enjoy for no profound reason. The Alleged Torture here simply doesn't do anything wrong, manages to find just about enough angles to its one joke to not get boring, and features nice designs and enough production value to deliver a smooth ride all the way to the end. It occasionally does something beyond its one joke, and that tends to turn out cute and chill as well, like Tortura's modest OL home life. Really the only thing I don't like about this is the manzai reaction antics of the sword – explaining the joke is always questionable, but it's especially so when there is exactly one punchline that never changes. In any case, this one is hardly essential and there are many others like it, but sometimes you just want something sweet and inoffensive that still puts the effort in. And this is definitely one of those. 6/10

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (Apothecary Diaries)

I feel like I should like this show a lot more than I actually do. This is because it is made of great ingredients: Very nice looks, a setting with tons of potential, mostly interesting characters and in particular an amazing main character. Maomao is just great, she has tons of personality and a funny oddball charm that is tempered by a smart and stoic attitude. The beginning of the show, where Maomao plays the streetwise intruder into the stilted world of court intrigue and manages to cut through the bullshit like nobody else could, is pretty excellent.

However, as the show went on, it became clear that I just don't agree with the direction the plot takes. Of course it turns out that Maomao is actually deeply involved into the court drama in half a dozen ways (without ever telling the audience about it, which smells of retcon). Of course the focus shifts to other characters like Jinshi or later on Lakan, who are far less interesting. Of course there is a romance with Jinshi on the horizon. I don't want to be that guy that is mad that a show doesn't turn out to be what they had wished it to be, but it's still a letdown.

And that's not mentioning that the daily business of the show, various levels of detective work, is hardly solid gold either. It's just bad at mystery writing – most "cases" turn out to be massively contrived and then Maomao walks in and just guesses the solution out of nowhere. The large-scale mystery (who is Jinshi, really?) is not much of a mystery at all but Maomao can't figure it out because apparently she has to solve these complicated and tiny problems before she can realize the simple and obvious large one. And then there's the drama, which is effective enough in the moment but seems to be mostly built on a foundation of allegedly smart people acting much more stupid than they should.

So overall, I think this is still a good show simply because Maomao is fun to watch no matter what, but I just don't think the writing can quite hold up its part of the bargain, and that is kind of a bummer. 7/10

Yuuki Bakuhatsu Bang Bravern

Bang Bravern arrived with a simple, but quite amusing thesis statement: What if you had a tacticool, Armored Core-like mecha setting but then everything changed when a super robot show invaded. That's pretty funny. It also just so happens that Masami Oobari knows that the likes of Top Gun tend to have a certain undertone, and also made Bang Bravern explicitly homoerotic. That's even funnier. Add to this the fact that the epic super robot action genre is inherently hilariously over the top, and you have the makings of a very amusing show. Now, I could just leave it at that, because that's what Bravern is. An over the top and self-aware love letter to the super robot shows of old, with a couple of additional comedic angles.

In other words, it's like all super robot shows that have been made in the last two decades. Yeah, Bravern is undeniably quite entertaining, but I also don't think it's anywhere as unique as people seem to think it is. The "super in a world of reals" joke in particular doesn't really come into play that often, apart from when that side of the show keeps introducing dozens of characters that then proceed to not do anything apart from standing on the sidelines. The gay love affair does matter more often, but seems to run into diminishing returns because once you've done "come inside me" (which it does in like episode 3), you really have nowhere to go. And besides those two, well... it's charmingly exuberant and features all the goofy tropes, but it lacks the absurd hugeness of a TTGL or the meaningful subtext of a Gridman – and that's only shows that I have actually seen as a non-fan of the genre. I suppose fans will gladly take it anyway, because the genre is somewhat rare nowadays, but Bravern doesn't exactly blow me away. Still, you can't deny the fun. 7/10

Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End)

So here we come to the big dog. The show that's pulling Doraemon numbers on Japanese TV, has been riding a comfortable #1 spot on MAL for months, and has inspired an unfathomable amount of porn. And the real surprising thing is that it's the first show in a very long time that I think comes even close to deserving that level of hype, especially early in its run when it absolutely isn't the kind of show you'd expect to do this – apart from the production values being about as good as TV anime gets, naturally.

Frieren starts out as an uniquely focused narrative that explores as many angles as it can out of a complicated mess of legacy, memory and regret through the lens of a pretty simple and generic RPG trope. It achieves this almost entirely through one of the best casts I've seen in a long time – Frieren may not be quite as charming a protagonist as Maomao, but she has much more depth and more importantly, every character that matters in her show is almost as good, and their relationships are even better. In its first-cours adventure mode, when we're just wandering around having more or less episodic encounters and plot points that drift in and out of focus with a wistful tone but splashes of goofy comedy, Frieren is quite excellent and would have been my show of last year if I had considered it eligible.

But then it slams in a new gear with the elegance of a tractor driver who thinks clutches are for pussies. Suddenly we're doing a proper Shounen Exam Arc and we're getting a lot less of this and a lot more of this. Now to be fair, this is a long running manga and it probably could not have kept doing flashbacks to Frieren being too dense to realize that Himmel was hitting on her 80 years ago forever. But still, the mage examination arc just really isn't Frieren at its best. It's not even that the content is particularly bad (maybe apart from the really quite rough beginning), and I do understand the long-term benefits of introducing a bigger cast of characters for future use, especially when they turn out to be quite good eventually... but it all just takes way too long. There's still great moments here, but that's usually a small segment of the established good stuff or, failing that, Frieren dropping a sick ass spell. Yeah, I won't even blame this on the action, because said action is incredibly well done and still quite brief, but you really didn't need a full season of theorycrafting and skill discussions to get those explosions. In short. Frieren temporarily turns into Full Metal Alchemist with better leads, and while this would be high praise for almost any shounen manga, it isn't for the one that has demonstrated it can do far better.

There is one real upside to this distraction arc though: Unlike, say, the plot problems of Apothecary Diaries that are here to stay, none of this irreversible, which Frieren immediately makes clear by snapping back to its best behaviour the second they leave the designated raid zones. The ending is as good as any part of the show, with the skillful writing and great tone we have come to wish for. Frieren may not be as consistently excellent as it first appeared, but it is still pretty damn good – and not on a purely superficial level either, because it obviously can have outstanding writing when it wants to and the fundamentals are rock solid too. 8/10

Yubisaki to Renren (A Sign of Affection)

And the top spot of the season goes to... a show that may not be the most ambitious, but does absolutely nothing wrong. Yubisaki to Renren is a fluffy romance where a very cute girl meets a very nice boy, and then no drama happens because not everyone in the world is a fucking idiot. I think my delight with this says more about the absolute state of romance anime than it does about the show itself, but I also have to say that while the plot of this show might be simplistic, it takes great care to set everything up in such a way to get away with said simplistic plot.

Obviously the core of the setup is that Yuki is deaf. But, quite smartly, the author doesn't make the story about Yuki's problems with not being able to hear, but rather about how her world is just... limited. And Itsuomi is a dude with an uncommonly wide worldview and experience. Opposites attract, and there you go. The show basically gets all the grounding it needs from that simple setup for free, then throws in a bit of complicated history among the larger cast. Then just make Yuki incredbly cute and Itsuomi an uncommonly levelheaded adult who will take measures to prevent any pointless drama before it gets out of hand, and you have a show that's just 100% a good time all the way through. So the leads (i.e., the thing that matters way above all else in a romance) are great, and the rest of the cast is more than fine too, even those who would instigate such drama – it can't get annoying, because they never succeed.

Really if I had to say something negative about this show it would be that it's still superficial compared to a show at its skill level that does go hard. I mean, it's about two nice people falling in love and nothing goes wrong, which isn't exactly a lot. There is maybe also the idea that Itsuomi may be a bit too perfect, but I'm just more than happy to see a male lead in a shoujo romance that is neither an abusive jerk nor a bland cardboard cutout. In a perfect world, something like Yubisaki to Renren should feel a bit bland and generic, but in the real one, there just isn't much like it. 9/10

[pentition]

To be on the safe side... Spoilers:

I feel like the antagonists of this game were always clear to me (personally) just due to the lack of content given to them. Yeah, it was enough for players to determine whether or not they liked a character but in terms of missions and interactions I feel like there's a bare minimum. And because of that, it made it more obvious to me who the antagonists were set up to be.

Mayor Gale in Portia had some neat missions and interactions that made things more personal during your character's residency there. Mayor Trudy doesn't arrive in Sandrock until later, and while I can only recount one side mission I do also recount little interactions and commentary she made. Whereas with Minister Matilda, she only existed in the context of the main story missions for the most part. There was a detachment to become personal which contrasted her friendly demeanor.

I feel like with Matilda, it's a little easier to overlook her compared to the others initially. Minister of the Church means the way she carries herself is kind of to be expected. Especially for those who played Portia and when put beside Miguel - this reserved, friendly enough but still an authority figure demeanor is a given. It always felt strange to me that there wasn't much personalizing going on but it wasn't until Trudy returned to head Sandrock that the vibe I was getting became clearer. The way Matilda behaves towards Trudy is very condescending. Often being friendly and using a friendly voice even when her words aren't matching up. Or even her actions (being the face of Sandrock instead of Trudy).

We see more of a tonal shift of Matilda keeping her control over Sandrock and its citizens. Don't get me wrong, I understand why it can look like it's just people having connected to Matilda in Trudy's absence. They got used to the firm but kind all the same hand. And the mayor, by comparison, is so much gentler and less assertive to regain people's attention immediately.

With Miguel and Pen I just had red flags because people generated a decent amount of interest in them both I feel like, yet each update wasn't really adding much to them. They may not have been as popular as some other candidates, but even before Logan was announced they were still pulling at a decent level for interest from the players. And seeing that we got nothing time and time again it made me think of Portia once more - with Aadit.

Sandrock did a better job integrating these characters into the town, whereas with Aadit he kind of fell into the background and then faded out of even that. Which, for his character, made sense but from a gameplay perspective was a mistake I think. Unfortunately, the feeling betrayed by Miguel and especially Pen for me doesn't really stem too much from their actions. I more feel betrayed Pathea didn't commit more attention to them. If you want that betrayal, more missions and interactions should have been there. More diving into the characters. Hell, even more possible outcomes for them.

They do well in some instances, like with Unsuur, and his crush on the builder. How that comes up in interactions before you accept or reject his interest. Things woven in so nicely to determine the flow of a relationship and what it will be.

It feels like with Miguel, it's especially a missed opportunity. There's a lot in that fella that could be shared or conveyed in interesting ways. Mind you, I did a full restart of my game after the full release so I'm only going off tidbits of info I've seen cropping up on him post the Sandrock takeover. But even before then, in the lead up or during his imprisonment and realization of his actual role for Duvos, I feel like there's a loss of character development. Or... an expansion on what's already there so we can understand him more and see him in a more honest light.

With Pen I feel like there was potential whether he turned out to be good (what a twist!) but even also if he (likely) was going to be one of the bad guys. It makes sense for Miguel's perspective to view what they are doing as protecting Sandrock. He believes they are choosing a lesser evil, to some extent. But for Pen, it's interesting, he's the Protector of Sandrock but is also a man who loves violence. It feels like a missed opportunity to not have had him playing that up in missions or in the background more. And in doing so, earned more trust. Whereas him appearing as all talk makes him more suspicious. It calls into question his competence and morality early on. It's not like Pen hides when he doesn't given a shit about something but the comedic poor excuses or blatant disregard makes him look incompetent in the story. Whereas, if you hangout with him and take him on a stroll outside of town, you'll see how quickly he executes monsters. So we know he's not lacking in competence then when it comes to battle, so then it just instills it's a morality thing that he isn't rushing to play hero.

Which, to an extent, is definitely believable. Maybe if he was in the background trying to intercept Logan and we got more insight to that it would make more sense. As it stands, he really is just a lazy cat that gets up only when he wants to. For someone so violent and an outright bully, he doesn't actually do much beyond verbal stuff.

Pen also makes it apparent he isn't one to be ordered around. He humors Miguel and seems to only listen to Matilda on the more serious missions. But even that could be liable to change if he felt like it, I think. It makes me wonder if his loyalty to Duvos is because he can get the most fighting done via being on their side. Or, if the rumors are true and he was an experiment, if his loyalty stems from a soldier mentality. But that has me calling into question how loyal he'll be in the long run when he's so self-centered. Unless Duvos is providing his bloodthirst and other needs well, I could see him not having a reason to leave.

...Except, it would be nice to have that option, wouldn't it? I feel like Sandrock provided the perfect opportunity for it. If not in the main story of the game, then a possible DLC would be interesting. Let him have gained friendship and shoved it aside for loyalty to Duvos. Let him have played it off as no big deal to him when really, in the silence alone and imprisoned, he begins to feel the weight of it.

For the main game story, I could see him sticking to Duvos through the town takeover and even in his boss fight. If we're talking Pathea silliness, what if the mirror jogged his memory on how the builder made him that mirror and then helped free him from it? And how Burgess helped, too and then his epiphany to be kinder to him that he poorly fulfilled. Memories and emotions can work like a chain reaction, especially when instilled into a person who clearly hasn't known genuine friendship. He could have came around in the Matilda fight and space punched her up there, a prime opportunity. Then been taken in for questioning.

We have the builder put into the positioning of giving character statements to others in the game. Maybe the option to have Pen serve his sentence in Sandrock and actually get hands on in making it better after what he did would have been fitting? Portia allowed Tody to stay despite his actions - which, sure, are lesser than a Duvos invasion but were also still very damning.

If we're talking DLC potentials, why not have Pen break out and escape into the desert. Word comes back to Sandrock and the builder is the one to find him.

There is a lot of potential with integrating Miguel and Pen into Sandrock more without it changing Pathea's formula of storytelling and how they do missions and interactions. Also I'd potentially add Matilda to this but she's coasting in space last I recall, lmao. But her backstory interests me enough to want to have a dialogue about it in game.

Anyways, there are so many tidbits in the game that could really pave the way for such developments. I hope maybe future DLC will expand on them because I just like the idea of Miguel having a redemption arc and learning beyond his beliefs. Pen becoming compromised because he's in an environment that isn't Duvos and it's healthier for him. And Matilda, we'll see. Still collecting my thoughts with her.

At the end of the day this is just be airing out thoughts into the void but if you made it this far. Hi!

[theninthdoor]

hi!! could you do an nct 127 love life update

Taeil || the wheel of fortune rx, ten of swords: He's been having some really bad luck when it comes to relationships and/or the people he meets. He goes into these connections with high hopes, but then, somehow, he finds out that the other person isn't who he thought they were OR that they aren't a good match at all. He is single, yes, but definitely still looking for love.

Johnny || the sun, five of wands, queen of wands: If Johnny isn't pursuing or going out with a leo person, I'd be shocked (or at least someone with strong leo placements). They have been flirting and hanging out quite a bit, but that's pretty much it. He's very into them, anyway - also, the fact that these 3 cards jumped out right away, with such light and bright energy, just confirms to me that Johnny is having an absolute blast getting to know this person!

Taeyong || seven of cups, page of wands: Taeyong is single as well. He has plenty of suitors, though and might be feeling particularly interested in a specific person these days. Their relationship has no romantic undertones to it yet, however - they are totally just friends.

Yuta || two of cups, ten of wands: Yuta is currently dating. This relationship might feel like a burden at time, but it's something that he thinks is worth the struggle - distance or schedules may play a big part in this, as his partner seems to be quite the busy person as well.

Doyoung || the moon, the magician: He's in some sort of situationship with someone who works with/around him. This person has been avoiding taking the next step because they feel like it could hurt both their friendship & their careers, and that just wouldn't be worth it. They may be kinda new in their position - 6 months? -, and even though it's normal for this kind of thing to develop between people, they are afraid that it might not turn out so great for them.

Jaehyun || five of swords rx, king of pentacles: Single, most likely. He recently walked away from a romantic interest that either he realized wasn't his type after all, or things simply didn't work out between them - I actually see some disagreements here, either way. For now, he's focused on his work but is still open to meeting someone new.

Winwin || two of cups, the wheel of fortune: Winwin seems to be in a good relationship right now. Him and his partner like each other immensely, and their personalities are an amazing match (in balance & mirroring, both). This is going to last for the foreseeable future.

Jungwoo || the hermit, the wheel of fortune: So… Jungwoo's energy was very irritable. I think he's been using casual romantic encounters as a way of relieving stress, yet he's getting frustrated that he's not able to settle for or with anybody. He's literally being forced to do inner-work and focus on his own path (which, as many of us should know, sucks but is needed at some point).

Mark || here > X & Haechan || here > X

(Disclaimer: All is alleged and for entertainment purposes only. Based on current energies.)

[thronelessking]

Relationship headcanons I was tagged in, double feature just for Soma bc i could

name; Eileossayd

nickname; Ellie

gender; Dragon. He calls himself a man because the word is fun for him to say.

romantic orientation; shrug emoji, he's only ever fallen in love with one singular person and never found himself loving anyone else ever again.

preferred pet names; if Rae ever gave him one its lost to the long flow of time.

relationship status; widowed, he's working on fixing it.

opinion on true love; the concept of it isnt beyond him but he views it in a very clinical light. Some things simply bond and stay together for life and to him that's just biology. No he does not realize this applies to him and Rae’s relationship. Why do you ask?

opinion on love at first sight; see above

how 'romantic' are they?; his idea of romance is showing up on your doorstep and telling you about the cool stuff he learned and showing you.

ideal physical traits; unfortunately if you aren't Rae, then the next runner up to his favored appearance is his own. He finds nothing special nor interesting about people physically otherwise.

unattractive physical traits; he's gained a poignant disdain for the color white and shades of blue that don't match his own. “Is this how you're going to reveal that he thinks his son looks bad?” Yeah.

unattractive personality traits; He has no time or patience for anyone who lacks any respectable intelligence in his eyes.

ideal date; doing experiments, a while afternoon of theological debate, quiet research with a partner, teaching and or being taught something. Nerd.

do they have a type?; Rae

opinion of public affection; does not pay attention to nor participate in it.

Bonus feature for Mirb:

name; Mirabelle. This is a stolen alias, all of his names are. Good Luck.

nickname; Mira, but only one person gets the ability to use that.

gender; weird shapeless thing playing at being a vaguely tangible human shape.

romantic orientation; opportunistic, he'll be anything you want so long as it gets him what he wants.

preferred pet names; he doesn't have any but he thinks it'd be real funny if he was given one.

relationship status; whether or not Cornelius and Mirabelle are aware they're married to each other is up to scholarly debate

opinion on true love; doesn't care for it as a concept, that's not his domain of power nor area of interest. Love is an exploitable tool that should be taken advantage of.

opinion on love at first sight; see above

how 'romantic' are they?; depends on your definition of romantic. He thinks it's romantic to be doing whatever he's doing to Cornelius but also Cornelius does actually like to get stabbed and made out with all while bleeding out so like y'know.

ideal physical traits; he has no preferences, every trait is a good trait because he's just as likely to steal and wear a lover's face as he is a strangers. He thinks Cornelius’ soft and pliable fleshwarp body though is exceptionally charming.

unattractive physical traits; see first sentence above

unattractive personality traits; he despises people who espouse the virtues of mercy and kindness. While he has no issue with taking advantage of such people, he'd rather not be around them; his faith thrives off cruelty after all.

ideal date; on a dinner date that you foot the entire impossible bill for. Alternatively, a date that's too graphic to be displayed in public.

do they have a type?; Cornelius 

opinion of public affection; enforces it because he thinks it's very funny for Cornelius to endure the swathes of rumors that come from the fact a hot guy made out with him in public and yet they're still not married.

tagged by: @crimsontroupe hey guy

tagging: taps you with the magic stick that lets you just do this.

[jughead-is-canonically-aroace]

omg thank u for introducing me to the term kuleshov effect, that is my favorite aspect of fan edits it makes me go insane

it's so fucking cool, i was actually gonna make a video essay for a final project (before i realized that i don't know how to use a video editor + other problems befouled me) comparing two movies illustrating the connections and the contrasts i was making using the kuleshov effect, which would have pretty much just straightup been an amv using songs from one of the movies.

it's part of why a good gifset is one of my favorite kinds of fandom meta - clips from x episode paired with clips from y later episode, etc - like !!!!! you're making a connection and holding it up for me to look at directly so i can then make that connection myself purely through the juxtaposition!!!!!!!! that's so cool!!!!!!!!

like, look at this

you see what i'm saying??? the meaning comes from the interraction of the paired gifs/lines

or this one

which does like, angle or lighting comparison in addition to the contrast in emotion - shot comparison! match shots! et cetera!

like, the meaning here isn't coming from the caption, i don't see that until later, it's coming from seeing these visuals & dialogue juxtaposed and interpreting something from the decision to pair them. that's video essay

but like to get back to videos and amvs and the kuleshov effect and soviet montage in general - look at this supernatural amv. i've never seen supernatural but this is one of my favorite songs by the mountain goats, and there are lines in it that were put in a completely new perspective for me by watching this amv and seeing what shots the editor put under which lines

soviet montage is a style that developed pretty much in direct response to western/hollywood continuity editing, and specifically in response to the film birth of a nation, which was interesting to the soviet filmmakers in the way that they saw the style of filmmaking aided the film in selling the story of the KKK to the american audience

continuity editing stylistically wants to be noticed as little as possible, and guide you along the viewing of the movie, blurring the lines between your reality and the reality of the film (the idea of the suspension of disbelief) through things that mimic the real life experience of moving throug the world - shot-to-shot things like showing the exterior of the building and then the interior, keeping the camera within the same 180 degrees in a single scene so the people you're filming aren't suddenly on different sides of the camera (the viewer); and scene-to-scene things like having events occur chronologically (and if not, having a clear indication of flashback or flash forward as per filmmaking convention)

the soviet filmmakers saw this as like, some capitalist propaganda bullshit because it encouraged you to take in these ideas without necessarily thinking or critically examining them, and so it was very easy to make the KKK the heroes by just building a triumphant narrative around them, and how that narrative is shown to the viewer depends on how it's edited

and so montage editing, which is rising out of the same school of filmmaking as the kuleshov effect, is in direct response to that, to try and find a style of editing that makes the viewer pay attention to the techniques and to the fact that they're watching a film, keeps their brain engaged, and has them draw their own conclusions from what they're shown rather than being gently handed the conclusions by the film. so it's a style that is built on inviting thought and critique, and therefore a pretty natural style for expressing audiovisual critique and analysis

(amvs also have their roots in this style bc soviet filmmakers were often working with recutting american films rather than filming their own due to lack of funds for purchasing film. which is pretty cool)

if you wanna check out a cool classic example of soviet montage editing, vertov's man with a movie camera (1hr) is really fun, kind of a "day in the life" but also a display of different effects you can get by using a film camera in different ways, bit of stop motion, etc

(vertov is also a really interesting, he coined the idea of kino-eye, which is about the way that the camera looks at the world and how that's different from how a human eye looks at the world, and also, the way the world reacts or changes in response to being looked at by the camera. which is Pretty Relevant Right Now I'd Say! glares at tiktok. glares at surveilence state. anyway you might wanna check that out too it's a bit tangental to the topic but still relevant in terms of the idea of film as unique medium which can be used to express ideas differently than the written word)

[all-the-fish]

I had my legal name changed and it's been pretty entertaining so far. First of all I'm pretty lucky that what I want counts as a neutral name, because this country is working with approved names only, and vast majority of names are gendered. You can't have a name that doesn't match your legal gender, and any trans people who want some normal local (very gendered) name have to go through a neutral name. So, there's a list of approved neutral names. You can ask for names to be added and then sacrifice to the bureaucracy gods, but yeah. The neutral names are mostly foreign names, or names that have one gender associated here but different one somewhere else (Nikola etc.) but somewhat recently they approved informal versions of many common names to be used as legal name too, and a lot of them are unisex, and I can squeeze in there. They also finally let people ditch the gendered surname endings. Hot take, they should just cancel them altogether, but I digress.

I handed over the documents at the local registry office, which isn't the one that has and can change my birth records actually, but it was recently approved that I can do that and they just mail it to the correct one and then mail my fancy new birth document back. I thanked all these recent law changes, got home and then realized multiple things during the next few days:

I'm getting a thing mailed by the local post office, which regularly gets flooded real bad during the christmas time, just in time for that

my name won't be changed the moment I get the birth certificate, but sometime before, when they send it, so for a while I will have no idea what is my actual legal name. Identity crisis, but not like dissociative one, but rather a purely legal one.

my all time favorite - they will be sending the birth certificate as a letter that needs an id check because it's an important legal document. The new birth certificate, with the new legal name, will probably be addressed to the new name. You need a matching id card to receive it. You won't have the new name id card because you need the new birth certificate to request the new name id card. Kafka wishes his bureaucratic nonsense was this good.

...anyway it all ended up going a lot better than expected. I got a government notemail account a while back, so the name change notice popped up there, and also one of my banks refreshes their stuff from the national registry automatically like instantly (or at least very often), so I actually got their notice first. It's also really interesting to watch multiple automated government systems slowly refreshing at different rates, but mostly it seems to work pretty well? It was pretty funny to see new name notice in the notemail still marked with the old name, and the freelancer notemail having newname-oldname for a moment, but few days later it's all updated. Even the post office went well because whoever sent it realized the issue and just addressed it to the old name, but I heard from multiple people they often don't, so the sacrifices to the bureaucracy gods aren't a bad idea.

I'm currently at another funny stage where I still don't have any new name documents on me though. I'm gonna go request the id card tomorrow, but they need time to be made so I won't have it until the next year (...so in 2-3 weeks), and my health insurance card is... somewhere. They supposedly send a new one automatically and the online account already shows the new one, but that's all I know. I might actually need to see a random doctor asap because my sinuses are being horrible, so I'll probably inflict a smaller identity crisis on them with the old card and "sorry it's not actually my name in the system". Fun!

[kenobster]

It's interesting to learn about identity disturbance with BPD because it really starts to explain everything. If your entire sense of self is held up by external sources (aka your friends! your environment!), then so many other things start to make sense. Like, for example, if your opinion on a character or a movie doesn't match your friend's opinion, then that's two parts of your identity contradicting each other!!! It's literally going to cause you cognitive dissonance! No wonder it's so distressing to me when that happens!!! 😖

Or another example!!! The clinginess omg. You realize it's because you practically have NO boundaries whatsoever. You've practically been begging your friends to inhabit your fucking body lmao. And obviously people can't do that (for one, physics.... but for another, people got their own bodies to deal with lol). So when they inevitably aren't around, it's like the driver of the vehicle you're a passenger in just passed out unexpectedly. No wonder you're trying everything you can to get their attention lmao — they gotta wake up and drive!!!! 😱

It's also really interesting when you start to try to develop your sense of self (in DBT, it seems to be worded as "self respect"? I could be wrong though). Like, you've spent most of your life not knowing who you are or what you want/need. And the SECOND you find that one little decision you can make for yourself? That one little kernel that's you and nobody else? Well, suddenly it's like you've got the crown jewel (XD) in your hands and the world seems to transform into this armada of invaders trying to take it from you. Like bruh. Step away. This is ME i've got here, and I'm not letting her go without a fight lmao. (Narrator voice: but no one is actually fighting her...... lol)

Anyway I feel bad for ppl who learn all this in less-than-ideal circumstances because like... I think a lot of people would probably get confused/upset/angry at the change in behavior (like someone is going from doormat people-pleaser to some sort of Napolean Boneapart world-conquerer type lol). So damn, I'm super grateful because I've been getting needlessly feisty about wanting some autonomy lately, and pretty much everyone I know has been super supportive and encouraging about it???? And that's really neat. 🥰 -feels very loved-

Anyway this has been a Ramble sorry. I just feel really good about things I've decided to do to improve myself lately, and I wanted to share lmao. I still haven't started writing as much as I had hoped I would, but like.... I'm starting to feel like ME, and I'm really happy about it. :)