#she’s present in the star metaphor guys

[raptorwozhere]

‼️MINOR SPOILER WARNING‼️

i loved this movie so much you guys

[kaibutsushidousha]

Danganronpa has too many characters so I'll be tackling the "How'd you render their names in Ace Attorney style of name translation" question one game at a time. Here's for DR1.

Please send different ideas if you have them.

Makoto Naegi

Calqued meaning for Naegi: Sapling

Calqued meaning for Makoto: Honesty

Explicit functionality: In Ishimaru's introduction, he praises the meaning of Naegi's given name, so it must explicitly represent a virtue Ishimaru believes in.

Implicit functionality for Naegi: The meaning of Naegi contributes to giving off the image that he's Small Guy Little the Most Harmless Creature In The World. Also ties in with Makoto's and Komaru's image colors being green and brown.

Implicit functionality for Makoto: Truth-adjacent name because he's an investigative VN protagonist.

Realism level: Both names exist.

Futureproofing needs: Naegi is a surname he shares with Komaru, so it needs to be a name that also works for her. Swapping name and surname to get something more usable is often an option but not here. Whatever Naegi becomes needs to still be the surname because of Komaru.

Explicit functionality is always the priority, so Makoto needs to become something like Ernest or Truman. Truman is a name that feels like it needs to be saved for V3, but at first glance, there isn't anyone there who really fits it.

Bush is a real name that connects the small and the green, but it doesn't give off a tone of harmlessness thanks to a few Georges. Stuart Little has me under the impression that Little is also a real surname but it's missing the green aspect. Green is another real name with the opposite problem.

Out of all our options, I'd go with Truman Green for our protagonist, mainly because Green sounds convenient for Komaru's naming needs. I won't settle on a name for Komaru ahead of DRAE's turn because this sounds like a bonus challenge more difficult than any of the mandatory tasks, but at least I'm confident I won't need to come back and change this one later.

Sayaka Maizono

Calqued meaning for Maizono: Dance Garden

Calqued meaning for Sayaka: Not determinable because Sayaka doesn't have kanji but Sayaka generally means dazzling, clear, or audible and her DR2 swordsmanship scroll present spells her name with kanji meaning "Scabbard Flower".

Explicit functionality: A sword-themed present in DR2 is named after her.

Implicit functionality for Maizono: A dance garden sounds like a metaphorical name for a stage.

Implicit functionality for Sayaka: An intriguing mix of direct meanings and ironies. Dazzling alludes to the classic metaphor of idols as shining stars, clear is ironic with how she hides her feelings most of the time, and audible is both. Direct in how Japan is listening to her songs and ironic in how she became an idol because her father wouldn't give her any attention.

Realism level: Fictional but so believable that another game already used this exact name 12 years before Danganronpa did (that's what DR2's sword scroll is referencing)

This is a rare case where we can ignore the explicit functionality if we want to. Claire is a popular given name that conveniently covers all meanings of Sayaka, makes a musical reference through Claire de Lune (another case of a name that would hit differently in V3 but doesn't fit anyone in its cast), and could be used in a sword flash allusion. Dance is a real English surname but it feels too untouched, so I'd Frenchify it into Danse, matching with the French origins of Claire. Claire Danse it is.

Leon Kuwata

Calqued meaning for Kuwata: Mulberry fields

Calqued meaning for Reon/Leon: Clever Gratitude

Explicit functionality for Kuwata: He says in a Free Time Event that he wants to be like the star vocalist Kuwata Keisuke and not like the baseball star Kuwata Masumi.

Explicit functionality for Leon: Needs to be mistaken with numbers when written upside-down, preferably in a foreign alphabet.

Implicit functionalities: Honestly, none. Both names are very in-your-face about why they were chosen.

Realism level: Leon written in kanji is a name that exists nowadays but I can't find evidence that it predates Danganronpa.

The Kuwatas quote can be done with Axl Rose and Pete Rose.

A lazy solution to Leon is keeping it as Leon and helping the puzzle's difficulty level by making Claire Danse's calligraphy suck. There's no authentic way to redo that puzzle, but the closest option is having her write Greek. It's an alphabet recognizable enough to a Western audience even nowhere nearly as recognizable as the Roman alphabet is to a post-Americanization Japanese audience.

Our Greek alphabet tools are 1=I or ι =I or i, 2=ζ=z, 3=ξ=x, 3=Ε or ε=E or e, 4=η=h or e or i, 4=Π or π=P or p, 6=an ugly φ=f, 8=an ugly Θ or θ=th, 0=Ο or ο=O or o, and 0=σ=s. That gives us genuinely subtle and believable options like Fox spelled 306 or Seth spelled 038.

Seth makes for the better puzzle, but going on vibes and the believability level of a Japanese Leon, I'll go with Fox Rose.

Chihiro Fujisaki

Calqued meaning for Fujisaki: Blossom of False Binarism

Calqued meaning for Chihiro: Thousand Depths (poetic term for "1.8288 kilometers")

Explicit functionality: Gender-neutral name.

Implicit functionality for Fujisaki: The unique kanji choice for the name is probably there for the computer theme since TRUE/FALSE responses and binary codes are popular programming motifs.

Definitely accidental functionality for Fujisaki: The Japanese word for nonbinary has nothing to do with this, but it's curiously serendipitous that Fujisaki has a negative binary in his name. A strong irony since a huge part of his personal tragedy happened because his gender views were extremely binary.

Probably accidental functionality for Chihiro: Chihiro was originally a male name but became more commonly perceived as a feminine name since the release of the film Spirited Away. Assuming Danganronpa 1 is set in 2012, Fujisaki would be 8 years old when the movie came out, and that could be what inspired his idea in-universe.

Realism level: Fujisaki is a real name when written with kanji meaning "Cape of Wisterias". The "False Dualities" version is Danganronpa-original. Chihiro is a common name, however.

Futureproofing needs: Chiaki is named after him, so it's better to make the decision for Chiaki now. Chihiro means "thousand depths" as a poetic unit of distance and Chiaki means "thousand autumns" as a poetic unit of time. The space and time duality is not relevant to their characters (it's a false binarism, if you will) so it's only important here that they have subtly contrasting names.

Chihiro is hard to narrow down because any unisex name technically fits. Cody is a unisex name that covers Fujisaki's computer motifs, so that would allow the surname to be entirely dedicated to matching Nanami's but that would just shift the "can't narrow it down" problem to the surname.

Wikipedia's page for unisex names has this nifty list of names grouped by theme, so we can pick Chihiro and Chiaki as a pair of unisex names from the same group. I can't explain why, but having them both named after months, birds, or Kingdom Hearts feels right.

Month route: I'll go with August for Chihiro since that works best with Chihiro's masculine origins. Chiaki could be October to nod to the autumn meaning of her original name but that's not really relevant and October is really ugly as a person's name. May works for her because aside from being a month, it's a word associated with potential.

Bird route: Phoenix works for Chihiro because Alter-Ego is sorta like a revival. Phoenix is also a funny nod to how Chihiro is Mia Fey's name. Chiaki since the name Nanami reflects the tropicality of Jabberwock Island, she should have a tropical bird name and Starling is the only tropical bird name that doesn't suck as a human name as far as I can remember.

Kingdom Hearts route: The Nanami name kinda dictates that Chiaki becomes Kairi here, which works for me, but I'm not feeling any of the Chihiro options. I'm not calling him Marluxia.

Pheonix Pewter feels like the best option, stealing an idea for a computer-themed name from Uchikoshi, but going with the bird route locks me out of using bird names for anyone other than Fujisaki and Nanami. That's a huge resource to lose. I gotta think about the name economy to continue this project long term. On the other hand, losing access to month names for everyone else is not a considerable loss. I'll stick with August Pewter for now but I might come back to this one later.

Touko Fukawa

Calqued meaning for Fukawa: Rotten River

Calqued meaning for Touko: Winter Girl

Calqued meaning for Shou: Fly

Explicit functionality for Shou: The investigators gave a generic male name to the serial killer because they hadn't figured out she's a girl.

Explicit functionality for Fukawa: Shou makes a pun with the name Fukawa since she's fujoshi (lit. "rotten girl").

Intertextuality for Touko: Fukawa's name, talent, and braids are references to Tooko Amano, the protagonist of the Book Girl series.

Implicitly functionalities: None that I can think of. I guess Touko is not a sunny name so it doesn't clash with her gloomy vibe.

Most likely accidental functionality for Touko: The name Touko means "Winter Girl" and the name Fuyuhiko means "Winter Boy" but they don't have any onscreen interactions or major parallels.

Realism level: Fukawa exists with different kanji (more commonly meaning "deep river") but the Rotten River version is made up. Derogatory words don't tend go in real surnames. Touko is a super common name for girls born in the winter.

I'll start with the obvious. Genocide Jack does everything that needs to be with Geno's name. The loc also invents "Jill" because she's a girl but I'll ignore that and keep our Jack as comfortable with her ostensibly masculine name as she is in the original. Now let’s go to what needs the bare minimum of original thought.

Touko can stay as Winter, but I'd prefer using winter in another language just to be less lazy about it. Zima is winter in most Slavic languages and is a real surname. We can work with this if we make our first swap here. Derive the family name from the name Touko and the given name from Fukawa.

So we need a given name that works with the fujoshi pun, which came to me surprisingly easy. Blair -> BL-er. The Blair Witch Project being a big and influential thing also helps putting the necessary gloomy vibes to Blair Zima's name.

Byakuya Togami

Calqued meaning for Togami: Ten Gods

Calqued meaning for Byakuya: White night (as in the astronomical term)

Explicit functionalities: None as far as I remember.

Implicit functionalities: Sounding fucking awesome.

Realism level: Both extremely rare names that technically exist.

This is honestly a little too anything goes, which makes it more difficult than having tight specifications to work with. I'll tentatively go with Artorius Decatheo. Artorius is tryhard version of Arthur, so there's the kingly image association, and shares its word root with Arctic, making a nod the place where the midnight sun (byakuya) happens. Decatheo is just Ten Gods in Greek.

Mondo Oowada

Calqued meaning for Oowada: Fields of Yamato

Calqued meaning for Mondo: Crest Earth

Calqued meaning for Daiya: Big A (as in the letter A from Roman alphabet)

Explicit functionality for Daiya and Mondo: Daiya's gang was named Crazy Diamond after Daiya (Dia) and Mondo (Mond).

Intertextuality for Daiya and Mondo: Their gang name alludes to Crazy Diamond, the Stand of Josuke Higashikata, a character who emulates Japanese delinquent aesthetics in homage to a stranger who saved his life.

Implicit functionality for Oowada: Bousouzoku were a particularly ultranationalistic subculture and having surname containing Japan's "most Japanese" name is probably supposed to reflect that.

Implicit functionality for Daiya and Mondo: A big stereotype about Japanese delinquents from the 90s and 2000s is that they later had kids with ridiculous names often formed by slapping rare kanji together to forcibly form an English word with it. Daiya and Mondo are key examples of these tacky and stupid "son of ex-delinquents" name.

Realism level: Oowada is not a too uncommon surname. Daiya and Mondo really sound made up but Kodaka says he studied with real people named that.

Ok, this one is extremely Japanese both in content and structure. There are too many factors to reasonably really on easy equivalence strategies, we have to play bold. I can exploit the delinquent trend of forcing English names into Japanese and flip it to represent another subculture, albeit a much younger and still developing one. I'm talking about punk weebs. We solve the Jojo reference issue by directly naming Daiya "Jotaro" and Mondo "Josuke".

Special thanks to the punk guy in my city with the baby named Sasuke. You help me here in a manner very fittingly similar to how the brothers Daiya and Mondo from Kodaka's school helped him.

Now for Oowada I don't have a neat solution. American biker gangs had the same origins as their Japanese counterpart (WWII veterans failing to properly reintegrate post-war) and the consequences of that to the subculture (macho patriotism) were the same. But American bikers love using hell and crime as motifs in their names and aesthetics, and somehow Hellman is a real and common surname, so I suppose Josuke Hellman fits. I'm waiting for better ideas in the comments.

The gang name can stay Crazy Diamond in theory, but I think I'd prefer renaming it to Shining Diamond as jokeful nod to Jojo's silly localization practices. I also considered renaming it to Star Platinum since Daiya is Jotaro Hellman now, but I think keeping the name Crazy Diamond-derived is a better fit with how Daiya created the gang for Mondo's sake. (And, on a meta level, with how Mondo/Josuke is the main character among the two)

Kiyotaka Ishimaru

Calqued meaning for Ishimaru: The Stone

Calqued meaning for Kiyotaka: Many Summers Purified

Explicit functionality: None unless you count the Ishida thing.

Implicit functionality for Ishimaru: The Stone carries an idea of solidity and rigidness, which is reflected in Ishimaru's personality.

Implicit functionality for Kiyotaka: Pure vibes, but I think the names Kiyotaka, Toranosuke, and to a lesser extent Takaaki, are all names you can tell come from a traditional family.

Implicit functionality for Ishida: Both Oowada and Ishimaru are decently uncommon names, but when they combine, they form the ridiculously common name Ishida and that's the kind of name joke Kodaka likes a lot.

Realism level: See above for the surname and fusion name. Kiyotaka is a name that exists with different kanji but the version meaning "Many Summers Purified" is unique to Danganronpa.

Starting from the disclaimer: I will not be using the meaning of Ishimaru's name as an excuse to call him Dwayne or Johnson. It's tempting but I promise to restrain myself.

Anyway, the parts using his real names are pretty loose, so we start from Ishida joke as the best place to narrow things down. Oowada being Hellman could have easily segued into a generic surname ending in -man, but in English, it's a lot more natural for people to introduce themselves by their given names, hence why Ishida became Kiyondo into the loc, so I'll work with their first names too.

We're obviously out of options for a notoriously generic English name ending in -suke, so we'll have to take the Jo- from Josuke (Mondo). Since I have Jojo in the brain right now thanks to Mondo, the easiest solution is merge this Jo into Kiyotaka=Nathan to form Jonathan. It works pretty neatly.

The surname doesn't matter as much so I'll take the lazy route on this one. Stone is a real English surname, so The Stone will be Stone. Nathan Stone, that's our guy.

Hifumi Yamada

Calqued meaning for Yamada: Mountain Fields

Calqued meaning for Hifumi: One Two Three

Explicit functionalities: None as far as I remember.

Implicit functionality for Yamada: Satou, Tanaka, and Yamada are the most common Japanese surnames (with I believe Yamada being at the first place at the time of DR1's release), so they're often used in fiction for jokes about names being generic, like how English does with Smith and Doe. Hifumi Yamada's case is about Kodaka liking to pair the goofiest first names with the most generic surnames.

Implicit functionality for Hifumi: His pen name as a doujin author is The Alpha and the Omega, which reflects his name being the first 3 numbers and his birthday being the last day of the year (which is also written using the numbers one, two, and three, but let's not make this harder than it needs to be).

Realism level: 100% the name here with the biggest chance of existing.

Alph Smith is the obvious perfect pick but it feels too easy and too on-your-face. I'd rather go with Uno Smith, that's a real name apparently.

Celestia Ludenberg

Calqued meaning for Yasuhiro: Cheap and Widespread

Calqued meaning for Taeko: Girl of Many Blessings

Explicit functionality for Celestia Ludenberg: Racefaking as white European so poorly that any random shmuck instantly recognizes her name as borderline parodical.

Explicit functionality for Yasuhiro: Her family name is homophonous with Hagakure's given name.

Implicit functionality for Yasuhiro: Cheap and Widespread represents the featureless normie she originally was and the total antithesis of who she wants to be.

Implicit functionality for Taeko: It alludes to how she describes her luck as the active crux of her talent, which ties into [long ramble about her parallels with Makoto].

Realism level: Celestia Ludenberg is a joke of a name even for in-universe standards. Taeko Yasuhiro is perfectly believable, if a bit uncommon.

Celestia Ludenberg is perfectly fine as it is. Grace and Hannah are names meaning something close enough to the "blessings" in Taeko. I'd favor Hannah because Kodaka went out his way to pick the rarer name Taeko over the common Megumi which would have had the same implicit functionality.

Now Yasuhiro needs to be both a surname and a male given name. Luckily, English is a language full of those. As you see below, the meanings of Hagakure's name don't matter that much, so I want prioritize "cheap and widespread" as the core idea of their shared name. This immediately brings me to the names Norman and Jean-Eric, but neither of them works as surnames or fit Hagakure's vibes. Meanwhile, Mondaine looks too French for its purpose being contrary to Celes's ideals and maybe doesn't work as a given name.

Cutting a lot of unproductive thought short, trying to look at things primarily from the "cheap and widespread" angle gave me nothing, but giving more consideration to the meaning and realism level of Hagakure's name, I found a satisfactory answer. I'll explain my logic better on Hagakure's side, but my adaptation of Taeko Yasuhiro is Hannah Arcadian. Arcadism is about romanticizing the farm life of humble peasants, so it fits well as the antithesis to her Celes identity built upon romantization of the castle life of opulent nobles.

Yasuhiro Hagakure

Calqued meaning for Hagakure: Concealed by Leaves (more notably, this is the title of a 1716 book historically considered the most influential manual on the samurai lifestyle)

Calqued meaning for Yasuhiro: Tranquility Comparable to the Lü Musical Scale (the equivalent to this in Western music notation is the Myxolidian scale)

Explicit functionality for Yasuhiro: His given name is homophonous with Taeko's family name.

Implicit functionalities: Both of his names leave a strong impression. Motifs very specific to Japanese history, delivered with distinct and powerful vibes of antiquity. Yasuhiro Hagakure is a name that suggests deep roots. I have a good post about how roots relate to Hagakure's and Celes' characters, you should check it.

Realism level: lol, lmao even. Hagakure is not a real family name. Yasuhiro is a very common given name with dozens of versions, but Hagakure's version makes a point to use the most ancient kanji it can fit, genuinely Heian poetry stuff, creating a version of Yasuhiro that doesn't exist in real life.

Well, I already told you about Arcadian. It's a name that fits in the "tranquility" meaning of Yasuhiro, and the name's overall appeal to classic literature associations to the point of unrealism. It doesn't tie too greatly with his character, but neither does the Japanese original. I'm pretty sure this name was chosen for Celes first and then just randomly slapped appropriate 10th century kanji.

That said, Yasuhiro Hagakure manages to have the most distinctively Japanese name in the series that has a guy named Korekiyo in it, so I think it would be appropriate for his Americanized counterpart to still have one (1) Japanese name. I considering picking a notable family name from the Heian period, maybe Abe or Minamoto, perhaps even Tsuchimikado in reference to Tsuchimikado Yasuhiro, but ultimately I decided to go with Arcadian Emishi to value Hagakure's identity as a hairy man of Touhoku.

Sakura Oogami

Calqued meaning for Oogami: Great God

Calqued meaning for Sakura: Not determinable because Sakura doesn't have kanji but Sakura generally means cherry tree or cherry blossom.

Explicit functionality: People familiar with her martial artist carreer are more likely to know her by the nickname Ogre, derived from the Ooga part of her real name.

Implicit functionality for Oogami: Sounding fucking awesome.

Implicit functionality for Sakura: Cherry blossoms are the flowers most commonly associated with refined femininity in Japanese flower language and that's a really important part of Sakura's identity. The use of hiragana instead of kanji also adds to the image of traditional femininity.

Realism level: Sakura is an extremely common name. Oogami is one of Japan's oldest surnames, tied to an ancient clans of priests and sorceres dedicated to worship of Ookuninushi, but the surname is rare nowadays because most of the clan changed their surname to Miwa in 648. Even then, I'd be surprised if no real person was ever named Sakura Oogami.

This was easier than I thought. Mary naturally comes an answer for Sakura's equivalent to the idea of "most common and tradiotinally feminine name ever". The Oogami/Ogre wordplay was a bit more of challenge. I really wanted to work Ogre in English too, but I still don't have any ideas. I know the Yugioh Vrains dub used the anagram Gore for its ogre-themed character, but I think this lacks the solemnty Oogami has.

Luckily, one of the ogre's closest equivalents is the orc, a creature with a name that easily strecthes into Orcus, the name of the Roman god of oaths. Orcus is also syncretized with Hades, which is a god that really fits with Sakura's sense of responsibility and characterization based on being less scary than she superficially looks, aside from being a lord of the underworld like the Ookuninushi historically tied with the Oogami name. I'm very satisfied with Mary "Orc" Orcus.

Aoi Asahina

Calqued meaning for Asahina: Morning sun? (Note: the question mark is actually part of the meaning, not an indication that I'm unsure about the translation)

Calqued meaning for Aoi: Hollyhock

Explicit functionality: None as far as I remember.

Implicit functionality for Asahina: The morning sun as a symbol of cheerfulness.

Implicit functionality for Aoi: Her name is homophonous with the color blue, associated with water, and consequently her talent as a swimmer.

Realism level: Both names are common enough that this exact combination has a higher chance of existing in the real world than not. One thing completely irrelevant to Aoi's character but cool enough for me to want to tell is that the Asahina family was originally a samurai clan founded by Asahina Yoshihide, and one the main tales about him is that he was so strong that after he died, he almost effortlessly defeated the king of hell in battle and forced him to show the way to paradise.

Ok, I kinda nothing to work with here. I guess I can just throw any combination of brightness-related or water-related names. Sunny Aguado, Aqua Solberg, Joy Fisher, Allegra Blue, Felicia Aquarius, Marina Summers, etc. There's no real element that gives any name option an edge above the rest. I really like Marisol here because it's a name that means "sea and sun" but unfortunately that leaves zero content to make a surname out of.

Aoi Asahina is an alliteration so maybe we can use that to narrow down to options like Aurora Attwater, Ariel Aelius, Mitra Marin, or Lana Luz. My final call will be Sapphire Solano, but there's really hundreds of ways this one can go. I changed the decided answer at least twice during the making of this post.

Mukuro Ikusaba

Calqued meaning for Ikusaba: War Blade

Calqued meaning for Mukuro: Not determinable because Mukuro doesn't have kanji but the word mukuro means corpse. However, if we were to assume the Mu in Mukuro must mean halberd, the most plausible configuration would be "Halberd Black".

Explicit functionality for Mukuro: Combining the Mu from Mukuro and the Jun from Junko, you form Mujun (contradiction).

Implicit functionality for Ikusaba: Tying to her soldier image while having more edge than a military-grade combat knife.

Implicit functionality for Mukuro: "Corpse" accurately describes her in her first appearance after her name is revealed.

Realism level: Zero. The Ikusaba surname is invented by Kodaka, and the name Mukuro comes up in anime sometimes but it's literally illegal to name your kid Corpse.

This is one was surprisingly interesting. Corpse Warblade is iconic and deservedly remained a meme in the fandom for years, so I wish I could keep it as is, but unfortunately it fails the most important functionality. It has to fit with Junko to form a word that can be associated with the mysteries the mystery game wants you to solve.

One of the first decisions I made for this post was to call Junko "Doxie" and look for an appropriate word beginning with Para for Mukuro. Later, when checking Doxie's realism level, I found out it's a rare name nowadays because the name became a word with sexual connotations. Incredibly lucky coincidence, to be honest. I think the meaning of Doxie actually fits Junko surprisingly well as representation of the gyaru subculture in its originating ideas.

But enough of Junko invading her sister's section. The name I chose for Mukuro is Parathion. It's the name of a poison, although not one weaponized against humans. Not great but it's the best the Paradox composition has to offer and I like Doxie too much to look for alternatives.

So, for that, Parathion's last name needs to carry Mukuro's corpse meaning, the tryhard edgelord aesthetic, the soldier imagery, and if possible also fit in the war blade meaning. That's a lot of things for just one name to do. I thought of Bloodshed as a surname that referred to war while doubling as an allusion to how Mukuro's own blood was already shed, but that felt a little obtuse. I ultimately decided to prioritize Mukuro's status as a corpse at the cost of the other aspects, and settled for the name Parathion Bloodless.

Kyouko Kirigiri

Calqued meaning for Kirigiri: Mist Cutter

Calqued meaning for Kyouko: Echo Girl, alternatively Audible Girl

Explicit functionality: None as far as I remember.

Implicit functionality for Kirigiri: Fog is a symbol of mystery so it fits for the detective family to say they sever and end it.

Implicit functionality for Kyouko that's is most likely a stretch but I need something to work with here: Kyouko is a girl who is heard. Whenever she talks, the other characters pay attention and take her words seriously. I can't remember an exception to this from the top of my head.

Silly alliteration: Every kanji in her name starts with a K sound (the g in giri is just a k vocalized with a dakuten).

Realism level: Kirigiri is made up by Kodaka and, as far as I can find, used only by Danganronpa and Genshin Impact to this day. Kyouko is a common name in many kanji configurations, including this one.

For reference, Genshin Impact localization names its Kirigiri sword as Mistsplitter Reforged. Great pick but not too relevant to us since it lacks the alliteration.

I wanted to insist in mist instead of any synonym because of its similar sounds to mystery, but the best name I could get from that was Mistmince, which is significant worse than Fogfeller both in epicness and in sounding like a name. So our alliteration will be on the F.

From this point onwards, we reach almost Asahina levels of "this can take forever and have almost 50 equally correct answers". Our options are every feminine one-syllable name that starts with an F or two-syllable names that both syllables have F. But we have to pick one. Fifer is definitely not a common name, but it has two F syllables and means "piper", which is a sound-related profession and is associated with the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which sorta tied to my stretchy idea of the name Kyouko representing the way she natural leadership, so Fifer Fogfeller it is.

Junko Enoshima

Calqued meaning for Enoshima: Inlet's Island

Calqued meaning for Junko: Shield Girl

Calqued meaning for Otonashi: Without sound (idiomatic expression meaning "lying low")

Calqued meaning for Ryouko: Breezy Girl (if we're working with archaic meanings, can alternatively be Innocent Girl)

Explicit functionality for Junko: The shield (jun) in her name is meant to be part of the word contradiction (mujun), written with the kanji for halberd and shield. Play case 5 of the first Ace Attorney game to know why.

Implicit functionality for Enoshima: Enoshima is a small tourist island in Kanagawa whose main attraction is a giant temple complex dedicated to the worship of goddess Benzaiten, popularly nicknamed Benten. Benzaiten is the goddess of pretty much everything that flows and constantly changes, most notably water, wind, music, words, poetry, knowledge, arts, and beauty.

Implicit functionality for Otonashi: Junko Enoshima sure isn't making any big moves in Danganronpa/Zero.

Implicit functionality for Ryouko: She very much has a breezy personality. No matter how many horrifying situations come her, she'll remain chill enough to drop a hearty and confident "Not my problem".

Implicit functionality for Ryouko if we were taking archaic meanings into consideration (we aren't): Otonashi hasn't done a single bad thing, it was all that weird Junko Enoshima chick she knows nothing about.

Possibly intentional functionality but I'm not sure: The most common configuration of the name Junko is with kanji meaning "Pure Girl", but this Junko's configuration rejects the purity kanji, reflecting the roots of the gyaru subculture as rebellion against Japan's purity culture.

Realism level: Enoshima exists only as the name of a location, not being a real person name. Junko is somewhat common in many kanji configurations (used to be a lot more prevalent around the 60s) but the "Shield Girl" version is unique to Danganronpa. The only non-Danganronpa-related mention of "Shield Girl" Junko I could find online is an early FGO interview where Takeuchi mentions Junko as placeholder name for Mash Kyrielight during development. Otonashi is a dying surname, perhaps much more common in fiction than in real life at this point. Ryouko is pretty normal.

I already covered Doxie in Mukuro's section. Really lucky pick. And the surname for it is just as lucky. This one should theoretically be hard because Benzaiten's domains of eloquence, fluidity, wisdom, and beauty make her a goddess very specific to what compose Junko's character. I don't think there's any Western goddess that covers all bases. The element of constant change, which might be the most important thing, is something I don't think I've seen in any other religion. But somehow Benten is a real English surname so here I miraculously get Doxie Benten as the easiest name in this post. I'm sure that in this hypothetical localization timeline, a lot of people will correctly associate the name Benten with Junko's multiple "transformation" but think the reference is Ben 10.

Now, I'm a huge sucker for dumb and obvious names playing on the word "incognito" and that's the energy I wanted to bring to Otonashi, but I need to do it without laying Zero's twist too obviously. Otonashi is known as the Super High School Level Analyst, so I think I can get away with Bree Cogito, three letters removed from incognito, as her talent can mislead the reader to think Cogito was chosen because it means "think".

[mari-thesapphic-lady]

Okay but- Where are Rio's headcanons?!

I honestly need ideas, answers, some headcanons about Rio. Please, she's the fucking personification of Death, come on!

She's literally madly in love with an extremely stubborn, majestic and ironic witch, a witch who suffered for years at her mother's hands, killed her own Coven, a witch with an innate power to "take magic from those who are unworthy", and who also fell madly in love, not only with Death herself, but with Rio herself.

She has literally seen ages pass, wars happen, society change, empires and kingdoms rise and fall, she has seen the creation of the most useless thing possible to the most deadly in existence.

She saw everything that ever happened in the land of the living and knows all those who went to the land of the dead.

She’s immortal, because she's not just a being, she's a concept, a concept that will never be erased, because everything that lives, dies one day, she's everything and nothing, memory and oblivion.

She's present both physically and metaphorically in everything. She's in all religions, all stories, all ideas that have ever been imagined or created or modified.

She has heard all possible words of hate, she has been considered guilty by all of us at some point in our lives, she has been or is worshipped by thousands of people, she's celebrated as much as she's respected around the world.

Do you guys have any idea how many things we can think of that were seen or influenced by Rio? In the entire history of the whole world?!

I would really like to give more depth to this. Not just for extremely important things, of course, but for simple things, like:

What was the first emotion Rio felt in her entire existence?

What was the first thing she felt when she reaped the soul of the first living creature to die?

Was Agatha the first, the very first, living being that intrigued Rio?

When did Rio start to develop her own sense of style? Was she influenced by fashion trends from past eras or did she always wear whatever she felt like?

Was Rio ever, even slightly, at any point in her existence, innocent?

Did she always have this chaotic personality? Or did she form this personality over time?

Has she ever been physically intimate with other humans before Agatha (experience makes perfect, they say)? If so, why? Just out of curiosity?

What was it like when Rio experienced pleasure for the first time in her existence?

Did she always like to be adored/worshipped?

Has she ever blamed herself for the pain that death causes the living at any point?

What's her least favorite living race (in the universe)?

Why did she choose to manifest herself in the physical form of a witch? And why a green witch?

Has she ever lost control of her magic? If so, what would have been the consequences?

I mean, at the beginning of everything, when the first living creature died, Rio was there. Has she been around the universe forever, even when there was no living thing? Would the death of a star count in this case? I don't know, but I do know that she's so old, but at the same time, everything is new to her, everything is always changing and transforming, and she's more than used to all of this.

There are mundane things that were once completely new to her!

What was the first time and the first thing she ate? What did it taste like? Sour? Sweet? Salty?

When was the first bath Rio took IN HER ENTIRE EXISTENCE?!

What was the first language that Rio spoke in the early days of the world?

What was the first outfit she wore?

Why is her physical shape like this? What inspired her to choose this shape?

How did she learn to use the Internet as the years went by?

Before Agatha, before Nicholas, had Rio ever cried for any living being?

What was the first photo Rio took when photography was invented?

Has Rio ever influenced the death of any important figure in world history?

What was her reaction to the invention of electricity?

What's her favorite year, decade, century, millennium, era?

When was the first time she slept? And following that, what was the first dream or nightmare she had?

Was there any time in history when she intervened to stop deaths?

These are questions so... full of doubts and that would bring so much lore to us! Ugh, I just wish there was old photos of Rio — like those of Agatha — her in another era, with another style of clothing.

There must be cave paintings on cave walls that represent Rio, in case, Lady Death, have you guys ever thought about that?!

This is the kind of headcanon I feel is missing for a character as complex as her.

She should probably throw out some random "you're too young for this" to Agatha when they first met, I am absolutely sure of that. The funny thing about this is that I feel like she would still say this to Agatha every, now and then, no matter how much time passes.

[scary-movies-on-netflix]

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES (2002)

Richard Gere is a “star reporter” at the “Washington Post.”  He and his wife, Debra Messing, go to buy a house, but on the way back to their present, crappy, house, Debra Messing sees something strange in the window.  She is spooked!  The car spins out of control and she bonks her head on the window.  Now, you might think that would kill her, but it doesn’t.  Instead, at the hospital doctors discover that she has a glioblastoma (a brain cancer), and then she dies a few days later.  (It seems like a few days.)

Two years later, Richard Gere is still sad, naturlich.  He drives to Richmond to interview the governor of Virginia, but he enters a fugue state!  His car dies on the side of the road, and he walks to a nearby house, where a guy holds him at gunpoint because, the guy says, Richard Gere has been knocking on his door at 0230 for the past two days.  Local sheriff Laura Linney deescalates the situation (which was weird, because in real life she would have just shot someone) and drops Richerd Gere off at a motel.  Richard Gere discovers that he is in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, which is way off his intended destination of Richmond.  He decides to stay in town to investigate all the weirdness occurring.  The rest of the movie isn’t so much a plot as a bunch of interrelated things just happening:

Richard Gere and Laura Linney drive around and talk to people describing their experiences with the Mothman, an alien or cryptid with red eyes and moth-like characteristics.

Richard Gere hangs out with the guy who held him at gunpoint, named Gordon.  Gordon begins to have dreams predicting upcoming disasters.  He meets a dude named Indrid Cold.  He eventually sits in the cold and dies of exposure, but while he’s supposed to be dead he calls Richard Gere!

In one of the better sequences, Gordon calls Richard Gere .  Gordo says that he has Indrid Cold with him, and he wants to talk to Richard Gere.  A weird voice tells Richard Gere what he’s doing, what he’s holding, the lines from a book he cannot see.  “I want to meet you,” Richard Gere says.  Indrid Cold says, “You already have, [Richard Gere].  I have seen you afraid.  You’re frightened right now, aren’t you?”  Meanwhile, Laura Linney is racing over there, but when she arrives Gordon is fine and Indrid Cold is not there.

Richard Gere goes to visit a paranormal investigator (some dude who wrote a book), twice.  The man lore-dumps about moth-people, but this is mostly extraneous.  He does deliver a decent metaphor, that the Mothman (or moth-people) aren’t necessarily more advanced or smarter than us; they’re maybe like people in a tall building, who can see just a bit farther down the road.

Richard Gere was told to expect a disaster on the Ohio River.  He thinks that this will involve the chemical plant, and he freaks out on the governor of Virginia, who is coming to visit the plant!  Nothing happens.

Things escalate for Richard Gere as his dead wife, Debra Messing, appears.  He gets a letter to await her call at noon on Friday at his house in DC.  He does so, but Laura Linney calls him instead!  She tells him that his wife is dead.  She invites him to Christmas dinner.  Their conversation ends, and the phone rings again!  Richard Gere does not answer and heads back to West Virginia to spend Christmas with Laura Linney.

Finally, in a good set piece, Richard Gere arrives at the Silver Bridge outside Point Pleasant.  There is a traffic jam.  Richard Gere realizes that this is the disaster on the Ohio River, and we have a cool scene where our view shifts from the factory to the bridge.  It collapses and a bunch of cars fall into the river, including Laura Linney’s sheriff truck.  Richard Gere jumps into the water to save her.  They muse over a vision she talked about earlier.

This was…middling to fine.  There are some nice atmospheric moments, such as the phone call and a few other scenes where people encounter the Mothman or Indrid Cold.  We also have lots of red lights like eyes and moth-related shapes as transitions, but this is long, a full two hours, and there’s not enough interesting material to justify the length.  The plot is meandering and lacks focus.  Recommended for fans of Richard Gere or the Mothman. 

[pfffsfic]

Post-Fall Falls False Starts- Chapter 18: Looking Back

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

There were two kinds of slow walk. One was the sort of walk a group of heroes would do on the way to the villain's headquarters, the sort of walk wrestlers sometimes entered the ring with. Ideally there would be a cool song playing in the background and then that song would be reused at climatic moments later in the series, but you'd never really feel the impact as strongly as you felt it that first time- she digressed. The second type was the sad type. Emotions could weigh a girl down like a backpack full of dumbbells, and though having them around usually motivated her to get where she was going and do what she was planning to do faster than usual, something about that just wasn't happening tonight. Part of her hoped to run into a monster just so something would take her mind off of the situation. None came. Only her own inner demons, which seemed less like formally-dressed hot tall guys and more like shapeless masses of painful thoughts.

Several major doors to the future had just been abruptly and unceremoniously closed off to her. She hadn't even planned to use the 'out' she had prepared by stealing from the van until much later, but now that it was no longer a possibility, this place seemed less like a magical land of possibility and wish fulfillment and more like a lawless universe of danger and despair. Why, oh why couldn't she find it in herself to get excited? Danger was good! Much of her work contained dangerous situations over which heroes triumphed. The rest of it was fluff, which was definitely out of the question right now. The difference, she realized, was that she was unsure of her ability to triumph. Her fantasies swerved from all the ways she could live it up here to all the ways she could die here. Okay, so the present was a dark forest path and the future was a cave full of monsters- the former was literal, the latter was metaphorical. What about the past? Ah, yes, the past.

She met up with Rob on her fifth real day here and they had been grilling mushrooms and catching small forest animals ever since. Before that, though, life was less... stable.

MORNING 1: DEEP FREEZE

If she squinted, she could make out the clock on the wall of the vacant grocery store. 2:11. That had to be AM since the stars and moon were overhead.

The doors were locked. She snuck around the perimeter of the building, back to the wall like a secret agent looking for 'weak spots' in its structure. A rusty air vent grate hung loose from one of its fasteners. Excellent! She was tall enough to pull herself through after lugging over a rock to step on. The grate on the other end came off with surprisingly little resistance and she happily tumbled face-first onto the glorious air-conditioned sales floor, where she made a beeline for the icebox next to the checkout counter, slipping her head inside, letting out a pleasurable sigh, and then curling her body up on the floor next to it. This was perfect. The only thing that could make this whole situation any more perfect, she thought out loud, was if she encountered a certain someone in her dreams.

Her first encounter with a 'local' was far from that, though. She groggily opened her eyes to see a slack-jawed cashier, freshly into work, staring down at her. In a flash, she reached for her head, popped it back on, and theatrically looked over the other ice creams.

"I'm aliiiive!" she gasped, feigning lightheadedness. "My brethren," she addressed the inanimate frozen treats, scooping a couple of them into her arms, "why only me? Why have you not all been awakened to the glory of sapience?"

When no answer came, she leaned over the icebox for a moment like a grieving widow at a military funeral, pretended to steel herself, and then ran out of the store and into the woods via the automatic door.

AFTERNOON 1: INTO THE WOODS

With a spring in her step and a sparkle in her eyes, Sarah whistled some nameless tune all the way down the forest path. Was it for fun? To occupy her mind? To stave off hunters? To stave off monsters? To attract monsters? She didn't know for sure, but she also didn't need a rationale to continue with it. Whatever ended up happening would be swiftly rationalized as part of her plan. When the forest stopped being creepily sunny and started being sunnily creepy, she sat down on a rock and started on one of the popsicles she had grabbed earlier. It was strawberry flavored and if Sarah tried hard enough she could make out some faint differences between this universe's strawberry flavor and her own universe's strawberry flavor... or, on second thought, that probably just came down to the brand.

"It would be a shame if my peaceful lunch in the scary forest was interrupted," she spoke out loud to no one in particular, hoping that, as was typical for cartoons, something would happen right afterwards. It was almost a letdown when nothing did.

As dusk set in, she wandered the forest in search of a birch tree, failed to locate any, and fell asleep eventually on the roots of an evergreen tree, driven not by fatigue but by a simple desire to dream. She did have a dream that night. It was about a meteor impact on Elmore, only when the meteor came down instead of spreading fire and destruction it made all of the computers and TVs in town start playing loud dubstep. Sarah was a member of the task force dispatched to chop up the metaphor and eat it (which seemed sensible in the dream but was confusing upon waking up).

DAY 2: THE TREES HAVE EYES

Sarah noticed a small anthill near her sleeping tree when she woke up. The ants, going about their day, were a good metaphor for... something. She didn't really know what and her creative juices weren't flowing fast enough today to push her to come up with something. She was melting a little. As one ant trotted aimlessly around in a search for food, she noticed something odd: none of the ants had approached her yet, and she, a self-proclaimed tall drink of 50% water, 15% sugar, and 45% dairy, had been sleeping there for at least five or six hours. 'That's alright,' she thought, 'the ants here are probably weird like everything else.'

Part of her mind told her the ants weren't the problem.

Just 10 minutes from the sleeping spot was a small grove of birch trees and their adjacent cave. This place, she decided, would be her hideout! Exploring the cave, though, Sarah discovered a giant spider with human feet on the ends of its eight legs, heard it hiss territorially at her, and quickly changed her earlier decision. The rest of the day was spent scouting out other caves, none of which were quite as eventful (though she did spot some small footprints that could have belonged to some distant gnome), and she topped it off with a rather one-sided wrestling contest against several angry raccoons over what had seemed a worthy prize: a bucketload of discarded food from the dumpster out back of Greasy's Diner. It was delicious- the victory, that is. The food, on the other hand, was mediocre. And all of it tasted like coffee.

MORNING 3: DISTANT ENCOUNTERS

As the wee hours of the morning on the third day dragged on, Sarah, an early riser, donned "her" top hat and bow tie and her eye patch, left the shallow cave she had slept in the previous night, and trudged out to sit out by the edge of the lake, its subsurface disappointingly free of any visible lake monsters. The moonlight made the whole thing awfully serene, just like a painting in the waiting room of a doctor's office. Sarah couldn't help but skip a small stone across the surface. When it hit the water and sunk on first contact, she remembered with a heavy heart that she did not actually know how to skip a stone. That had once been a source of trauma and/or drama in her childhood; a friend from Richwood Elementary, a well-off human girl, had invited her to a lake house birthday party and the girl's snooty parents had nearly laughed her off the property when she came in last in their stone-skipping contest. She had never really fit in, but that was okay because of uniqueness, or something. That lake house had been in the 2D part of town. This town was in the 2D part of the multiverse. Something about the view brought her back.

When a group of rowdy early-bird fishers pulled up by the lake with a boat strapped haphazardly on top of their truck, rather than going and saying hi like she had been urging herself to do despite her appearance, Sarah fled into the woods clutching the hat for dear life. In retrospect the group of middle-aged men probably would not have been enthusiastic about greeting her for multiple reasons, but what citizen would be? No, she needed to wait for the right moment. Now she was just worried that moment might never come.

AFTERNOON 3: CATCHING FLIES WITH IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY

The ground would be her canvas and that big stick over there would be her brush. On second thought, maybe her finger would be her brush, because the stick didn't allow her the sort of control she needed to make three letters fit neatly inside a tiny heart. A heart... there was something else she had meant to draw, but what? Oh! Right.

After a few minutes of sloppy work there were eyes of providence in a circle around the clearing, with legs, arms, and accessories for good measure. Sarah hoped this would be an effective 'trap' for the object of her makeshift summons even without the Latin incantation, but the afternoon was still young, and she had to make use of her time effectively. What did that even mean at a time like this? She had no concrete plans, just a bunch of tiny idea fragments. She decided, staring at the watchful eyes around her, that she would go through all her ideas from least to most embarrassing. Everyone liked exponentially escalating hijinks.

The first act was a monologue. She took up the old adage and imagined a naked audience to replace the nonexistent audience before her. It helped with the nervousness, or maybe she didn't have any nervousness to begin with, but either way it was absent by the time she hit her stride.

"...And that's why i think there should be more shoujo love interests with huge biceps. Anyways, you ever wondered why anybody would choose to have one eye?" she asked, pausing for an imaginary burst of laughter and flipping up her eye patch. "Of course, I don't mean to insult anybody who doesn't have a choice. But if you do have a choice? I mean, c'mon. I'd love to interview some shapeshifting one-eyed guy about that someday, but of course nobody's listening." Another pause, a slow sweeping look at her surroundings, a glance over at the eye patch. "I just wear this thing to look cool! Maybe that's why someone would choose that. Am I a hypocrite? I might be a hypocrite."

The second act was jokes. She told a few of her many memorized puns related to herself ("What does ice cream do when it gets stressed? It has a meltdown!") and then filled time with a particularly long and winding joke about a monk that ended with an unsatisfying punchline. The fun of that one was considerably lessened without the groans that always followed her telling it back home. The capstone on her set began with "My ex wife still misses me," followed by a tangent about whether it was even appropriate to tell jokes that start on false premises about the teller, whether joke plagiarism applied to informal conversations, and ultimately whether a tree that fell in the forest with no one to hear it would make a sound. The punchline to that final joke never arrived because she had forgotten where the conversation began.

The third act was music. Sarah's vocal chops were better suited to calmer, quieter, and/or creepier tunes than the loud and flashy showman-esque renditions she was now attempting to put on with her stick in hand as a makeshift cane. The first song she had in mind was We'll Meet Again, but the second she opened her mouth, it dawned on her that she did not know the entire thing, just about half of the chorus. She pivoted to another similar song with Daisy Bell and then in an entirely different direction with a few of her favorite vocal synthesizer tunes, a few of which she had memorized in half-mangled Japanese and then another few that were in English. Halfway through a high note, she noticed with awe that a few animals had taken notice of her singing. A few beady-eyed birds, a raccoon (who looked familiar, maybe from her battle the previous night), and two deer- scratch that, upon closer inspection it was one deer with a head at each end and no backside- stood by the clearing watching her go. So this was what it felt like to be a Disney princess... or, really, less of a Disney princess and more of a Disney forest hermit.

"Thank you for coming out tonight," she said, and then she realized a moment later than her subconscious that night had fallen. The animals scattered when she sat down to take a short rest, and suddenly her motivation, momentarily buffed by the presence of actual tangible beings other than herself, was mostly gone.

A bit more walking from the art clearing yielded yet another cave, and a peek inside the cave, past the waterfall that hid its entrance, yielded yet another disappointment. This one at least had the additional security of both a few large boulders and the waterfall, the flow sound of which changed when someone passed through it, and so she accepted that there were too many caves to find that cave easily and laid down to see if her performance earlier that day would bear fruit. It didn't. In fact, if she dreamed at all, she didn't remember it.

DAY 4: THE INTRUDER

Sarah was hungry. Not eat-your-own-leg hungry, but hungrier than she had been for, what, weeks? Months? It had been a little over 24 hours since her last meal, and that last meal in question was coffee-spiked all-day breakfast food out of a dumpster, so not exactly the sort of soul-nourishing thing she needed for a lite survivalist lifestyle. She beat the sun into the town proper and glanced tentatively at the diner, which made her stomach drop and alleviated the hunger a little as a result.

It was difficult to both walk casually into town and constantly dart behind lampposts and buildings to avoid the gazes of the citizens, especially with no destination in sight. After who-knows-how-many minutes of Red Light, Green Light, Sarah's eyes fell upon a mansion on a hill in the distance, and, using a technique no doubt more common in Elmore than here, she ducked behind one building far from the mansion and popped out from behind another building closer to it. One or two short fence hops later she stood before the mansion, staring up at a window that hung open just a crack, wondering what sorts of food the pantry of a place like this might have in store.

On one hand, this was the wrong house to come to for someone like her who was not a fan of taxidermy or getting lost; on the other hand, this was the wrong universe to come to for someone like her who was not a fan of taxidermy or getting lost. With a deep breath and all of her mild-hunger-fueled athleticism, she used the rope from the van to lasso the latch of the open window, used a combination of a few lucky footholds and her height to ascend the side of the house, and pulled herself over the threshold into what she soon realized was a very occupied bedroom. Her eyes met the occupant's eyes. She couldn't tell who it was- their eyes were the only things visible in a field of pitch black.

"Who-" said a youthful voice from the direction of the other two eyeballs.

"You're dreaming," said Sarah, darting for the bedroom door. As soon as probably-cifica (whose identity Sarah was really making an educated guess about) saw Sarah's unusual silhouette in the doorway, she must have figured the dream explanation was more likely than an actual giant ice cream cone in her house, because she didn't attempt to make chase. The pantry was easy enough to find (perhaps the family had more than one?) and, after spraying edible gold dust on the security cameras, Sarah made off through a garbage chute with a whole roast-ready duck, a pint of caviar-flavored frozen yogurt, and a few bags of imported chips with a fancy French name she couldn't read.

She took a different route back to the cave this time and noticed a few footprints that weren't hers. A clearing with several suspicious, near-hidden pit traps caught her eye, and she made sure to watch her step.

DAY 5: THE OTHER INTRUDER

What time was it? She didn't know for sure, and there was no sunlight in the little muddy crevasse she had made for herself between two easily-pushed boulders. She shoved another chip into her mouth and chewed quietly. The good thing about chips was they could be eaten at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, as well as between meals as a snack, so it didn't really matter what time it was.

Why was she huddled up? Well, only a few hours earlier a set of footsteps had echoed outside- and then inside- the cave, and she had taken measures to hide herself from prying eyes. It had apparently worked. The intruder was deterred, right? Maybe it was an animal. Maybe it was a person. What if somebody owned this cave and she was just a trespasser?

It was like the universe responding to her thoughts when the sound of the waterfall changed. It didn't go back to normal, either. Someone was sitting in the flow, and they weren't leaving. Why would anybody do that? To train for a big battle? To meditate (for a big battle)? Nah, unlikely. She poked her head up from behind one muddy boulder and snuffed a near-gasp with her hands. The person (or not a person?) meditating (or not meditating?) in the waterfall was three-dimensional. No, no, not just that, she recognized the back of his head. A sense of loneliness she didn't even know she was swamped with crumbled around her as she stepped up to him.

"Rob?" she asked. He was repeating something incoherently to himself and apparently didn't hear her over the sound of the rushing water. That was alright. She reached out in what was supposed to be a friendly pat on the shoulder, but the force of the falling water made it really more of a slap...

She didn't have time to cover her ears before he shrieked so loud there was a mini-earthquake inside the cave and darted off into the distance. She wasn't planning to follow him, really, at least not until she had the chance to clean off the mud and get out of her two-item cosplay, but her eyes fell on the crowbar that had fallen from his backpack in his confusion, and she suddenly had a conversational 'in'. That was always the goal when getting to know people. Then again, if you were desperate enough for interaction, you could fabricate an 'in' from practically anything, like entering a conversation about grades with a, "woah, we could be study buddies! Who knows? it might turn into something more." That one hadn't worked. What was she doing even thinking about this? She needed to get the crowbar back to Rob!

Thankfully, the waterfall was almost like a 5-second shower, and she only needed to stand in it for a second to get most of the mud (and a bit of herself) off. There were wet footprints in the forest dirt for her to follow. "Who knows?" she said to herself, or to nobody in particular. "Maybe this could be the start of a great friendship."

Several weeks on, Sarah still didn't know if what they had was great or a friendship, but it sure helped the existential dread to think of it that way. She looked down at the tapes and thought to herself, no looking back, no looking back, no more looking back.

[madrigaljail]

Interlude

Would you like some celebrity AU in these trying times? Have some nonsense; don't worry about Eli, he's an OC, it's fine.

*

“Finally tonight, my producers won’t let me end the show without discussing the most compelling story in the nation, a tale of intergenerational drama which begs the question: which speaks to you most? Do you like a redemption arc, recognition coming after decades of struggle? Or a reward for raw, young talent the likes of which has never before been seen? These questions will possibly be answered Sunday night, when the Emmy Awards give a trophy to…a Best Supporting Actor in a Drama.

“On the one hand you have Bruno Madrigal, whose offscreen exploits have overshadowed his work for decades. In recent years, however, he’s become beloved by children as the voice of Hernando the Crab in the animated Shore Thing film series and attracted critical acclaim in indie films such as The Collaboration and onstage in an off-Broadway revival of Endgame. Now he’s nominated for his role as Oscar Ramos, a pedicab driver with a secret in AMC’s thriller Upper West. 

“Then there’s his nephew, Camilo Madrigal, who has veered away from the music careers of his mother and sister to follow - cautiously, we hope - in his uncle’s acting footsteps. He has more than a knack for it, given his star turn as nine different characters…or maybe it’s the same one in different phases, who knows what’s happening on Max’s scifi-horror hit Idle Hands? My nephew’s tried to explain it several times, but I’ve given up figuring it out.

“So, where do you fall: Team Camilo, or Team Bruno? Personally I think we as a society should have moved past these hashtag labels a long time ago, but if I were a betting man? I’d say the Madrigals are going to split the voters and we’ll get the winner we deserve, the venerable J.K. Simmons.

“That’s it for me this evening, stay tuned for the latest headlines on ‘Nightbeat’, and I’ll see you back here bright and early Sunday morning for ‘Mas with Guzmán’. Buenos noches.”

The news program theme music played, and Bruno would have continued mindlessly playing Candy Crush on his phone but-

“You know there’s a rumor you slept with that guy.”

Bruno glanced to his right. Eli was slumped the corner of the couch, smirking, light brown hair tousled and hazel eyes glancing his way with a mischievous twinkle. Bruno scowled.

“You don’t- that’s ridiculous. I can’t help it if people think we had chemistry or there were ‘sparks flying’ in that interview or whatever, but it’s all…fanflick?”

Eli laughed and gently kicked his shin, he retaliated by pinching his knee. “Fanfic, boomer.”

“Everybody really does forget about Gen X,” Bruno muttered, then shook his head. “Anyway. The point is I can’t believe people still think Pulitzer prize winning reporter José Guzmán would risk his journalistic integrity by hooking up with me.”

“Depends.” Eli straightened up to lean closer, waggling his eyebrows. “Is ‘journalistic integrity’ what he calls his-”

“Guys! I’m still right here!” 

They both cringed and glanced over the back of the sofa towards the kitchen, where Mirabel had taken over the island in a flurry of embroidery floss. She’d swiveled around on the barstool to give them a glare, but a smile still tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry, Mira.”

She nodded, satisfied. “Thank you.” A moment or two slipped by, a perfect pause, before she went on. “But you totally did hook up with him, right?”

Bruno blinked, turned back to the TV, and picked up the remote. “I am changing the channel. It’s a metaphor for changing the subject.”

Shortly after that Mirabel presented him with a baseball cap emblazoned with “#TeamCamilo”, and a black necktie which she’d decorated with symbols representing all of the Madrigal family…and a blue, pink, and white striped heart for Eli. Bruno happily wore both on the Emmys red carpet two nights later.

*

A/N: he did totally hook up with him. Celebverse!José is basically Anderson Cooper. Yes he does get stuck doing New Year's Eve with Andy Cohen still, it's fine. As for who wins the Emmy, it's been almost two years and I am still not sure.

[sunflower-chai]

Mannnn do you ever think abt how the most stable thing in Anakin's life was his connection to the Force

well NOW i am. let's summarize shall we?

shmi: anakin leaves her at age 9 and reunites with her at age 19 only for her to die in his arms

qui-gon: frees anakin from slavery, promises to train him as a jedi, gets killed by maul.

padmé: meets anakin in tpm, then they don't see each other for ten years. they fall in love, have a secret wedding, and a war begins. their marriage is one of brief stolen moments between battles and senate meetings. the idea of losing padmé in childbirth is so horrible that anakin falls to the dark side in order to save her, causing her to die of a broken heart.

obi-wan: promises to fulfill his master's dying wish to train the Chosen One. in the end he is forced to confront anakin after his fall, chopping off all his limbs and leaving him to die on a planet of lava.

palpatine: hey how does it make you feel to know that anakin's longest lasting relationship is with the guy who groomed and manipulated him since childhood?? personally i want to set myself on fire.

ahsoka: assigned as anakin's padawan against his will, yet they develop a strong bond. ahsoka is framed for murder and the bombing of the jedi temple. she is expelled from the order, then welcomed back after she clears her name. she instead chooses to leave, having lost faith in the jedi. they're briefly reunited before anakin's rushing off to rescue palpatine and ahsoka goes to liberate mandalore from maul. and then order 66 happens.

luke: vader finds out his son is alive after 22 years, asking him to join the dark side to kill the emperor and rule the galaxy as father and son. luke refuses time and time again, forcing vader's hand to violence. luke eventually becomes overwhelmed with anger, bearing down hard against vader and heavily disabling his life support suit. it is only when the emperor is torturing luke that anakin finally returns to the light, killing the emperor and saving his son. in the process he brings about his own death, but he is finally happy. he is free.

leia: vader has no clue she exists until his duel with luke in rotj. wants to turn her to the dark side in luke's place, but his dying wish is for luke to tell leia that there was still good in him.

and throughout ALL of that, all of those shaky connections, the one constant is the Force (whether that be the light or dark side). it is the one thing that has been present for his entire life. he was conceived by the Force, in death he becomes one with the Force, even manifesting as a Force ghost. there's a metaphor here about Christianity and God's constant presence. and this is why star wars is so special to me <3

[freedelusionshere]

Since sublimation came up this season, let’s talk about Luca and Marcus

Luca was, like, being Copenhagen robot boy until he warms up to Marcus, who does this by just being Marcus-y, until they are quite close by the end of the episode. Luca and Marcus talk about their childhoods, about their sisters. He sends Marcus a present, y’all. Just like Carmy gave Syd the chef jacket.

And then he COMES TO CHICAGO. Now it’s for the Ever funeral dinner I guess, and his sister lives here, I guess. And then he meets Syd, who Marcus has asked out.

They never show it, but why wouldn’t Luca have asked Marcus this question at some point when they were together? He asked about everything else. Why not if he has someone special?

They then show Marcus transferring the feelings he’s beginning to feel about Luca onto Syd when she calls him. Syd is oblivious. She’s hung out with Marcus outside of work and he’s just now deciding he likes her after he meets Luca? Hmm, I don't know guys, this is feeling very familiar....kind of like Carmy transferring his feelings for Syd onto Claire.

They even have a cute metaphor/nicknames for their relationship they introduced: Jordan and Pippen. Luca is okay with being the Pippen to his rising star Jordan. It's right there in our faces.

Now, could Luca just like Syd and not be thinking in the back of his mind about Marcus? Sure. The show is dangling that, because they like to misdirect, but it's the most obvious and un-show-like thing to do here.

Why is Luca suddenly, like, in happy golden retriever mode at a funeral dinner? So far, there is no narrative explanation for why Luca is like this now other than: Marcus.

He just met Syd like a few moments ago. Is it a coincidence that he's being reintroduced when Marcus needs him to pull him out of his shell, after his mother's passing? That they both come from broken homes and need to reconcile with their family members?

[supercityboys]

My take on Michael’s “dislike” for his own name is that it’s directly tied to how his body is a tool for capitalism and why he thinks it’s okay as opposed to being disgusted by it.

After finished his books, I immediately thought that his story was a cautionary tale about the dangers of capitalism, specifically how it literally takes over the person on an individual level.

Booster has three different “names” he has for himself:

Michael Jon Carter. This name is easily the most painful to hear, yet it is the name that completely embodies him no matter what stage he’s in. This name is NOT a persona and has never been rich (in his eyes). He got kicked out of college, applied to a rock bottom job, and spent a life of poverty in this name. His mother calls him by it, and she dies with her last words being for him to never speak to her again. Michelle also has no apprehension nor any pushback from Michael himself for using it. However, she’s the other half of him. He probably thinks of her as his direct dichotomy. Michelle dies and therefore Michael.

Booster Gold/Booster Carter. The beginning of the obsession or at least where we’re shown it. He personally assigns this name over his own whenever he wants to attribute his achievements to himself. Booster Gold is the star, the superhero, the all-American. This persona is rich with friends and without strife. This is, of course, at first. Throughout the Big Fall and Future Lost we watch as this persona deteriorates and becomes more of “Michael” than his projected one. From Trixie damn near pleading for his true name to Rip, Jack, and Trixie traveling to future and having his past laid bare as day, Booster Gold morphs from Americana folklore to fallible, yet otherwise loving guy. Even later on, when truly loved for all that is the mess he presents, even he cannot stop Booster from becoming the familiar Boos’ by the Blue Beetle.

Gold Star. Though it is the least spoken/mentioned, Gold Star is the metaphorical golden standard that Michael truly aspires to. Unlike his real name, Gold Star takes from Booster Gold. The football announcers would interchangeably switch between BG and Booster Carter, but with GS there would be no trace of his true self. Also unlike BG, theoretically, Gold Star might’ve actually achieved the incredibly hedonistic, god-like goal Michael has in mind. Maybe it was for the best that his perfectionist nature stopped him from retracting his Freudian slip…

Michael’s mental distinction between these names/moniker’s are directly correlated with his image being used for money.

To take it a step further, once Michael becomes aware of who really knows him, he’ll naturally strip the selling shtick. After Trixie knows him for real, he doesn’t show himself off anymore.

Directly after the manhunter fiasco when he’s in that manic state and Dinah, Jon, Ted, and Skeets track him down, his first reaction to the JL & co. distrusting him is to run away. Then, when it’s revealed inside the restaurant that he can’t even be himself because he’s sold his identity at the cost of fame, Booster scrams to time travel into the future where no one will know him. Once that’s taken care of, he no longer tries to make a “good” impression and becomes one of the jokesters in the JL series, ultimately forgoing fame in search of only money (even that stems from trauma). From here on out begins the true marker for his character development where he reconciles with Michael Jon Carter, solidifies Booster Gold, and forgets Gold Star.

[same-name-supremacy]

Things about my TD-sona and how I think they would change over in your auG (just using this as a way to hyperfixate to mutuals)

My sonas name is Olivia btw

Was introduced in world tour after being kicked out of the Gemmys along with her brother,both aspiring musical artist who can't catch a hook into the mainstream media,and when presented the opportunity to be on international television she wants to take it to try and boost their popularity - Olivia changes to Oliver,and Ethan changes over to Estella, everything about the

same

Huge hate/fear of Alejandro that fades overtime due to the friendship?(I guess) that they developed over gameplay,and the need to be recognized as something great - with Oliver it's just fear ‚not as much as hate,even tho he has his suspicions on her

Is Chris's personal favorite contestant due to her need to be famous and Chris being the only one who knows that for most of world tour- could imagine it to be the same,strong girlboss lady and her wet cat son

Huge little brother vibes on Cody,even carrying (both literal and metaphorical) him in certain challenges when Sierra could get the chance- I still think they could get the siblings vibes but not being able to carry Jody as much because of how psychotic Simon is

Olivia is 5’2 and my own personal headcanon is the Cody is the same height- with Jody being 4’11 and Oliver being 6ft (because of genetics in his family and the shortness then sorta but also not getting passed to his older sister) which makes me think of Jody and him as this meme

Olivia got to sit out of Niagara brawls due to their being an uneven amount of contestants(blainely originally not even being counted in the first place) and because again Chris’s personal favorite-would probs stay the same

(Ps I would imagine after the challenge and when Jody cuts her hair along with Danika he would try to fucking kill Simon,even going so far to trying to shove him out of the plane doors during opals elimination)

Was voted out 5(before Sierra and after Duncan) after forming an alliance with Alejandro that she believed was legit,him convincing her that he could make cody vote with him and get Heather out,because naturally Sierra always votes with Cody,and after her jump out the plane and everything Heather confesses to Alejandro that she put a wrench in his plans and unconvinced Cody to vote with him,which in reality means Alejandro did plan on a final 4 with Cody Sierra and Olivia,but of course the first assumption in Olivia’s mind was “oh.he lied to me.” So before she jumped she gave him a slap,pre to the Knowledge that Heather revealed after her jump-he wouldn’t slap Alejandra in the Genderbend,because hitting a women is wrong in his eyes

Didn’t show up to the after show after her vote off,immediately recognizing the fame her and her brother little band thing got during her time at the season and already planning their first tour- same,except he watched the season finale from home rooting for Jody to pull out a win

Kept in touch with most of the cast during her days after the season,shopping with Lindsay and hanging out with Noah and Cody as they we’re definitely some of her favorite people on the plane- absolutely the same,the friendship with Jody continues even more once she meets his sister,becoming Estelle’s little sister too

I don’t wanna bore you even more that I have to,but by the slim chance I’m not boring you and you wanna hear about her in all stars and how it could change I’m happy to talk!

Reminder abt this cause ppl never make stuff for me and I appreciate it so much.

Wow! That’s alot! So much lore about Olivia/Oliver

Oliver is definitely one of the guys Danika actually respects. Only a few guys get that (that being Seth, Lincoln, Eva, Leshawn, Bryson and Scruffy)

Thank you for sharing so much about your oc!

[redrobin-detective]

Fionna and Cake ending Tweaked

I finally finished my F&C rewatch and I'm once more baffled by the amount of people saying it was boring or bad or "missed the point". While I do believe some parts could have been better to hammer the point home, I honestly think it ended exactly how it was supposed to with: Simon coming to grips with his past (needing to move on from Betty) and actually work towards his future and Fionna and Cake learning to be real instead of just pieces of fiction in others' minds.

Spoilers for ep 10 under the cut

That said, I would tighten up the ending slightly by removing the last bit with Scarab in Fionnaworld. His rampage should have ended when Fionnaworld was canonized and he's forced to return to HQ to reckon with his punishment. The whole bit of other worlds being dropped in by Prismo to save the day was not necessary but I'll get to that later.

It should have been the battle that ended swiftly and suddenly with the violence stopping but everything now feeling so much more present, the stakes higher and consequences real. They are now part of the multiverse, real beings separate from both Prismo and Simon - who previously controlled/influenced their environments and actions - and it's kind of scary to be suddenly totally responsible for your actions. This would be a metaphor for the series' growing up motiph of escaping the perfect dreamworld where nothing goes wrong and understanding that the real world is more complicated. Not bad, not evil just complicated.

Now we switch to Simon getting home, waking up in the field's of Ooo with a butterfly's kiss. He has a third chance and he is not wasting it. There really should have been some more wrap up with Simon and his found family, even just a montage: Simon holding a furiously crying Marcy's hands as he explains what he almost did, Simon and Finn out on a REGULAR camping trip, looking up at the stars and talking openly about their grief in a healthy way, Simon being in therapy (A+), Simon throwing himself into education and the preservation of the past in order to create a better future. It didn't need to be much, but a little more would have been nice.

Also the phonecall worked from GolBetty/Fionnaworld but texting hasn't worked since. Finally, both Simon and Fionna/Cake are still left feeling a bit unresolved over the whole thing when they are suddenly all blinked into Prismo's time room. Sorry for the delay, Prismo apologies, had to get the new guy oriented. He explains pointing to a pouting 2D Scarab. Simon/Fionna/Cake get the precious goodbye but also hello hug they deserved. Now that Fionnaworld is canonized, they can come and go freely. Simon asks tentatively if Fionna still wanted to come live in Ooo. Fionna and Cake - in mutual agreement! - say no they want to make their own world work. But they will certainly visit and they open Fionnaworld to anyone who needs somewhere new, somewhere where everybody knows your name. And THAT's how baby Finn, pep tank, Farmworld Finn kids, weird squirrel etc end up in Fionnaworld which becomes a blend of new and old, the ordinary and the magical. Its also addressing Fionna's earlier series selfishness and tunnel vision by helping those she hurt.

We end with Simon rushing off to work with textbooks and maps under his arm, coffee in one hand and a phone in another texting Fionna. Fi is working on the rebuild in her town and responding back as we flash to the dandelions then up to the stars where a red comet flashes across the sky. Betty has become something new, having shed her own past and she is happy. The End.

Basically TLDR the finale DID hit what it was supposed to but could've hit more on: Simon finding new purpose and making good with his Ooo friends. Fionna and Cake making up from their prev fight and understanding that they are real now and they should build up their own world instead of continuing to slot into others. As much as I love Betty and her crazy ass story, she had her agency at the end by telling Simon Ily but lets move on as she did the same. A sequel series about her would be interesting but in this series it would have fortified her choices and her actions

[paceypeternathanslawyer]

One Tree Hill was so good at subverting character tropes.

Nathan starts off the show as an asshole bully. A total asshole jock. And then over time Nathan becomes a better and better person. He strives to be a better person and to make up for his mistakes. He starts hanging out with good people like Haley especially. But he stops hanging out so much with Tim and his other Basketball buddies and he stops allowing his dad to metaphorically poison him and we start to see Nathan become the man I knew he could be. He becomes so likeable and is a near perfect person by the end of the show. Nathan is a rock solid and dependable friend. A loving and present father. A faithful and loving husband. A loyal brother. A truly humble and sweet guy 😁💗

Haley starts the show in that smart bookish girl archetype. You know the one that Joey Potter and Rory Gilmore occupied before her. But Haley proved that she was so much more than that. Haley becomes a cheerleader which is such a twist cause typically the girls in that archetype hate cheerleaders and wouldn't be caught dead in a cheerleaders outfit. Haley is an amazing cook and baker and typically the people in that archetype cannot cook to save their lives and are very proud of it. Though I think Joey Potter was a passable cook. Haley is fucking Martha Stewart though lol. Haley is a musician and a singer and then eventually a music producer. One of my favorite twists is how she was valedictorian. Girls in this trope are destined to be valedictorian. But the twist with Haley is that she's pregnant and goes into labor while giving her valedictorian speech. Teen pregnancy is not usually paired with the smart bookish girl trope.

Brooke is kinda in the bitchy head cheerleader trope. And I hate to say that because when we start the show, she's already trying to change herself. But we do hear from that friend of Lucas' that Brooke was a bitch to her to say the least. Plus Brooke herself would say that she didn't used to be a great person. But Brooke eventually becomes such a great friends. There are some bumps along the way but speaking in general terms she was an advocate for her friends. She became her class' president. She started a successful clothing line while still in high school. She was generous and kind. And then grew into a truly stupendous adult... Brave, forgiving, loving, sweet, and kind. She truly broke out of the bitchy cheerleader mold.

Peyton maybe changes the least out of all the characters but she's a paradox from the beginning. She's a loner cheerleader. Some people scoff at her calling herself a loner cause she's a cheerleader and dating one of the star Basketball players but she does have quite a few loner tendencies.

Lucas is the character who has the closest thing to an inverse character development. When we start the show he's in the poetic, bookish, angsty "nice guy" male protagonist trope with a single mother to boot. The twist on that is that he's also a jock Basketball player. Lucas has good aspects about him. He's a good friend and good brother but if there's one thing he bad at it's being a good boyfriend. I don't want act like Lucas is a horrible person but there is definitely a decline in his character where he goes from being a seemingly perfect person to being severely flawed especially when it comes to his romantic relationships.

What is so great about One Tree Hill is their ability to create likeable characters. Even the characters you don't like at the beginning become likeable. And even Lucas, despite his many flaws, has moments of true greatness. Believe me, it is a skill to write likeable characters and it wasn't until I watched Dawson's Creek that I realized that some writers either have no ability of writing them or they love to write unlikable characters. Every single side character on Dawson's Creek is a one note stereotype and worse of all they are usually insufferable. And the likeable ones they completely mistreated in the writing.

[sleepynegress]

On GEN V...

First, I have to say that though I watch The Boys, for me the skewering of power, and it being always corrupt/corruptable, especially when corporate was smudged a bit by all the white dudes being centered by the narrative and fandom, and certain expected patterns in that.

...i.e. Butcher and Soldier Boy and Homelander...ALL being stanned while all being terrible people. -Mother's Milk and Frenchie being side kicks (the Black man and the "foreigner") and the silent but deadly Asian girl... You get it. I hate that this is the case, but even when meant to subvert, this tends to happen.

So, it's interesting that they leaned in harder and made it MORE obvious this time, by literally blowing up the Golden White Guy (played by Swartzanegger's son, no less) at the end of the pilot episode and playing a Black woman's gaze as the entry point into this angle on the world. ...We saw how that went with Star Trek: Discovery. Those used to the Dursley 37 birthday presents treatment were and still are REAL mad. I hate to say it, especially given how unusually well this show is rendering the insecurities and challenges of this time for young adults, but some people we like are not gonna make it through this season... And it won't be pretty when they go (holds a halo of protection over Emma & Jordan).

...But Marie, a.k.a. the audience's gaze? is safe. That said, Marie is *also* written like the usually centered white dude, just like Micheal Burnham before her. Her arc is "the hero's journey." She stumbles, but ultimately she will measure up to the highest potential (one of, if not the most powerful hero) even she can't see yet... TW for this section... for self-harm/eating disorders etc... The powers being spot-on metaphors for the struggles and insecurities of young people is a nice writing choice. Marie's puberty/power advent literally killed her parents and alienated her sister. So, of course, she can't truly see the potential. There's ritualistic self-loathing in both her cutting and Emma's vomiting to use their powers and that is mostly imposter syndrome for both....Both of them are SO MUCH more powerful than they think, but are held back by parental baggage.

...Andre too, though instead of self-harm it's being lazy about his power development, to subconsciously detach his own personhood from his father trying to live through him.

Jordan Li is bigender but is most comfortable presenting "femme", which may also have to do with detaching from their parents' preferences in gender presentation for them. They want a super-powered son. But the only times Li presents that way is when they feel they absolutely *have to* or actively need to do something and only can, in that form. "Relaxed" or default Jordan is femme.

So, while I see people wishing Li would have been femme Li in that first kiss, it makes sense that they would shift, given the baggage and male presentation preference pressure they grew up with. They shifted back to "default" Li once they were relaxed...i.e. afterglow slumber... An interesting inferred detail is that Li was born presenting male. That is likely a big reason why their parents are that attached to a masc gender presentation.

Now Cate's arc, just like the Golden Boy Luke is actively subverting an element of expected whiteness. Her power is to compel people with touch. It's white women's tears as a superpower, which is IMO, the most clever power social metaphor in this franchise. Cate's moral compass is the strongest of the superheroes we've seen in the entire Boys universe so far. She's got those actual Karen powers, but she's the anti-Karen.

She avoids using her power non-consensually in ways that cause permanent harm and even consensually in ways that may help, and given her entry point (similar to Marie, but w/o closure), it makes sense. --This is all the more tragic if she's being used in the way I suspect...given her nightmare/flashback in those opening eps. to having been in "The Woods" (I think it's either she or whoever the puppet show person is in Sam's episodes, that is the reason for the blackouts). She's a Pusher, and much like Andy in Stephen King's Firestarter it takes a heavy toll on the brain...

She's probably not gonna make it through this season, yall. Anyway, all this to say... I am intrigued by this show. And fully invested in these characters. And I like it better than The Boys because it's leaning harder into alienating the elements it's satirizing... The Boys fans are still into the aspects of the show The Boys' narrative is skewering, but Gen V is saying much louder, this is not about you.

[oysterie]

complaining abt a little life under cut because ppl on ig are still obsessed w it apparently -_- shit book

like putting aside other issues w yanagihara, i do not think a little life is as worthless as other ppl make it out to be and i stand by my 2.5 star rating. like, imo you should read it as a horror story of sorts about a man who, after horrible traumatic experiences, just refuses to seek help and work on getting better and how his choice to not do those things affect his life and hurt the people around him who love him. ofc none of the things that happen are his fault yet he continues to blame himself and see himself as ruined because of these events both from his childhood and adult life. The writing itself was good, the character voices were distinct enough and descriptions were well done (though i do agree w the person who said that she should be writing travel blogs/advertisements rather then novels because there is no reason for her to go street by street in nyc; it gets egregious at times). She does a good job in slowely revealing the information abt Judes past to us in a way that is agonizingly drawn out but rarely frustratingly slow. Judes line of thought is believable and thats the main thing that she needed to do and she did it well despite how frustrating it is at times. But thats from the outside looking in ofc and its supposed to be that Jude is behind this wall out of reach from both everyone in his life and the audience and it works well. like can she make emotional moments? yes. Does that mean that they are examples of good writing? yeah no. Like, its completely egregious in its torture of this guy to the point of unbelievability. At some point she should have just said "yeah i can get the same point across while cutting this scene and that one too etc". Like, not to discount people's experiences but when writing a book thats like focused on hyperrealism present day then you need to not prioritize the torture porn over a well paced, believable story. Then on top of that its like ofc this guy went to one ivy league school adn then harvard law and also some other ivy league for a masters and ofc his whole friend group became immensly successful in each of their chosen careers etc etc like okay alright whatever. Becomes eye roll inducing at some point like i get that theyre in nyc and we see their slow rise up from barely affording their appartment to becoming rich but still was everything necessary. idk its a nitpick kinda not really. Beyond that its 13 r.easons why levels of unnecessary graphic depictions that add nothing (like im fine w gore or depictions of injury but the first time was enough not every single scene finding new metaphores and descriptions to carry). Was just drawn out like she enjoyed tortoring this guy lol. anyways bad novel it is torture porn etc but not as competely worthless as other make it but if you put it on your best books ever list youre objectively wrong and need to have a better metric for if a book was good beyond "made me sad" lmfao. also no one should read this book it sucks.

[chonidale]

how would you rank the characters in s7 i assume cheryl and toni take the top 2 spot but everyone else?

yes, they are top two, always.

cheryl: forever my fav, but i think what they've done with her this season is so, so good. the way they've used the 50s to show cheryl's growth is on par with how well they're using it show choni's. i do think the difference in her is also a result of her not having jason related trauma, but it's also obviously showing how much she's matured over the course of the show. i'm just so proud of her every week and pray they can keep it up for just nine more eps.

toni: her best season, bar none. they've finally figured out how to write her and write for her, and it's both so satisfying to finally see and frustrating that it took them this long to do it. but this is the toni i always knew she was, and seeing her perspective and struggles has been so nice. my single complaint is that she's missing so many episodes. anyone that has a bad word to say about her this season is dumb and nasty and has no empathy for black characters.

tabitha: no we haven't seen much of her but i love her so much and i miss her so much and i just can't rank anyone else higher than her, sorry.

reggie: we haven't seen much of him yet but i already love him so much. it's so interesting to see such a different version of him and think charles is doing a great job. best boy for sure.

archie: i do not find most of his plots interesting and he's been kinda meh in the last few eps, but i can't deny that i've found him really endearing for the first time in seasons. i do wish they would pull back on the straight savior stuff a bit, but still. i'm charmed most of the time.

kevin: it's been nice to see him get some meaty stuff to work with again, and to not be made a villain for once. i wish the writers would give his relationship with clay more onscreen development, but i'm glad kevin's journey has at least gotten some focus and has been taken seriously. i really hope they take the time to show that it helped him with his internalized homophobia in the present.

midge: listen is it unserious of me to put midge so high? yes, but i think she's cute and i love her dynamic with cheryl and toni and i appreciate her existence when it comes to fangs and i don't care which way they choose to bring her back to the present (there's a lot of ways i can think of), just that they do.

clay: i really like this guy and think he's sweet and a great match for kevin and a great fit on the show and in the gang. i wish we knew more about him and still think he should have been a topaz to give toni a family as well as kevin a love interest, but whatever.

veronica: i'm happy to see her with a bit of her spunk back, but i will just always struggle to find veronica or her stories interesting. i think she started the season off strong but now she's just fallen back into boring business and family related plots or mooning after boys with betty. meh. still, gets point for variety.

betty: i usually love betty, but find her kinda meh this season. i understand what they've been trying to do with her and i think lili is doing a good job, but it just feels so repetitive every episode, omg. we get it, betty is horny and wants to fuck the patriarchy both literally and metaphorically, can she come up with something else?

fangs: i don't mind him this season at all and i appreciate that he shaved and cut his hair so he doesn't look like the nasty man he was last season, but it's not like he's gotten anything to do for me to enjoy. but i don't hate him so good for him.

jughead: ranking him below fangs... look how they massacred my boy. i grew to love him at lot in the time jump, but i guess i'm just never going to like high school jughead because woof. the fact that i completely forgot about him until i almost hit publish says it all. completely isolated from the rest of the cast, with the most boring storylines on the show that's largely just him and guest stars... it's bad for him. not even tabitha could get me to pay attention to him.

julian: he does his job as a villain well and nick seems lovely, but obviously he's last. the one good thing i can say about him is that i'm glad they went with him over jason because i hate jason and think they've beaten that dead horse more than enough, and i'm actually intrigued by the dynamic between julian and cheryl.

[fantasticfiaskos]

31 so-called hours: 

0: wedding toasts, dance battles, shirtless serenades, I’m clearly not ready to trip. Star-crossed.  A sister. I remember nothing. 

1: handshakes and hugs, rosé and rooftops, smiles and sunglasses.  

2: discovering the secret life of snails, aliens and all the laughter souls share over inconsequence

3: the first and only real goodbye because every other one since has only been “until next time”. She exits to the sound of book clubs and scheduling and loose promises 

4: she sleeps. I wait. 

5: more sleeping 

6: butterflies; the nervous ones, the guilty ones. the guilty ones because they are actually nervous ones for something that is so off limits. And then there she is. Sleepy eyed, and bright. A strawberry sun on a grey afternoon. 

7: misty, mossy, casually serious. Gravel, grass, cobblestones and brooks. The music of water. The overcast skies keep their secret of rain, for now. Asian architecture melds with nature’s kiss. Is that ginseng? 

8: Devin. Hes not the kindest guy and he has poor diner etiquette. Definitely not the guy to sit on the same side of a booth as you. 

9: a family of bananatrees. It’s complicated. It hurts sometimes. It’s home. 

10: quiet corners, benches and bamboo. Conversation flows quicker than streams or thought. The heavens start to whisper their secrets. Are humans good? Why do we hurt ourselves? Why don’t we love more? The world tests her. It all feels so far away. But not her, she’s here. She sees me. My soul stirs. I see her. It spills from my tongue unconcerned with the head and my lips catch the words just before the air carries them off. I edit. It’s off-limits after all. “I think that’s what I like so much about you” I say a bit sheepishly amidst the realization of what was on its way. Words disappear as quickly as they came. Eyes lost not in eyes but their beyond. I feel she feels it too. She isn’t sure what it is. She isn’t thinking about it. Laughter swallows us and we are back in the garden. 

11: closing time was an hour ago. My shoes are untied. Weird. We are kicked out. She doesn’t love skiing. 

12: Thai food. Firelight. Blankets and a booth. She orders a salad. She won’t let me pay. We talk books and she gets an idea.

13: 20 questions!! 

14: I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way. She is present. Radiant. Effervescently curious. Where did she come from? She asks, “What scares me? What does winning mean to me?” I tell her… it all feels similar to naked but also just as honest. I have no interest in editing for her. It’s important that she knows the full truth somehow. Every answer. Her point of view is beautiful. 

15: a bar, a very cheery bartender. Radlers and rain on tin roofs. She is poetry in motion. Effortlessly butterflying between the social nuances of connecting one on one, charming the bartender and taking in a public space. I feel so lucky that she chose me to connect with. I wonder if she is like this with everyone. I doubt it. I wonder if Devin knows how lucky he is. Somehow I doubt it… she runs out of questions. But has 2 to go to 20. We laugh it off as something to take up next time. We hug. She has friends and work awaiting her. I’m changed, maybe forever. 

16: BEST. DAY. EVER. I sleep. I can’t. I write. I wonder… 

17: gardens again. Mountaintop ones. Gift shops and grottos. We ride the elevator up. It’s interview time. My turn. She likes Tim Burton. She wears white hoodies and textured magenta tights. I love colors. Could she be more stunning in her frump? She’s into soccer. I bet she’d beat me. Water splashes against the windows as we meditate out across to Washington. Silence and curiosity. The sun sets, it’s no Amazonian, rain forested dawn but it’ll do she says with a twinkle.

18: we walk amongst the flowers. The religious undertones can’t hide the divinity here. She’s different. Heavier. Something weighs on her. She’s still there, just buried under some worry. I have to dig a bit. We walk the labyrinth. It’s a twisting metaphor for life. We pass each other 15 times as we bob and weave and joke about sour patch kids and the Beatles. She reminds me of a babe. I remind myself to stop taking girls here when they are soul-searching. We reach the center. I turn. I wait. I love her music taste. I watch as she comes to me. I think of kissing her. I take that thought, bubble wrap it up, return it to sender and meet her approach with a smile instead. 

19: we sit on a bench. We watch the grass grow misty in the afternoon haze. Today is not about me I realize. Two souls not ready to look at each other but oh so content to be near each other. She’s grieving. It’s for a life she hasn’t lived. It’s unfair she says, the loss of yet another dream. She knows it’s over in her heart. Back to the drawing board. She hates starting over. She must. She knows. I watch. I want to hold her. Comfort her, but know it’s not my place. Her soul is a museum today, look but don’t touch. We are kicked out again. We have a habit of disagreeing with the passage of time. 

20: she’s a vegetarian. She knows a spot. I get the veggie burger after stopping for a bottle of wine on the way. Her favorite is sauv blanc. It’s “Just in case” I tell myself knowing all the same that this is the end for today… craft Cocktails and neither of us finish our food. We say it’s because we’re full. It feels like we are winding down. I check my feet and they’re crossed. I’m tripping. She’s leaving in a week. Driving back with her parents. We make loose plans to meet up before she goes.

20: We don’t. 

21: Weeks pass. Months float by. Plans for a Norwegian reunion waylaid by the fiercest foe in the year of 2022. COVID lays my eager heart to rest, even while it dozes unaware on a lazy afternoon of a year of my life. Years drift on. Unremarkable, dormant really. 

22: Lightning on a summer’s day. 

“I MISS YOU 

I MISS YOU

I MISS YOU”

Lights up my digital display. Out of left field like Haley’s comet making her triumphant return, she flirts with my atmosphere. We agree that it’s been too long and we owe our hearts the pleasure of each other’s company. 

23: There she is! Has it really been 2 years? It feels like weeks and decades simultaneously. We test the room. Looking and not looking at each other. Is that thing between us still there? It is. A knowingness filters our mood. We walk. We talk. She’s smaller than I remember, frailer perhaps. She talks of her failing body. Health eludes her. She feels empty. A cup already drank that is still being sipped from in absent-minded thirst. She’s too kind to repackage herself for those nearest her. But that essence is still there. This time it’s more on the surface. It’s the depth she cannot find. Old laughter finds new homes in quick lines and quicker looks. Her sun kisses look just as I remember. Radiant. I’m sad for her. I want her to feel full. She says she has trouble eating. She talks of choosing and choice. Why not me she asks more of the universe than anyone at our bartop for two. 

24: I tell her of my mother. The slow heartbreak of losing something you always thought you’d have. The slower deeper heartbreak of realizing it may have never been there in the first place. She seems to understand more than the words. Unbridled honesty again flows from me. Why is it so important that she know? I’m always open, but not like this. I wonder if she’s a wizard. The thought makes me giggle out loud. She likes corn. She drinks pink prickled pear. How does she see through me?! I feel like I couldn’t hide if I tried. I don’t want to. I tell her that my memory of my mother fades nearly as quickly as my mother does. “Who was she actually?” she asks. “I’m trying to figure it out”, I answer. She cares. I can tell. She’ll be brilliant at this kid thing I find myself thinking. 

25: she talks of Daniel. I speak of Mari. Both disappointments in life. Both not where we wanted to be. We grab beers and she listens. I tell her of my heartbreak, of how it shaped me. I can tell heartbreak has shaped her too. She gets it. But unlike me, there is still love there. Daniel still holds a promise. She does not share my luxury of unencumberedness. Time warps around this beer and this moment. Seeing each other across a galaxy, a life, a beer, a small picnic table. Unclear if it was our connection, the weed or the spiked, spicy, dirty hot chocolate weaving it’s spell, but whatever it was, this felt real. More than most moments. All of a sudden the boys come. They grab beers and she joins in without missing a beat. There’s that sun of a butterfly I saw before. Again time has disappeared. 

26: she asks if I want to come to dinner. We are late. She doesn’t want this to end I feel. Neither do I. We challenge each other in a stein-less stein off. She smokes me. I’m rethinking my frailty thoughts from earlier. She emanates this inner strength born out of proud determination. Life cannot beat her down. She has decided to be happy one day I sense. Dinner is homey. It’s family. It’s warm. They seem surprised to see me. It’s a roast. I spend the evening chatting with relatives. It’s cozy. I meet in and out of towners. Glow sticks. Dance parties. Chaos. The air is thick with the sweet recklessness of children. Its loud. It’s life. It feels natural. I hardly see her all evening. I don’t mind. When eyelids grow heavy we take our leave. She seems excited that I fit in. I imagine that she liked that I could float in the sea of bananatrees. I play songs on the drive. She ponders. 

27: I’m home. I get out. I’m unaware. I tell her that if she’s ever single, I’d love to ask her out. I leave. I’m an idiot. How could I not see it before? 

28: LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE! Sweaty, steamy, sauna induced brother in law. A bond forged betwixt him and I in Bjørn Borgs. She comes up in conversation. I tell him how I feel about her and a light comes on deep in the mist-tinged air of my mind. How is this sunrise of a realization only now dawning on me? I knew back in portland, I knew yesterday over beers. I know now. She’s my undone shoelace. She’s my crossed feet. She’s my falling. I need to tell her. She’s down for one last hang before I leave again. 

29: why am I nervous? I carry extra trips of liquor to delay the hello. I’m so silly I think. There she is in all her present-ness. I eat ribs and chicken wings. These are not her favorite things I think I read in her. A mother, though neither of ours, asks how the wedding was. “Wasn’t I supposed to find love? How’s that going?” Oh, better than either of us could have imagined I smile to myself. I look for an excuse to cuddle her, caress her. It’s nice having her so close. I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable but damn is it electric gently pushing her leg over to the other side of the couch. This all feels so adolescent. It’s so fun. But I can’t, I remind myself. She’s still holding hope and hands with a future that won’t look her in the eye. 

30: we definitely walk the talk. An hour and a half later we find ourselves across town. That whispered secret of the sky yet again unsealing it’s lips in song. We look for cover but our best bet is just heading home. It’s a long way back. It’s wet. Our feet keep us moving, but time does it’s utmost to arrest us. We debate souls. Light speed. Fate. What we’re doing here. She wants answers but knows she won’t find any. I tell her my thoughts. She disagrees. But wants to know more. She is talking, more than usual, I wonder if she’s nervous too. Or perhaps she’s just more awake this time. I wonder if she’s also sad I’m leaving. Probably wishful thinking I tell myself. I realize I’m delaying. Avoiding what I really want to tell her. I could talk to her for eons. I want to.

31: we make it home, damp and eager for the shelter. She drives. I think. I feel. She scares me. She asks me “well, what else do we want to say to each other?”. I tell her of my fear. I’m scared of how deep these feelings could go. I know she’s unavailable but I can’t explain it. I know she’s my next. It feels too right. I think she feels it too. She just can’t say it. I comfort myself with the thought that her silence is cuz she won’t admit it to herself. Maybe that’s my pride. Maybe I’m just hoping her heart walked the same labyrinth mine did and she’s actually too nice to say otherwise. It’s these little doubts that make love so eternal. So worth pursuing. My heart feels full. Like really full. I’m loving this. We say goodbye and I tell her I’d like to choose her. She asks if I’d like to leave it on eye contact or a hug. I love her questions. Eye contact wins the eternal struggle between those two heavyweights. I don’t want to stop looking at her. She is sublime, as always. She tells me tears are imminent. I apologize. I tell her home is where the heart is. I only want to be where my heart is. To lay, playful in sheets, forever. I leave her slowly. I wait in the doorway as she starts to drive. I consider running out again. I want to kiss her, to say a real goodbye. It feels like I won’t see her for years although she reassures me it won’t be. Some part of me doubts her. I decide it’s not the time, but it’s unclear if it ever will be.  I’m now 0/2. 

32 and counting: she turns 31 this month. She feels like time is moving so fast and yet there is so much left to go. She feels fear, but more than that, she feels sadness. This wasn’t what she saw for herself. She chose it after all. Why can’t she be chosen back? All she’s looking for is a man who doesn’t break out in hives when he hears the word commitment. I want to fill her with all the capacity she knows she has in her heart. If I know what I want, do I push for it? Or let it come to me!? I never know in love. I often let things flow their course in life but could this be my event horizon? The light of her strawberry sun eclipsing the pull of my life’s gravity? I’m up to bat. The count is 0/2. The pitch is a curveball. I don’t know if it’s my time to swing.  

This is nothing like Hayley’s comet I realize. There is nothing familiar about this type of falling. If we orbit each other at all, it is lightyears between lifetimes and lightyears again. She is new. She is next. Choice feels like too conscious a word. She is inevitable. It all makes too much sense not to be. And yet here she is, in the most impossible of positions. She doesn’t even know if she likes me like that. She can’t open or even look at that box now. And yet I send her poetry and foul out to left field in hopes of recreating some of the magic we found in her front seat. I can’t, I know. She has to decide this on her own. She hates disappointments. She hates starting over. Deep down she hates not being chosen even more. I want to choose her. But she isn’t ready. I write a poem, I write two. I decide to let her go. All I want to do is call her. That feels like asking a cat to stay in your lap all day. She will come snuggle when she wants to. Nothing worth having ever comes easy. I wish her the best. I want to see her tomorrow but know it may be years. 

33: I already can’t wait for 33.