#of course none of my most popular posts could be artwork

[biotic-boshtet]

I posted 9,958 times in 2021

58 posts created (1%)

9900 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 170.7 posts.

I added 617 tags in 2021

#mass effect - 174 posts

#shenko - 90 posts

#fic rec - 72 posts

#mass effect fic - 57 posts

#norah jean shepard - 53 posts

#oh my god - 44 posts

#mshenko - 41 posts

#fshenko - 41 posts

#mandi writes - 23 posts

#kaidan alenko - 22 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#this is my near miss shakarian chapter dedicated to how many times ive gone through the reach and flexibility convo to almost romance garrus

gotta toss in a friendly page break bc my top 5 posts are all fic and i dont want a do you love the color of the sky length post to scroll through

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

“We’ve been by each other’s sides for years, you think I’m gonna leave now?” for Norah and Kaidan

thank you SO much!!!!! my first thought was the cutscene in the final push, where Shepard sends Kaidan away and I almost went for All The Angst. but then my second thought bust through that like the kool-aid man, and here we are, with All The Fluff

Norah Jean sighs when she hears the knock on the bedroom door. She knows exactly who’s on the other side of it. She can feel him. Not listening to one of her few requests on their wedding day. She smooths down the white satin, grabs her crutches and makes her way over to the door.

“Kaidan, I am not asking anymore. Go away.”

“We’ve been by each other’s sides for years, you think I’m gonna leave now?”

“Yes.” Norah Jean sighed and patted the door.

“Sugar, that’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve said all day.” She could hear him thunk his head against the offending piece of wood between them.

“I’m not being ridiculous, Kaidan, its bad luck.”

“C’mon Norah Jean, we got married four years ago, if I see you in the dress now, I really don’t think it’ll have any impact on the rest of our lives. Its an old superstition, that’s all. I just wanna come in for a minute, please?”

“Honey.”

“Don’t you “Honey” me, Norah Jean, just a little peek. And maybe a kiss, and then I’ll go, I promise.”

“Nope.” She pops the ‘p’ and thinks the conversation is done, stepping away from the door.

“I miss you.” Kaidan’s voice isn’t as insistent now. “You left before I got up, and I just-“ She hears him puff out a sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t have cold feet, but I’m a little nervous.”

“It was a lot easier when it was you, me, and an Asari Elvis, huh?”

“Nothing fancy, just us in sweatpants and tank tops, middle of the night, wondering if it out be out last chance at happiness. One night alone, one night with our friends, and then right back into the thick of it. It was a good call, tying the knot like that.”

“Oh, but our parents were so thrilled. I loved Elvis, but not waiting to do it “right” is what got us in this mess in the first place.” She made useless air quotes around the word ‘right’, even though Kaidan couldn’t see them.

“Its not a mess, and you’re having fun.”

“No, it is a mess, its overwhelming and exhausting, I may enjoy it right now, but quote me on this, I never want to plan another wedding again.”

“So…... Let me in?” The smile on his face is plain in his voice.

Norah Jean pauses, thinking. Then she unlocks the door. “Okay. One kiss, but you have to keep your eyes closed.”

“Okay, okay, eyes are closed.”

“Tightly?” She could feel his field zinging with excitement.

“Tightly.”

“Good.” She tugs open the door, creaking on its old hinges. Looking Kaidan up and down she’s a little breathless. “Damn, Kaidan, you look good, and you’re not even fully dressed.”

“Hey, no fair, if you can look, I should be able to!”

She puts a hand over his eyes before he can open them. “Ah, ah, ah, no rule about seeing the groom.” Norah Jean tugs Kaidan over the threshold and pushes the door shut with her free hand.

“You’re a hard woman to please, you know that Sugar?”

“Oh hush, and c’mere.” She slowly took her hand away, making sure his eyes were still closed, and grabbed his shirt, gently tugging him down to her level. “One kiss, Kaidan, then you have to finish getting dressed.”

“I think I can live with that. Maybe.”

She tugs him a smidge closer and plants a firm kiss on his lips. And that one kiss turns to two, which turns to three. Before they realize it, Norah Jean’s backed Kaidan to the edge of the bed, his hands on the zipper of her dress and her hands in his hair. She hears his soft gasp as he sits and opens her eyes to catch the look on his face. Love, plain and simple, in his eyes and the grin on his face and in the little breathless laugh that leaves him.

“God, you’re beautiful. I’m a lucky man, Norah Jean.” He sniffs, resting his forehead against hers.

“No, no, no, don’t start that, you’ll make me cry too, and it’ll ruin my makeup.”

“We can’t have that.” He sniffs again. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Kaidan, to the ends of the galaxy.” She brushes a tear from his cheek and kisses his nose.

He lets out another breathless laugh. “Look at us, saviors of the galaxy, sappy crying on our wedding day.”

“C’mon, Hon, lets get you dressed. We might have to fix your hair too.”

33 notes • Posted 2021-08-12 16:38:42 GMT

#4

1, 6, and/or 11 for the prompts?

ok i have 1, but 6 and 11 will maybe come eventually so keep an eye out and tysm for the prompts

Aftermath

“I’d ask if you were ok, but the answer seems a little obvious.”

“Yeah, nope, nope, no. Doing bad.” No blood. No screams. Just the wind over the sand and a dead thresher maw. She clenches her fists in the sand and works on getting her breathing under control.

“Don’t worry, Alenko’s on his way over with his kit. Sent me with a full canteen though.”

“Thanks, Garrus.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Shepard rolls off her knees to sit in the sand, taking the canteen from him. Sticking it between her knees, she lifts her shaking hands to disengage the seals on her helmet, taking it off and letting it fall to the sand. She took a deep breath, trying to block out the scent of acid and blood. Only half of those smells were real. The stench of thresher maw acid almost makes her gag as she takes a sip of lukewarm water.

“Hey, I brought backup.” Kaidan’s knelt down in the sand next to her, rifling through his kit till he finds what he’s looking for. A juice pouch and a granola bar.

“I’ll see if I can’t get the Mako up and running, if you two have everything under control here?”

“Yeah, Garrus, we’re good.” Kaidan gives him a thumbs up, and Garrus makes his way back to the Mako.

She takes the offerings with a mumbled thanks, downing the juice in about 5 seconds, hands still shaking. “Sorry you had to see that.” She kept her eyes trained on her hands as she tore open the granola bar.

“Don’t be. You may have put on a more, uh, spectacular display than I’m used to seeing, but I have seen it before. And I know how to work with the aftermath.”

“Not your first 2.5? How lucky.”

“Yeah, we had two of them on the Shanghai, the most I’ve ever worked with other biotics. They uh, butted heads enough to set each other off, so we had to keep them separate or distracted on ground missions. Didn’t wanna risk wrecking more equipment. Kimball ended up getting reassigned to the Fuji a year or two back, but Benton’s still there, I think.” Kaidan was sitting next to her in the sand now. “One time they got into this argument, I don’t even remember what it was about, but Benton was pissed. Next thing we knew, Kimball and I were tossing up a barrier to cover the rest of the squad, because everything unfortunate enough to not be bolted down was flying through the air. Ripped a door right off the Mako, thankfully he didn’t have the juice to pull the whole thing. That one was fun to explain to the captain.”

That gets a laugh from Shepard. “I can only imagine going to Anderson and telling him we need a new door for the Mako, or worse a new Mako.” She crumples up the granola bar wrapper, shoving it in a suit pocket. “God, it feels like I was fighting off that meltdown all day.” She lets her knee fall against his, plating clacking together.

“You good?”

“Be better once we’re off this fucking rock.”  This place was a dead ringer for Akuze.

“Well, I’m glad you don’t have to ask the captain for a new Mako, at least.” He grabs her helmet and gets up, shaking sand out of the joints of his suit, and offers his hand to help her up. “C’mon, let’s go see if Garrus has made any progress yet.”

Prompt List

Read on AO3

23 notes • Posted 2021-04-20 08:19:00 GMT

#3

“I don’t know if I want to yell at you or kiss you.” for Norah Jean and Kaidan

cogratatualtions you get an argument! and Garrus being awkward bc he enabled Norah Jean's recklessness!

“I know what you’re thinking, and no. You’re not doing it.”

���Kaidan, you have no clue what I’m thinking.”

“Bullshit, Sugar, you’re thinking of charging over and digging me out of this corner before that Brute notices me.”

“Huh, no, I actually was thinking about how much this hole in my arm fucking hurts. But now that you mention it, that is a great idea.” Norah Jean isn’t so sure the sarcasm comes across through her grit teeth.

“Don’t you dare. I can get myself out of this and you are going to sit tight and stay down till I can get there to help you.”

She gets quiet as she listens to the gunfire, watching her HUD as enemy signatures slowly close in on Kaidan’s position. Her biotics respond involuntarily to her rising stress levels, flaring up and settling down with the breathing she’s forcing steady. The hardsuit’s medical suite’s already done all it could without medigel, which really isn’t all that much. Applied pressure and tried to dose her with painkillers. Immobilized the entire arm. An error message flashes on her screen, “AUTOMATIC INJECTION SYSTEM ERROR”. She got half a dose. Maybe. Great good all of it does her when the medic is pinned down across the field.

“Norah Jean, I can see you glowing from up here, you’re not planning something stupid, are you? I did hear Kaidan to tell you to stay put, and correct me if I’m wrong, but he does outrank you now, right?” Garrus’s voice crackles over their private channel.

“Y’know, I wasn’t planning anything, but Kaidan gave me a lovely idea, though now my window is gone. Not sure how long my suit can keep me from bleeding. Painkillers are kicking in, kind of. I think the biotics are kicking into meltdown mode.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking of something really stupid.” She watches a handful of husks fall to Garrus’s rifle, then focuses on Kaidan’s hiding spot and the cluster of mutants around it. Her shields were nearly recharged. Kaidan fells a husk and ducks back into cover. The Brute swings its head towards the sound of Kaidan’s pistol and takes a single step.

“If you tell me, I might be able to help, I promise I won’t tell on you. You know, unless it’ll definitely kill you. Then I’ll tell Kaidan.”

“I might, uh, I think I’m gonna charge the Brute. If it gets Kaidan I’m as good as gone, its still too hot for Steve to get in here. But if I distract it before it charges at him? Maybe even catch it off guard and get a few good hits in? You can cover my back while I deal with it.”

“That’s a terrible idea.” Norah Jean can imagine perfectly the face he’s making, mandibles slightly flared, eyes squinted, doing mental math. Ruthless calculus. “It might just work.”

“He’s almost out of ammo, and he’s exhausted. After he’s out he won’t be able to keep up the biotics for long. Kaidan’s a sitting duck. I’m doing it.” The brute scratches a foot on the dirt, snorting. She overrides the medical stabilization lock on her right arm joints.

She flicks over the squad channel.

“Bombs away, boys.”

Norah Jean charges before Kaidan can ask what she means.

Time slows down. A husk in her path falls before she can touch it. The Brute gallops towards her and her heart pounds in her ears. Her arm throbs. She isn’t even fully out of the charge before she’s overloading her barrier as she’s slamming into the creature. Her helmet goes dark in an effort to protect her eyes from the resulting flash, and her shield generator is screaming warnings at her. But her shotgun is in her hands and the Brute is still on the ground. The kickback is worse than usual, but she usually doesn’t get shot either. The Brute doesn’t get back up.

She charges one more time, slamming herself into the Marauder that made its way behind Kaidan’s cover. It goes down with a well-aimed shotgun blast before Kaidan can even blink.

“Norah Jean, I don’t know if I want to yell at you or kiss you.”

She opens her mouth to respond, then sways on her feet. The shotgun hits the dust. Kaidan reacts.

Norah Jean blinks and she’s sitting with her back against the rocky outcropping, Kaidan tinkering with a panel on her suit. His kit is open on the ground beside them. She hears a snick and within seconds she has of a full dose of pain meds. She could cry with relief.

“Heyyy, Honey.” Her voice cracks as she leans her head back against the rock looking at Kaidan.

Kaidan glances up at her, then back down at the portion of plating he’s working to remove. “What the hell, were you thinking, Norah Jean? I had it covered.” He gets the plate off. “Steve’s on the way, ETA is about 5 minutes.”

“Couldn’t let you get killed.”

“Right, so you nearly kill yourself instead, thanks.” The medigel is cool and tingly when Kaidan applies it. “Do you even know how hard you hit that thing?”

“Wasn’t really thinking about it.”

“Yeah, I could tell. Your suit clocked the impact at almost 1000 newtons. Then a third of your systems did a hard reset, and a handful of others just fried when you burned your barrier. Shields barely held through the blast, then failed the second you hit the Marauder. You’re lucky you already had your gun out, or we’d also be dealing with a point-blank gunshot wound.”

Norah Jean didn’t even try to defend herself; he was right. The stunt she’d pulled was stupid and reckless on a normal day, but she’d do it again, countless times, for Kaidan.

“And I’ve taken away your joint lock override privileges until further notice.”

“That’s fair.”

Garrus finally joins them, sauntering over as he collapses his rifle and slings it onto his back.

“Did you know she was going to do that, Garrus?”

“I didn’t not know that she wasn’t not going to do it?” His mandibles twitch nervously.

Kaidan stares at him.

“I plead the fifth.” The turian looks around Kaidan to Norah Jean, stage whispering, “Did I use that one right?”

She winks and gives him a shaky thumbs up.

“Unbelievable.”

16 notes • Posted 2021-08-15 22:50:45 GMT

#2

Aftermath - Chapter 3

hellooooo friends, lets continue my trend of updating at godawful hours of the morning

Read on AO3

Start from the beginning

Waking up, Shepard wonders for a second if she dreamt it all, but then she feels Kaidan’s field against her own, gently fizzling. One of his legs is caught between her own. He’s somehow wrapped up in the entire comforter. She relishes in the feeling of just existing next to him for a moment, then he shifts and rolls over, scooching close so he’s pressed against her back, wiggling of the covers to just enough to drape an arm over her waist as he presses a kiss to her shoulder.

“Mmm, good morning.” Norah Jean feels his voice rumbling through him almost more than she hears it. Only one hearing aid is on and it’s pressed into the pillow.

“G’morning,” She readjusts so she’s laying on her back, Kaidan resting his head on her shoulder now. She tugs at the blanket he’s still burrowed into. “You stole the entire comforter overnight.”

“You weren’t using it.”

“So?”

“So, I put it to good use, its cold as hell in here.” He settles down deeper into the bedding.

“It is nice in here.”

“Right. I was getting flashbacks of Noveria while I was trying to fall asleep.”

“Oh please, it’s not that bad.”

The comm system crackles and they both glance up at the speaker on the ceiling.

“Up and at em, Norah Jean! We’re 10 minutes out from the Mu relay. Might wanna head up here.”

The channel clicks closed before she can respond. Norah Jean hides her face against Kaidan’s hair for just a moment, before sighing and rolling out of bed.

“So, do I get to call you Norah Jean now?” Kaidan sits up in bed, rubbing his arms, content to watch her in the dim light for now.

“If you want, preferably not around the rest of the crew, not if we’re gonna keep this quiet.” She gestures to the general space between them as she pulls on a t-shirt. Almost immediately, she pulls it back off, throwing it at Kaidan. “That one’s yours.”

“Joker calls you Norah Jean, always wondered about that.” He finally gets out of bed, shuffling around looking for the clothes they’d left scattered around the room.

“Close friends and family. He’s both.” Norah Jean tosses another piece of his uniform at him, this time hitting him square in the face, making herself giggle. She’s standing in front of the mirror, fingers staring to comb through her hair, then swiftly braiding down its length. Pins sticking out of her mouth, she carefully winds the braid into a flat bun, pinning as she goes until its completely secure.

“Y’know, that is mesmerizing to watch. Almost as fun as finding all the pins to take it down again.” He’s sitting on the desk, tugging on his boots.

“Maybe you can put it up next time, see if you can get the bun within regulation.” Finishing the last button on her uniform shirt, she tucks her it in and fastens her belt.

“I think I’ll leave that one up to you, you’re the expert.” Boots tied, he made his way across the room to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She stood still for a moment, cleaning up her eyeliner. He rested his head on hers, eyeing her reflection. “God, you’re beautiful.” He paused a moment, grinning. “Norah Jean. Yeah, that’s good. I like that.” Hearing her name from his mouth sounded so right.

She turned around in his arms, standing on her toes to press a kiss to his lips. “We should go.”

“Mhmm, maybe just one more.” His hands cup her cheeks, and he kisses her slowly, savoring every second he gets.

Then the two of them walk out the door and pretend to be nothing more than friends while they try to save the galaxy.

-

She’s alive. She’s alive and everything hurts. She shifts and immediately freezes; white hot pain blocks every coherent thought. Alarms wail in the distance, she focuses on their sound, breathing through the pain. Most of the debris missed her on the way down. She’s not pinned under anything; she just hurts like hell. She shifts slowly, black spots dancing in her vision, working her way to a sitting position. She moves her left leg, and the pain comes again, this time she can think enough to pinpoint the source. Her knee is wrecked, probably. But it sure hurts like a bitch.

One more try. Gotta be worth one more try. She grips the low wall of a garden bed behind her as she tries to get to her good foot.

Tries.

The more she moves the more she hurts. Can’t even fucking breathe right around the shooting pain in her ribs. Swearing, she let herself sink back down to the floor. Somebody’ll find her. Eventually. Probably.

-

After two weeks of debriefings and medical paperwork and an official Alliance investigation, she was finally free. She’d been put on a week of mandatory shore leave, along with the rest of the Normandy’s Alliance crew. Looking around the courtyard, she spots Kaidan, just where he said he’d wait, and she’s making her way over to him. He looks up from his omnitool with a smile as their fields intersect.

“Hey, Norah Jean.” He gets halfway off the bench when she grabs his shirt and kisses him senseless, crutches falling to the ground. He reacts almost immediately, one hand sliding around her waist and kissing her back, oh so slowly, calming her frantic pace. When they pull away for air, his free hand cradles her face, thumb gently brushing over her cheek. He presses a kiss to her nose. “Hey, hey, we’ve got time.”

“Let’s get away, Kaidan, just the two of us.” She’s still breathless, all she wants is to kiss him again, but she settles for resting her forehead against his chest.

“You got a place in mind?”

“My grandparent’s old house, in Anchorage. Couple hours away, at least. Quiet and pretty unlikely to be occupied this time of year.”

“Then let’s get out of here.” He grabs her crutches and hands them to her, before grabbing his own bag off the bench.

-

Six hours and a trip to the grocery store later, they’re climbing out of a skycar in front of a modest looking house, twenty minutes outside the city limits of Anchorage, Alaska. Standing on the porch, Norah Jean leans her crutches against the siding to dig into a rarely used pocket of her duffel bag. She retrieves an old set of keys, unlocking the doorknob, then leaning all her weight against the door to unlock the deadbolt. The door creaks as she swings it open.

“After you.” She waves Kaidan and his armful of grocery bags into the dark house, grabbing her crutches and following him in, locking the door behind them. She flips the lights on, illuminating the living room and kitchen.

“Nice place. You spend a lot of time here?” Kaidan sets their groceries down on the counter, separating out the perishables. Norah Jean leans on the bar, smiling at him as he opens a bottle of beer and passes it to her.

“Not anymore, used to visit all the time as a kid though. Pretty sure my bedroom hasn’t changed in 20 years.” She clinks her bottle against his and takes a swig.

“Let me guess, you’ve got model ships all over your room.”

“Close. Old space stations and satellites. Plus, a scale model of the solar system, minus the sun.”

“Impressive.”

“I like to think so.”

“Can’t wait to see it.”

“You’ll see when groceries are put away.”

“And you’re not gonna help me?”

“Kaidan, if you want me in that tiny kitchen with my crutches, I’ll gladly grab one thing at a time and put it away, but I prefer to stay out of the way. This is a two-butt kitchen, max, and these crutches may as well be an extra butt.”

Kaidan laughs. “Fine, fine, but if you want another beer, you’re grabbing it yourself.”

“I can live with that.”

He puts the last few things in the cupboards, then wanders back around to the bar, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “C’mon, Norah Jean, give me the grand tour.”

“I’m afraid it’s not all that grand, but I’ll indulge you.”

She leads him around the first floor, showing him the fireplace in the living room that’s older than half the house itself. Down the hall is a bathroom and the office that sometimes doubles as a guest room, where Kaidan spends at least 10 minutes asking questions about the artifacts and antiques in display cases along the wall. Between the two is the back door.

Upstairs was another bathroom, the master bedroom, and the other two bedrooms.

“I’d show you Jamie’s room, but I’m pretty sure it’s locked, and also I don’t care, but here’s my old bedroom in all its glory.” Norah Jean swings open the door, flicking on the light, revealing blue-black walls and ceiling, spattered with thousands of white speckles. A handful of constellations are carefully mapped out across the walls.

“Wow.” Kaidan idly traces along the lines of Orion with a finger, gazing around at the sky on her walls. “Did you paint all this?”

Norah Jean snorts, “Hell no, my grandpa did most of it, I helped. Well, I helped as much as a fidgety 5-year-old can muster when she’d rather be outside. Pretty sure there’s a few sets of handprints scattered around from me and Jamie.”

“It looks really good, it’s easy to see how you ended up in space after spending enough nights surrounded by walls like these. You’ve even got Arcturus up here. Didn’t you say you grew up there? On Arcturus station?”

“Yeah, Dad ran the garrison for a while, gave us a break from moving every other year. He didn’t get reassigned till I graduated high school, and by then I’d enlisted.” She drops her duffel bag on the floor, walking across the room to sit on the bed. “How’d you work your way back to the Alliance? After Jump Zero, I mean.”

“Time, mostly. Dad tried not to talk about it, didn’t want to push me further away.” He drops his own bag next to hers and sits on the bed beside her. “Aunt Irene, though, she wouldn’t let it go. She was always trying to talk me into the Marines, long as I can remember. It got a little better as I got older, but then after BAaT, she mostly quit talking about it, just the odd comment once or twice a year. Then a few months before my 22nd birthday, she talked me into staying a week with her and her wife in Rhode Island, to get away from Vancouver and breathe for a bit, y’know, see the Atlantic Ocean, Niagara Falls, few other places. The whole week she didn’t bring up the Alliance even one time. I got so curious that I finally cracked and asked her about it my last day there. She told me I was more than old enough to make my own choice, that she’d talked it up all she could and especially after the disaster with BAaT, all she could do now was support whatever choice I came to. I enlisted 6 months later.”

“Sounds like she really had an impact on you.”

“Yeah. She was having a blast drilling recruits out on Jump Zero when I finally decided. I think she’s still there. She’s made a hell of a reputation breaking in cadets, earned the nickname “Mad Major Mabbit”, she thinks it’s the greatest thing.”

Norah Jean stares at him, mouth hanging open. “No.”

“Yeah.”

“No, Kaidan, she took a year on Arcturus my first year of training, I swear to God she was the reason I almost dropped out. We were butting heads all year. And she’s your aunt?”

“Really? She’s the reason you nearly washed out? I wonder what she’d have to say about you now?”

“Probably not much good, I mean, we did steal the Normandy.”

Before he can say anything in response Norah Jean shivers, then, a long, low rumble of thunder rattles the house. Her face lights up and she shoots off the bed, hopping on her good leg before snatching up her crutches and racing to the window.

“It’s thundering! Let’s go downstairs and watch the storm!” She grabs her N7 hoodie from her bag, tossing it on.

Kaidan gives her a look. “You want to go sit in the rain, just because its thundering?”

“No, I want to sit under the back porch, enjoy the smell of the rain, and watch the lightning, all while staying perfectly dry.”

“Alright, I think I can get behind that.” He gets up off the bed, searching in his own bag for a jacket, pulling it on as Norah Jean works her way down the hall.

He joins her at the top of the stairs, not sure if she stopped to wait or if she doesn’t know how to get down them. Her laser focused stare down the steps says the latter.

“Do you trust me?”

She looks up at him, chewing her lip. “Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Yes?”

“Good, I’ll carry you down the stairs.”

Norah Jean makes an undignified squeak as he sweeps her off her feet, careful not to jostle her knee. One arm is almost uncomfortably tight around his neck, and the other grips her crutches as he walks down the stairs. He carries her to the couch, gently setting her down to let her sort herself out.

“You know, I’ve got to learn how to get down the stairs sometime this week.” She grumbles as she gets to her foot, making for the bar and their half-forgotten beers.

“Here, I’ll grab those, and some new ones. And don’t worry, I’ll let you work out the next time yourself.”

He follows her out the back door, to an old bench just out of the way of the water splashing over the edge of the gutters.

“You sure we’ll stay dry?” He passes her one of the open beers.

“Probably. Unless the wind blows this way, we’ll be fine.”

He looks out at the back yard. Lightning flashes, he counts on instinct. Thunder crashes overhead.

“Ten seconds.” She swings her good leg as she sips her beer. “Do you get a fun tingly feeling from thunderstorms? Or is it just 2.5s and 3s?”

“Sometimes. Don’t usually associate it with fun though, it’s just kinda weird feeling to me. I don’t think 2s are as sensitive to it.”

“Huh. I’ve always loved thunderstorms, partly for the feeling. Just one of those things that reminds me I’m still here. Still kicking.”

“Yeah.” He reaches for her hand and she laces her fingers with his.

13 notes • Posted 2021-05-19 06:45:10 GMT

#1

Aftermath - Chapter 2

Read on AO3

Chapter 1

Sugar?

Kaidan steps through the door into the medbay, greeted by the smell of antiseptics and the doctor’s warm smile. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, I’m having a bit of a problem with our dear Commander, she’s locked herself in her quarters with a migraine, and normally I wouldn’t fuss, but she’s been in there since yesterday, and when I stopped by to check up on her this afternoon, she wouldn’t open the door. As far as I can tell she hasn’t so much has poked her head out that door since she shut it. I did consider calling Jeff down to check on her, but I’d hate to bring him all the way here and have Shepard turn him away. You’re the one best equipped to handle the situation at hand.”

“And you said she’s been in there for 24 hours?” Kaidan knew the stress of the 2 weeks since Virmire was taking its toll on the Commander, and that she’s been working through a migraine, but he’d never seen her down for more than a few hours.

“A little longer than that, really, she stopped by yesterday around noon to tell me she was locking herself in there until the worst of it passed. I believe her exact words were ‘Once my brain stops trying to implode and ooze out of my amp jack’.” Dr. Chakwas grimaced at the description as she repeated it. “I offered her a dose of painkillers, but she waved it off and went on her way.”

“Yeah, ouch, I’ll see if I can’t convince her to at least eat something.”

“Thank you, and good luck.”

-

Thermos of coffee, water bottle, and hot leftovers in hand, Kaidan leans against the wall beside the door as he sends off a message to Shepard. Hopefully, she was awake. Knocking wouldn’t work, the chances of her hearing aids being on were slim. He’d noticed she had the habit of turning them off when things started to overwhelm her. Feels like they’ve been off more than on lately. He breathes a sigh of relief when the indicator light flashes from red to green, and the door hisses open. As the door shuts behind him, it’s clear that she’s turned off every light she possibly could. The emergency lighting along the floor is still on, though he’s sure she considered cracking into the electrical panel to deal with them.

Walking further into the dark room, he almost believes she isn’t there. Almost. He spots her curled up with a pillow over her head as he pulls a chair up to the side of the bed. Her field feels different without her amp in, softer around the edges, but it still vibrant enough to pop and fizzle against his own. As he sits down and sets the food and drinks on the end table, Shepard moves her pillow to squint at him. He tries not to let his eyes linger on her bare arms or the near meter of hair spread across the mattress.

“Doc told me it was a nasty one.” Kaidan signs, “So I came with coffee. Pretty sure it’s strong enough to give a Krogan heart palpitations, so it should help.”

She pulls herself up to sit against the headboard. She looked like hell. “Sugar?”

“Plenty, don’t worry.” He uncaps the thermos and passes it into her waiting hands. As she takes a sip, her eyes slide closed and Kaidan swears he’s never seen such a blissful look on her face. He lets her enjoy the coffee for a moment before catching her attention again. “If you’re feeling up to it, I’ve got some leftovers too. If you don’t eat soon, I think Chakwas might break down your door and sit on you until you do. Or worse, drag you to the medbay.”

Shepard almost reluctantly sets the coffee down, reaching for the container as Kaidan snaps open the lid and sticks a fork in the steaming spaghetti. The second she takes a bite it’s like a switch flips and the second and third bites follow soon after. Half the container is gone before she pauses to take another drink of coffee and glances up at Kaidan. “I know this is just leftovers, but fuck, it tastes so good I could kiss you.”

Kaidan laughs as his cheeks redden, and he brings up his omnitool to check some emails while she finishes her food. He needs to distract himself from the fact that he wants her to kiss him. He makes sure to send one off to Chakwas, reassuring her that he’s gotten Shepard eating and at least caffeinated. He moves the bottle of water closer to the coffee, waving his hand next to it catch her attention and let her know its there.

“So. Ears are on now, by the way, don’t worry about signing. I had an idea, to boost morale. I can’t be the only person on this ship cracking under the stress, so I’m gonna see if I can’t work out some kind of sparring match in the cargo bay. Prizes and stuff, plus something extra for the first crewmate who can get me down on the mat.”

“Yeah? You sure anybody’ll go for it?” He spoke softly, the way she kept her eyes half closed told him the pain was still very much there.

“Oh, you know, I’ve overheard a conversation or two, some of the other marines are totally sure they can take me, just, without the biotics. Remember, some of these jarheads have never actually seen me in the field.”

“Yeah, or they’d never dream of going toe-to-toe with you. What’s your grand prize?”

“Probably some credits and a few pistol mods? I don’t know for sure yet.”

“I think it’s a great idea, help everybody loosen up a bit.” He checks the time; he drew the short straw for the watch in the CIC. “Alright, I’ve got my watch coming up soon, so I’ll get out of your hair. Go check in with Chakwas if you can brave the lights out there.”

“I’ll try.”

Kaidan makes it halfway to the door before he remembers the chocolate bar in his pocket. The good chocolate. Not impossible to get ahold of in space, but also not high on any Alliance requisition lists. He walks back to the bed, partially melted chocolate in hand.

“I forgot about this. A good bar of chocolate almost always helps a migraine.”

She looks reverently at the chocolate, hand outstretched, but not grabbing it. “Are you sure? This is definitely not on any of our supply lists.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got a few more stashed away, don’t worry about it.” He presses the bar into her hand, closing her fingers around it. He’s halfway out the door when she speaks again.

“Kaidan? Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

-

Kaidan watches what has to be at least 2/3 of the crew milling around the cargo bay, navy and marines, humans and aliens, all chatting and joking around. He’d picked a good spot, back near a wall, next to Joker. Near the center of the bay, he hears a thud as the Commander puts another marine on the mat. She offered up a prize of 300 credits and a few choice pistol mods to the first person who could get her on the mat, no biotics, no tech, just good old fashioned hand-to-hand. At least Shepard’s got the decency to help them up off the mat after she kicks their asses. Still, even after half a dozen crewmates beat, there’s still plenty looking to try their luck at beating Commander Shepard. She doesn’t even look like she’s broken a sweat.

Kaidan fiddles with his omnitool, pretending he isn’t interested in the match. Another marine hits the mat, and his eyes flick up watch Shepard help Fredricks up onto his feet, and this time she looks right at him, a mischievous glint in intense brown eyes.

“You up for a challenge, Alenko?” Her voice carries clearly over the chatter and general noise of the cargo bay.

Kaidan knows he’s got the look of a deer caught in headlights but recovers gracefully enough. “Oh, no, Commander, I’m content just watching you take out every other marine on board.”

“What, are you scared you’ll beat your CO? Don’t worry, you won’t.”

Joker leans over, with a hand up to his mouth for an especially dramatic stage whisper. “You know if you walk away the crew will never let you live it down. Neither will Norah Jean. She’ll be bringing it up for at least the next 10 years. Believe me.”

Kaidan looks between Joker and Shepard, who’s still standing on the mat, hands on her hips and already looking like she’s won. Then he sighs and wades through the onlookers. Once in the ring he looks down at her. “You know, you’re a real pain in the ass, right?”

“I try.”

Kaidan makes his way to the table set up a few feet from the edge of the mat and makes a show of taking off his uniform shirt, then unplugging his amp, setting both on the table beside hers. Slowly they begin to circle each other.

“Think you can beat me?”

“Shepard, I have no illusions of how this is going to end. I watched you bring Fredricks down in 6 moves. He’s twice your size. My chances aren’t looking good here.” He throws a jab at her left side, testing her reflexes, and she blocks it easily.

They trade blows, trying to whittle each other down, and Adams is clearly about to call it in a draw when Kaidan lunges forward. Then the cargo bay blurs and his back slams onto the mat, knocking the wind right out of his lungs. Shepard is beaming above him. She offers a hand to help him haul himself up, and he moves for his discarded shirt and amp.

“Uh, yeah, Shepard, remind me not to get in your way.”

She pats his shoulder and gives him a thumbs up as she drinks her water.

12 notes • Posted 2021-04-30 08:19:34 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[illusory-torrent]

Why I prefer the Genshin Impact fandom to the RWBY fandom.

I'll start off by saying what many of us are thinking. It's sad that the ships are nearly the only thing the RWBY fandom talks about because the plot leaves so many in a state of dissatisfaction. I've seen so many RWBY fans and non-fans alike say, "Oh, I don't care about the plot, I'm only watching for [insert ship here]" or "I'm going to drop the show if [insert ship here] doesn't happen". For those who doubt me, please believe me, it's a thing. 

Now, when I say that the RWBY fandom only really cares for shipping, you might ask, "Is that not what every fandom does though?"

Well... yes! You're right. However, I think the RWBY fandom takes it to the next level. 

First off, the theory-making side of the RWBY fandom has completely died. I remember there being videos theorizing if Yang was part-dragon Faunus or Ruby being a fox Faunus. These days, the fandom's theories boil down to, "What's up with the void that Team RWBY fell into?" due to V8's ending, but back during V5-V7, there were hardly any theories being posted. Most people just don't care anymore. 

Second off, Miles and Kerry struggle with writing characters outside of pairs. Not just romantic pairs, but pairs in general. Most characters only have interacts with their team partners, their love interests, their familial relationships, and... that's it. Blake is a prime example of this. Her best interactions are with Yang (her team partner), Sun (her former love interest), Ilia (another former love interest), and Adam (her ex-boyfriend). Her worst interactions are with Ruby (her team's leader, whom she hardly interacts with) and pretty much everyone else. Even her interactions with Weiss are few and far between. Another example would be Penny. Prior to Volume 3, Penny's best interactions were with Ruby. Penny hardly interacted with anyone else in a meaningful way. She dies and Ruby's tearful reaction is focused on. Why? Because she's one of the few characters Penny actually had a relationship with! Penny comes back in Volume 7, and she still only really interacts with Ruby. Her only new relationship that's developed is with Winter... and we find out why. It's because when Penny is killed by Jaune, her maiden powers are transferred to Winter, the rightful owner.

Miles and Kerry being unable to write outside of pairs is why we only have each of our characters only interact with certain other characters. Before Jaune helped kill Penny, did he ever even have a real conversation with her? We'll never know! Has Blake even talked to Jaune before? No idea! Did Yang even care that Pyrrha died? Probably, but we viewers literally never see the two interact prior to Pyrrha's untimely demise.

This type of writing (whether intentionally or unintentionally done) promotes shipping culture. Characters interact primarily with their love interests (who may or may not also be their team partners). This is why RWBY's fandom is so focused on shipping. Hell, even Blake's VA tweeted at Clover's VA with a joke regarding this.

Clover's VA: Has anybody heard of this thing, “shipping?”

Blake's VA: Welcome to RWBY.

[Photo for anyone who needs proof, in case these Tweets are deleted in the future.]

Blake's VA even once had to make a post saying, "Y’all, you know I love my Bees, but not everything is Bee related. Some is just RWBY hype in general. Calm yo’self.". The fact she even had to clarify that not everything she posts about RWBY is related to a ship is astounding. Imagine having to tell your audience that not everything you post is related to a fictional pairing. 

The RWBY cast even had an segment on The Ship-It Show where, you guessed it, they talked about their favorite and least favorite ships. Their tagline even was that "Shipping is a creative expression, so don't limit your creativity!", which went over with the fandom about as well as one would expect. 

Finally, Miles Luna recently posted a Cameo video where he stated, "Just remember: shipping is fun and pretend, and it’s just supposed to be a good time. Don’t be one of those people that attack other shippers and get real mean and toxic. We’re all just here having fun with wonderful make believe characters and make believe worlds, and I think that is a beautiful activity, as long as you’re doing it responsibly and kindly." 

So as you can see, shipping is a big part of the RWBY community. I'd venture to say that shipping is the most important part of the RWBY community. And that's fine! Shipping in itself isn't a bad thing. It's only when it gets completely out of hand where it becomes a problem. And I feel it is becoming a problem in the RWBY community. Rooster Teeth, if you need your show-writers to remind the fandom that shipping is supposed to be fun, you have a problem. 

Well, how does Genshin Impact avoid that problem? The fandom itself is large and the game is quite popular, so how does it handle not becoming a complete shitfest shipfest? 

For starters, Mihoyo doesn't confirm any ships at all. This is for profit reasons, the game is a gacha game designed for players to spend money on their "waifus" and "husbandos". Characters have outfit customization for this exact purpose. Mihoyo benefits from keeping characters canonically single. This is why, while people think soon-to-be-released characters like Ayaka and Tohma are dating, many people also believe these same characters to be single. 

Second off, VAs are unable to give their opinions on certain ships and on lore. For example, the VA for Lumine, the main female protagonist, confirmed that Lumine was 15, before apologizing and deleting her comments. The VA for Childe signed some Childe x Lumine artwork to sell, but blatantly stated that he only really shipped Childe with Childe. The VAs avoid discussing unconfirmed ships/lore and, in this way, Mihoyo avoids controversy. 

Finally, Genshin Impact only recently came out. This means that the theorizing part of the fandom is still alive and well. There's plenty to theorize about since there's so much us players don't know about the story. Lore tidbits are celebrated by lore junkies, folks who want to theorize on the characters' backstories or on the protagonist's journey to find their twin sibling are more than welcome to do so. 

So while the Genshin Impact community engages in tons of shipping, none of the ships are more canon than any other. A Zhongli x Childe shipper might argue that their ship is canon because Zhongli gifted Childe some chopsticks, but a Zhongli x Ningguang shipper could easily argue back that Ninguang is a reincarnation of Zhongli's former friend/partner Guizhong. And of course, a non-shipper could look at both of these arguments and believe them both to be false.

I think this allows shipping to remain a fun and lighthearted activity in the Genshin Impact fandom. You can ship what you'd like, or you can just enjoy the plot and lore like a normal gamer. 

So where am I going with this? Well, my thoughts are that no matter what the fandom, there will always be shipping. There's always gonna be some degenerates (like myself) who see two cute characters and want them to get together. However, it's up to the creators themselves to decide where to go with ships or to even entertain them at all. Mihoyo, in my opinion, handles the Genshin Impact fandom's shipping craze much more successfully than Rooster Teeth handles the RWBY fandom. 

So what are your thoughts? If you're in both fandoms, which fandom do you prefer and why? Let me know!

[deathonyourtongue]

Sanguine Nocturnus | 2

Summary: Even after 2000 years, the world can still surprise you. Pairing: AU!Henry Cavill x OFC Word Count: 3K Warnings: It’s a vampire fic. Death. Blood. Gore. Sex. Horror. Not for the kiddies or the squeamish. I mean it. A/N : Couldn’t leave y’all hanging a week without meeting our main character, now could I?

It was rare that he woke to an empty bed. Rarer still that he woke feeling as though every cell in his body was vibrating. Checking the time on his phone, he sat upright and looked around, keen eyes searching the pitch-black room for any sign of his previous night’s companion. His two dobermans, Phobos and Deimos, marked the spot, the dogs framing the corpse of last night’s entertainment. She’d been a pretty thing, fresh into her 20’s, and still so naive that she’d hung on every word he’d whispered in her ear. 

At least she didn’t die a virgin.

Bending down, he picked her up easily, slinging her over one shoulder as he made his way to the cold room. Too restless to take care of her immediately, he slipped her into one of the five drawers built into the wall and locked the room behind him. By the time he made it back upstairs to shower and dress, her face was already a half-forgotten memory in his mind.

Deciding on an all-black ensemble with a ruby-toned, velvet brocade waistcoat, he showered, dressed and stepped onto the wet cobbles of Rome’s quiet streets, still feeling as though electricity was coursing through him. The moon hung over the Pantheon, looming and casting a reddish glow on all below it.

Feeling none of the restless energy dissipate despite the fresh air, he turned in the direction of the Vatican, needing to take the edge off.

He’d been a customer of the club for years; ever since it opened in fact. Over the thirty years Romulus had been serving the public, the staff had come and gone, but thankfully the owner had stayed the same. Nodding to the man as he came in, the owner automatically motioned for the bartender to set up his drink, knowing his most loyal patron only ever drank one thing; Sanguinem. A blend of wine and other, more secretive ingredients, it was the oldest drink the owner ever kept in stock. The owner had tried it once or twice, always wincing when the metallic taste hit his tongue, always confused by the popularity of the drink among many of his patrons. 

 He sighed as he took a seat at the bar, his blue eyes gazing up at the artwork that adorned the walls. Seldom seen when the club was in full swing, the paintings were recreations of those who had encountered a brutal end. Everyone from Marie Antoinette to Kurt Cobain lined the walls, their images altered to show them post-mortem. Sometimes gruesome and always detailed, each painting was a one-of-one, and if times ever got tough, an easy sell to a discerning collector. 

As the name suggested, Romulus’ atmosphere evoked the age and bloody history of the city it called home. Dim lights, chaise lounges, and arched stone ceilings all lent to the feeling like one were in the catacombs beneath the city. Most nights, the place was flooded with red neon, the gleam of the lights off the dance floor emanating to every other corner of the establishment.

For a Saturday night, the place was oddly vacant, until he remembered that tonight was All Souls’ Day and most of Italy was either in church or in their homes, celebrating the holiday. He had never had much respect for religion, especially Catholicism; as far back as he could remember, the church had been the instigator of more deaths than any other group in the world.

“They can all go fuck themselves,” the patron muttered under his breath before taking his first swig, the bartender giving him a look as though the drinker had just murdered his mother. The owner smiled, knowing the man was referring not to the employees of the club, but to the religious fanatics that kept most of the country in church on a night like this.

“Non è cattolico.” The owner told the bartender, explaining the man’s religious views to the slightly offended man, who nodded in understanding as he connected the cussing to the holiday.

“Non cattolico a tutto.” The patron agreed, his tone low and sharp, his accent different than that of his fellow countrymen.

“Thank you for the drink, old friend.” The man said as he took his final sip, standing to his full height before extending his hand to the owner who shook it happily, his smile filled with the usual wonder that came across his face whenever he observed his patron up close. Although years went by and the world changed, his loyal customer never seemed to age a day. 

No money was ever exchanged, the owner having long ago gifted his patron with a lifetime supply of Sanguinem in exchange for a certain…favor he’d needed done. 

Herminius Calvisius, Henry as he was known these days, had indeed done a few favours for a select few in Italy over the years. Personally, he adored when said favours had to do with the Vatican, for he loved the food there; if you could call it that. 

Food for Henry was not exactly appetizing fare for most others he resembled. Henry's idea of a meal usually consisted of a glass of Merlot followed by a pretty young thing looking for a good time around one of the dark alleys surrounding Vatican City at midnight. He never failed to get a laugh out of the shock that came from the Swiss Guard when they would find the woman the next morning, pale as St. Peter's Basilica, with the exception of two gentle circles in her throat.

 Yes, he was un vampiro, as they liked to call him; a vampire.

Tonight however, the meals would be scarce, and since he was quite selective of his dinner—despite favouring the occasional streetwalker—Henry found his feet guiding him towards one of the few places where blood was a commodity.

Located just outside the Porta Settimiana, the old villa was vast, and most found it disturbing, in a way they simply couldn’t define. It made the hairs on their arms stand, and quickened their step, but if one were to ask, not a single soul could say why they avoided the piece of history. 

To Henry, it was like gazing on the picture of heaven. 

It was the first place he had deemed worthy enough to call home after he became immortal, and it had yet to lose its value in his eyes. Prying open the gate, which badly needed oiling, Henry smiled as he saw Brutus stand from the front door to greet him.

“Hello, boy. It’s been ages, has it not?” He greeted as he pet the mastiff that eagerly sniffed him for bones.

“None today, boy, my apologies.” Henry’s lips turned downwards at the same time as the dog’s, both spending a few more silent moments together before the large black door of the Italianate house was opened.

Had a human have witnessed the action, their blood would have run cold, for like many of the other houses of the period, the front door of this one was unbelievably heavy, usually taking the strength of two men to open. The hand that gripped it however, was delicate, manicured and thin; precisely the hand belonging to the woman he had come to see.

“Lucrezia, my love, hello.” Truly, being in her presence over the years had provided Henry with a great many memories, and fond ones at that, something which was scant for one such as himself.

“Hello, my little hermit.” She smiled. Others in the Roman coven had always called her grin wicked, but to him, it was beautiful and warm; one of the few smiles that had ever pervaded his dreams, turning nightmares into impish fairy tales.

Lucrezia, as her name would suggest, was also Italian, and although younger than him, she had seen the days when Rome ruled the earth—or what was known of it at the time. She had seen several Caesars come and go, and had been just outside the senate when Julius himself had met his end at the tip of Brutus’ blade.

Her hematite locks descended past her shoulders in loose waves, only serving to accentuate impeccable bone structure, a creamy complexion, and burgundy lips she methodically painted every time she awoke. Henry could tell she was feeling dramatic today, as she was wearing an old Roman gown, given to her by a courtier during the reign of Octavian.

“What’s the occasion, Lucy?” Smiling at the intended reaction he got at the nickname, he did not hesitate to kiss her cheek in pardon.

“I do hate it when you call me that, Henry; Makes me sound like a child.”

Indeed to any onlooker, she might be confused for one, Lucrezia having been made an immortal at the tender age of twenty. He did not know her then, but news of her beauty spread quickly among the covens of the Empire, her likeness drawn on both papyrus and walls alike, so that any who felt the need could gaze upon her visage. Henry smiled, remembering how the portraits did her little justice when he finally gazed upon her in the flesh.

“If you must know however, I had company over just an hour ago, and there’s some very exciting news coming from the coven.”

“Will I have to be there?” Henry rolled his eyes, knowing that any news from the coven could only be one of two things; either there was to be a new celebration, or one of the elders had gone to ground and a new one had been chosen to take his place.

“Hush. I haven’t even told you the news yet. Marius was lovely enough to come and keep me company tonight on such a dreadful holiday, and since he had just been to the house, he was brimming with new gossip that I just had to hear. Apparently, Cassius has decided to sleep, and a new elder will be taking his place. According to Marius, this one is…different.”

“Different how?” Henry asked, his interest piqued despite his detestation for any and all gossip to come out of the coven he had so long ago abandoned in favour of a life less formal.

“Well, first off he’s apparently quite…awe striking, fear-inducing, etcetera. A real Roman sculpture is how Marius described him. And secondly, he’s of the…Greek persuasion, if you will.”

Her grin became even more deviant as the two headed inside towards the parlor, Lucrezia immediately pulling a decanter off a small flame and pouring two glasses of blood so good, the scent alone was enough to make Henry’s head spin.

“A boy lover?” He asked, looking curiously at his companion. It was not uncommon for those of his kind to frolic with their own sex, but among the elders and those next in line, it was a rarity, simply because it was a public imbalance among the sexes of the coven and their kind liked nothing more than to appear egalitarian.

“MAN lover, actually. If Marius was looking at the right man, then apparently our next elder has already found a companion in Fares.” Henry raised his eyebrows, indifferent to the news.

“Where do you find them?” He asked, tipping his glass in reference to the fine liquid he soon after began pouring down his throat.

“Oh, you know…The old money, the papacy, the brothels, the usual.” They shared a laugh, both knowing that no matter what a person’s station in life, their blood did little to hide their history.

“Well, my dear, for someone as young as you, you have fine taste.” And with that, he took a full drink, feeling his body reconstitute in seconds.

“Back to this fledgling, my love, and pay attention. The ceremony is taking place two nights from now, at the house, and yes, you must attend.”

Henry tried to hide his annoyance at the fact that despite severing ties to the house, he was still required to go to such frivolous functions, for the sake of tradition alone. For all he knew, the fledgling was already in power, probably getting the youngest members of the house to do his dirty work for him. 

Above all though, he felt bitter that despite his lack of connection, he had yet again been passed over as elder of the coven. It was not as if he were the youngest of vampires. Over 2,000 years old and plenty educated in the ways of the coven, Henry found it an insult to be passed over time after time; it was one of the many reasons he’d separated himself from their ancient ways. 

“How old is this boy lover and what’s his name?” Henry asked, feigning interest for Lucrezia’s sake, only mildly interested in knowing whether this new elder was an acquaintance or not.

“He is a 26, and his name is...Gab-No! Gregory, from what Marius could gather. Do you know him?”

“Is he Italian?” Henry asked, knowing that the chances of this man being familiar to him would increase tenfold if he was of Roman descent.

“When have you known the elders to ever pick a foreigner as the next in line? Of course he’s Italian.” Lucrezia laughed, thinking Henry foolish for even entertaining the notion.

“Well, there was the time when we put in a Frenchman, temporarily. That didn’t go over too well though.” He reminded her, every member of the coven all too eager to forget that one particular mistake in their history.

“And you said he was my 26? As in, older than me?”

“No. 26, as in he was born yesterday,” Lucrezia’s eyes went wide, her gaze speaking volumes to Henry as she took a sip from her chalice. He, like her, was scandalized that they’d pick someone so young to their ways to be the next leading elder.  

Licking his lips, he tried to remember all the faces he had come across in the last three decades, linking each to a name and finding that none of them matched the one he’d been given.

“Unless my memory deceives me, or he has changed his name, I do not know him.”

“Pity, for I was hoping you’d introduce me.” Lucrezia grinned, a single line of blood falling from the corner of her lips, making her indeed look like a celluloid vampire.

Finishing off her chalice, Lucrezia’s blue-green eyes turned to the night beyond her window, Henry smiling as he sensed where the night would go.

“Everyone’s tripping over themselves, naturally; either in love with his youth and beauty, or wanting to maim Cassius for choosing a fledgling who hasn’t even weaned yet, as far as Marius could tell.”

“It’s little wonder Cassius decreed you--” Lucrezia stopped short, her eyes traveling up and over the lip of her chalice, a devilish smirk exposing her fangs as she waited for Henry’s reaction.

“Decreed me to what, Lucy?” Henry asked with a warning tone, one eyebrow raising as he waited for her to spill the rest of the gossip she’d received second-hand.

“Decreed that you will be his tutor in all things...Vampiric.” Her delicate fingers slipped through the air, creating a ballet all their own and momentarily distracting Henry from his own ire.

“He has no power to do so! Lucrezia, tell me this is another one of your humorless jests!” He finally barked, teeth bared as he stood and began to pace around the room.

“I’m afraid not, my darling. If Marius was correct, the decree came with an ultimatum as well. Come to heel, or…” 

“That pompous bastard. He knows full well what he does. I knew it would be another century of trouble once he rose. Had to get one last kick to the teeth in. I swear, if this is still because I told him his mother was a beautiful as a donkey’s prick, I will have his head while he SLEEPS!”

“Easy, Centurion. It’s generally frowned upon to decapitate an elder nowadays. Come, let us slake your lust elsewhere. I ordered in.” Her smile turned even more secretive as she rang a bell next to the snifter, Lucrezia’s gentle hands pressing Henry towards the area of the parlor that she’d long ago turned into something more closely resembling an Andaruni. 

Slipping her hands into the collar of his jacket, Lucrezia helped Henry undress before allowing him to do the same to her, the sweet tone of her giggle as she spun out of her dress completely dissipating any of the lingering anger Henry felt. When they were both nude and relaxed among the many cushions that separated them from the floor, Lucrezia’s day man sent in a feast. 

“Twins! Lucy, you’ve outdone yourself.” Henry’s eyebrow raised for a very different reason as both he and Lucrezia opened their arms for the two young blondes who had been ushered in, bare, and more than a little tipsy if their footsteps were anything to go by. 

“What did you give them tonight?” Henry questioned with a chuckle, reaching up and catching one of the girls before she could crash headlong into the low table that held a variety of accoutrements for pre and post-dinner. Undeterred, the woman found her way easily into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck as she did a sloppy grind of her hips against his hardening shaft.

“Just the usual. Bit of Absinthe, touch of Laudanum for the nerves.”

“I owe you dinner.” Henry smiled as he sank into the girl in his arms, watching as she arched back instinctively against the exquisite pleasure he provided.

Moans filled the air before a deathly silence blanketed the villa, two more souls joining the countless others being prayed for on that sacred night.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

JINJER'S TATIANA SHMAYLUK: "I WILL GET REVENGE"

Go inside the Ukrainian metal group's new album 'Wallflowers'

Jinjer has teamed up with Revolver for a limited-edition bundle that includes the band's Summer cover story and a Wallflowers vinyl variant on 180g white wax. It's limited to only 300 copies — pick up yours now.

Tatiana Shmayluk wants revenge from beyond the grave.

As a woman fronting Ukraine's biggest metal band, she deals with endless bullshit. Comments. Snide remarks. Trolls. These dudes — and they are all dudes — might doubt her motivations. They might have something to say about her looks. Her clothes. Her uncompromising attitude. They might even attempt to throw shade on her high-flying vocal acrobatics or ferocious performances. But attempt is the key word here — in any and all cases.

Shmayluk is having none of it. If she can survive an upbringing in war-torn Ukraine, she can survive the haters. If she busted out of Eastern European obscurity to become an international star, the shit-talkers cannot touch her. If she can be held up as a role model by young women around the world, the power clowns cannot clown her.

Besides, there is post-mortem retribution to consider: "When I die, I will get their asses."

She says this with a laugh, perhaps because she understands that most of the people reading this won't believe it. But make no mistake: She means it.

Then again, undead reprisals won't be necessary. As it turns out, revenge is a dish best served with a heaping side of unmitigated success. Shmayluk fronts Jinjer, one of the premiere djent-prog bands on the planet. As of this writing, they have over 250 million cross-platform streams and views. They have nearly half a million monthly listeners on Spotify. Their 2017 live studio performance of "Pisces" — arguably their biggest song — has over 51 million views on YouTube.

Shmayluk and her bandmates — guitarist Roman Ibramkhalilov, bassist Eugene Abdukhanov and drummer Vladislav "Vladi" Ulasevich — somehow manage to combine metalcore, djent, prog, nu-metal and even R&B and reggae into a musical style all their own. Not bad for a group of young musicians from a conflict-ridden corner of the world that most Americans can't even point to on a map.

On the day Shmayluk and Abdukhanov speak with Revolver, Jinjer are in France recording their set for Hellfest's "Hellfest at Home" streaming event, which will replace the beloved annual metal festival — usually held in the sleepy French village of Clisson — with pre-recorded and contact-free sets from some of metal's heaviest and most popular bands. Such is life in what we hope are the waning days of the pandemic.

"Things with the pandemic are way worse in Ukraine than in the United States," Abdukhanov tells us. "Very few people have managed to get vaccinated. We are in line and waiting our turn. And because we haven't had the vaccine, we had to stay in quarantine here in France for seven days. We had to pay for this extra task just to be able to come here. It's a deep pain in the ass."

"In Ukraine, the shops will be open today but closed tomorrow," Shmayluk adds. "It's constantly on and off. But I didn't go sit in restaurants and things like this, anyway. I want to just be at home."

Both Shmayluk and Abdukhanov spent the early days of the COVID outbreak in Los Angeles. Jinjer were in Mexico when the remainder of their Latin American tour was cancelled, so Abdukhanov went to see his pregnant wife. Shmayluk went to visit her boyfriend, Alex Lopez of deathcore troupe Suicide Silence. She stayed for the remainder of her visa. "I was addicted to Amazon," she says. "Every day I ordered something. I got my first DSLR camera and some other photography equipment. Me and Alex got a huge fish tank — the Rolls-Royce of fish tanks. And then another tank. And another tank ..."

"Our American tour was supposed to start in April 2020, and it had not been cancelled yet," Abdukhanov explains. "We didn't know the situation fully, so we thought it might still happen — or part of it, maybe. So, it seemed reasonable to just stay in America. Of course, by the beginning of April the tour was cancelled, and it was clear that this thing would last very long."

The pandemic's enforced downtime did have a creative upside: Jinjer wrote and recorded their new album, Wallflowers. "For the first time in our whole career, we finally had time to write songs, practice them and go to the studio very well prepared," Abdukhanov says. This time around, drummer Ulasevich wrote the bulk of the material. Before he got started, the band collectively decided that they had to branch out from their last album, 2019's Macro.

"We knew for sure that we had to change the sound because we couldn't allow our album to sound the same," Abdukhanov offers. "All of us wanted some-thing new, and we had a very clear picture: We wanted the bass and guitars to be very aggressively distorted. Vlad, as always, had a very clear idea of how to change his drum sound and drum parts. As for the music, we never try to expect something from our new material. We just write music and let it flow. I think this will never change for us."

The result is somehow Jinjer's most aggressive and melancholy album to date. From the anguished, woozy groove of opener "Call Me a Symbol" and the dizzying, caustic metalcore of "Copycat" to the moody seesaw of "Vortex" and the airy, ominous dreamscape of the title track, Wallflowers is next-level Jinjer. "A lot of new elements are on this album," Abdukhanov confirms. "For people who are not familiar with our music, it can be complicated listening. But I think our fans are prepared for it. They got used to expecting what they don't expect."

At first, Shmayluk wanted to call the album As I Boil Ice, after Jinjer's new song of the same name. But the title didn't fit with the floral cover art they had already selected. They added an icicle to the image, but that didn't seem to help the situation. They ultimately decided on Wallflowers, which relates to both the artwork and Shmayluk's lyrics. "When I started writing lyrics, it was January 2021 and I was back in Kiev," she says. "Alex had come to visit, but it was time for him to fly back home to L.A. We had spent a lot of time together and now I had to learn to be alone. I didn't want to do anything socially oriented. I was just walking in circles in my apartment, making a huge hole in the floor."

Shmayluk's self-imposed isolation, underscored by the pandemic, set the stage for a more personal approach to her lyrics. At first, she started writing in Russian. Then she switched to English. "Vortex" was the first song she finished. "It's about a person who overthinks a lot," she explains. "Have you ever experienced that thing where you just cannot escape your thoughts? Your head becomes so heavy, like a ball of lead. It's about to explode. It can lead to depression, basically: You cannot stop, and you fall into it. That's the vortex."

As of this writing, "Vortex" is set to be the album's first single. The band has already filmed a video for the track. Shmayluk hopes the song can provide a kind of temporary support system for those who might need it. "Sometimes songs help me to overcome my emotional issues," she says. "Even with sad songs, they can make you feel you are not the only one who feels this way. It really eases your pain if you can find compassion to heal a sad heart."

Album closer "Mediator" is the result of an online personality test that Shmayluk took at the suggestion of a friend. "I'm always ready to do some psychology and self-analysis," she enthuses. "The result I got was 'mediator,' which has to do with compassionate, sensitive people. I feel this is basically another word for 'introvert' or 'wallflower' — it's all connected."

"But the song is about when I was younger," she adds. "I was an idealist. I wanted to see things as perfect and people as kind. But the reality is harsh. You grow up and you realize you still have a lot to learn — a lot of lessons that can't be taught in school. Life lessons."

The title track directly addresses the album's over-riding theme: Shmayluk's struggles as an introvert. "I've met a lot of people who have no idea what extraversion or introversion is," she says. "I explain it in this song so that hopefully people can relate. Introversion can be a problem for people who think that there's something wrong with them. If you are a wallflower in school, for example, people will mock you and bully you. When you grow up, you will realize you were just born this way."

"Society rejects people like her," Abdukhanov adds. "Society rejects people who stay inside. They think there's something wrong with these people because they are not part of a herd."

"That's true," Shmayluk says. "It's been hard for me to fit in with most people."

Which is probably why she feels so close to her bandmates in Jinjer. "They are my best friends and almost my only friends," she says. "It's really hard for me, as an introvert, to find new friends. Most people want an open book. They want you to just blah-blah-blah all the time. That's how they get information about you. But you have to read me if you want to know me, and most people are too lazy to do that."

"They want everything fast," Abdukhanov adds. "We live in a consumer society, and people are consumers even in relationships. In a way, you could say this album is like a manual for dealing with introverts."

"If you are patient with an introvert, you will discover the treasure," Shmayluk says. "You will have a friend for life. I think it takes a year or two to get to know me, and then dude ... you cannot shut me up!"

Abdukhanov knows Shmayluk better than most. They've been in Jinjer together for a decade. "Over the last 10 years, I think I saw her and talked to her more than anyone else," he says. "Because we're constantly on tour. We went through the nine circles of hell together. We played small clubs with only 10 people in front of us, and now we play huge stages for thousands of people around the world. This journey made us a family."

Of course, the haters are still out there. Lurking. Judging. Commenting. "I try not to read comments, but sometimes it is impossible not to see anything," Abdukhanov says. "I helped to manage some of our social media, and I cannot help but see some exchanges. But it doesn't hurt me much, fortunately."

"We are strong," Shmayluk says. "And I will get revenge."

[clovis-enthusiast]

Lotsa Clovis headcanons that you can pry from my cold dead hands

Keep in mind that these are just MY HEADCANONS! None of this is canon unless specifically stated! Feel free to agree or disagree. I juts rlly love my boy and his cabin and will gush about them for hours if given the chance.

Since there is a lot, I’ll put them under the cut so as not to clutter ur feed with my rambling! So uh click ‘keep reading’ to see me babble about my all time favorite character! Hope u enjoy if u read em and always feel free to send me a message about ur own headcanons! (I’m always thinking of more, so this post might be updated every once in awhile!)

He is very French. He was born in France and lived there for a short while before he and his mother (the reason I say mother instead of parent is because it was hinted at in canon that he has a mother. my go to name for her is Camille) moved to the US due to monster related problems. (He has a French last name. Something like Valois is my go to.)

French is his first language but because he moved to the US when he was quite young, he is very fluent in English. He often switches between the two languages when he’s EXTRA sleepy without noticing leading to a lot of confusion (and you can bet that he DEFINITELY swears in French because not many people at camp can understand him when he does. Those who do have a newfound respect and fear for him.)

He was initially a longtime member of the Hermes cabin even though pretty much everyone could guess who his godly parent was.

Was DEFINITELY a part of Luke’s army at one point due to the fact that he looked up to Luke as the older demigod had always treated him like a little brother, AND his godly brother Morpheus was also on Kronos’s side of the war. However, Clovis did not stay with them for long once things began to get bad and returned to Camp Half Blood with time. (Morpheus and Clovis now have a strained relationship.)

Best friends with Lou Ellen Blackstone of the Hecate cabin. They were both temporarily on Luke’s side of the war and were held with suspicion and distrust when they returned to camp, so they tended to stick by each other while the other campers warmed back up to them. Because of this, they are now very close and are always goofing around (much to the annoyance of the other head counselors aside from the Stolls, of course.)

Definitely had a thing for Nico di Angelo in the past. As the two boys are both the sons of underworld gods, Clovis had already felt a certain tug towards him. When he heard Nico’s story from the camp’s rumor mill (thank Lacy and Mitchell for that one) he became utterly infatuated. Over time, his curiosity turned more into a little crush which then became a BIG crush, but as neither Clovis nor Nico are really all that great with normal human interaction, the son of Hypnos’s flirting techniques sort of went unnoticed. That’s why Nico seems to be the only one being pulled into Clovis’s dreams at any given time despite Clovis being a ‘very strong dreamer.’ The truth is that Clovis has full control over who enters HIS dreamscapes. He tries desperately to impress Nico and help him out wherever he can, but when Nico eventually chooses Will to be his boyfriend, Clovis, though a bit sad that his first crush in a long time didn’t share the feelings, is VERY supportive. He loves to tease Nico about how hopelessly head-over-heels the broody teenager is over his sunshiney boyfriend. And if the two were ever to break up for whatever reason in the future? Well, Clovis is definitely still up for a shot.

Clovis and Nico are still VERY close. Clovis is one of the only people that Nico feels comfortable enough to be himself around and often confides in him whenever his negative thinking gets the best of him. Clovis also plays a big part in Nico regaining the memories of his past when he’s ready which he will forever be thankful for. The two obviously spend a lot of time together in dreams and greet one another in a warm fashion whenever they come across each other by chance at camp. This confuses literally everyone because literally no one has ever seen them interact before?? How are they friends?? 

Has HISTORY with Drew. No one is really sure what kind of history (it seems as if there was a little bit of memory erasure throughout the camp on the situation... hm...) but most people speculate that the two shared a romantic relation at one point in time. Turns out, they were NOT compatible, and the whole thing went up in flames. Drew still holds a huge grudge against Clovis who acts as though he could honestly care less. He still treats her politely though there have definitely been some not-so-subtle nasty looks cast across the campfire towards her direction before.

Also very close with Lacy and Mitchell from the Aphrodite cabin. Lacy feels terrible about Drew’s trash-talking and rumor-spreading and eventually works up the courage to say hi. They became fast friends, and Lacy definitely has a bit of a puppy-dog crush on him, but she is much too young for Clovis. He sees her as a little sister and allows her to put makeup on him, do his hair, and even tries on dresses and such just to make her smile. Mitchell, on the other hand, became friends with Clovis out of spite in all honesty and ended up liking the sleepy blond a lot more than he thought he would. He might have a teeeeeny tiiiiiny crush on him. Don’t tell Lacy.

Close with Pollux of the Dionysus cabin. Pollux sees a lot of Castor when he looks at Clovis which is a huge comfort to him. The two counselors have a lot of deep talks late at night, and Clovis always makes sure that Pollux is sleeping well without being haunted by nightmares. Dionysus would never admit it, but he is very thankful that someone cares that much about his only son.

Good friends with Rachel Elizabeth Dare surprisingly! He helps her out often, and the two like to sit and chat about mythology, artwork, and prophecies in the big house and at the campfire.

Has allies and friends in high places. Due to his powerful dreaming, he’s been to quite a few strange places and met quite a few strange people... or you could call them the gods, I guess. He knows a lot of the gods and goddesses from all kinds of mythologies (though obviously more of the Greek ones than anything) and they seem to like him well enough for some reason. (Probably because he’s one of the only demigods who doesn’t want to strangle them and doesn’t mind listening to them complain about petty godly things.) He often has little chats with them where he keeps them updated with the going ons of Camp Half Blood and they keep him updated about... godly drama. He kinda lives for it tbh. It’s part of the reason why he’s so informed about the gods.(Annabeth is maybe just the tiniest bit jealous.)

He’s a year round camper because it would be much too dangerous for him to go back to living with his mother. He stays in contact with her via dreams, letters, and Iris messages though!

MUCH more powerful than he lets on. He just doesn’t like conflict. 

One of his most frightening abilities is the ability to summon terrible creatures from people’s nightmares and use them to fight. He doesn’t like to do this as it can be very traumatizing for the people he uses it against, AND it’s not always a guarantee that the nightmare creatures will obey him.

His other more battle-ready powers are the ability to put an entire battle field into a deep slumber and memory alteration/erasure. He can use his memory alteration/erasure on monsters of weaker defenses AND demigods (though he feels much more comfortable using it on monsters.) He uses these powers to alter how monsters/enemies perceive demigods. Because of this, there are quite a few friendly hellhounds and scythian dracanae wandering about the camp. All of his powers are VERY draining and take a lot of concentration in order to work as intended. He will often sleep for days after a battle because of this.

He is also capable of fighting whilst asleep. In fact, his senses are heightened, and he tends to perform better this way. He also heals much faster while he is asleep. 

It is speculated that he will either grow wings from his head or his back, but it will not happen until he grows older. It’s a rare trait that few Hypnos kids (and Thanatos kids) develop, but due to Clovis’s power level, everyone is pretty much waiting for it to happen.

He can change his appearance at will in his dreams, but his aura is still the same, so he can still be identified pretty easily by people who know him personally. (As a side note, his eyes pretty much change color on their own to reflect the mood of the dreamscape he’s currently in. Gold, emerald, and violet are the most common colors. His true eye color is blue.)

Doesn’t really care about gender all that much. He has absolutely no problem with people referring to him using any pronouns (she/he/they) and is quite comfortable with himself in general. Many demigods who are questioning their gender comes to talk to him about it, and he’s always open to hearing them out and giving them advice.

VERY bisexual. Likes girls, guys, literally anyone who can keep him awake and interested for more than five seconds.

The unofficial official camp therapist.The role used to belong to Will Solace, but the truth is that the son of Apollo is much more comfortable dealing with physical ailments and problems he can fix medically than he is with dealing with feelings and mental ailments. Clovis is a very good listener despite the popular belief that he’s too busy nodding off to actually hold a conversation with properly and has a very calming aura that helps people feel safe enough to be vulnerable with him.

The go to babysitter of camp. Due to his Hypnos kid vibes, he is able to keep even the most rambunctious demigod and satyr children under control. His nap times are legendary. 

VERY big on respecting people’s privacy and boundaries. He tries his best not to enter any dreams uninvited, and he never talks about what goes on in people’s dreams ever. He also NEVER looks into people’s memories without their permission. He makes sure his siblings follow these guidelines strictly.

He literally lets anyone come into the Hypnos cabin at any time to get a good rest. The cabin has an open door policy.

New campers are often allowed to stay with the Hypnos cabin if they’d rather not face the chaos of the Hermes cabin.

Contrary to popular belief, his cabin is actually NOT the messiest cabin. The Hermes cabin wins that one though they’re followed closely by the Ares and Hephaestus cabins.

He and his siblings are some of the closest in the camp. They meet up and hang out in each other’s dreamscapes and have family nights. Clovis is the oldest AND is a head counselor, so he is very protective and responsible when it comes to his siblings.

Gives AMAZING massages. Leo and the entirety of the Hephaestus and Ares cabins are regular customers. Fight me. 

Actually a very good strategist when it comes to battles and such given that he’s awake enough to actually communicate his ideas. If you get them on your Capture the Team game, you’re already doing good. Annabeth and the Athena cabin love the competition, and they’re nearly unstoppable when they work together with him.

Clovis suffers from TERRIBLE narcolepsy, even for a son of Hypnos. It’s gotten him into a lot of bad and dangerous situations such as falling asleep mid battle, mid conversation, and even in the bath once when he was little. He has developed a fear of heights and water due to his condition.

Holds a lot of frustrations towards himself. Frustrated that he ever turned against the camp that offered him a home, frustrated that he couldn’t help Jason restore his memories, frustrated that couldn’t help more in the war against Gaea, just... frustrated. He tries to sleep off these negative moods because he doesn’t like to bring people down.

Absolutely not opposed to cuddling with people who are okay with it (he always asks first!) It’s a surefire way to get a good night’s rest since you’re so close to him, plus he’s very soft and warm!

Has a good singing voice, but just isn’t confident enough with it. He pushes through his insecurities to sing lullabies to those who really need them though. His lullabies are unmatched. 

Adores cats with all of his heart due to their lazy and relaxed nature, but he knows that he could never be able to care for one well enough. 

ALWAYS wears pajamas. Like all the time. Chiron has given up on enforcing the dress code. He also made sure to have custom made camp bracelets instead of necklaces to be sure that none of the Hypnos kids are choked/strangled by them if they happen to fall asleep in a bad place or position.

Lives in the past. Old movies, old music, old slang, you name it. I mean, he practically sleeps for the majority of his life, so it’s not all that surprising that he’s a bit behind the times. He thinks the modern age moves much too fast for him to keep up with.

The demigods of camp take turns making sure Clovis and his siblings are taking care of themselves. Walking them to the showers and dining pavilion, making sure they get a little sunlight each day, and the bare minimum of training.

He is the best boy.That is the only FACT that I do not accept criticism on. Thank you.

[somegirlsnerdywords2]

Anime i’ve Watched

That begin with a H (Part 3)!

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

Hetalia Axis Powers:

Genres: ONA, comedy, historical, parody 

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

My Rating: 8/10

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

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

Himouto! Umaru-chan:

Genres: comedy, school, seinen, slice of life

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

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2015 with a total of 12 episodes. 

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

Himouto! Umaru-chan R:

Genres: comedy, school, seinen, slice of life

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

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2017 with a total of 12 episodes. 

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

Hinamatsuri:

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

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

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2018 with a total of 12 episodes. 

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

Hitorijime My Hero: 

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

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

My Rating: 7/10

Finished airing in 2017 with a total of 12 episodes. 

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

Honobono Log:

Genres:

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

My Rating: 7/10

Finished airing in 2016 with a total of 10 episodes. 

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

[gorehound666]

Today I feel like talking about something from my dark past. This is my most popular video I have ever posted on youtube. People still both watch and comment on it. It's not even that good. I usually forget that it exists until I get a notification that someone commented on it. And honestly, I usually get a good laugh out of reading the comments. They are a mixture of good and bad, of course. Some nice comments sprinkled with some homophobic ones, and some that I can't tell if they're hating or not.

Example

Some nice comments, obviously from shippers.

Can't tell whether or not they're hating. I think they dislike the video.

And then some that I am 99% sure are hating/homophobic/sexist?

Now what I want to point out real quick is that I made this, as well as all my other fandom/tribute videos, for fun. It is not meant to be taken seriously. I found a song that I thought fit a specific character(s) and put them together in a shitty video because I could. I am still baffled at how much attention this thing is getting. This amongst such gems as my "Laughing Jack - Candy Shop" and "Dio in the Club" videos. Why is anyone taking this seriously, let alone taking time out of their day to comment homophobic shit on it? Do these people have nothing better to do? I mean, I'm literally making this post because I have nothing better to do right now. Also there's the fact that these are fictional characters, why is anyone getting so defensive over them? I don't even reply to these comments anymore, the most I do is like them, I have even liked one or two of the hate comments because they made me laugh so hard.

I do want to address some of the hate comments though. You're welcome for the attention homophobes, no need to thank me. Starting with the first comment in the screenshot, "bastardization of the author's original work", how? Last time I checked, everything in the video was fanart, the artists that I knew I gave credit to in the description, none of it was stuff from the actual book (other than the characters obviously). I did not take any sort of writing from The Silmarillion and edit it, or claim it as my own, or any of that. I did not technically use any of Tolkien's original work. I also do not see how I disrespected the original art (if anyone see's how I may have, please tell me), I gave credit to the artists and the artwork is literally showing them as in a relationship, I just compiled the artwork and put a song over it and called it "Melkor x Mairon".

Responding to the next comment, I don't see how I ruined the characters, if one video is all it takes for them to be ruined then I don't think you liked them very much to begin with. Also, you have no proof that there weren't gays in Middle Earth. None of the books ever said that there wasn't, plus the books are meant as fictional world history books. Tolkien literally based them on world history, and last time I checked there has been homosexuality around since the dawn of humanity.

My response to the third one is going to be short and sweet, as most of what I'm about to write is common sense. Sauron is commonly depicted with long hair, a lot of men have long hair, especially in Middle Earth if you haven't noticed, and does not make him female. Also, Melkor is shown with long hair, yet you didn't include him in your comment. Hmm🤔. Also, I am a feminist, thank you.

The last one I'm not going to bother addressing, for what I hope are obvious reasons, but I do want to address a comment that I didn't include in the screenshots: "Tolkien would be pissed". Somehow, I doubt that? Once again it is a video of fictional characters that is not meant to be taken seriously. Also, as a reader and a fan, we are allowed to read into the book however we so choose, most stories are about 50% reader afterall. And as a writer myself, I would not be pissed at how someone decided to interpret my story or characters, in fact I would feel honoured that someone took time out of their day to make fanart and fan videos for something that I made. Afterall, these things are not made out of maliciouness, they are made by people who want to show how much they love a story or character(s).

I'm going to end this here, as it's getting way too long. I apologize for this turning into a bit of a rant, but homophobia of any kind, directed at fictional characters or not, pisses me off. I also just want to say a quick thank you to those who have liked the video, I really do appreciate it. I never thought for a second that any of my videos would get as many views or comments as this one has, and I am grateful for all the positive attention it has gotten.

[masqueradelydia]

Maladjustment

Summary: A continuation of Adjustment. Remus prepares for and delivers a new performance.

Characters: Remus Sanders, Roman Sanders, Virgil Sanders, Patton Sanders, some characters I made up whose names aren’t important (The last names are different)

Warnings: None

Ships: N/A

Words: 5754

(Adjustment is here: https://masqueradelydia.tumblr.com/post/186685098818/adjustment-to-personhood if you want to read it first, but it isn’t necessary to read this piece.

           Remus swallowed. Something in his lower intestine begged to flip his organs inside out as he stood up from the little table in front of his fold-up bed and broken lampshade. Papers were strewn about, carefully kept away from the open cans of preservatives, baked beans, and littered Snickers wrappers, along with several tissues that had hardly been aimed anywhere near the trash can. He’d tried to keep them away from the part where the ceiling leakage would drip to the floor and where that ever-growing mold sliding along the edges of the wall, and away from any cracks where something could crawl through and nibble at them. These papers piled up in droves by his feet and around his ankles like mice waiting to scatter around his apartment, but Remus had meant to keep them on the table as he pored over the notes and sketches written on them, trying not to recite the lines on them loudly enough to receive a haranguing from the man next door, or receive another attempt at a hole being punched through his door. It wasn’t his neighbor’s fault after all that Remus couldn’t ever sit still long enough to be quiet.

           Remus should’ve thrown away all of these old papers, but they were still a part of the first project he’d done that would send him towards the life he’d stayed up all night for. His feet wouldn’t stop tapping as he wrote, as if the light from above some stage was getting ever so much closer to them, wanting them to step forward, despite his worn sneakers having so many holes he could feel the concrete through half of the right sole and his nicest jacket being frayed at the sleeves and the collar of it was almost completely detached from the rest of it. His hands wouldn’t stop moving either as he wrote out extra details to his stand-up routine for the night.

           He didn’t think about the sweat building up so much that he felt like it would drip into his eyes and ears, or the faces his friends made the first time he ran his routine by them, the way that Em’s eyes shifted as she cracked the faintest of smiles, or Cal’s drawn out sight and wide-eyed shake of his head as if he’d sat through a lecture. He wasn’t think about Silas’s hands circling his own beer bottle, his face thoroughly transfixed by its design during Remus’s quips and queries. He was going over his routine as it was right now, with its timing and phrasing, elaboration and cuts just enough to give him time to flash a certain kind of grin, the new stories he’d tell cut to their bare essentials and just enough punchlines where they needed to be. He nodded to himself as he looked up to the door, which was about to come off of its hinges from all of the knocking.

           “Remus! Come on out, our flight leaves in two hours,” Silas’s silvery voice sing-songed from the other side.

    ��      “Finish up your makeup, bitch,” Em called out, a certain twang to her tone.

           She’d probably collapse laughing if she’d ever seen how he’d worn it back in the day, at least, when he still had access to it. She was always insistent on dressing her best, even if that just meant an old tank top and a nice haircut. Silas, on the other hand, preferred to show up exactly as he was with his hair up and the occasional wristband.

           Picking up his last draft covered in coffee stains, different colored pen marks, and a little bit of sweat, more than he’d like to admit, Remus went to open the door and was pulled out of it by his collar. One more tear wouldn’t hurt it. Silas slapped him on the back and started to lead him down the hall, the three of them ignoring the person twitching in her sleep a few feet away from them.

           “Look at you, you actually showered,” Silas chirped.

           “And early, too. If we were late, I would tear my eyes out and eat them, and throw them up with all of my guts!”

           “Eugh, we get it. I guess this is understandable, being nervous or whatever, but your set better not make me regret missing my third beer tonight,” Em added with a grumble.

           “You’ll never want to drink again,” Remus assured her.

           This got him a light chuckle from her as they reached the front door and headed for Silas’s truck covered in key marks and fading paint, and some old food residue by the tires. Silas had hauled the other two home drunk on multiple occasions in it, and Remus would count today as the first in months that he wasn’t told that if he threw up in this thing that Silas would kick him out and he would have to walk seven miles back to his apartment.

           Then again, if he hadn’t been out in the snow on one of the many days Silas had followed through with this threat, he wouldn’t have found Gossamer Scruff, a small rat he had hoped would have been alive for longer than a week had Cal not dropped him down the sewer, but today, Remus did not want to remember mourning a three-day old rat he would have not cared for at all three years ago. Cal didn’t see anything worth bemoaning, and Remus supposed it was strange for him to consider it, especially considering that he’d eaten more than one rat on occasion of a few relentless dares.

           “Did you fix up that story about that actor breakin’ your rib,” Silas asked, poking his chest and bringing him back to the present.

           He winced, still not convinced the pain that came with it was normal.

           “Down to the millimeter,” Remus announced, sitting up straight and crossing his arms.

           “You look like a cat when you smile like that,” Em said.

           “Like the Cheshire Cat? Or those weird hairless ones with the wrinkles—”

           “Like one that couldn’t scratch me if it tried,” she finished.

           Silas didn’t let him reflect on that for more than a second.

           “Hey, what’d I tell you? Took you forever, but look what you’re doing! You’re finally scraping up something I haven’t been falling asleep to.”

           “Don’t tell me that my old stuff didn’t at least give you one nightmare, come on, now.”

           Silas put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in as if telling him a deep secret. The smile starting to creep towards the corner of Remus’s mouth halted itself as Silas declared,

           “It gave me visions of nothing but static. I’d rather have my ass run through with a shotgun. At least I’d have something to look at.”

           Remus sat back and avoided slumping as Silas turned the corner. That old stuff had turned into something that Silas still hadn’t fully heard, although he had a good lot of it run by him. It wasn’t a choice out of nowhere for Remus to follow all of Silas’s advice, and Silas would know from holding concerts that were so popular that it resulted in people lining up at the doors hours before it had started, and why Remus could never get past the middle rows, and why Silas couldn’t hear him cheering him on.

           Silas, of course, wasn’t the only influence. Every minute of each day, Remus repeated parts of his routine to himself, tweaking it according to every rule of comedy and performance he knew that he admitted could be of use to him. He repeated it and kept those rules in his head, even if Roman’s occasional criticisms fell in with it, not letting him forget that Thomas could do better if Remus didn’t try to step on Roman’s toes all the time whenever he so much as looked at a playbill.

           Perhaps in the Mindscape everything seemed so sugarcoated because of the way that they would all tiptoe around everything, but afterwards, the realization that everything was crafted in a curiously particular way for the reason of nuances that he did not quite hold became clear. It could have been much better if he had been more involved, perhaps even more nuanced, but neither he nor Roman were given the gift of subtlety. At least, not when they were still getting their bearings. Roman had learned to grow into it and embody the façade of subtlety over years of scrutinizing himself and participating in Thomas’s acting career. Pretty soon, it started to appear after Remus had been on his own that his insistence on shining light on the heavier aspects of life was just that. Insistence.

           Without the chance to mimic the things that both he and Roman could have used, even separately, if he were able to peer through the crack of the wall that kept him hidden, he found the echoes he could manage to make out of Roman scrutinizing himself in the voices of his own acting instructors, with sometimes a certain flick of their head sending something unpleasant down the center of Remus’s spine and a sickly sweet taste in his mouth. He was different, though, he told himself. He was not using it to create something that people will tell their children as lighthearted bedtime stories. He was using it to grow his artwork into something that would actually stick with people, that would bore itself into their minds in the middle of the night and give them visions in their sleep that would frighten and entertain them in a way that could not be explained away just with words. Remus did not want to create his work based upon cheap fairytales that people would forget about, even if it was easier for most other people, even if those things brought them joy instead of irritation, and even if everywhere he looked since he’d come into existence, he’d seen those who’d chosen that path walk the red carpet and bask in the light of everyone who loved them. Ingenuity didn’t matter to them, did it?

          Remus latched onto every change he made to his routine and diagnosed it for anything that Silas or an esteemed director would so much as blink disapprovingly at in order to polish it up. It required ignoring how much his chest hurt when he turned a certain way to sell a few little pauses, and reciting and experimenting on his inflections was a part of the process until his throat felt raw. Most of everyone he knew wouldn’t be pleased to fall off of the back of their trash truck at work and almost be thrown off of it in frustration minutes later because he was trying to craft nuance on a particular part of his piece, but that is a story for another day.

          Em leaned on the back of his seat, pulling on a piece of his hair as if inspecting it for fleas after looking down at his phone bumping every few feet. It had several cracks in it, but still managed to work. If they were lucky, Silas’s car charger would get it up to fifty percent once they had reached the airport.

           “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that you dyed your hair again, didn’t you? I guess I’m getting used to it more since you cut it above your ears.”

           “Grey doesn’t make a massive impression like this does,” Remus told her, gesturing to the two green streaks over his brown hair.

           There had been more grey to cover up since when he’d first moved here, and he’d found himself considering that fact more often than he’d have liked to once he’d started performing his first, for once, growing stand-up routine as the littering of grey over the front of his bangs had started to encroach further and further towards his roots, weaving itself through the sides of his head and down to the hair that grew towards the back of his neck, and was the first of it to reach his shoulders before he had finally decided to get a proper haircut instead of working with a pair of safety scissors over his sink, leaving them in the bowl of it to try again each day over the course of about a week and a half to get it right.

           “It’ll certainly turn a few heads. Keep your head straight and meet their eyes tonight.” Silas added.

           “I’ve timed it all out. I’ll stare at them until they want to run on stage and chop my head off to get me to stop it.”

           This received a “Mmm,” and a low “Hm,” from both of them.

           “Within reason,” Remus tacked on, trying to stare at both of them as he felt his voice drop off towards a bit of a growl.

           They took a short stop at the dry-cleaners to pick up Remus’s suit jacket, made with diagonal, fat green lines running up from the waist to the shoulder and arms. Putting it on, Remus had almost felt like he’d grown into it over the past two weeks. Why this was, he wasn’t sure. He’d come up with the basic idea himself, although Cal and Em had been the ones to help him pay for it. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d been getting a little more used to seeing bigger and bigger crowds at his own shows, and people cheering his name after he’d opened for a few comedians who had already made quite the name for themselves, at least, in the local area. He got used to seeing Silas crack a bright smile and let out a real laugh at more and more of his punch lines, and Cal had even dropped his bottle out of his hand from being a little more enraptured by Remus’s story about the time that he had manage to distract an angry group of hecklers at one of Silas’s concerts by demonstrating his ability to pop his shoulder out and pull a condom through his mouth after snorting it up his nose. Em’s head shakes had turned a bit more playful rather than disdainful as well. While Silas had decided to wait in the car for them, Remus’s tailor prattled to Em and himself.

           “You know, my son wanted to become a comedian when he was little. He thought he was going to be the next Conan or something. Do you two ever watch that show? I think it’s a little bit over-dramatic, but I wouldn’t know all that much about it.”

           “Thanks for the help, Donny,” Remus started. “But if we don’t leave now, my agent is going to have my ass on a stick.”

           “Oh, you don’t have to elaborate any further. I know from my son how important punctual-ness is, he would always get in a tizzy if he wasn’t the first to show up at his improv classes.”

           “We really can’t—”

           “Em, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you before your shift’s usually over, you look nice today. I know you usually do, but today you look like you’ve really put on your face, if you know what I mean.”

           “I do what I can, you know,” Em said with an eye roll as she ushered herself and Remus out the door and back to the car.

           Remus knew that Donny was a little bit chatty, but it felt like it was almost half an hour before he had let them leave. Despite this, he had almost forgotten to be surprised that Donny had not at least told him to break a leg that night, as he usually did whenever they saw him. Must have slipped his mind.

Em had her ears covered at the sound of the jet engines whirring in all of their ears while they climbed the railing, up to a small seating section. The pilot, keeping her eyes forward as she ran her fingers over the many buttons and switches on her control panel, cleared her throat and pointed to the seats behind them and the champagne in their cupholders.

           “We’ll be lifting off in precisely five minutes, so please take your seat, Mr. Morgan. Your stewardess will be with you shortly. Please refrain from using any electronic devices while you’re at it.”

           Remus nodded and followed Em and Silas towards the leather seats. Remus’s agent, Ellis, was already sitting in the front seat, looking over his sunglasses at all of them.

           “I see you’ve decided to bring your little friends along, eh? I guess a little moral support can’t be a bad thing,” he sneered, narrowing his eyes at Em and Silas.

           “Get the stick out of your ass, it’s so far up I can see it through your teeth,” Remus joked, sitting down next to him.

           “You’re the first person who’s made it this far without one up your own.”

           “I can find something more exciting than a stick to—”

           Ellis held up a hand, using the other to adjust one of his cufflinks keeping his impeccable black suit to a standard Remus didn’t even consider before he had met him.

           “Save it for the show, hot-shot.”

           “Fine.”

           “Where do you think they get this leather from,” Silas wondered out loud.

           “They skin cows for it, I think, and then they rip out their organs and bleed them out, and then they turn their skin into leather,” Remus told him.

           Em gagged next to him.

           “How the hell do you know that?”

           Remus shrugged, suddenly wanting to reach into the back of his mind to remember who had particularly taught that to Thomas, and how he had managed to remember it.

           “Some teacher in middle school told me,” he started, gesticulating as he began to elaborate. “I wanted to know all the details, it was—”

           “Remus, shut up for a second, I just remembered something!”

           Silas pointed to Remus’s phone, which had been thankfully charged enough to last him the rest of the night.

           “When you were in the dry cleaners, you got a bunch of voicemails. I think they’re from some people you know. They wanted to talk to you, but I told them you��d talk to them after your set.”

           Remus sat up straight, his face now perplexed as he twisted himself around.

           “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Who called? What do they want from me?”

           “I don’t know, I wasn’t paying much attention, I was taking a smoke when they called. You weren’t going to be able to talk to them anyway, I don’t think it was important. It was probably just some scammers.”

           That got Remus to sit back and lean his head on the seat.

           “Oh. You should ‘a told them to go fuck themselves for me.”

           “You can do that yourself when we land. Don’t hold your breath, it’ll be about six hours.”

           “Eh, I have bigger fish to gut anyway.”

           Em would have corrected him on his phrasing, but didn’t feel like speaking up as she prepared herself for a nice little nap.

           Ellis frowned at the sight of Remus’s routine in his hand, refusing to touch it with his own as Remus tried to hand it to him.

           “Don’t shove that at me, it’s covered in coffee rings.”

           A little scoff from him told Remus that no matter what he did, Ellis would not be convinced to pick it up.

           “Do you want me to read it to you, then?”

           “No, I want you to throw it out the window. Yes, read it! You told me you changed at least half of it last night, I want to hear how you’ve done that. This is your jumping point. If you nail this, I guarantee you will have your own television show and your own Netflix special by next August.”

           The next six hours were spent with Remus reciting his routine from perfect memory, trying to change his gyro graphical stability in the process of the jet’s movements in order to ensure that his own were held the exact place he wanted them, keeping Ellis’ every flick of the eyes in mind. While this caused him to stumble quite a few times and hit his head twice and distract his friends when he’d landed on his ass, this didn’t stop him from getting back up and picking it up again, even if it required repeating a few certain lines over and over again.

             Ellis nearly shoved him off of the jet once it had landed and the door had opened, covering his head with a black sheet. Remus was partially thankful for this as he felt nearly blinded by the camera flashes, and didn’t know which way to look. He was getting a little bit more used to hearing his name said so loudly, but this was the first time he’d heard it from so many paparazzi trying to clamor over them as they squeezed into the limousine waiting for them. He could hear Ellis shouting at Silas and Em as they veered off to grab a taxi. Soon enough, he would get used to this, and it would become some sort of routine for him, wouldn’t it? Maybe in a few weeks he would even take the time to scroll through his phone instead of keeping his eyes on Ellis rapidly repeating directions to the chauffeur.

           After repeating this process, he was led down a small red carpet towards what he assumed to be his dressing room. He almost stopped in his footsteps as he looked down at it and the ropes holding back the paparazzi again flashing cameras in his face. This was just the first step of what he had been looking for since he had come into existence. It was the start of everything he could only hope to hold himself back from really thinking of during his time sitting in a nearly light-less room in the Mindscape, listening to everyone talk over each other and hardly have the energy to pay attention to any of them. He had no time to dwell on this as Ellis pushed him forward and through a door that someone had pulled open for them.

           “Come on!”

           Inside, a small crowd of people all dressed in black carrying makeup brushes, clothing racks, speakers, wires, and set pieces. A gangly woman with a handful of makeup brushes ran towards him and pulled him into a rolling chair towards a mirror, turning him to face her and looking him up and down.

           “We’ve got about fifteen minutes before you go on. Tilt your chin up, you look much too pale.”

           He did as she instructed, finding her hand keeping his jaw shut as she held his face still, smearing his face with foundation, layering it over with bronzer and brushing his eyebrows with a small tool he’d only seen Em use.

           “Jake, come fix his hair,” the woman called.

           It only took about three seconds before a shorter man bustled over and ran a brush through his hair, followed by a fine comb and pushing it so that it stayed out of his face when the hairspray came. He pulled on it when Remus coughed.

           “Sorry, should’ve given you some warning, kid. Give me a second.”

           He gave Remus a few more tugs and another puff of hairspray before bidding him good luck and running off somewhere else. Remus didn’t want to say he didn’t recognize himself in the mirror, because he did, but he still felt a little bit dissonant from his reflection. He knew why he was here, and had been kept up on so many nights wondering what this would feel like, looking at himself backstage of a performance of this scale. He knew not everyone rose to be on The Late Late Show in such a short amount of time, but it wasn’t as if he had just woken up yesterday and thought it would be fun to do stand-up.

           He had fifteen minutes before he was on. He didn’t have time to overthink things, he thought, as he pulled out his phone. Huh. He had three new voicemails, but they weren’t from scammers. Nearly dropping his phone in his haste, he put the phone up to his ear and played the first one. An enunciated voice spoke through.

           “Hey, uh, I’d start with asking how you’re doing, but, eh, it seems I don’t have to! You’re doing pretty well for yourself after all, aren’t you? I heard about you all the way out here in Los Angeles! Well, I guess you’ll be here too by the time you get this, but, uh, I want you to know something. I won’t be there tonight, I’ve got an interview, but I know I never really listened to you back in the day. I don’t even know if this will mean all that much to you, after all of, whatever people call it, sibling bonding, we missed out on. I knew you could’ve done something like this, if you pushed yourself. And you did. You made us all look a bit foolish, didn’t you? I guess we had it coming to us. We had it coming.”

           A pause.

           “But that’s not the point. I’m… I’m proud of you. Break a leg.”

           Thirty seconds passed before Remus could register what he’d just heard. A voice he hadn’t heard since the last time he’d heard Roman screeching at him to pretend they’d never met, to scrape by on his own and taste what it feels like to deal with the consequences of being who he was. And now, this. Something pumped its way back into Remus’s lower intestine as the corners of his mouth reached up for his ears. The word, Proud, sounded almost different when someone said it to him, and he was not prepared for what it would sound like, with Roman’s voice cracking and breathing it into the microphone as if he had been waiting forever to say it. Remus swallowed again and let himself take another thirty seconds to collect himself as he played the next voice mail. It began with a long sigh.

           “So, you’re hot shit now. That’s fantastic, I guess. I got a call from someone telling me all about you being on The Late Late Show or something like that. You went from being a disease to whatever you call this. Congratulations. I’m… I’m rooting you on from Dark Owl Records. It sounds stupid, but I actually have a couple of my friends in here at the bar. We’re watching for you right now.” The voice softened. “You’ve got this.”

           He was surprised Virgil had bothered to call at all, but hung onto his long drawl. Virgil had never claimed to be a nice person, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t be when he wanted to be. And one of those times was for Remus. Maybe a rare moment, but maybe it would be worth it if Virgil could see the look on Remus’s face that even he himself couldn’t see, turned away from the mirror.

           The last voice mail practically had music coming from behind it, a bouncy piano that had before sent Remus running to his room before he was told to stay away from the family.

           “Remus! I can’t wait to see your face on TV! I knew you could turn yourself around if you just put away all of those bad impulses like I told you to! Oh, it took you so long, but you listened! You listened, and look at yourself! Don’t you feel so much better? You should, you should feel over the moon! Give it a ‘moo’ for me! A-hah! You’re going to do great! Remember to take deep breaths before you go on, okay? I’ll talk to you later. Break a leg, K—”

           Patton must have ended the call before he could finish. It didn’t feel quite right hearing such encouraging things from Patton, as if he were just doing it because—he didn’t have time to think about that, Remus thought. He didn’t really know Remus very well despite their time in the Mindscape, not really, but he at least put in the effort. He was doing his best, after all, according to everyone else. The olive branch went out to everyone, Remus supposed. And that was enough for him right now.

           Remus had to focus. He ran over his lines in his head, turning back to the mirror. He didn’t feel distant from his reflection anymore. He was present, grounded, and just a few minutes later his face would be visible to people who he never thought would meet him. Strangers, people who philosophized at night about such things he couldn’t even wrap his mind around who watched this show to wind down. People his age who were studying hard to pursue their college education, high school students in so many clubs that Remus wouldn’t be able to count them all. People his age who would not look at him two months ago because of the bruises on his neck and the gash running down his arm. It didn’t seem like a big deal then, but suddenly now it was. His own ingenuity was coming to the curtain.

           “Remus, you’re on!”

           He stood up, not knowing where the voice was coming from, but was quickly pulled up to the curtain. He breathed deeply and felt it in his hands, the fabric much lighter than what he’d expected, but this was television. It was not a theater stage. He shut his eyes, counted to three, and listened for the host.

           “And now, everybody, you know him already, let’s give a warm welcome to Mr. Remus Morgan!”

           Remus opened his eyes and pushed open the curtain, walking out expecting a microphone and a large stage, and the host sitting at his usual desk against the cityscape backdrop.

           Confetti flew into his face as party favor noisemakers bombarded him, a few of them landing at his feet. He looked above and below himself, finding the floor and walls of a warehouse, and a ceiling stretching up to several fans. He looked in front of himself and saw Cal, Em, Silas, and several people who he’d seen coming to his shows all smiling back at him. They waited for a second to let their noise die down before shouting one single phrase in unison.

           “The joke’s on you!”

           Remus took a step back and looked here and there at all of these faces, looking down again to register that he was not standing on a platform, and there were no bright lights over his head. He wanted to pinch himself. He wanted to say he’d walked through the wrong door to some place he had just imagined, something he’d conjured up in one of his own dreams that he just hadn’t slept through yet. Above the heads of his onlookers was a large white banner, painted in shoddy writing to say, “Joke’s on Remus,” and two plastic wine glasses were attached to each side.

           “Wh—”

           “We did it! We had you eating out of the palm of our hands,” Em cut him off.

           He tried again, but couldn’t get anything out before—

           “All of this is fake! Everyone here is an actor! They’re all paid actors! We got you, Ree! All of your shows were a prank,” Silas shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear.

           Remus stepped back again, gripping the curtain in his hands to keep himself steady, only for it to rip. He’d stayed on his feet, thankfully, as he stared back at all of them with an open mouth and pulse beating upon his ears. That was it. He couldn’t take all of this in at once, and at the same time, his mind had forced him to. His mouth was dry, and he felt something bubbling up in his stomach, choking it back down his throat to keep it from spilling out all over the floor. He tried to say something, anything, but all that came out was air. Just air.

           “You’re wondering why we’re doing this, aren’t you,” Em asked.

           He just looked at her, his eyes starting to blur. He felt like he was going to pass out.

           “Your comedy career is going nowhere, pal. This is the best you’re ever going to get! Oh, and those phone calls? Your other friends, they were in on it! They knew the whole time!”

           He wouldn’t have believed them if he hadn’t checked his phone and found that all of them had still had him blocked. He couldn’t see their numbers, and it was as if they’d never existed in his phone at all as it dropped to the floor. If he didn’t know better, he’d guess his knees were about to buckle right about now, and it was all he could do to keep himself from hurling his guts out all over them. He couldn’t think about whether they deserved to be thrown up on now. One hand was on his face, keeping his head from pounding so hard that he really would pass out, and the other was forming a fist.

           The voice that came out of him didn’t sound like himself. Not really, but he knew it was. He never wanted them to hear it like this, but he couldn’t change it now.

           “What are you all expecting,” he asked, trying to keep his voice somewhat similar to how he’d presented it only last week. “Are you expecting me to fall apart? To cry? To crumble at your feet?”

           A few murmurs rumbled through the crowd.

           “Are you—”

           A sort of… hiccup kept him from continuing. Somewhere in another universe, he wasn’t watching every good vision he’d had of himself fizzling out, dissolving into a melted mess of wax, quickly wrenching itself from all attainability and taking his throat on the way out. Somewhere in another universe, he was not currently denying everything he didn’t want to admit while simultaneously doing just that. Somewhere he was finding his fist flying right into Silas’s face, taking one of the chairs in front of him and using it as a ballista. Somewhere else, he wasn’t currently trying to put his voice together as it fell out of his mouth and rushed to the ears of everyone in the room. Somewhere, someone was proud of him.

A/N: The plot of this is piece based off of the episode The Gang Breaks Dee of Always Sunny. I don’t take credit for the idea since it came from them first.

[angelynrostrand]

Chapter 1

Summary:  To the outside world, nothing should connect shy girl Angel Monroe and popular boy Xavier Hazelwood. But that isn't entirely true. They both hold secrets. Behind both of them lie 2 separate wolf packs. Xavier is well on his way to Alpha status and running the pack. Angel is not a wolf but instead the last healer in the world. When the realization comes forward that they are connected by destiny, will they decide to fulfill it? Is their connection predetermined by fate or will they choose their hearts? Lives and packs cross and mingle while romance and conflict brews. The story of 2 opposite souls on a collision path. Will destiny win out? Even the most innocent face, has the darkest secrets.

Warnings: None for now

"Good morning Alpha," I say, my head popping into my older brother's room. I can see he is getting fitted into his new suit for tonight.

"I am not Alpha...yet," my brother Eric says. "Also I have already told you not to call me Alpha. I just want to be your brother." Eric excuses the seamstress for a private conversation.

"Fine," I say with a deep sigh, "Are you nervous?"

"Kind of. I just don't want to disappoint anyone." I walk up to him and place my hands on his shoulders.

"Look you could never disappoint the pack, father, or me. You are smart and a hard worker. Mom would be proud of you being a kind gentleman. Okay?" I say. He nods with a proud smile. When he agrees, I shake his shoulders in a playful matter. To get all the nerves and negative thought out of him.

"Thanks, sis." He wraps his arms around me and squeezes.

"Okay, I need to go to school. Can you let me go now?" I ask.

"Nope. Sorry. Not done."

"I am going to be late!" I say. He finally lets me go.

"But I'll see you tonight and have fun at school," he says as I walk out of the room and outside to get my beach cruiser.

Before taking off on my beautiful bike, I put my earbuds in to listen to music. While riding I can see the open land of trees and the meadows surrounding my area. The sun rising behind the mountains always makes me smile and is the best way to start my day. I arrive at my least favorite place. High school. I don't have a lot of friends. It's not that I can't make any. It is just that I prefer having friends where I don't have to lie to them. Being a part of a supernatural family can be a little lonely. But it's ok. I can really focus on school and homework. I like having time to read in peace. I get off my bike to lock it and make my way to my first class, English. I still have my earbuds in with music playing. I walk into the class and sit by the window to continue admiring the meadows. When the bell rings, I put my music away and get ready for class.

In English, our teacher surprises us with a pop quiz to see if everybody has finished chapters 1-5 in "Brave New World" over the break. I love the book and I have read it twice. Once when I was 15 and now since it was assigned in class. The quiz is easy. I finish early and turn it in. I look back and see that most people are struggling with the quiz. My second class is just a tutoring job. I  am able to help out any freshman with their English studies. It is their study period, but they always ask for help. My last class is Advanced Art. I only have a half schedule because I caught up with all of my credits the previous year, so I can leave school early. Art is the only class I get to listen to music and really focus on my artwork. The teacher is really cool to let us be on our phones. I want to finish a wolf drawing of my brother as a small gift for his ceremony. I finish it and place it in my art folder. The bell rings and all the students leave with their mess still covering the tables. I stay behind to help Mrs. Miller.

"Oh Angel, thank you for helping me out."

"Of course. It is very rude for them to leave their stuff around. Especially the paint." I smile and wipe the table down.

I wash my hands and leave her classroom. As I turn the corner, a boy in a rush bumps into me, causing me to drop my art folder, which scatters its contents on the floor, including the picture for my brother. The boy doesn't stop to help, but another boy does. He bends forward to pick up a couple of papers. Then he turned over his shoulder and yelled.

"Hey! Watch where you're going!"

"Thank you for helping me," I say. He hands me my papers, but also looked down at the wolf.

"Of course. Did you do these?" He asks. I smile proudly and nod.

"Wow, you are very talented." He continues studying my work before realizing I am watching. "Oh sorry, my name is Xavier Hazelwood."

"Well, nice to meet you. I really should get going and I am sure you're busy," I say, holding my folder close to me

"Wait, what is your name?" He asks.

" Um... Angel," I answer. Then I see a couple of boys approaching us.

"Xavier!" One of his friends calls to him.

"Umm...I think someone is waiting for you. But thank you so much for helping. I'll see you around," I say with a sweet smile. I turn around and start to walk away. Gosh, I am so awkward. But he was cute. He seemed different compared to other boys, but I think this just because no cute boy would want to talk to a loner kid.

I leave school grounds and head home for the party. I ride my bike back to my mansion of a house. I see the guards at their post. They see me coming up and open the gates. I smile and wave to them. They return the smile. They are always so kind to me. I ride past them and park my bike next to my own personal cottage. It's in the backyard of the house. No one is allowed to bother me while I am in it. Only my father and brother are allowed in my cottage, but they know better than to go in. I walk up to the house, up to my father’s study, and knock on his door.

"Come in," I hear and open the door. I see my father sitting at his desk looking flustered.

"Hey dad, are you okay?"

"Oh ya. Just trying to finish some stuff for the transition for your brother," he says while getting up to hug me.

"Are you sure? A couple of nights ago I saw some trespassing alerts on your desk."

"Angel, we are fine. Stop snooping around my office." We sit down on the couch together.

"Dad you can't stop me when they are laying around the office. But we are safe...right?"

"Yes, we are. No one would dare step on our property uninvited." His voice is filled with a kind of conviction the eases my worry. "Now go get ready for the party. The guests will arrive at 7, but I will call you down." We both stand up and walk to the exit.

"Yes, sir. I'll see you tonight." I kiss him goodbye and make my way to my room.

Dad has always kept me out of the loop when it comes to werewolf stuff. He and my brother want to protect me from everything, which I believe is unhealthy for both them and me. Even my own pack stops talking when I walk into a room. I understand my family can be overprotective. They say I look so much like my mom and my dad doesn't want to lose me like how he lost her. She died in an attack. Sadly my own pack sees me differently. They are kind people, but I have always been different. I was never allowed to play with the other kids in my pack. I later found out why. My dad kept me hidden from the world for a long time because there are people who want to use me for their own deeds. I am a healer and practice the elements. As a young child, I was forced to stay inside and practice my powers. I have come pretty far in terms of controlling my powers, but there is still a lot I have yet to master. Every year father would give me some of mothers books. They are full of spells and her thought processes as she controlled her own healing powers. There aren't a lot of healers in the world. The only one we know of was my mom and with her gone, we don’t know. So I guess I have always been alone in that way too. Eric got dad's werewolf powers and I got my mom's. As these thoughts flow through my mind, I write them down in my own journal. My writing is interrupted by a knock at my door.

"Come in," I say, putting my journal away.

"Miss Monroe, your father wanted me to bring your dress for you," Melanie, one of my maids, says.

"Thanks, Mel. Can you just put it on the bed?" She smiles and lays it down. I guess I really have to get ready.

I stop writing and go to my connected bathroom to shower and get ready. I am really proud of my brother. He will be a great Alpha, but it is a lot of responsibility. He is in charge of so many people. Tonight my father and Eric will do a personal one-on-one. A transition from a regular wolf to an Alpha. Then they will meet up with the other wolves. It was always a secret part of the ceremony I was curious about. Good thing I have never witnessed it though because I do not want to see my family transition back into human form. They come back naked. The whole wolf transition looks and sounds painful. I guess a perk of being a healer is that I don't have to go through breaking all my bones for the first transitions.

I finish my light makeup. I place flowers in my hair. I check the time and it is 6:50. I finally put on the long dress that was brought for me. It has a creamy blush like color with flowers on top of the dress and trickling down to the waist. I put on some heels, but I know I won't last long in them. I sit by my window and I am able to see guests arriving. I would welcome them, but my father always wants me and my brother to make a grand entrance on the staircase. I wait and look at some spell books to keep me busy until I am called. 

[squeemcsquee]

Anime Zap 2019, Friday

Previous Posts: Cosplay/Dressing Fun at Anime Zap 2019

Two weeks post-con and I’m finally getting my review done. I need to work on that...

As I think I’ve mentioned before, Anime Zap is my hometown con. It’s small (2,000 attendees, give or take a few hundred, probably) and relatively relaxed. My friends ( @shbumi @lechevaliermalfet @el-draco-bizarro and @someoldmemory for those on tumblr) and I find it a great way to hang out, have fun, and see Greg Ayres again. 

This year, I had the brilliant plan of working 4 hours in the morning, then going home, changing into cosplay, eating, and making it on time to the start of the con at 12:00. In actuality, I think @lechevaliermalfet and I got there at about 12:15 or so. 

This year, our friend group had a couple of first-time attendees on hand. Now, my rule for Zap is that if I’m the one extending the invite, I pay for the person’s badge for the weekend. Especially, as with my friend Ryn, they can only experience one day. Zap doesn’t have single-day pricing and demands cash at the door. To me, $40 cash at the door is a little steep for one day. 

That is, honestly, an aspect of the con I’d like to see change. I think they had one-day passes back when I first began attending, but those were eliminated. Then again, the con is locked in with the Embassy Suites for ten years, and maybe they’re concerned about growing too quickly. 

Anyway, we met with Ryn, and got ourselves all checked in. I was sad to see the return of the simple red cord lanyards after last year’s lanyards. But no big - the main thing is that the badge holds up, right? Badges this year looked nice, but were also minimalistic in artwork compared to previous years’ efforts. But at least we got to see artwork on the programs, as usual.

Once checked in, we grabbed programs and picked our first panel: Conspiracy Theories.

It was sparsely populated for the size of the room, but that was to be expected. This was the start of the con and most of Zap’s attendees are younger - they were probably at school still.  As for how I enjoyed it, I can’t honestly say. Some of it was interesting and entertaining, and some of it was just too out there. 

We left a few minutes early to get into the line for Opening Ceremonies. And I observed another change for Zap - Opening Ceremonies was now further down the hall, closer to the viewing room. The video gaming room acted as a buffer between it and the Dealer’s Room. 

Of course, if I’d looked at the map in my program, I’d have noticed it sooner, but at least this was a pleasant surprise!

I loved it. From what I could tell, moving down to the next ballroom hadn’t sacrificed any space for events. You couldn’t notice the noise bleeding over, since Video Gaming has its own ruckus. And it meant the walls of the Dealer’s Room weren’t shaking through the weekend, either. I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing the artists positioned at that end of the con also got a bit more foot traffic over the weekend. 

Speaking of artists/vendors, we had time to browse a few before Opening Ceremonies began. One vendor had some awesome jackets, though sadly not in my price range for the weekend - here’s Ryn modeling one:

As far as Opening Ceremonies go, I need to give props to the Live Events team, as they are always upbeat and enthusiastic. Also, Greg Ayres was the only guest who was on-hand at the time, as the others were delayed arriving. We were also informed that Steak n Shake was closed on Friday for a water main break. Thankfully, though that’s the most popular place to eat during Zap, there are plenty of other options. 

As is somewhat usual for Zap, Opening Ceremonies ended early and we were released into the con proper. 

None of us had anything on the schedule we were absolutely itching to attend until Greg Ayres at 3, so we went to the dealer and gaming spaces to kill time.

Not a bad crowd for early in the day!

As has become a bit of habit for me with Zap, I made mental notes for what I was maybe going to get later in the weekend. But I also made sure to get a print and sticker that I wasn’t sure were going to last.

Another change that I noticed - and that wasn’t in the map - was that Zap was again utilizing the rooms across the hall from Panels 1 & 2. Those two rooms held an artist/dealer area and a tabletop gaming space, respectively. It was nice to see the con taking advantage of so much space.

Video gaming at Zap always has at least one thing I want to try out. This year, there were a couple different dancing games, Rock Band (Guitar Hero only for me, prior to this), a rhythm game that was very trippy but very fun, and then an arcade cabinet that actually had a bubble pop game. I think I killed more time in Zap’s gaming room this year than in previous years. 

Note to self: Cosplaying the Impala is not helpful for full-body dance games. And I need help with these, trust me. But despite my poor skills, it was fun!

The Many Voices, Hobbies, and Hair Colors of Greg Ayres was entertaining, as always. Greg is pretty much a staple of Zap, and always a highlight of the weekend.

After that, I debated attending Samurai Dan and Lady Jillian’s self defense panel, but as I’ve gone to it before, I opted out. Instead, I roamed the tabletop gaming areas a bit with @shbumi and Ryn, and played some Pokemon Go.

Last year, I had an exterior shot of the hotel itself. But this year, I want to include a shot of the views they have to offer.

We did finish with Pokemon Go and exploring in time to go into the final two demonstrations of No Sword? No Problem! Anime Fan Self-Defense. 

Afterwards, it was time to sort out dinner. But first, we had a tasting adventure. 

Now, normally Japanese junk food prices are super high in a dealer’s room. However, there was a vendor at Zap this year who priced everything pretty fairly. So, @shbumi got some durian-flavored mochi. $5 for 6 pieces. @shbumi was the only one who managed to eat a whole piece. Mochi in itself is pretty good - it was the flavor that was the sticking point. Durian is very...divisive, to say the least.

I think our taste test will become one of my favorite con memories, honestly. 

With Steak n Shake out of the equation, we opted for Jimmy John’s for dinner. And after dinner, was @lechevaliermalfet‘s first panel of the weekend: A Brief History of Ys.

Since he’s done it a few times now, we decided to try something new and filmed the panel, in hopes of either posting the footage on YouTube or at least figuring out where he can add/take away things. (We haven’t reviewed the video yet to see what kind of quality we got). Since I wasn’t sure I could record it in full on my phone without resorting to live streaming, we did stream it (and his other 2 panels) over Facebook Live.

Con Horror Stories  was up next. Both @shbumi and I came very close to offering up our story of the time I ruined her Lapis cosplay, but in the end, we opted just to listen to everyone else’s stories. 

We went to the Greg Ayres - Raw and Uncensored event next. Anime Zap brought back the 18+ wristbands, which are really a lifesaver.

And then, to cap off the evening, was Sh*t New Cosplayers Say. Moral of this panel? “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”  I was too busy giggling to snap a photo during this panel.

And that was my Friday at Zap! It left me with a great feeling for the course of the weekend!

I’ll put up Saturday and Sunday in separate posts. They won’t be as photo heavy, because wow apparently most of my photos were on Friday this year.

Up next:

Anime Zap 2019, Saturday

Anime Zap 2019, Sunday

[lucalicatteart]

Despite the modern day tensions between demons (jhevona) and elves (irithoas), there is some historical evidence to suggest that the relationship between the two species was once fairly intertwined in some way, or at least that they existed peacefully alongside one another. Most of this evidence is in the form of vague artwork or symbols that can be found in certain ancient ruins, which despite the art usually being in horrific condition even in the most well preserved areas, is still on occasion at least vaguely decipherable. Given that all of these seem to come from the period before modern recorded history in Nanyevimi**, it’s lucky that any of them still exist at all. It is also noted that there likely were originally more of these portrayals in existence, but they have been frequently destroyed by various societies of elves during certain periods of history in order to further a political (or moreso, religious) agenda. It’s unknown what may have been shown in some of the destroyed artifacts, as the elves (primarily the Fanyiniri, since.. of course it’s the Fanyiniri) only kept record of the fact they had been 'disposed of’, but made no mention of the actual content or details about the objects. 

Though some believe that it’s not useful to read personalized meaning into the paintings (solely trying to interpret them literally rather than letting groups apply their custom worldview to it), it can still be interesting to see both involved groups’ ideas of the images, since it can provide an additional perspective regarding their creation myths or popular beliefs about the origins/working of the world. For example, in the image labeled ‘#14′.... 

(interpretation of images, further elaborations (like the explanations of the ** marked sentences), and extra info on the nature and beliefs of elven/jhevona religions/world philosophies/etc. and other additional context under the read more lol, since I’ve edited the post to be a bit shorter )

-------------

The common jhevona interpretation of the image is that this supports the concepts that appear in many of their traditional/older religions about there being realms existent outside of Nanyevimi that are no longer accessible as the magic has been lost to time***. They believe this may represent ancient jhevona utilizing the (now forgotten) ability to cross into other realms, and that the hand reaching through the “hole” is a “higher being”, or a creature from a different layer of reality that exists slightly above our own. Though they don’t have a decided explanation for why the elves are there, answers range from stuff like “the magic in Nanyevimi comes from an outside realm, and as the jhevona were one of the only ancient groups rumored to have other-realm access,  perhaps they helped teach the elves certain forms of magic in the first place by connecting them to other realms, this shows them being lead to an area of higher magic” to “idk maybe elves are actually just babby demons and you gotta throw em in a portal to transform em dude”.   

The elves take a more practical view, stating that it’s merely a representation of a demon doing reality magics, which wouldn’t have been uncommon or odd at all back then, and that since elves are not capable of doing such forms of magic, the jhevona in question is kind of just showing them a small pocket realm they’ve created (like “hey guys, can y’all do this? check this shint out”). Basically, it has no special implications or meaning, they’re just doing some basic spell which is no different than the same type of magic that can be used by powerful jhevona mages today. Some other more, ~politically motivated~, elven interpretations of this image usually involve stuff like “elves used to be more magically capable than demons but the jhevona slowly stole away our powers, which is the only reason they’re inherently more magical than us in current times, and this is  a representation of one of them leading an innocent group of elves into a trap where their souls could be harvested for power” or “here’s a jhevona using the DANGEROUS and horrible practice of reality magics, this image is just the first of a five part series which tells a story of them opening a portal to a horrible realm and letting a terrifying beast loose, which doomed the world for a time and killed many of the most powerful elven mages from history (who sacrificed themselves nobly), crumbling our best societies and forcing us to start over..We know this because we uh... totally saw the other 4 images.. we like, destroyed them and can’t prove they existed but.. that’s absolutely what it originally portrayed so....uhh..  ANYWAY, jhevona always end up causing chaos with their foolishness (let’s get rid of those guys) and reality magic should be illegal (lets kill folks who practice it), thanks for coming to my ELFtalk”)....

The image labeled ‘#5′ is much more perplexing, and neither jhevona nor elven groups have much of a concrete idea on what it could represent. The main complications come from the figures in the background, one supposedly a jhevona with one horn shorter than the other (perhaps broken off??) grasping their head or something, and then two figures on the other side with seemingly no horns or ears at all, a representation that is not seen in any form anywhere in any other known artifact from this ancient culture. Some people guess it may be a depiction of a transformation process (maybe the featureless figures are being turned into elves by the jhevona), or that it may be a representation of the aftermath of a conflict (the jhevona is saying goodbye to the elf, presumably once closely allied, before joining their (injured??) friend in the distance, and perhaps the featureless beings had something to do with the conflict/why the jhevona had to leave), but ultimately this is one of the most confusing images to yet be recovered. 

Some think that if they were to all be found and put together, the pictures would tell a sort of story, or that there is an order they are supposed to be in. A majority of scholars disagree with this however, and find it absurd based on the nature of the content and other details such as they locations they’re found. Though they do certainly depict specific concepts and ‘tell a story’ in the sense of giving valuable information on events that may have occurred or have been important to note for whatever culture created them, there is little to imply them being a grand series who’s true meaning can only be revealed by piecing them all together in some linear way. But, since it makes the idea more interesting, there are still plenty of wild theories and speculations (none supported by any evidence) about like, them all lining up into one big mural if you put them together, or that it’s actually a secret puzzle and certain symbols on each one can align to create a map to an ancient treasure (or a lost city, that’s another popular one) or reveal some sort of coded message that explains secrets or methods of ancient lost magic, etc. etc. 

There are currently only 16 of these images discovered at this point (though 43 have technically been found, most of them are just broken fragments, or are so worn it’s impossible to make anything out. This doesn’t include the ones destroyed by the Fanyiniri, of which the number is not known.), though there are thought to have been hundreds if not thousands of them created in ancient times, as with the way they were created (on cheap clay tiles with basic materials, using simple shapes and made in a somewhat uniform style but clearly by many different artists, often amateurs, etc. so it’s not like, grand elaborate wall murals crafted by specific expert artists out of the finest materials, or anything that would give any indication of them being in some way very valuable or sacred), it seems like they were used casually, similar to how people commonly decorate their homes with pictures on the wall. Which is at least a fitting representation of how much that time period has truly been lost, that out of an entire culture spanning possibly millions of years, all that’s left is like, some faint piles of almost entirely disintegrated building stones in random areas across Nanyevimi, a vase or two, and 16 crumbling art pieces (out of possible thousands) that nobody really understands. 

Scholars have had difficulty in attempting to make sense of most of the images, since they’re often very vague with unclear implication, the style is simple with many features up to interpretation, and they also must be very cautious about their modern viewpoints causing them to see  meanings which are not actually present (though like usual, they still do,, interpretation can vary a lot depending on who’s doing the research and if they have an interest in not being banished by the elven government or something lol (I mention the elves acting in this way more than jhevona since, modern day elven societies at least, hold significantly more social/political/financial/etc power on a global scale than jhevona do. Even if a group of demons disagreed with a group of scholars, they’d be unlikely to have the ability to start much of a conflict over it, whereas many elven societies, especially certain prominent ones (Fanyiniri, Yarairi, Lishleiri, etc.) could issue actual consequence on a broad scale, etc.). Though luckily most all of these artifacts now exist on neutral ground, and are held by neither elf nor jhevona aligned parties). 

Even detached from any political or religious significance (which is where most of the contention arises), the images still interestingly call into question certain historical assumptions (that the elves and jhevona have always been fairly separate, for one), and give at least a tiny scrap of much desired insight into what may have been considered relevant to one of the many lost societies of the past.

There is also some disagreement over whether these images even portray elves or demons in the first place, as obviously these representations look a bit different from the modern versions of the species you’ll find today, so some have thought it may be a different species entirely (this is made worse by the fact that the ruins these are found in are usually barely identifiable, nobody is sure whether they were made by ancient jhevona, ancient elves, or perhaps another group entirely who merely had an interest in/contact with the other two, etc. They’re found in scattered seemingly random locations with not enough identifying information left to really trace them well). But most everyone in modern times agrees with and is aware of the fact that the ancient species had a slightly different appearance though are still considered the same (especially elves.. jhevona haven’t changed all that much, they still hardly have noses lol and the shape/style of horns portrayed in old images are still possible in modern demons, though much rarer now. But modern elves look quite different from ancient elves, you never see the entirely rounded noses (like a side profile that just looks like a “ ) “ kind of ) and massive upturned ears in elves today, those traits are essentially nonexistent now (aside from a similar nose style and the strong cheekbones occasionally coming up in Avirre’thel/vampire genetics even now and then), but this is thought to be due to the difference in lifespans (jhevona can live thousands of years, whereas elves live usually just 130 - 300, so they reproduce and die more quickly and their genes are being passed on and changing at a faster rate)). But anyway, this argument used to be popular in the past, but is slowly dying out as people learn more about what historical versions of themselves look like and more information is found about species and evolution, though some small groups of elves still claim the images are unrelated and don’t portray elves at all but rather some other species (how dare they be portrayed interacting with the jhevona in any sort of non-hostile, even positive, way,, even millions of years ago, it must be false lol).

Also the images are thought to have been colored, perhaps vibrantly, but none of it really shows up anymore. You can see that like, some areas are lighter and some are maybe a little darker, suggesting that maybe originally there was some attempt to shade elements of the paintings, but in their current state, the originally intended appearance is lost. The example images given are deliberately made higher in contrast and the original lines darkened to be more visible (obviously not on the actual artifact, but like in exact replications (which can be made fairly easily with magic) things are often traced or re-outlined to be clearer), but some of them in their natural state can hardly even be made out at first without some modification and closer examination. There are many different recreations where the images are colored in different ways or have details added to them or etc., which can be interesting to see the variety of interpretations, even if they’re all just wild guesses, and it can never truly be known what the paintings on clay actually looked like. 

------ “ * “ marked section elaborations - 

(**other than one strange thousand year gap in some areas of the world, historical record has been “mostly” in tact for about 2 million years (meaning, there is some form of continuous recording of at least most significant world events since that time), seemingly starting with some of the early societies of that period. It’s pretty nonexistent before that point, as if everyone began writing everything down all at once, or more likely, as if something happened around that time which somehow destroyed all records, ruins, and relics across the entire realm prior to that point (yet was never mentioned in these future writings. You’d think if there were some worldwide disaster, even if the past were entirely eradicated, those who survived would write about their experience of the disaster event, but there’s hardly any indication of anything like this. The lack of any records or evidence of earlier civilizations almost seems supernatural in nature, as so much about it doesn’t make any sense if you were trying to think of ways it would happen naturally, leading some to believe it may be due to magic or something.) 

 It is known that advanced humanoid species (practically no different than those today) have existed in some form for far longer than 2 million years, and scholars occasionally find things that date back to that time, however for the most part any knowledge or understanding of that world is absurdly sparse and basically anything that occurred before the ~Magical Point Where Recorded Nanyevimi History Began~ has been entirely lost. Along with certain questions about the nature of magic, the whole “we know for a fact people have existed for much longer than we have record of but for some reason it seems like there was a mass memory wipe or some shit about 2 million years ago for whatever reason” thing is another one of the most widely known curiosities surrounding Nanyevimi, one of those things scholars are always debating and trying to understand.)

-

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(*** This view is kind of like a multiple universe theory, except if they were to all exist at once rather than on separate timelines. Many jhevona religions reference the belief that there are countless realities stacked on top of one another, as if in layers, difficult or often impossible to access due to the entire nature of reality being different between them (so like if beings from another “layer” were to try to visit the one under theirs, they may be nearly imperceptible to the beings of the under layer, etc.) 

And if there are too many layers between you (say someone on the 8th layer trying to make contact with the 2nd), it would be completely impossible for either of the beings to make sense of one another or exist in the same space without it destroying both of them or altering something dramatically. Especially since some also believe that magic systems work differently in every realm. Thus, just because you can use magic in one place doesn’t mean you’ll be able to in another, to the point of most beings being incapacitated entirely/having their magic or even their very soul (depending on how serious you believe the link between magic and souls to be) stop functioning completely upon entering a realm in which the magic is too foreign. 

Though it’s usually thought that stuff like visiting the layers closest to yours is still possible (layer 7 beings are able to access layer 7.2, 7.9, 6.8, 8.1, but not 10.5, 3.4, 5.6, etc.), the opinion varies on how much is too far apart, and a lot of it can get into complex theorizing about magic systems and souls and various ways to classify realms/layers by certain criteria in order to determine who would be able to visit who, and how, and what the consequences would be, what an alternate magic system would even look like, etc.etc.)

[ [ sidenote within a sidenote: this is why a lot of people who didn’t grow up in Jhevona culture tend to hate studying their religions/philosophies (like for school projects or anything), since there’s never simplifications or any clear answers, on day one you jump straight into 

“Alright, lets call into question the very nature of magic itself, and consider the the potential implications and functioning of infinite multiple universes..”  ‘wow that sounds complicated.. can’t you just... tell us about some gods you worship or something and call it a day?’  “..Gods??  we have no gods but ourselves, everyone simultaneously is and isn’t a god, depending on the perspective you’re viewing them from. you see, it’s all about varying layers of reality and power levels and whether you’re looking up or looking down, now if someone from the 40th realm were to...” *student instantly regrets asking* Also, you can imagine all the debates over different schools of thought, usually different clans or groups of jhevona will have their own unique perspective on this and how it fits into other elements of their custom culture and worldview. Though they’re not the type to start fights over it (remember, everything in jhevona philosophy is infinite possibilities, who are we (insignificant creatures in a vast incomprehensible world) to ever say what is truly correct or incorrect, it’d be antithetical to enforce your views on others harshly), there are still a lot of passionate debate circles where 30 people all show up and present their theories and everyone discusses them and etc. etc., usually made into elaborate parties or events, ways for local groups to make connections and bond with each other, or promote unity (through.. good natured argument lol) between neighboring clans of jhevona ] ] 

Despite travel between ‘’layers’’ being seen as difficult, there are still many myths about beings from other realms visiting Nanyevimi in ancient times, sometimes even under the claim that perhaps these people created the realm. Since reality magics are a known thing, some jhevona belief systems theorize that the entire realm itself could simply be a larger form of that, created by beings with magic so powerful it’s on a scale we couldn’t imagine, able to craft entire worlds rather than just small pockets of realty. Just like the reality magic used in Nanyevimi except on a much larger scale. Though other jhevona legends disagree with this idea and still hold on to the belief that such a form of travel between realms is too impossible. 

This is usually part of their explanation for why ‘’higher layer’’ beings can exist, but also never noticeably interact with the world (why there isn’t any solid proof of a realm creator/god/gods/etc), since it only makes sense that the world a being creates must be lower level than they are (you can’t make something with more power than you have, input must match output somehow), meaning likely any realm that a higher being creates must be significantly lower in order than their own.. Thus, they can craft realms, but then lack the ability to influence or visit them in any way, as their layer and the layer they create are too far apart for either of them to even be perceivable or conceptualizable to the other (like if you’re a layer 18 being, you could maybe make a realm, and it’d end up somewhere on the level scale of layer 2, which means you're so far apart you couldn’t interact with them in any way, as likely your entire foundation of reality and the magic in your world and the functioning of your very being is just so incomprehensibly different from theirs, you would be mutually unfathomable to one another). 

This is also what leads to some beliefs that creation of realms is accidental, since why would someone knowingly create something they can never perceive or interact with? In some jhevona belief systems, creating realms is seen as an accidental side effect of some unknown natural process, rather than the deliberate act that most believe it to be (which also implies most, if not all, realm creators are wholly unaware of their creations, and additionally that people in Nanyevimi may be participating in similar mundane processes that create distant realms as a side effect, and we would never know it). 

( Basically: we are all simultaneously gods, and also not gods, we may all create realms, yet have also had our realm created by someone else, we are simultaneously both higher and lower beings, all creators are likely entirely unaware of their creations, just as it would be impossible for their creations to perceive or become aware of them, etc. Everything is a system of layered realms, and everything in the universe entirely depends on your perspective in that system,  whether you’re looking at layers above, or below you (in the layers above you, you’ll find ‘higher beings’, possibly the creators of your own realm (though you could never truly interact with them), in the layers below you, YOU are now the higher being from THEIR perspective, and you may also find realms you’ve accidentally created without even knowing, part of natural processes you’re unaware of)) 

These concepts also lead to some interesting tales of like, multi-reality games of telephone, where since a higher being can’t directly influence their crafted realm (yet for some reason is able to be aware of it), they just continuously send a chain of messengers downward (guy from layer 8 contacts layer 7, layer 7 contacts layer 6, etc. etc.) until finally the information, in some form (though usually the humor or irony in the myth is that it’s of course been horribly misinterpreted at this point) eventually reaches the target realm lol. 

Even though largely the jhevona don’t believe in the concept of gods necessarily (as divine untouchables to be worshiped), they do believe in contact from other realms, and that beings from other areas have influenced the world and etc. So despite not really having clearly defined gods or anything, they do still have plenty of myths and tales, they’re just usually about vague creatures or unspecific adventurers traveling realms, rather than a permanent set of gods. Their tales are more like ‘hey what if somewhere in the universe some weird shit like this happened one time’ rather than ‘our specific god definitely did this one thing in our own realm this one time’. Which I guess is pretty expected that a group notoriously focused on the vastness of the world and how unimportant we are in the scheme of things, would further emphasize that by having most of their traditional myths and tales taking place in other worlds, often having nothing to actually do with themselves or Nanyevimi in general (”we’re SO unimportant and insignificant, we’re not even PRESENT in 75% of our traditional stories!” ) .. 

BUT ANYWAY, the whole ‘multiple realms’ thing is a massive concept in their culture and etc. so that’s what I’m referencing when I speak about it.

Also for contrast to explain part of why elves and jhevona disagree so much:

Many traditional elven belief systems state that there are not infinite realms in existence, only one:  Nanyevimi. Some groups of elves will occasionally seek a middle ground by saying that there MAY be one or two other realms, but that those were obviously just experimental landscapes used by the elven gods to try out certain concepts before solidifying them and adding magic to them, as they wanted to make sure that beings functioned well and that the order of things operated properly before bestowing creatures such a form of power. Any “evidence” of another realm (which is usually debatable/doesn’t really prove either side) is just an example of a place the gods used as proof of concept to test things before they made everything magical, since things always get more wacky once you add magic.

Another middle ground elves may occasionally entertain is that, MAYBE there COULD be what SEEMS like other realms (still very unlikely), but  these realms are not SEPARATE, necessarily.  They usually would more take the belief that EVERYTHING is only ever ONE realm, but just with occasional branching layers off of it and a thin barrier between them. What Jhevona may interpret as an entirely new “layer” realm, a totally separate universe existing above or below Nanyevimi,, an elf would likely just see as a branching path off of the main realm. Maybe it appears to be some new place, but it’s no different than when people use reality magics to make small pockets within our own realm. Nothing is EVER a genuinely separate realm, it’s just the occasional stronger-than-usual branches off of the main realm that sometimes give the illusion of being separate. 

  This is part of why elves often also hold the belief that the pursuit of realm travel or attempting to unlock the ability to do so (which Jhevona feel is a long lost skill of theirs or something) should be illegal or at least extremely discouraged, since even if other realms DID exist, they clearly were intended to be discarded and left to their own devices once the gods were done testing things there, NOT to be returned to and disturbed, as the gods never intended for it to have any meaning. Nanyevimi is their ONLY true creation and focus. 

Basically, the supernatural realm is the primary realm of the world, the one lovingly crafted by the gods, where magic is strongest, and where the gods placed their best creations (especially elves) on display. Nothing else exists, and even if it WERE to exist, it would be irrelevant, since if the gods intended for our focus to be on other realms, they would have made us aware of them and given us (or at least the elves) access to them. 

This whole concept that the supernatural realm is the only realm that matters/actually exists/etc. is similar to other themes in the traditional elven religion, which in most branches of belief also asserts that elves were the true original species, and the original holders of magic (though the myths vary, generally they state that magic was given directly to them by the ancient elven gods, as they were the most favored by the gods and thus were chosen to start the original magic bloodline, and elves were the ones who then gave magic to all other species out of their kindness (or had it stolen from them... the oldest elven tales speak nothing of this though, so it’s thought to be a more modern invention, but some versions of tales will include some form of ‘and X group took magic from us’ or etc., particularly if someone stands to benefit from things being told that way.), which is why they’ve usually considered magic and the use of magic so deeply sacred, as in many ways they see themselves as the originators of it, and feel they should protect it from corruption as, even though they have graciously allowed others to have magic as well, ultimately it is their god-given domain, and they reserve the right to make the rules about it. 

Even though, especially in older tales, there are very prominent themes of always maintaining peace, beauty, unity, togetherness, and etc in the main elven religion, it has often been at odds with a vague underlying element of entitlement, likely coming from continuous reinforcement that they’re the special ones, the only group that matters, the only realm that matters, the original #1 awesome god-chosen species, etc. etc., So despite this focus on protecting the realm and it’s inhabitants, and holding everything sacred (as it was created by the gods, thus is important), it can still get a bit out of hand sometimes.

To their credit, sometimes it doesn’t manifest harmfully at all, like in theory, taking on a role as a peace-keeping protector species who feels it’s their duty to keep order and unity in the world is not always a bad thing, and in many ways it can be really positive when it works well, and it has on occasion in certain elven societies over the years....It’s just that it’s always a very delicate balance, and far too often in practice, there’s the tendency for groups of elves to take this focus a bit too far, spending more energy on relishing in their god-given positions of power, than actually using that power how it was originally intended, and over time increasingly adopting a focus on proving their importance and reinforcing their right to be in the place they are.. Which is obviously where most of the antagonism and resentment of jhevona societies comes from (as jhevona are kind of unintentionally a living breathing reminder to the elves that they’re not as special as they think they are, and that there’s likely more to the story) .

Mainly :

 Jhevona are just as old as them (both species go back before written history, which causes doubts about the “elves are the oldest and most original species, the god’s first important creations” thing)

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Jhevona are significantly more inherently magical than elves with access to abilities and types of magic which elves couldn’t even dream of using (which casts doubt onto the whole “we’re the most magical and the original bringers of magic” thing (which is why they’ve come to claim Jhevona stole the magic from them, or that some other group in history caused a catastrophic event which robbed them of magic,, and also why they like to ban any type of magic that they’re incapable of doing)), 

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and on top of all that, the Jhevona constantly make claims about the vastness of the universe and how unimportant everyone is, that Nanyevimi is just one realm among many, and not even that significant at that, that there are beings unfathomably more powerful than we could even conceptualize (which goes directly against the whole “Nanyevimi is the most important, where all magic begins and ends” thing. And also calls the elven gods into question as nothing more than like “Well maybe they do exist, maybe they did even create this realm, but they’re not gods, not anymore than WE would be considered gods when walking into a realm below us. Godhood is just a way to describe vast power, and by that definition the elven gods likely have gods as well, and those gods have gods, and so on.. It all depends on how many layers up you go”, which to anyone of traditional elven thinking, this is an utterly infuriating philosophy lmao). 

This is also why sometimes the aggression between elves and jhevona can seem overly one sided, because it almost kind of is??  At least in the sense that, the traditional elven worldview/religion/belief-system is inherently incompatible with that of the jhevona, but it doesn’t work the other way around. 

Within the jhevona framework, the elven gods can still exist (they’re just not really “gods” per say), the elves can still be the same as always, the realms are the same (there’s more than  one of them, but hey, whatever), etc.  There’s nothing really all that incompatible about elven beliefs in the context of how the jhevona view the creation of and nature of the world and etc. 

The jhevona view of elven philosophies is more just a:  “Well, that’s kind of half wrong and there’s more to the story than that, things are way wider and more vast and complicated than you realize, but technically most of what you believe is plausible other than that.. like yeah, maybe your ‘gods’ totally created this realm, maybe they did give you magic first, who knows. We never took anything from you and we’re not dangerous or out to get you or etc. but sure, totally, maybe there is an original magic bloodline, you never know, there’s a lot of higher beings and complicated realm layer stuff out there that nobody really understands, it could be plausible, especially when we’re confident that there’s types of magic at work out there that aren’t even fathomable to us, we can never have any true idea of the framework we may exist within. Anything is possible really.”.   

 Whereas like with elves viewing the jhevona belief system, it’s more like “NO, that actually can’t be possible, there CAN’T be more realms, because we are the only one that matters. And there CAN’T be other gods because these are the only ones (also how dare you insinuate that our gods aren’t actually true gods). You CAN’T exist the way you do because you being powerful and ancient the way you are contradicts with US being the most powerful and ancient. We actually CAN understand everything about the framework of the universe, because this reality is all there is, and to imply otherwise is to deny the natural order of how gods intended the world to be.” etc.

 It’s basically just a very very typical “everything is broad and unknowable and we’re just an insignificant part of the vastness” VS. “everything is definite and  well defined and we are the most significant part of this world, which is made for us and very clear in nature” philosophy clash. Traditional elven beliefs are literally incompatible with Jhevona ideas, but Jhevona ideas can easily adapt to accept elven belief, so it often seems like one side disagrees with the other WAY more than the other does with it. 

Which this isn’t to say that jhevona haven’t had plenty of problems with the elves before, they can definitely be the one that initially takes issue with the other as well, but more just that, this is why OFTEN (but not always), it seems like the elves have more of a problem with the demons/jhevona than the jhevona have with elves, since generally the elven worldview has more basis of things to take issue with (since it’s more narrow in focus and inherently exclusive of certain things) than jhevona beliefs usually do (since if anything it’s more about not excluding anything and naturally focused on how many possibilities exist). 

Jhevona focus on how insignificant they are and how there’s no way to know everything, so if they’re told or shown that they’re wrong about something, the reaction is more likely to just be “Ah, well that’s unsurprising. Good to know”, whereas a lot of the elven beliefs center on their place of importance in the world and them having the main correct view of things, so when anything implies they may be wrong, it’s only natural that it is more upsetting or jarring to them. If all of that makes sense (I can’t think of a good way to explain it concisely so I’m just repeating myself 40 times with different phrasing bghbb) 

AND of course this is all simplified, especially in modern times, there are like, a shit ton of different variations of the elven and jhevona belief systems.. Though they’re all thought to have branched from a “main” religion/philosophy which may have been centralized to each group at some point (since even really obscure offshoots of the respective belief systems usually still have some of these main ideas in common, even if the details or specifics of how it works are changed), there’s still a lot of variety out there in terms of what each group believes, especially due to them both being very ancient and widespread groups.  

A group of elves in Fanyin (a well populated and modern northern city, political and economic focus point for modern elves)  is going to be entirely different than some rogue group of elves who have been hanging out in the southern mountains for 10,000 years and etc. And even with the main criteria described, there’s a lot of specifics left out and details I didn’t go into (like the full creation story of each group and specific mythological figures and etc.), the above is just the bare bones general philosophy, AND is only the parts of said philosophy that are relevant to their conflict (leaving out other details that may be just as important to each group, but just weren’t specific to mention in this context). But still, in general this elaboration hopefully helped explain why the conflict is there in the first place, since very broadly and simplified-ly speaking, this worldview clash is where most of the issue between the two groups is thought to have originated.

 Even though, as history indicates, they likely haven’t always not gotten along,  it’s a complete mystery what changed, and when. For all of recorded history they have clashed slightly, but it’s clear that there was some period prior to this  where things may have been different (obviously, as this is the main premise of the art above and etc. lol, that they once had some sort of alliance or relationship close enough to constantly appear in art together and have crafted symbols representative of their unity and etc.), but since there are no records it’s hard to say whether or not there was like, some inciting event that occurred, or some belief change (maybe one of the groups didn’t always have the philosophy they do now), or whether it was just a natural and gradual series of small disagreements overtime, etc. 

So like, in CURRENT history, we know the main source of their disagreement seems to be religious/philosophical, but obviously something must have changed, implying that maybe at some point their philosophies were not as different, or that there was an entirely different way of thinking back then and both of their current worldviews are more modern inventions, or etc. etc. 

Also , there are of course other worldviews out there, all cultures and species have their own custom creation myths and ideas about the nature of ancient society and etc. etc.  Other groups may have interpretations of these images and conflicts and etc. as well, it just made the most sense to focus on exclusively Jhevona and Elves, since they’re the ones in the images, the main parties involved. 

Additionally, they are still the two oldest known currently living species, who’s origins are untraceable and who have both been around since before the current era of society even started, so their myths and ideas have had considerable influence on most current species and cultures as well.  Even to the point that you can often classify most other group’s myths into seeming either more elven inspired or more jhevona inspired, as these two conceptualizations of the world have been around in some form before most current myth itself. 

Like for example, the beliefs of the Ythrili generally fall more in line with what elves claim (there’s only one realm, magic exists here solely, etc.), whereas this random species I never gave a name to lol (link) tends to fall more in line with jhevona influence (there are infinite worlds, the limits of magic are unknowable, etc.). Then there’s groups like the Avirre’thel/vampires who have a mix of both (which makes sense considering vampires are technically the closest living descendants of ancient elves, yet also historically have been closely allied with jhevona (since their split from elves literally occurred with demonic interference lol)), though the Avirre’thel of course notoriously reject all myth/religion anyway and could be considered more of a neutral party in terms of which philosophy is right, their pop culture and “religious” traditions still have heavy influence from both worldviews. And again, this too is also WAYY more complicated, even if influence can be seen, there are plenty of systems that exist entirely outside of the jhevona/elven framework, and also likely species and cultures and beliefs that are older than they are (’oldest KNOWN currently living species’, implies there may be plenty of unknowns out there as well) , etc. etc. etc.  

But just in a short brief post like this where I’m not going to extensively detail every main living species and culture and religion and compare and contrast them and etc. etc., especially since the main focus is just on elves and demons anyway, I felt the over-simplification to be reasonably applicable lol.. Like.. be aware, that... things are more complicated than I’m describing them, but also,, this is all that needs to be known for the context of this post in particular lmao, so I’m not going to actually get into the other detail.

and with that, I suppose I’m done with the extra context stuff. There’s always more I could elaborate on but I should have been in bed like 3 hours ago bhbbbb. I always try to start out these posts nice and organized and as clean as I’m capable of but then by the end I’m usually just, late at night rambling repeating myself over and over again and not using proper punctuation or grammar or etc ghhh, sometimes... it’s just.. Like That...I  hope the single one of you who has read this far enjoyed hearing my endless nonsense about some groups in Nanyevimi lol,, thanks for reading ~ 

[joemuggs]

Old is the New New

Not really. But the question of how and whether innovation happens in the digital age is a perennial one. I remember a drunken New Year’s Eve conversation a decade or more ago with a friend complaining that there was never going to be another summer of love or punk or acid house revolution, and me saying we’re too ready to pre-empt that in the UK now, but subcultural things like that could very well happen in places like Kinshasa or Kuala Lumpur or Kiev... and indeed music is a part of major cultural shifts around the world. 

Listening to the We Out Here compilation really got me going this year though. It’s so vivid and of the now, without having any of the high-tech signifiers that we of the post-rave generations have come to recognise as representing newness. But in the bodily movements of the players are encoded London life 2018, just as much as they are in drill MCs’ voices or whatever deconstructed club beat patterns are working for people right now. Though that perhaps only makes sense if you understand the soul-jazz continuum as it is woven through London music. Not that you NEED to, mind, because the music operates on an instant, pleasure-principle level too. My full review I wrote for the Wire is above... 

We Out Here by We Out Here

...but that review in turn then set off a few tangents, which became a Twitter thread, which I have tidied up as follows:

A short rant on people who use "innovation" as their primary yardstick for judging music. 

If you do this, you are judging music first of all as A Cultural Phenomenon - an abstraction - and sidelining both the sound itself and what it is doing for the real people who love it. If people still love to dance to / make drum'n'bass 20 years on, or deep house 30 years on, or jazz-funk 40 years on, or garage rock 50 years on, or R&B 60 years on, or whatever, and your first response is to accuse them of lack of inspiration, you've gone wrong somewhere. We can't always be in a Cambrian Explosion period like 70s NYC or 90s UK where globally important musical species are created seemingly willy-nilly. Comparing the normal pace of innovation to those explosive times is foolishness. And worse, it denies lasting value to music.

I've been thinking of this wrt the current buzz of what you might call "post-Plastic People jazz" - music which doesn't sound overtly new, but is still vivid with value in the here and now. Thing is, there's always been top parties where you could dance to jazz if you looked. And whether it was 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, that music had the same instant value in the heat of a club, both for its direct effect on the body and from the fact that it tended to attract some of the most diverse crowds: something that always leads to a better party. Does it lose value over the decades, just because it's not the first time it's being played in that style? Christ no. Does sex become less good because you've done it a few times?

The motives of ppl who insist that newer ≡ better are highly suspect & usually proprietorial.

This doesn't mean things don't change. The concept of "timelessness" is metaphysical and equally suspect. OBVIOUSLY dancing to drum'n'bass at 4am in 2018 is different to 1998. But when the beat drops there's real continuity of physical/emotional/social experience. All of this is no shade on innovation, either! Indeed it's rly the "innovation is dead" argument that diminishes real & amazing developments. From Chino Amobi and Elysia Crampton to mainstream hip hop over the last decade to any number of 'developing world' sounds, it's rife. Innovation is vital, we celebrate it, we seek it out. But to use it as your main measure of social and aesthetic value is bullshit.

"Oh nice house you designed and built with your own hands there... BUT DID YOU INVENT THE CONCEPT OF HOUSES, HMMM??"

Aside from sidelining the value of craft, folk art etc in favour of a vision of "inventiveness" that is always tied up in a tangle of sketchy ideas about cultural superiority, it just suggests you're more wrapped up in your own valuations than in the thing you're evaluating. And with huge irony it's often nostalgia-based: people want to see the same kind of innovation that blew them away when they were first launching out on their own voyage of discovery. It's quite egotistical in these cases, it's centring ideas of progress around your own tastes. Tangentially, there’s probably a whole PhD thesis on compering the theory bro’s modernism with the tech bro’s disruption. But more generally, this desperation to repeat a particular type of innovation v often seems like attempt to isolate "modernism" or "innovation" as an essential quality divorced from historical context. And essentialism and ahistoricalism are bad.

NONE of this is to say that retroism, revival, tradition etc etc are worthwhile qualities in and of them selves, of course. You still have to make aesthetic and cultural judgements yourself about what you're hearing and how it's consumed! Being familiar or traditional in itself doesn't make anything good, any more than it makes it bad.

Here’s another thing. Old things can still smash preconceptions. If you’re so jaded you think Sun Ra or Kate Bush or The Butthole Surfers or Coki don’t have something new to say to you, let alone a 15 yr old hearing them for the first time, I feel for you. These things, heard in the right light, can be as modernist as they ever were.

A tangent, on the job of music critics, and how we value the music of the past:

I think we all to one degree or another internalise the notion that popular music is aesthetically "cheap" because of the illusion of infinite availability, as compared to art or "art music". If you watch art/history on BBC4 you see Andrew Graham Dixon or Janina Ramirez waxing lyrical about the qualities of the pieces of art themselves, as expressions of their time. In BBC4 pop music history – unless it's one of those very specialist musicological things with Howard Goodall – it very much tends to be biographical and social history above all else. Can't help feeling that's because there's a reverence for the artworks, that comes from not everyone being able to go to Florence or New York or whatever and see them in the flesh - but everyone can hear "Purple Haze" or "Strings of Life" any time they want, right?

And to my original point about modernism vs retro, I suspect that adds to a cultural forgetting of how radical, say, "Purple Haze" not only was, but STILL IS. Isn't there a value in talking about it not in a Classic Rock way, not in a cultural history way, but in the way we'd talk about a Picasso? "Purple Haze"/"Strings of Life" perhaps are not good examples actually, because they DO at least get the historical reverence treatment on occasion (though this, too, is more based on historical context than aesthetic antalysis). There's thousands upon thousands more records that - if criticism is going to have any purpose - deserve to be looked at, over and over, AS ARTWORKS.

Especially DJing for Big Fish Little Fish parties I listen to & play a lot of what might be called cheesy dance classics, and I continually listen to them closely as a result. The diff between listening hard to Music Sounds Better With You or the Hardfloor mix of Yeke Yeke and just HEARING them as background in a bar or on the radio is like the difference between seeing a Miró or Warhol full sized and up close, and seeing a postcard of one. And actually those records are as great as works of human intellect and instinct as most Great Gallery Art. When you are up close to - in fact INSIDE - those records as they were built to be heard, their sense of balance, scale contrast, movement, balanced chaos/control, etc etc etc is up there with a Kandinsky or Braque. Obviously Capitalism doesn't value it as such, mind... And I think we (critics) unconsciously undervalue that too. So we talk about the past as movements, moments of cultural significance, but all too rarely about how the patterns and tics and structures of X record embody that and what power they still have now. People often talk of the job of critics as just being either explainers, enthusers, conceptualists or a glorified recommendation algorithm. But if the WRITING part of writing about music is ever to have any value, then what about just discussing and bearing witness?

All of which brings us back to the thing about fetishising innovation. We live in a world where thousands or more of people globally are hearing Nu Groove reissues, or rediscovered tapes from Benin, or some twisted Catalan synthpop record from 1981, FOR THE FIRST TIME. While at the same time, in mainstream and underground, soundcloud rapper and Elysia Crampton records are startling and scaring with newness. And elsewhere people – let's take the 100% Silk label or Dekmantel in Amsterdam as prime examples – are maintaining past sounds as living folk traditions. When you hear a set of Robert Hood type minimal techno, even if you don't share his spiritual beliefs and sense of the eternal, you can certainly feel it as being several steps away from the microhistorical cycles of hype. Because of course devotional or ecstatic music is consistently resistant to - or doesn't need - innovation. A shaman chanting in Uruguay, Sufi dancers in Pashtun country, a choir in Hereford Cathedral, Niyabinghi drummers - what do THEY care for the Shock of the New? But from the global 'old' music forms to the crate diggers' early house compilations to the super innovative post-Arca electronicisits, all of these things ARE our present. It's an extraordinary musical-historical moment to be part of. Scary, unpredictable, best of times / worst of times, etc but fucking extraordinary - including the presence of the past, whether unearthed or transmitted through living tradition. We should bear witness to that!

[longforgottenunofficial]

The Decapitated Knight

As we slowly wend our way through the graveyard, we continue to stop and to dig here and there, looking for the cultural roots or original inspirations buried beneath the various specters presented to us.  We've just finished looking at the band and the hearse tea party, and earlier we looked at the mummy and the operatic pair.  So what's say we wander over and take a look at the decapitated knight?  Let's see, in our last post we were standing in front of the tea party, so if we cut across, the knight should be easy to find.  See him?  A head, over on the right hand.

Some might think that the idea of a ghost carrying his head around is an original idea, or if not absolutely original, then an adaptation of the Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a character thoroughly disney-fied in the 1949 film, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.  But actually, these kinds of ghosts are quite traditional.  There's a little lane in Wortley, England (near Leeds), where the ghost of a Yorkshire nobleman executed during the English Civil War is reportedly seen once or twice a year, carrying his head beneath his arm.  In 1760, it was reported that a headless priest was busily haunting a small village outside of Paris.  The Christian martyr St. Denis reportedly scared the hell out of his persecutors by appearing as a ghost with his head in his hands and giving it the old boogity boogity boogity.  Here's an 18th c. illustration.

Wow.  He looks ready to join the lineup at the Haunted Mansion (except that he's a clergyman, but we'll talk about that in a future post).  There is actually a lively tradition of beheaded martyrs behaving in this way (they're called Cephalophores; a big hat tip to ttintagel for drawing my attention to these). Between these firmly attested traditions of headless ghosts and the Sleepy Hollow connection, it's no surprise that both Ken Anderson and Marc Davis created a number of some-assembly-required spirits for inclusion in what became the Haunted Mansion.  In fact, Anderson was going to make the Headless Horseman himself the star of the show in one version of his Ghost House.

That looks like it could be concept art for the 1949 film, but in fact it's Anderson's sketch of the Ghost House version.  The old pumpkin chucker wasn't going to have a monopoly on the gag, however. Anderson also wanted ghosts based on historical characters, and in one script he had Anne Boleyn running around screaming and falling down at the top of the stairs as her wailing head rolled on down toward us.  Bumpity bump.  (How cool is that.)  In other scripts it was a bride character who had a hard time keeping her noggin in place.  He also sketched what looks like a decapitated pirate.

When Marc Davis took charge of things, he apparently liked the Boleyn character and dreamed up a changing portrait in which her husband Henry VIII is haunted by an understandably crabby Anne.

In time it was decided not to populate the Mansion with historical or literary ghosts.  There were still plenty of decapitated spooks left in the suggestion box, however.  Why not?  They're creepy enough even without a famous name attached to them.  For his part, Davis thought it would be fun if the afterlife featured topless women:

Then there's the Hat Box Ghost, and maybe Madame Leota.  After all this, you might conclude that the decapitated knight was just another twist on the same gag.  If Anderson could have a pirate; Davis could have a knight, right?  No significance to the figure itself, right? I wouldn't be too sure about that.  If you start probing for the origins of the "decapitated knight" figure, you strike paydirt right away. He goes back to Celtic mythology and shows up in medieval literature, most famously Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which was written about 1350.  When I was an English major in college (which was also in the middle ages), everyone was expected to read Gawain at some point.  It was like Beowulf; like it or not, you couldn't avoid it.  Nowadays I don't know if Gawain is still a regular on the college reading lists.  Here's an illustration of the beheaded Green Knight found on the original manuscript of Gawain, probably the most direct ancestor of our DL version.  Note that he's holding it on his outstretched hand.

What's weird about the decapitated knight is that he isn't a ghostly figure by any stretch. He's part of a literary motif called the "Beheading Game."  Basically, it goes like this: A stranger shows up at the court and challenges them to behead him, on the condition that he be allowed to do the same at some future point in his own court. The hero of the tale accepts the challenge and beheads the stranger, who does not die but returns home. Later, the hero keeps his promise and goes to the foreign court, encountering numerous tests and trials in the process, opportunities for him to prove his chivalry, loyalty, honesty, etc. The stranger either lets him off the hook or goes ahead and beheads him, after which he cheerfully returns home, none the worse for wear. The most bizarre thing about this bizarre motif is how popular it was. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the most famous example, but the same motif is used in other medieval poems and romances going back to the 8th century—which is basically the same thing as saying that no one knows how old it is, since we start running out of literary sources about that point. Since the beheadings don't kill anybody in these stories, the presence of the beheading game immediately signals that the literature you're reading is fantasy or myth. Like I said, a popular interpretation is that it goes back to pagan Celtic mythology, probably something about the turning of the year, as the new year slays the old year, only to be slain himself after the passing of a year. Naturally, Freud has his own ideas what this head chopping is all about, and there is no lack of other interpretations.  Sir Gawain is amenable to a Christian reading, for example. Point is, the decapitated knight as a fixture in Western consciousness is not rooted in ghost tales at all but in myth and fantasy. In his origins, he was not a frightening figure. Marc Davis and the Decapitated Knight Maybe it's the fact that the knight is not just another random candidate for the "decapitated ghost" gag but the tip of a much bigger and older cultural iceberg that explains Marc Davis's unusual attachment to the character.  One might even say stubborn attachment, for when you see the knight in his current graveyard setting you are seeing Marc's fourth attempt to get him into the Mansion.  I'm not sure of the order of the other three attempts, so the following account is a little arbitrary as far as sequence is concerned, although there are a few flimsy clues. In what may be the original concept, Marc presented the knight as a very fierce, stand-alone character.  Notice the dead guy in the background.  Don't be that guy.  

Tender is the knight—NOT. After it was decided that the graveyard scene should be a jumpin' jamboree and not a horror show (in no small measure due to Davis's own influence), it must have been plain that this scary dude was not going to be invited.  They put this artwork on a postcard eventually, and the caption writer practically admits that this portrait is out of step:

(If I were you I wouldn't put too much weight on that "1964" date.  Postcard captions are not too reliable.) Steeerike One!

Like I say, Davis evidently liked the character and re-submitted him as a possible hitchhiking ghost.

But the HHG gag that they ended up using plays off of the many urban legends about hitchhiking ghosts, who are never terribly distant in time from the unlucky folk who pick them up. You never hear about ghostly hitchhikers who are Roman soldiers or medieval monks, do you?  For one thing, you wouldn't understand their language.  The three HHG's in the HM are ambiguous: they are certainly a little old-fashioned looking, but not figures from remote antiquity. The decapitated knight wouldn't work as a HHG. Steeerike Two! Well, goshdang it, how about the decapitated knight as an opera singer?  Yeah, that's it, an opera singer.

This 1968 drawing is labeled as an opera scene.  Get it? "a knight at the opera."  Oh, that Marc!  This one may be his third attempt since it seems like it got a little further in the process: there's a maquette figure of the knight.

The problem, of course, is that a much funnier opera pair also emerged from Marc's pencil, and there was no doubt who would get the gig.

Steeerike Three! But Marc was not going to give up on the DK.  Come on, think.  There must be some way to get him in there.  What to do, what to do.... *lightbulb* Hey, wait a sec.  Somewhere in that thick pile of HM ideas there's this concept of a pair of ghosts, the Jailer and the Prisoner...

The jailer is already implicitly an executioner as well, what with that mask and all.  Well, why not make him specifically a headsman?  He could hold a keyring in one hand, and an axe in the other.  That's it: make the duo a trio, with the central character relating to the one character as his jailer and to the other character as his executioner. And so it was.

By the way, can someone explain to me why he's always called the "headless knight"?  What's that thing he's got in his hand?

Originally Posted: Wednesday, July 7, 2010 Original Link: [x]

[voltkaizer]

I’ve been tagged by my dear friend @hopefulencounter . Despite being quite reserved 99.7% of time, I thought it might be fun go on and give this one a try. So, let’s gooo~.

Nickname: V-Phantom(Z) / “V”

Gender: Male

Star Sign: Capricorn (like Shura or El Cid)

Height: 1.69 m / (roughly) 5'6’’

Time: …of the Oath?

Ha ha ha hah! Just kiddin’, I know you were asking for this Time all along. :3

Birthday: January 9th

Favorite Band(s): Helloween, JAM Project, Rhapsody (of Fire), Gamma Ray, Iron Maiden, Nightwish, Daft Punk, Edguy, Queen… amongnst many, many others.

Favorite Solo Artist(s): Ronnie James Dio (R.I.P., dear master), Hironobu Kageyama, Weird Al Yankovic, Danny Baranowsky, Yuzo Koshiro, Christopher Lee, (R.I.P., glorious metal knight) amongst many, many other awesome people.

Song Stuck In My Head: Cry Thunder, by Dragonforce… Jump Up, Super Star!, from Super Mario Odyssey’s OST.

Last Movie I Watched: Hmmm… That depends.

From start to end –> Spiderman: Homecoming

Only certain fragments and key-scenes –> Saint Seiya: Evil Goddess Eris

Last Show I Watched: One Punch Man, Spanish dubbed version.

When Did I Create My Blog: Around the 4 or 5 months after Undertale became super-popular, but it didn’t became a proper blog until late April 2017.

What Do I Post: Mostly reblogs about anything and everything I like. If you like Mechas/Giant Robots, Kaijuu/Giant Monsters (and other awesome monsters in general), videogames (specially indie games and Nintendo stuff), Knights of the Zodiac, (and knights and chivalry in general) Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, (and all kinds of weird films and series) excellent movies of all kinds, (specially sci-fi, animation and cult-classics) beautiful women, awesome and/or beautiful music, funny images/comics, badass artwork, cute artwork, (and cute stuff in general) inspiring stuff, heartwarming stuff, overall positivity and anything/everything in between… odds are you might find something to like around here.

Last Thing I Googled: A whole bunch of the songs linked on this very questionnaire.

Do You Have Other Blogs: Yes. My Animal Crossing’s blog, ( @acnl-claytown ) and a minor side-blog I use to post/archive short videos I enjoy and which I might want to share. ( @videoclip-vault )

Do You Get Asks: On my main blog? Not really. Though, I get some on my AC:NL’s blog from time to time.

Why Did You Choose This Blog Name: Kind of my default online-moniker, with an extra Z as a not so subtle nod to Mazinger Z.

Blogs You Are Following: 269

Followers: 86. All legit ones, I hope; I always try to block and report the spam(-pr0n) blogs/bots as soon as they arrive.

Favorite Colors: Sky-Blue and Royal Purple.

Average Hours of Sleep: I try to get at least 7 hours of continuous sleep, with maybe one nap or two sprinkled through the day.

Lucky Number: 7

Instruments: None… yet.

What Am I Wearing: Black t-shirt, blue jeans, white socks.

How Many Blankets I Sleep With: Two.

Dream Job: Mech/Super-Robot Pilot or Outer Space Explorer. :3

Now, if you mean actually attainable and realistic jobs on this current world and times: Maybe something artistic that could allow me to do lots of creative writing, like book author or song-writer.

Dream Trip: I’d love to go on a globetrotting tour through Europe (with Greece being a particular point of interest for both my most likely travel companion and myself) at some point in the near future.

Favourite Food: Hamburgers, hands-down. Ice-cream when it comes to desserts.

Nationality: Mexican.

Favourite Song Now: Darn… too many favorites from which to choose. (x_x) Though, you can’t ever go wrong with Keeper of the Seven Keys by Helloween, or Pollyanna from Earthbound’s soundtrack.

Tag 30 people: Hmmm… Those are too many people. (._.)U I’ll just tag 7 super-cool mutuals: @deskmanic | @mayor-petal | @blue-sun-king | @artsy-fairy | @kafkiandante | @ryusei-is-my-bro | @flowerylogic ; and cordially invite them to take the questionnaire. Of course, feel free to decline if you have already done this one, and/or if you’d prefer not to do so.

I wish them, and to anyone reading this, an excellent day. V-Phantom, logging out.

[theultravioletcatastrophe]

Well, I guess it’s about time I did another

EARL’S ANIME ROUNDUP

My thoughts on some recent anime below the cut. This is gonna be a long one, so skip it if you’re not really interested. I’ll put all the series I talk about in the tags, so if you see one that catches your interest, read on.

Okay, so. I’ve been watching a few different series lately, and almost all of them are frustrating me in some way or another. I like all of them, don’t get me wrong, it’s just... well, here’s my thoughts on all of them.

Hinako Note: This one is actually from last season, but I just got around to watching it recently. I’m 5 episodes in and so far, it’s a pretty cute show. It’s about a girl who grew up in the countryside and has a hard time talking to other people without freezing up (like, she literally turns into a scarecrow), so she decides to move to the big city and take up theater to help her overcome her shyness. This works out about as well as it sounds like it would, that is, not at all. She ends up living in this odd apartment/bookstore/cafe place, and she goes to high school with everyone else who lives/works there. I’m not gonna analyze this one too much; some of the reviews I’ve read have been like... people taking this WAY too seriously. Visually, it’s pretty good. Half the time the characters are all chibi/SD and the other half they’re normal. Also, the animators can’t quite seem to come to a decision about how big Hinako’s boobs are. Like, it’s really odd having blatant fanservice mixed in with cutesy moeblob animation. I’m not gonna complain, because the cutesy parts are cute and the fanservicey parts are nice to look at, but it’s just weird. The voice acting is, like virtually every Japanese production, quite good. There’s something about the voice acting industry in Japan that consistently produces high-quality work, as opposed to the anime dubbing studios here, which are almost all uniformly awful. (Just a heads up, I’m not going to mention the voice acting in any more of these series unless it really stands out as exceptional; for the most part, every anime series I’ve ever watched has had really high-quality voice acting.) The music is fine, I guess, it’s nothing noticeable, but the opening song is quite possibly one of the most ANNOYING SONGS IN ALL OF ANIME HISTORY. It’s so catchy and yet so irritating. The ending song is kinda like that too, there’s too many tempo and time changes and I usually like that sort of thing, so I don’t know why it bothers me so much. Anyway, overall this is a pretty good series for what it is, as long as you don’t take it too seriously. It’s cute, and I enjoy watching Hinako’s relationship with the other characters develop, along with her own development in overcoming her limitations and growing as a person. I give this one a 7/10.

Gamers!: THIS SHOW PHYSICALLY HURTS TO WATCH. Especially the last couple episodes. I watched episode 7 and my chest hurt from how hard I was cringing from secondhand embarrassment. I WANT TO PUNCH THESE STUPID KIDS INTO THE SUN. Okay, that’s not fair. Let me back up a bit. Gamers! appears to be a show about 5 high school kids in various interrelated relationships with one another, and about every single one of them fundamentally misunderstanding every single one of those relationships. It’s ostensibly about video games, too, but that seems like more of a side thing. There’s Keita, the main character; his love interest, Karen; his apparently best friend Tasuku; his maybe-but-maybe-not rival/friend Chiaki; and his possibly actual best friend Aguri. To really explain the plot of this show, I’m going to have to explain how all the characters relate to one another. I drew that stupid chart a while back but I don’t think anyone cared, and it was kind of just a shitpost anyway. So here we go: So Keita, we think, has a crush on Karen; she’s pretty and popular, and he is quite surprised to learn that she plays video games just as hardcore as he does (she’s actually quite a bit better than him). She invites him to join the school’s gaming club, but he turns her down for reasons he can’t quite explain. Karen ends up developing a huge crush on Keita, and neither of them seem to realize that the other reciprocates their feelings. This is because of the other three characters and their STUPID FUCKING MEDDLING. So Tasuku and Aguri are dating; their back story is kinda cute, but their present-day relationship is... practically non-existent? Like, dude, stop being your buddy’s wingman and actually hang out with your girlfriend. Keita and Aguri became friends because they wanted each other’s relationship advice, and now they hang out more than Aguri and her actual boyfriend. WHICH OF COURSE CAUSES MISUNDERSTANDINGS. Tasuku thinks Aguri is actually dating Keita; Aguri thinks Tasuku is actually dating Chiaki; Chiaki has a crush on Tasuku but can’t admit it; and Karen appears to be concerned that all the other girls are going to somehow take Keita away from her. In short, it’s a HUGE FUCKING MESS and it’s hard to watch sometimes, because all the characters invent these little fantasies about the others in their heads, and then act on the assumptions that those fantasies are actually how it is in reality, when usually it’s nearly the complete opposite. So everyone is blundering around not realizing what’s actually going on, and jumping at shadows that aren’t really there, and all of this could be resolved if theY WOULD JUST FUCKING TALK TO EACH OTHER FOR FIVE FUCKING MINUTES OH MY GOD WHY ARE THESE KIDS SO FUCKING STUPID AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Sorry, I get carried away. I really like this show and I want to see how it ends, but getting there is going to be a painful journey (though I hope that ultimately makes it more satisfying in the end). Technically it’s a decent enough show; the animation quality falters a bit sometimes, but overall everything looks good. I like the music in this series, and the eyecatches and end cards are all well done. I give it a 7/10 as well.

Hajimete no Gal: I’ll get this out of the way at the start: this is explicitly a fanservice anime. There’s no mistake about it, the story is kind of just a vehicle for fanservice. At least with this one, the story is good enough to make it seem like maybe it actually IS about the plot and the fanservice is just decoration, but I’m pretty sure this is primarily about the T&A. Also, if you’re watching it on Crunchyroll like I am, you have to put up with some TRULY ATROCIOUS CENSORSHIP. Like, some of the stuff they cover up with obnoxious censor bars is not even that bad. It makes it hard to watch sometimes, frankly, because it’s just SO ANNOYING. Like, slap an age restriction on it and call it a day, will ya? I’m an adult and I would like my “””adult””” content left intact, thank you. But hey, on to the plot. I think I described it a bit previously, but it’s about a totally normal high school boy named Junichi. His idiot friends dare him to ask out their school’s most prominent “gal,” Yukana. On a whim, she accepts his proposal, and the two become a couple. The series appears to be largely about the development of their relationship (which is actually quite sweet, as the two of them are both so innocent), and the actions of their friends, which seem to be focused on preventing said development. This show has both one of my favourite characters in all of anime, and one of my least favourite characters in all of anime. The former is Yukana; she’s kind-hearted and fun and sweet, and she is just stunningly gorgeous. Like, it’s pretty hard for me to think of a single anime character who I’d consider to be more beautiful than her. The latter is... well, I don’t remember his name and I don’t want to bother with looking it up, because I FUCKING HATE HIM. He is literally a pedophile. It is his sole defining character trait. Like, every time he opens his stupid mouth, it’s because he’s fantasizing about little girls. None of the other characters apparently find this disturbing; a couple of them have made offhand jokes about him going to jail, but that’s it. Nobody seems to think it’s creepy or anything. Fuck, in the most recent episode, one of the other characters HELPS HIM GET A PART-TIME JOB AT A DAYCARE. LIKE... NO. Anyway, the actual story, when we get to focus on it rather than fanservice or stupid side stories, is really cute and sweet. Junichi is, of course, completely clueless about girls and about relationships, and seeing him learn and grow and become a better boyfriend to Yukana is really sweet and endearing. He undergoes actual character development, which seems rare for this type of series. The animation is top-notch; excellent artwork throughout, and consistently excellent too (plus did I mention how gorgeous Yukana is?). I give this show an 8/10, mostly for Yukana because I love her.

Netsuzou Trap: You’ve seen me post about this one before. This one’s got fanservice too, but it’s less of a focus, it seems; it’s more of a relationship drama than anything else. It’s about two girls, Yuma and Hotaru, who have known each other since they were kids. Hotaru was always shy and reserved, and she got picked on quite a bit, and Yuma would always be there to rescue her. When they got to middle school, Hotaru really started coming out of her shell, and she became quite popular, especially with the boys. Flash forward to high school, where Yuma has her first boyfriend, and Hotaru is on Man # 63643846 or whatever. Yuma expresses nervousness about doing... y’know... THOSE kinds of things with her boyfriend, and so Hotaru is like “hey why don’t we practice with each other, that way it totally doesn’t count, right?” Predictably, this leads to Yuma falling in love with Hotaru, and vice versa, though neither of them will admit it to each other (Yuma seems to have trouble admitting it to herself as well). The series is basically about how the two girls are cheating on their boyfriends with each other. The title itself is kind of a pun; it’s usually stylized as “Netsuzou TRap”, with the letters NTR being short for the Japanese word “netorare,” which basically means “infidelity.” As the series progresses, it gets harder and harder for Yuma to continue denying her feelings for Hotaru; her boyfriend Takeda senses that something’s up and that she’s not really that into him, and decides to, ahem, give Yuma some time apart to think about things. He’s such a sweet guy; he goes out of his way to make Yuma comfortable, and even after their little falling-out, he remains friends with her even though it’s super awkward. He gets played like a fiddle by pretty much all the other characters in the series, and it’s kind of sad. Hotaru’s boyfriend Fujiwara, on the other hand, is a total asshole and I want him to die. He’s physically abusive to Hotaru, and attempts to emotionally manipulate pretty much everyone (he catches Yuma and Hotaru fooling around one day, and while he already knew something was going on, he knows that Takeda doesn’t, and he basically threatens to tell everyone what’s going on unless the girls let him join in the next time they do it). It’s kind of a... dirty series, I guess. Not dirty in the sense of, like, sexual stuff, although there is some of that. I mean it makes you feel dirty, you know? Like, it’s not always easy to watch. It’s kind of dark and depressing; it’s definitely way more of a drama than any of the other shows I’m watching this season. I’m extremely invested in it, though. I kinda got spoiled on how the manga turns out, and I really hope the anime doesn’t end the same way, because I will be super depressed if it does. Also, the episodes are all about 9 minutes long, as opposed to the more normal 23-ish minutes. At least one minute is taken up by both the opening and the ending (which both have EXCELLENT music, by the way), leaving you with about 7 minutes of actual content in each episode. This wouldn’t be bad if you were binge-watching the whole series all at once, but the episodes only come out once a week. Waiting 7 days for 7 minutes of content is SO AGGRAVATING. I give this series a 9/10, which apparently puts me in the minority on MAL, as the series only has an average rating of 5.65/10.

New Game!!: Note the two exclamation marks!! This means that it’s season two!! And thankfully, it appears to be exactly what us fans of the first season wanted: more of the same!! I’ll explain the background of season 1, since it’s pretty much required to explain season 2. Our protagonist is Aoba Suzukaze, who gives up going to art college to pursue her dream of working in the video game industry. She joins the company Eagle Jump, which produces her favourite video game series ever, Fairies Story. She dreams of being a character designer like her idol, Ko Yagami, who did the character designs for the original Fairies Story game. Imagine her surprise when she learns that not only will she be working on the third installment of the series, but that her boss is none other than Ko Yagami! The series is pretty much a standard slice-of-life show, although refreshingly, it’s about actual adults with actual jobs rather than being about high school students like EVERY GODDAMN OTHER slice-of-life anime out there. It follows Aoba and Ko and their co-workers at Eagle Jump, detailing the ins and outs of the industry, and the ups and downs they experience. Also there’s a lot of implied lesbians in this show. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single man in this entire series, except possibly for background characters. Every employee at Eagle Jump is a woman; the director for the Fairies Story series, Shizuku Hazuki, explicitly says that she only hires cute women for this exact reason. And while there are definite implied pairings in this show, you can ship anyone with pretty much anyone and it would work. Ah, the fanfic writers must love this show. I wouldn’t know; I don’t want to read any. ;_; Anyway, the second season focuses mostly on Aoba’s new job as the lead designer for a new IP the company is making. Nobody seems to be taking her seriously, though; even though Ko gets promoted to art director, they still ask her to do a bunch of the work that Aoba should be doing, apparently because they think Aoba’s not good enough. It’s partly about her struggle to have her voice heard and to be recognized as the talented designer she is, and partly about how these office dynamics put strain on everyone’s relationships (particularly Aoba and Ko, who are at this point pretty much officially a couple I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE) and just generally balancing work and life. It’s a cute series and it’s compelling for anyone who was a fan of the first season; like I said earlier, it’s a direct continuation, and is exactly more of the same. The characters grow and develop, of course, particularly Hifumi (aaaahhh I love her so much), but for the most part it’s familiar territory. The animation is good throughout, as well as the music. This one gets a 9/10 from me.

And that’s it! I’d love to go into detail in another post about the games I’ve been playing lately, but I’m tired and I’m going to bed shortly. Maybe I’ll do a games roundup later this week or perhaps next week (things are going to be busy with me for a while so I’m not going to be on much).

Have any questions or comments? Think my reviews suck? Want to discuss any of these series with me further? Let me know! Send me a message or an ask or whatever and let’s chat about it! :D

[firstladyoftherenaissance]

Movements, Periods, and Why They’re Misleading

     Art history at its most basic level — when you are first diving into it — is usually defined using movements or periods. My first two art history classes were surveys, split into Ancient to Medieval and Renaissance to Modern. The first class covered anything from Mesopotamia to Gothic cathedrals, while the second went from Giotto to Santiago Calatrava. When spanning such large time intervals, it can be convenient, and at times necessary, to split art into separate pieces. Unfortunately, history isn’t that clean or simple.

     After finishing my first survey classes and beginning upper-level art history courses, I noticed that these periods and movements can actually be detrimental to someone’s understanding of a specific piece or artist. Not all movements are the same, so I found it helpful to split them into two categories: true movements and posthumous movements.

     To clarify, when I refer to art movements or periods, I’m talking about things like the Renaissance, Gothic, or Mesopotamian terms that you’ll likely be forced to memorize for your first few art history exams. Disclaimer: movement and period are two different things, although I’ve honestly never read or been told the difference between the two. I’m going to use them both in this post because the concept applies to both, but please keep in mind that they are two different things.

     Let’s start with true movements, since I feel this is the easiest one to explain. True movements are ones actually known to and explored by the artists involved. That is, the artists either created this movement consciously or actively participated in it. For example, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, known more simply as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a movement founded by three artists — William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriele Rossetti. The group called themselves the Pre-Raphaelites because they were actively rejecting the classical ideals that artists like Raphael had popularized. The group had doctrines and guidelines, and, although each artist had a unique style, their works are connected by this established brotherhood. If you asked Dante Gabriele Rossetti about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he would be able to connect himself to it.

left: The Awakening Conscience (1853), William Holman Hunt / right: sign marking the home where the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded

     On the other hand, we have posthumous movements. Posthumous movements are movements that were applied after a style or period had developed and matured. One major example of this is the Renaissance. One major deceptive aspect of the Renaissance is its time span. While the Pre-Raphaelites’ birth can be narrowed down a to a single time and place — Millais’s house, 1848 — the Renaissance is not so easily pinned down. While it is usually sourced back to 14th century Florence, Dante Alighieri, the author of what is perhaps the most important work of Renaissance literature, was already writing in the late 1200s. Cimabue lived during the 1200s, and although he is not usually considered an artist of the Renaissance (he is usually relegated to the Proto-Renaissance period), he trained Giotto, one of the first great Renaissance painters. While this may seem unimportant, it underlines one of the biggest issues with posthumous movements — they’re ambiguous, with no clear beginning or end. They tend to blend together. The end of the Renaissance is just as ambiguous — it could be at the end of the 1400s, when France invaded Northern Italy and Savonarola took over Florence. However, the ideals of the Italian Renaissance had, by now, spread north, where the Northern Renaissance was in full swing. Most people think of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci when discussing this period, but, in reality, the Renaissance existed long before and far after either of these artists lived. There is no single meeting or doctrine that ties together the Renaissance. Some common themes do exist — humanism, balance, and an interest in the classical periods or Rome and Greece. Yet, if you compare the art of Giotto, Botticelli, and Michelangelo, you get drastically different styles. How can all three belong to the same movement or period?

left: Birth of Venus (1486), Sandro Botticelli / center: Libyan Sybil (1508-12), Michelangelo Buonarroti / right: Lamentation (c.1305), Giotto

^three different artists with three different styles, all filed under “Renaissance”

     If you traveled back in time and asked Michelangelo about the Renaissance, he would be thoroughly confused. He’d also probably punch you in the face, because that’s what Michelangelo does. The point is, he wouldn’t have gone to the local Renaissance café to order a Renaissance sandwich to eat while he contemplated his Renaissance painting, because the term Renaissance didn’t exist. He might not even have considered himself to be part of the same movement as Giotto. The word “Renaissance” was introduced in the 1800s, as historians used it to describe the “re-birth” of classical ideals. The word itself is French, which should be a red flag since the Renaissance started in Italy, not France (make sure you remember that the next time you visit the Louvre). Renaissance is simply a posthumous term we use to describe a wide range of time; it’s similar to the way we use Mesopotamian as a blanket term with a dozen or so different societies.

     One last important thing to note when talking about posthumous movements and periods is that, since they are not clearly defined, they tend to overlap. There is no date when Romanesque ended and Gothic began, or when the Renaissance died and Baroque rose gloriously from the ashes. Not every Gothic cathedral is as clearly recognizable as Amiens — many have Romanesque elements. The Renaissance slowly developed out of medieval art, and, even if you split it into Proto-, Early, and High Renaissance, you still find many artists with differing styles that really have nothing to do with each other.

left: Speyer Cathedral (1106) / center: Durham Cathedral (1018) / right:  Notre Dame de Paris (1345)

^this image shows a typical Romanesque nave (left, round archest, simpler decoration), a gothic nave (right, pointed arches, more decoration), and a nave that’s somewhere in between. Gothic architecture didn’t start overnight.

     Why is it important to distinguish between posthumous and true movements? Well, when discussing the art of Dante Gabriele Rossetti, it would be beneficial to mention the Pre-Raphaelites. It would probably be quite detrimental to your argument to avoid it. However, when it comes to posthumous movements, trying to connect the artist or artwork to the movement too much can lead you down the wrong path. Just because two artists painted during the same time period doesn’t mean their art has anything to do with the other. Take Botticelli, for example. One of his most famous paintings is the Birth of Venus. If you were discussing it in a paper, it might be important to say that it was painted during a time period known as the Renaissance, which was marked by rising interests in classical ideals (hence the mythology), balance (contrasting convex and concave poses of the figures), and humanism (it has been often noted that Venus has quite a few flaws-she is human and perfectly imperfect). After that, you would stop referring to the overall ideas of the Renaissance. Now, you need to start asking questions centered around Botticelli and this painting. Who commissioned it? Why did Botticelli paint it? Where was it meant to be displayed? How does all of this affect your understanding of the painting? Too many times I’ve seen papers that generalized a work of art or misinterpreted it because the author focused too much on a movement or period that the artist really wouldn’t have even known about. Of course, Botticelli was exposed to other “Renaissance” artists and their ideals, but he wasn’t truly a “Renaissance” artist because the term didn’t exist while he was alive.

     Although I used the Pre-Raphaelites and the Renaissance as my main examples, this difference between true and posthumous movements can also be motivated by racism, especially by the earliest art historians that created the art history canon. I got out my Gardner’s Art Through the Ages (10th edition), which is the most popular art history textbook, one that I read had been praised for including non-western art from its first edition way back in 1926, and I tried to see how exactly posthumous movements and periods compared between western and non-western art. Apart from a few all-encompassing chapters, I counted 18 chapters about western art and five about non-western. Here are some examples of the western art chapters:

Chapter 20: Fifteenth-Century Art in Northern Europe and Spain

Chapter 21: Fifteenth-Century Italian Art: The Early Renaissance

Chapter 22: Sixteenth-Century Italian Art: The High Renaissance and Mannerism

Chapter 23: Sixteenth-Century Art in Northern Europe and Spain

These chapters are far-reaching, but split centuries by region. Although none of these are true movements, I felt it important to show how these four chapters split the “Renaissance” in order to compare to the non-Western chapters.

While these chapters are generalizing, the textbook tries to explain the entire history of art in (exactly) 1200 pages. I can see why they didn’t want to get too specific. On the other hand, here are a few of the non-Western chapters:

Chapter 2: Ancient Near-Eastern Art

This chapter covers 10 different civilizations, from the Sumerians to the Sasanians (that’s around 4500 BCE to 651 CE).

Chapter 3: Egyptian Art

This one spans from the Pre-Dynastic period to the New Kingdom, which is about 3,000 years.

Chapter 4: Islamic Art

Chapter 15-16: Art of China, Korea, and Japan

Chapter 18: Literally all of Africa

Posthumous movements/periods on steroids. I’ve found textbooks tend to generalize more often if the content is non-western. Before you ask, yes, art is universal. It’s not like Africa wasn’t producing works worthy of being in a textbooks, but more on that later. It seems obvious that an artist in the Ashikaga period of Japan was not producing or conferring with an artists in the Asuka period, but when people generalize Japanese art by encompassing it all together, that can be a misunderstanding. I’m not saying you can’t say you “enjoy Japanese art”, but the next time I read “this piece is influence by Japanese art” I’m going to scream, because literally which century/artist/work are you referring to??

     The biggest discrepancy is that in non-western chapters, art movements and periods are so wide-spanning that they can cover the entire history of a continent. This kind of generalization is rampant among non-western art, and, although it is present in western art as well, it tends to be for smaller extents of time.

     In the same way that Renaissance is not a term that 14-15th century Italian artists would have used, Mesopotamian is not a term that Sumerian or Assyrian artists would refer to themselves as, in part because the word itself is Greek and wasn’t used (or at least recorded) until over 4000 years after the Sumerians.

In short, when talking about art history, don’t use periods or movements like Renaissance or Mesopotamian as absolute. Even Ancient Greece is usually split in Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. Remember that, although it is tempting, Gothic, Romanesque, Baroque, Renaissance, and so on and so forth were not what artists would have described themselves as (if they even considered themselves artists, but that’s for another day). It’s helpful when describing overall ideals, but, even within true movements, each artist has their own individual style.