#the most obnoxiously long intro to ever be written

[luvhards]

 application :

✧˚  ༘  ⋆｡˚  well,  well…  it  appears  that  aria  eden-west  will  be  a  part  of  new  york's  social  season  once  more  !  according  to  guildsource,  the  twenty  -  seven  year  old  is  most  known  for  being  an  heir  to  a  jewelry  empire  /  youtube  show  host  &  magazine  editor  ,  and  is  constantly  spotted  hanging  around  the  brew  club  —  seems  as  if  you've  heard  of  them,  too.  they  initially  made  a  splash  on  the  gossip  site  after  falling  down  the  steps  at  the  met  gala  ,  and  they've  been  the  center  of  attention  ever  since.  the  public  tends  to  view  them  as  being  nosey  and  critical,  but  people  close  to  them  say  they're  actually  captivating  and  thoughtful…  i'll  believe  it  when  i  see  it.  they  tend  to  remind  me  of  the  glossy  coat  on  the  pages  of  a  magazine  ,  the  blinding  sparkle  of  a  jewel  when  it  hits  that  perfect  spot  of  sunlight  ,  the  warmth  of  tequila  as  it  slides  down  your  throat  &  the  comfort  of  throwing  on  your  favorite  youtube  video  while  eating  a  meal  .  which  says  the  most  about  them.  i  wonder  if  they'll  be  seen  wearing  their  tiffany  &  co.  elsa  peretti  open  heart  necklace  to  the  social  events  this  year,  but  nevermind  all  that.  the  social  season  is  upon  us,  and  guildsource  is  always  watching.

statistics :

faceclaim  :  dua  lipa  name  :  aria  catherine  eden  -  west  birthday  :  april  eighteenth   birthplace  :  london  ,  england   age  :  twenty  -  seven   occupation  :  magazine  editor  ,  interviewer  &  youtube  show  host   education : bachelor’s in film and media studies from columbia. height  :  five  feet  ,  eight  inches   scent  :  dolce  &  gabanna  light  blue 

family heritage :

aria eden west is the newest carat in her family’s gold lineage, next in line to the throne of her family’s crown jewel , weston co.  founded by catherine west , weston co. was risen from the ground up , determined to give the ‘ every day woman ‘ access to jewelry that was both stylish and durable , allowing them to pay no mind to the usual wear and tear that came with being a twentieth century housewife . j.c penney was the first to invest , lining their accessories sections with their first ( and what would soon become their most famous ) cuff bracelet , an indisputable hit during the holiday season which made penney’s rich and catherine even richer . weston co. only blossomed from there , over the next hundred years she’d break the glass ceiling of the j.c penney’s jewelry section , open her own boutiques , little by little inching closer to the edge of rodeo drive where the weston co. now resides with the rest of the world’s greatest designers . weston co. prides itself on being made for women , by women — though , now it’s certainly popular and amongst anyone who enjoys fine jewelry — so the company now rests in the hands of eleanor eden - west , and eventually , it will become aria’s too .  ( weston co. is equivalent to a brand like cartier or tiffany & co. )

some lore about aria’s signature jewelry : the weston co. ( hehe ) open heart necklace in silver and gold is now an archival piece , released for a limited time in the late mid 2000s as an ode and celebration of the re-marriage of eleanor west and thomas eden .  west women are notorious for wearing almost exclusively gold jewelry , so the heart in gold is meant to represent both aria and her mother while the heart in silver symbolizes thomas , the two welded together in ( almost ) perfect matrimony . along with the necklace , she can almost always be seen wearing a random assortment of rings on her fingers , never so many to the point where it gets cluttered but there’s always at least one on her hands at all times . 

past :

you grow up with the world at your fingertips . everything you want is given to you before you have to so much as ask . it’s the typical life that’s afforded to a child like you , educated in the nation’s best private schools , never without the newest toys or latest book in whatever series you were obsessed with at any given time ( some even before they were released to the public ) . it’s comfortable , you’re comfortable , but why does that make you feel so guilty ?

technically the first “ true “ nepotism baby in your family considering that your mother didn’t get to reap the benefits of weston co.’s success until she was well in her 40s and your father built his entire career from the ground up . not that you’re complaining , people would kill for this life and you know that you’re lucky to live it . you don’t resent it , in fact you cherish it , but you can’t help from asking yourself one thing : what have you done to deserve this ?  a question both you and the tabloids seem to keep asking .

you want more out of life , as grateful as you are for your parent’s support you feel terrible taking it from them — is it true what everyone says ? would you really be nothing without your family name ? going to college feels like the only way to get away from it all , to silence that voice in your head that tells you the only thing you’ll ever have to show for yourself is a company you don’t even really own . you go to columbia , but not without scrutiny . impossible not to overhear the whispers of your peers that swear they have you pieced together , that are completely certain your family’s name ( or perhaps their generous donation ) is the only reason you’ve made it this far . they put a chip on your shoulder , and it’s only up to you to figure out how to get it off . 

you make two friends while you’re in college , it’s all you can really afford as someone who spends as much time in the library as you — one on occasion they quite literally had to drag you out of there kicking and screaming . you spend your first two years completely immersed in your studies , trying to prove to everyone ( read : yourself ) that there’s more to you than what your parents have given you , that you’re smart , independent , worth something on even your own .

it’s not until your senior year that you find the thing that would eventually become your life’s purpose . céline was meant to be nothing more than your final project , a theoretical magazine complete with three articles on art , entertainment and current events that was supposed to be for your professors eyes only . but you’ve never found yourself work so hard at something in your life , not only determined to make your final project your best one yet but actually interested in the process at hand . you found yourself excited to go home to write an research , so many nights spent watching the sun rise while you fooled around indesign tweaking the smallest details until they sat just right on the page . 

you’re not quite ready to own a company yet , the thought of inheriting the one that’s had your name signed on it sign the day you were born still sometimes makes you feel sick , so you’ll have to find another way to turn this into something more sustainable for the person you are right now .

you reach out to a couple of friends who reach out to a couple of friends and before you know it you’re being asked to pitch an idea for a youtube series , one that puts a new edge on the predictable world of celebrity interviews — and thus , pub crawl is born . it’s probably not the best idea , inviting celebrities for a day of recorded and publicized drinking all while asking them questions about their lives and careers , but maybe that’s exactly the point . pub crawl becomes an instant success , rising to viral fame after tom holland came to the show and completely spoiled the upcoming avengers movie after he’d gotten tripped up by one of your tricky questions . 

it’s been a hit ever since , each season only growing bigger and bigger until you find yourself being invited to interview celebrities at the red carpet of some of entertainment’s biggest events . people love you , they find your interviewing insightful yet playful , flirtatious yet elegant , captivating in every way as is obvious by the millions of views garnered by your interviews at the grammy’s , oscars and of course , the met gala .

you get three seasons deep into pub crawl before you realize that though hosting this show makes you happy , it doesn’t make you feel complete . sure , it’s fun picking your guests brains about their most recent projects but it doesn’t feel like enough . you want to talk about what’s really going on in the world , about art , history , fashion , design , and give voice to the people who do it best . so  , céline is pulled back out from the depths of your google drive , an dream you’re now determined to make into a reality especially now that you have all of the resources to do it on your own . for the next year , any time that isn’t spent filming pub crawl is dedicated to turning cèline into the publication it’s meant to be , gathering a team of writers , editors and designers to make certain that it lives up to the potential you’ve always known it had .

it’s been a year since it’s official launch , and while most of the reception has been positive you definitely won’t be winning a pulitzer any time soon . the critics sound like a broken record , dubbing céline as yet another passion project by an out of touch product of nepotism baby funded by money that was never yours in the first place . you’re tired of feeling like you have to prove yourself to people , trying to make them see that your worth is in more than just who you are, but what you can do — so , you stop trying to .

[rainparadefromhell]

How Never Have I Ever Uses Music to Hint at the Future

 I’ve always loved the way music tells a story, especially in movies and tv shows. These things usually go unnoticed unless you’re a college student trying to ignore homework on a Tuesday afternoon. I have been aware that NHIE has been whispering a secret story through its soundtrack for a while now but never had time to actually compile it into one monster of a post. So I’m doing it now!

This is where I try to convince you that the show has been hinting at Devi ending up with Ben all the way since season one. There are over 100 songs in the official soundtrack and of course, I can’t go through them all so I’ll just stick with the most important moments from all three seasons and lyrics that I think encapsulate the core message of the songs.

 SEASON 1

 The Pilot – Introductions

Paxton’s intro song (Dancing On My Own – Robyn) makes a lot of sense for both characters. It talks about trying hard to get someone’s attention and failing at it. It is a song with a dramatic, pulsating beat that plays over Paxton’s big entrance into Devi’s class.

 I'm in the corner, watching you kiss her, oh

I'm right over here, why can't you see me? Oh

I'm giving it my all, but I'm not the girl you're taking home, ooh

I keep dancing on my own (I keep dancing on my own)

 Ben is introduced with a softer melody (Rubia – Juan Wauters). It is in Spanish, a language I don’t speak as well so I won’t try to translate it but I will leave you with this Pitchfork review of it written by Steven Arroyo :

“Rubia” still succeeds wonderfully on these terms, a longing love letter to someone with a memorable nose in a far-away country…

 Te guardo un lugar en mi corazon

No quiero irme, chequeo hora son

Me iré pensando que

Muy pronto contigo yo estaré

 There is an important moment near the end of the episode when Devi goes to talk to Paxton (and asks him to have sex with her) in which Playing Games by Anna of the North plays.

 I've been playing games with your heart

Left you thinking in the dark

Just to make you feel unsure

Then I know you want me more

 This whole song is very interesting to me. The singer seems to describe a situation in which she has the upper hand in a relationship.

I’ve been playing games with your heart, so I know I’ve made my mark is a lyric I think perfectly shows Devi’s desire to enter a relationship. It is not because she actually likes Paxton. In fact, she doesn’t even know him yet. I think it tells of Devi’s reasons to have a boyfriend – to make a mark not just on him but the school, and her peers as well. She wants to stop being “invisible” as to somehow regain some power over her situation in s1 (the death of Mohan) as well as distract herself from it.

 Episode 2

The song Dancing on The Limit (by Prizes) plays as Devi dreams of Paxton coming into her room to have sex with her. It is the first “love song” of Devi and Paxton which I find genius since it doesn’t actually depict reality.

I'm never gonna quit it

Back in love within a minute

We're dancing on the limit

But I love the way you're making me move

 It is a fantasy, something Devi feels when she imagines what would be like to be Paxton’s girlfriend.

 Episode 6

In Ben’s episode we get so much more insight into who he is, and not just that shell of an obnoxious overachiever he built for himself. We also get insight into his feelings for Devi when he is having dinner with the Vishwakumars where after choosing not to “nuke her back”, he actually has a fun time with her family as the song (Call Me by Sarah Rebecca) in the background goes :

 Call me angel, I could save you

I want you, I want you, I want you, I want you, I want you

 At the very end of the episode when Devi Venmos Ben so that he never has to “accept food from a pedo again” another love song can be heard (Lost – Boy Harsher).

 I’m the one that holds you

In the middle of the night

 I'm the one that wants you

Forever til we die

 Episode 7

In this episode Devi and Paxton kiss for the first time to Fire For You by the Cannons which at first seems like a really sensual song… until you actually read the lyrics.

 I could've died for you

How could you not know?

I was alive with you

But you brought in the cold

Was I being lied to? Wish I never met you

Started to regret you

  Episode 10

 Boys Like You -  Kids at Midnight

We’ve reached my favorite NHIE song. I love the synths. I love the 80s vibe. I love everything about it (No wonder why that Malibu kiss got an MTV nomination).

Certainly the most interesting thing about this song playing during this scene is right as the camera lowers on Devi’s phone, we cut to Paxton leaving a voicemail with these lyrics in the background :

 She said, "Boys like that should be in second place”

Now do with that what you will but this is the most intentionally placed lyric in season 1, in my opinion.

 I know it hurts right now, one day you'll realise

There's no need to hide yourself from the world

All my life I've been hiding myself

Just waiting for a boy like you

SEASON 2

 Episode 8

In the scene we see Devi apologize to Ben about the cheating when the song Up All Night by The Undercover Dream Lovers starts playing. The song is seemingly about second chances and not letting someone go. I thought the theme of driving was interesting considering Malibu.

 Caught up on the freeway

You test my patience all the time

Find another exit, ooh

Blocking you from mine

 Episode 9

Heat Waves – Glass Animals

 During Paxton and Devi’s kiss Heat Waves plays and I have to admit the song as well as the scene are amazing. However, I’ve seen this song misunderstood by Daxton fans so much, probably due to the scene trending (mostly on TikTok where people enjoy quick content without much context).

The writer of the song, David Bayley says this about what it means, mentioning another song called Your Love : “They're both definitely two of the songs that are about relationships and sort of knowing that they're doomed,"

Bayley uses the term Heat Wave to represent an illusion of a highway mirage (the air that rises off asphalt on extremely hot days making it seem like the road is wet).

So the love that the writer describes is just like the heat waves – an illusion.

 Now I gotta let you go

You'll be better off in someone new

I don't wanna be alone

You know it hurts me too

You look so broken when you cry

One more and then I say goodbye

 Episode 10

GOLDEN – Running ; Ben comes into the girls bathroom to try and make Devi feel better after she is rejected by Paxton. As he is saying “When are you gonna to realize that that dick doesn’t deserve you” the lyrics playing are :

But I get these feelings

That I can't explain

It’s in my veins

being the underdog all the time

 Hello Pongo – Summer Love

Another love song that plays when Ben and Devi see each other at the dance.

I've been lookin,

for you my summer love

forever summer love

Sam Smith – Love Goes

This song is – do you wanna guess? Not a love song. It is a sad one.

I hope you understand that I have to send you away

You may not understand, but I know that you will one day

You're broken, I know this

And if you knew it, you would love me a whole different way

But that's how love goes, goes

I also think it’s funny how just as Devi and Paxton are about to slow dance the DJ plays a different, more upbeat song which tells us they aren’t really that compatible with each other. They just never manage to catch that love song!

 I wonder if season 4 brings us a Ben and Devi slow dance…

SEASON 3

Episode 1

 Josha Daniel – Dream of You ; We finally get something close to a love song for Daxton in the first scene of season 3 even though it it pretty vague and repetitive.

 We are never gonna waste our time again

I can't sleep when i dream of you

I can't sleep when i dream of you

 Ilo Ilo – Clementine ; Devi and Paxton almost have sex

Clementine

Trying to erase you from my spotless mind

Hit fast-forward but I'm stuck in rewind

 Episode 3

Afternoon Bike Ride – Before The Fall ; Devi tells Nalini she and Paxton broke up

After an autumn of ends lеd to silence

Winters cloak covered the tracks of the tyrants

Spring couldn't bring on the promise of June

With no voice to sing and nothing to bloom

I found the mention of June interesting even if it wasn’t intentional because it almost seems like an answer to Heat waves (Sometimes, all I think about is you, Late nights in the middle of June).

Mel Blue – Finding You; Ben tells Fabiola Devi broke his heart

I lost you love

You lost you too

I lost myself

I’m finding you

Episode 5

Carla Morrison – Eres tú ; Ben and Devi say goodbye to each other after their bet at the coffeehouse

(I found a translation for this one)

Today I woke up wanting to kiss you

I have a thirst to caress you

Entangle myself with you and not let you go

You're so intoxicating

It's you

 Episode 10

“Because I’ll miss you. A lot.”

“Wait. There’s the stomach knots.”

Jaguar Sun – Car Keys

Oh, how you've grown

Look back now

And move on

Don't worry, about a thing

Just grab those car keys

And drive into the rain

Another song involving cars, driving… I’m starting to think all of this makes sense! Also I love how the song mentions growth because Devi did grow so much in season 3.

 Prinze George – Take off

 Saw you in the living room

You were wild with light and I wanted you

Tried to do the woman thing

I was eager, young and abandoning

I would force you to love me

I would force you to stay

I would force you to love me

I would stand in your way

And you can't take off without me now

After Boys Like You this has to be my favorite NHIE song. It also has an 80s vibe to it and the two songs feel very much connected in my mind. The lyrics talk about standing in a lover’s way. Preventing them from leaving you and closing that chapter of their life.

I am still in your way

This lyric that appears later in the song shows that after everything that happened to them in season 4, they are still in each other’s way. They can’t forget about each other even after actively pursuing other people.

 After analyzing so many songs, I really have to give credit to the show. Most of these were chosen so carefully to fit certain moments. You can really tell the show was made with a lot of intention and love, at least soundtrack wise.

 As far as proving who the main couple (endgame couple, whatever you wanna call it) in season 4 is, to me that is pretty obvious even without the support of the soundtrack. I’m very curious about the songs we’ll get to hear in the new season and I also wonder if we will hear some old ones again.

Let me know what you think!

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

us the voices recommends! shows, and movies! part 1

Larva 11/10

this show is genuinely amazing, I literally have cried multiple times it's genuinely the best show in the whole "potty humour, screaming" genre, literally if you can get past the kinda obnoxious screaming you will be treated with a wonderful show that has so much love put into it.

(most media critics are snobs, this show is awesome. embrace the silly and the cringe.)

Upload (2020) 10/10

black mirror if it was funny and wasn't anti-technology, best take on cyberpunk I've seen in a long time. if you liked black mirror but hated the doomer parts and the trash writing of some of the later seasons and episodes you will adore upload!

(I actually hate black mirror, like it's all short stories at the end of the day and I like some of them so much and others can go in a hole and die genuinely. it's the most mixed bag of a show I've ever seen, because it just kinda is such a doomer show like make up your mind on what it is!!! 4.7/10 overall and 11/10 for select short stories.)

dinosaur king (dubbed) 10/10

if you like "Pokemon" and "Digimon" you will fucking love dinosaur king, it has (for the time) accurate dinosaur facts. the VA's for jessie and James! and I think ash? appear, and it's a all round fun show! lots of dinosaurs and crying to be had!

squid girl (dubbed/subbed) 10/10

if you like anime girl, fish out of water, slice of life, funny shows you will love squid girl! many many squid puns, and general tomfoolery.

Siren: Survive the Island 11/10

a south Korean reality game show, where a bunch of women from different jobs and backgrounds compete to be the last one standing.

it's genuinely the coolest, edge of your seat show I've watched in a long time!

Physical 100 10/10

a reality game show where the top 100 south Korean sports people? compete against each other to win, it's fucking crazy and awesome and I can't believe it's a show.

Star Trek: lower decks 11/10

if you in any shape or form liked Star Trek you will fucking love lower decks! it's a love letter to Star Trek in all ways, it's extremely funny and a fresh take on the Star Trek formula!

(if you think the first ep is a bit meh, stick through it! it gets so much better)

sword art online: abridged 12/10

I have only ever watched, "sword art online: alicization" and so that was my intro to the sword art online series. but after watching the "something witty's" sword art online: abridged I can never go back. it is extremely well written, the characterisation is impeccable, it has the most realistic feel of if a whole bunch of people actually got trapped in a VR game, and is such an amazing version of the show you will wonder why you hadn't heard of it before!

the Red turtle 11/10

if you like beautiful animation, sadness, and to get your brain chemistry changed. you should check out the red turtle! it's a joint production with studio gibbli, and is so visually stunning and mesmerising you will just sob.

this movie is so amazing, and you will adore the hell out of it.

Megamind 11/10

Dreamworks cult classic film, a family movie that breaks down the superhero genre and reinvents it into a tale of redemption, grief, and rejecting what people think of you. one of the best family movies of the 2010s.

bolt 11/10

if Disney wasn't cowards we would have more of these cult classic early to late 2000s 3D movies, but they hate fun.

if you took everything anti-hollywood and a solid critic on the state of cinema and tv and threw in some animals, chucked it in a pot.

you would have this amazing film! genuinely one of the best Disney movies ever, and the fact people don't talk about it more is saddening.

treasure planet 11/10

one of the last 2D Disney movies, it bombed bad in the cinemas but it is an amazing film that deserves love.

the score is amazing, the characters are so weird and wonderful, and it evokes insane feelings.

chicken little 10/10

if you like kinda campy goofy movies about autism coded characters and sci-fi, and also animals you will adore chicken little, it's one of the weirder 2010s Disney movies. lots of fun and a good family movie.

that's all! see you next instalment!

[akaluan]

The long and short of it is: college over here in the USA is one gigantic racket. There's one or two large textbook publishers that control huge swathes of education, and if a professor has written for the publisher, of course that professor is going to make their book required, and for the most part, there's no oversight on textbook requirements at all. Two professors teaching theoretically the same course are going to tend to require two different sets of books, at least in my experience.

The more basic courses, like most of your undergrad intro to courses, do have a more standardized list but that list tends to be set by the department (or at least it was in my university, ymmv) and will usually be The Lastest Version Out This Year Of Generic Pearson Textbook [course name] like the Obnoxious and ever ubiquitous Physics Textbook Of Doom that I think almost every USA college student ever has had to deal with. Oh, and they release a new version almost every year, and the only difference tends to be the ordering or wording of the end of chapter problems that are often assigned in class. Meaning you can get away with a cheaper older version (usually. Unless there's a single new paragraph somewhere in the chapter that becomes Critical at some point, or the questions refer directly to something written in the text that gets modified every new version) but you can't rely on the problems in the back of the book being the right one.

Oh and because the version changes every year, if you have to take multiple Physics courses, you're going to need to buy a new copy every year.

Because the textbook requirement will change to the new version. Because colleges just Go With Whatever Pearson Says.

The comments have brought it up a lot, but to reiterate: our university libraries tend to only have one or MAYBE two textbooks for each course, it's not guaranteed to be the newest version (budgeting issues! Textbooks are REALLY EXPENSIVE even for universities!) and you can't take them out of the library. Any pdfs that exist of these books exist only because some kind soul out there digitized it for us, not because the company did it (or at least that was true a decade ago, idk if that's still true)

The textbook industry racket is just one more piece of the capitalist hell that our universities and colleges are part of. When I was in college a decade ago, you could expect to need about $500-600 for textbooks every semester, even as an undergrad, and that was on the LUCKY side. Depending on your course load, it could be upwards of $1000 or more.

Of course, even a decade ago some of my professors were getting very =| about textbooks at the higher levels and I had a few courses that literally set No Book as their required text and just handed out photocopies of what they wanted us to read. Or would state at the start of the semester that any version of the text was acceptable, they'd hand out any homework they wanted us to do personally instead of assigning it from the book itself.

So... Yeah. It's just generally Bad over here, and most of it can literally be laid at the feet of a handful of textbook publishers, who push prices for many standard required texts up to $150 a pop, new version to be released every year.

Okay I have a question about American universities, which I do not understand on general principles, and university libraries, which I do not understand in this context.

Here's how it works for my students:

As part of the £9000 a year they're paying, they get access to full library resources. I, at the start of each academic year, make sure the reading list for each module - both essential and supplementary - is up to date, meaning the library has copies (preferably online forms, with hard copies only if a PDF is unavailable)

The library also has subscriptions to pretty much every major journal going, so they are able to access most journals with their uni login. If they happen across, and need, something they can't access, they put in a request with the library for it. A ninja librarian will perform the sacrament, and a PDF is in your inbox two days later (I am hazy on the mechanism of this part, but not the result). You have up to ten requests per person per year.

How in the world do I see posts from Americans so very often talking about paying for textbooks? Like... I get that it's "Shitty lecturers want to force students to buy their personal textbook for cash monies", but what do those university libraries actually Do?

(Also as a side note I am filled with helpless laughter at the very IDEA that I would (a) be allowed to set my own book as not just essential but fundamental course reading in a field that is well researched HELLO BIAS AND FRAUD and (b) allowed to set any text as required reading that would disadvantage impoverished students HELLO INEQUALITY AND ALSO PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS VIOLATION without the university's academic office arranging for a bed of hot coals to haul me over.)

[thegrandromantic]

i have pretty mixed feelings about the intro sequence to persona 5. (note: p5 is the only persona game i’ve played yet so my opinions may be a bit uninformed)

on one hand it’s absolutely a masterclass in complex storytelling and worldbuilding. starting in the biggest flashiest palace you’ll visit in the game, right at the peak of the climax? it’s truly genius. immediately i was hooked on my first playthrough and i was every bit as charmed by the sheer over-the-top aesthetic on my second. seeing akira’s oppression and bondage by the state when it’s just reached the most violent and even life-threatening is a perfect way to set up the themes of the game and get you invested in your playable character. basically, all of the scenes in the interrogation room and the whole initial heist sequence are *chef’s kiss* excellent.

my mixed feelings kind of start once we start the flashback though. the initial hook is definitely strong enough to keep me invested (ESPECIALLY in royal, i wasn’t expecting to see sumire so early on and i’m already DYING to find out more about her) but gameplay-wise the section kind of drags on. in fairness there’s a lot of highly necessary tutorialization going on especially for newer players like me, but being so on-rails for so long can get a little frustrating. ive actually heard that the p5 intro is SHORTER than other persona games which is wild to me i can’t imagine how slowly the others must start. the moment im in the castle and see akira awaken his persona i’m like DYING to explore the rest of it but instead you get a whole lot of long cutscenes, 3 extremely easy fights, and a path to the exit that’s pretty straightforward with no opportunities for exploration.

back on the positive side of things though, i do absolutely ADORE ryuji as a character and him being your first party member/friend in the game is so incredibly appropriate (pegoryu brain go brrrr). i think it’s so cool how the thing that makes joker angry enough, rebellious enough to awaken his persona is just seeing this brash idiot in danger and desperately wanting the power to save him. ryuji maybe stops you a little too often to comment on little details of the palace that can be frustrating when you already know what’s going on, and the way he cuts off morgana every time he tries to explain anything can get a little obnoxious but i very much think that was the writers’ way of characterizing him as fast as possible. ryuji can’t ever sit still, can’t keep quiet, can’t just accept all the fucked up shit they’re seeing (like the dude in the cage who probably doesn’t even have like a real life equivalent). it’s immediately obvious why he doesn’t fit in with japanese society, especially in high school where discipline seems STRICTLY enforced.

in this way he’s immediately very distinct from akira, who despite his criminal past is much quieter and seems to have an easier time just “blending in” with society, despite his rebellious spirit deep down. it’s also so refreshing after spending the first hour being hunted and beaten by cops, having sojiro and kobayakawa and practically everyone else on your ass 24/7. it’s all very much something you and ryuji can both bond over. society has written off both of you as criminals or delinquents so i can easily imagine how kawakami’s warning to “stay away” from ryuji because he’s such a “bad influence” would only make akira want to be his friend even more. so despite the slow beginning gameplay-wise i do very much appreciate how thoroughly the characters are developed and the strength of their bond is almost immediately very clear.

[jaskiersvalley]

I absolutely love your writing!! It's so very enjoyable and your au's are absolutely delightful. I just thought you should know.

Thank you so much, Nonnie! AUs are something I really enjoy and to hear that others find them fun makes me so very happy. As a little thank you, here’s another AU feat Kaer Morhen Radio and a Jaskier driving an 18 wheeler.

Life was a lonely one on the road. There were many acquaintances and other drivers Jaskier had a passing friendship with, Valdo Marx had the annoying habit of having similar routes to him - they did say mimicry was the highest form of compliment. Alas, nobody was a steady presence in Jaskier’s life. Well, nobody who was aware of him. Though there was the Kaer Morhen Radio family. They were the closest Jaskier had to everyday friends, as sad as that sounded.

“Good morning fuckheads.” Such a declaration could only mean it was 6am and Lambert had taken over. Instinctively, Jaskier was smiling as he sat up with a yawn. Most radio stations liked to gently rouse listeners with swelling music that got more up beat as the day went on. Not Kaer Morhen Radio. They had Lambert as their morning DJ, there to wake sensitive ears in more and more creative ways. He had become known for his unique way to wake listeners up; from bringing in pots to bang to trying to imitate the mating call of a moose at full volume. The only thing listeners loved more than Lambert being a general prick was his flirtation with Aiden who did weather and traffic announcements.

“And, in those four famous words: and now, the weather,” Lambert announced gleefully. After a long moment of silence, he snickered. “We shall have to give Aiden a moment to climb out from under the desk and rinse his mouth. In the mean time, here’s a banger.”

The banger, Jaskier was surprised to find, was quite literally a recording of someone (possibly Lambert) attempting to play drums (badly) on some kitchen pots. By the time the piece reached its rather boisterous end, it seemed that Aiden was no longer preoccupied.

“The weather today-” Jaskier tuned Aiden’s words out in favour of figuring out whether he was messing around or whether he really did sound so husky and gravelly thanks to having his throat fucked. It was quite the conundrum and Jaskier spent the start of his morning drive wondering how many complaints Lambert and Aiden will get now. Their record was 36 for the game of “identify that noise” wherein they stuck their fingers in various containers and made them squelch. To that day, nobody knew whether the last one really was, in Lambert’s words, “Aiden’s well used hole and my come”.

Afternoons were much more peaceful. Eskel took over at 2pm and he was laid back, played soothing music and gave the impression of being a very calm and reliable member of society. Jaskier always maintained it was an impression because, among all the chat, Eskel would sometimes drop a strange little fact that made him do a double take or two.

“This next song,” Eskel had once said, “was written while under the influence of cocaine.” It was a reasonable enough fact to share, Jaskier had been listening while stuck in a traffic jam along a motorway. “How they managed to write it though, I have no idea. Cocaine is terrible for your focus, I could barely scratch an itch before being distracted by something else. So kudos to the writers for creating a whole song while off their face.”

Which was something Jaskier had never thought Eskel would know anything about. He always seemed to demure, the solid rock of Kaer Morhen Radio. He balanced out Yennefer’s news updates perfectly. It was probably why Jaskier liked him so much, now that he thought of it. The surface innocence mixed in with hints of a very colourful life lived beneath the steady exterior. Well, hints other than the incident where Eskel somehow managed to not turn his microphone off and had a conversation about going to a rave with someone who worked at the radio station. Nobody knew the man’s name and his answers were half muffled but listeners swore they heard him suggest something along the lines of a collar and leash - which Eskel had hummed in agreement to, sounding all too happy. When questioned, Eskel resolutely refused to name the mystery man but conceded that there had been a rave. Jury was out whether Eskel had grumbled about being ‘in ecstasy’ or ‘on ecstasy’ for it. And there was definitely a picture of floating around the internet of him in a collar at what definitely looked like an underground rave.

The real reason Jaskier listened to Kaer Morhen Radio was the late night DJ. 10pm on the dot, Eskel would flick the switch and a prerecorded intro played, announcing that it was Late Late Nights with Geralt. Between 10pm and 6am, Geralt manned the station. The only reason Jaskier knew his name was because of the intro. Otherwise the man was silent other than a few hums between songs. Sometimes, presumably when he knocked something over, there would be a growled “fuck” that listeners lived for.

As little as Geralt said, Jaskier was in love. The music was eclectic and death metal could be followed up by electro swing or grime. There was to way to predict just what Geralt would play next, he didn’t take requests, didn’t talk to his listeners. But, somehow, he still drew them in. Jaskier had made the mistake of looking Geralt up online and swooned a little at the few pictures available. It seemed Geralt was an elusive man, somehow managing to turn away from cameras with an uncanny ability. Though a few pictures did exist of Lambert and Eskel on either side of him, quite literally holding him down for a photo.

Truthfully, Geralt was one of the main reasons Jaskier chose to do overnight hauls. Not only did they pay better, he also had Geralt’s nonverbal grunts and hmms to look forward to. He was well aware that it was an infatuation and nothing more. He’d never met Geralt before, Geralt wasn’t even aware of his existence. So, really, Jaskier could daydream all he wanted but had no intention of doing anything more.

Except, Jaskier couldn’t help but wonder. Geralt had such range in his musical taste, maybe he would like what Jaskier wrote. It was a rare night off and Jaskier was well into the bottle with Valdo when they got talking, egging each other on about who was the better musician. It ended with Jaskier drunkenly posting a CD of his music to Kaer Morhen Radio, addressed for Geralt. When he woke up in the morning, on the floor next to his couch which was occupied by Valdo, Jaskier groaned.

Thankfully, there was never a mention or even a single note of his music in the next week. Slowly, Jaskier relaxed, only a little disappointed that his music hadn’t even been acknowledged by Geralt. He almost had a heart attack when eight days later, Lambert came on air with a mad cackle.

“Morning fuckheads!” Lambert sounded more cheery than ever before. “You’ll never guess what I found. Geralt has been hoarding new music. Good music. Said it was for him. Well, I have decided he cannot hold this back from us. If you’re listening, Jaskier, your note was hilarious. I hope your hangover was worth it. Thanks for the CD!”

There was a growl that sounded like Geralt storming into the booth but the microphone was cut and Jaskier’s song started playing. Jaskier almost crashed his truck in shock. Especially when Lambert declared it so good, they would play it again and, sure enough, the song went back to the beginning to play twice in a row.

If it had just been Lambert, Jaskier would have quietly died of shame, accepting that he was being mocked. But Eskel got in on it too. That afternoon he introduced Jaskier’s song with the promise that management were looking into getting in touch with him about the music. Even worse, a listener even requested the song later that evening. Jaskier was both in heaven and hell at the same time. That night, Geralt didn’t play his song and Jaskier was only a little disappointed.

His phone rang the next day.

“Good afternoon, my name is Vesemir, I’m calling from Kaer Morhen Radio. May I speak to Jaskier?”

Jaskier promptly choked. He got an invitation to the studio. It was a good seven days of driving away and Jaskier searched for a contract that would take him across the continent. While he drove, he got a bit braver and started e-mailing the radio station on his breaks.

His written request for songs were acknowledged by a hum and the song coming on next. When he asked Geralt for a shout out, he got obnoxious pop music playing instead. So Jaskier asked for two hums if Geralt wanted to meet and three if he didn’t. Thus, there was a “fuck” on air and the Beauty and the Beast theme song started playing. It was safe to say Jaskier didn’t understand it but he wasn’t deterred.

By the time Jaskier got into town and made his delivery, it was almost 6am. There was no time he had been specifically invited for and he ended up approaching the building at the same time Lambert showed up with Aiden and three large cups of coffee in hand.

“Excuse me,” he called out, “I’m here to see Vesemir.”

“Bit early for that.”

“He never gave me a time so I figured an early start would be appreciated.” It wasn’t exactly a lie but Jaskier kind of wanted to meet Geralt who would be finishing up soon.

For some bizarre reason, Jaskier was led into the radio studio, no questions asked. Surely it was a security issue but then again, Jaskier checked out Lambert and Aiden, they would no doubt be able to handle any issues. Then there was Geralt, stepping out of the booth, Lambert’s intro queued up. He froze when he spotted Jaskier and, curiously, glanced away, seemingly all shy. The curious response was explained away all too soon. There, on the wall, was Jaskier’s CD and a polaroid of him and Valdo, helpfully labeled “The Talent” with an arrow to Jaskier and “The Fake” pointing at Valdo.

“You here for Vesemir?” Geralt asked eventually, sipping at one of the cups Lambert had brought.

“Amongst other things,” Jaskier replied.

“He won’t be here until 10. Why don’t we go grab breakfast while you wait?”

Aiden wolf whistled at that and Lambert whooped, arms in the air.

“My dear fuckheads,” he purred into the microphone, “we have a date between our local cryptid and our mystery siren. Please wish them luck.”

It turned out that, in person, Geralt was a bit more talkative than on air. And Jaskier helped fill any silence without any problems. He ended up being later than planned to meet Vesemir and Tissaia who had a very handsome cheque for him for playing his music and also his phone number with the promise of passing it on to some connections who had expressed an interest in his music.

Never before had Jaskier thought he would thank Valdo Marx for anything. But, one drinking session with him had landed Jaskier with not only a contract with a record label but also a boyfriend. With his first pay, Jaskier send Valdo the biggest bouquet of flowers humanly possible.

[shmegmilton]

Hey! Just been looking through your blog and saw some of your posts re: Jumel, Burr and Alex Jr. While it’s true Chernow told the story in his biography and that’s where the popular idea that he was her lawyer came from, the story has apparently been repeated by Burr biographers long before Chernow wrote his Hamilton. There’s a book called ‘Aaron Burr and the Literary Imagination’ by Charles J Nolan (1980) who mentions the story in Chapter 1: ‘The Man who Killed Hamilton’, he gives his source as ‘Aaron Burr: Portrait of an Ambitous Man’ by Herbert S Parmet, published in 1967. I don’t own the latter book so I have no idea who he gives as his source but it seems that this story has been in currency for a long time regardless of whether it’s true or not.

     Yeah, I’m aware it’s been around for a while. My first intro to the myth was in Vidal’s book on Burr in the 1973, which implies Vidal got it from the 1968 book, I imagine. As for the 1980 book (which I haven’t read), from whatever instantly accessible info about Charles J. Nolan I can find on Google, his Staff Page on the USNA website says that he was more-or-less exclusively an English & Creative Writing professor. Granted, you don’t NEED a degree is history to enjoy it, study it independently or even write a book about it, but none of his credits imply anything about him having a background with history and/or historical research.

   Also, judging by the title (Aaron Burr & the American Literary Imagination) I assume that it’s less of a Burr biography and more of an essay on all of the different Burr interpretations in fiction books, plays, etc. Nancy Isenberg has a whole section covering the topic in her Burr biography, as well. If that’s the case, if Ron Chernow got his information from this 1980′s book, he’s either grossly irresponsible with his research, or an idiot. Which means that it was probably the 1968 book, or a book printed before that.

-

    But the thing about those historians in particular (ie. pre-1960s historians) is they have a “pass” for lack of a better word; they did what they could with the info that they had, which was mostly unvetted newspapers & washed biographies written either by direct descendants/family members that had an agenda (“make them look as great as possible”), or by third parties with their own agenda. There wasn’t “standards” for research, no one was under any obligation to be truthful--not to mention, it’s hard to be truthful in the first place if your only sources aren’t truthful themselves.

As much as a hate the Hamilton play, the way Lin Manuel Miranda writes his obsession over “legacies” makes a good point; the Founding Fathers cared MORE about their legacies than historical accuracy. Case and point, this is why we didn’t know about Thomas Jefferson & Sally Hemings, or the fact that Alexander Hamilton most likely DID own slaves until relatively recently--because over the last few decades, historians have finally been getting unrestricted access to historical archives that were hidden to “protect” these people’s images. ‘History is written by the victors’, or however that saying goes.

-

This poses a problem for Chernow because, if he DID get his info from one of these books... that kind of diminishes his credibility, doesn’t it? Because any professional in any sort of field SHOULD know, as a general rule: the older your sources are, unless it’s a first-hand account or written documents, the less likely they are to be accurate.

This is why peer-review is an important step in a lot of fields; academics every few decades will double-check these older books or studies alongside the new information we know & realize that they’re incorrect, or that the conclusion is different than what we thought it was.

This is why we don’t think recognize outdated information like ‘humans only use 20% of their brain’, or ‘homosexuality is a choice’ as fact anymore. Because we double-checked and now we KNOW it’s wrong. Ergo, no academic who wants to be taken seriously is going to cite 3rd party books that are 30, 40, 50 years old/clearly outdated. Unless you’re Chernow, I guess.

-

    But the BIG issue I have with the “Alexander Hamilton Jr. was Jumel’s divorce lawyer” myth (you mentioned seeing my other posts before, so you probably know that Jumel’s biographer discovered that Alexander Jr. was a real-estate broker who temporarily took ownership of her property during the divorce so Burr couldn’t get to it, which means this myth is most likely a misinterpretation), is that even though he may have sourced this from a book (not that we’ll ever know because HE never sourced it).... I have yet to see it repeated in any Burr biography before & since. Which should be a red flag, but Chernow’s confirmation bias was too great, I guess.

The two OLDEST biographies on Aaron Burr that we have, Memoirs of Aaron Burr (1837) and The Life & Times of Aaron Burr (1858) don’t even mention Alexander Jr. or much about the divorce proceedings at all. Aaron Burr: A Biography (1938) also doesn’t mention it at any point when discussing the divorce.

Some Burr biographies that I’ve read before & since Chernow’s book was written (May 2005) that ALSO don’t mention it are:

Aaron Burr (Milton Lomask, 1980)

Burr, Hamilton & Jefferson (Roger G. Kennedy, 1999)

Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (Nancy Isenberg, 2007)

The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr (H.W. Brands, 2012)

The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr (Susan Holloway Scott, 2019)

American Emperor (David O. Stewart, 2011)

War of Two (John Sedgewick, 2015)

I haven’t read many biographies on Alexander Hamilton, but my current theory is that this myth originally started in one of his biographies because:

Judging about how Chernow wrote Burr, he didn’t care enough about him to read more than two pages, let alone an entire biography about him.

Like I said, no other Burr biography that I’ve seen verifies this information, so unless he’s an idiot it’s virtually impossible for him to have sourced this from a Burr book.

-

So, yes, while you’re 100% correct that Chernow isn’t the originator of this myth, he still perpetuated something that a majority of SERIOUS historians seem to be in agreement is unverifiable/false, to an audience of thousands of people & now that’s all you see when you type in Eliza Jumel or Alexander Hamilton Jr. into Google. It’s obnoxious, and he’s obnoxious.

[sn0tcl0wn]

rant incoming (don't worry it's not me being mad, i'm just really hype about a book i'm rereading):

i'm genuinely shocked there's never been an uptick in interest in storm thief by chris wooding on this site. like of all places. it's a gothic dystopian YA novel with cyber and dieselpunk vibes with its main characters being a black disabled boy and a girl with chronic illness who live in the ghettos of a society that's built on greed and the bodies of people like them. there's a resistance and the fall of two civilisations. there's also a morally gray monster man. it's a book that's been living rent free in my mind since 2006. i'm currently rereading it as i do every so often and not only is it beautifully written and still holds up but the premise alone seems like the exact thing people would put on lists of diverse dystopian YA fiction or unique books for people who like dystopian fiction, steam/cyber/dieselpunk, gothic sci-fi, or eldritch horror. it has all of those aspects and i think a lot of people are missing out. it's also only one book and it's not too long meaning there's less commitment for people who don't want to read a whole series or start a series and never finish it (i hate doing that and yet i always do).

it's on my list of books i always wished there was an active fandom for because it's honestly one of the coolest fucking book i ever read growing up and much of the imagery it paints and it's story still inspire me to this day. it's at the top of my list of books i'd adapt if i had the chance and something i think people should give a shot. please read storm thief if you get a chance.

also kinda spoiler alert but also everything i'm saying next is either obvious early on (in a good story telling way, not lazy writing way) or straight up on the back of the book;

if y'all do read this book and i end up getting any messages from people whining about the cishetness of the characters i will scream because interracial friendship and love is just as revolutionary as trans and gay friendship and love. like the last time i suggested it to a group of people they complained about it "being basic YA" and "making the straight boy and girl fall in love" and to this day i'm still tight about that shit. like first of all it's obvious from the second they're introduced that they have little crushes on each other and their chemistry is really sweet and natural. it's a good m/f couple and one of the few genuinely sweet and healthy ones i read in YA fiction as a kid (ig you can argue codependency but they're just trying to keep the other one alive). second of all (and more importantly) until this book i had NEVER read a book with a black kid with dreadlocks from the ghetto being the hero of a sci-fi novel let alone being the dude on the cover AND getting the girl even though she's white. like ????? that was a Life Changing Experience for me and if you can't see why i really cannot trust you.

until i was 11 i only read about characters like me and the kids i grew up with in the hood in realistic fiction about being poor and black and sad all the time. this was the first teen novel i remember picking up about a black boy that didn't involve drive by shootings and the kind of racism i already saw and experienced every day. he was out there running from monsters and dodging eldritch storms while uncovering the ancient secrets of a chaos ridden society all while needing a respirator to breathe and wearing a dope gasmask fit. his name isn't some stereotypical "black" name, it's rail which is weird but i always thought that was cool as fuck. he's a character that if he wasn't described as "dark skinned and dreadlocked" in his intro, people would just up and assume he's white because you know why. his blackness is not his character, it's just a trait and he's treated like any other teenage orphan thief archetype only he's way fucking cooler because he has a gas mask and a dope ass artifact.

i will not tolerate any rail or rail/moa slander. he's a bad ass mother fucker and she's an equally bad ass secondary protag who's parents were rebels against the unjust political and economic powers at be and follow in their footsteps. she's also a very active participant in the story even though she could easily have been nothing more than a helpless damsel due to her waifish and sickly presence.

their friends to more arc is a part of the story's progression and their character growth, it is not the main plot point and i'm only spoiling that explicitly because if y'all really don't want to read a story with a m/f couple you can avoid this. but i will say that if you are among the shockingly common many who will straight up tune out when a guy and girl fall in love i really do think you have issues. like i get when it's forced in a really obnoxious way but a lot of y'all will read absolute garbage just because it's gay rep and then sleep on shit like this or other really cool books like hold me closer necromancer (completely different topic but i will rant about that next cause it's my next reread). it's sad to me y'all actively choose to miss out on cool shit because you apparently hate straight people so much that it will completely ruin something that's unique in every other way.

and again, highkey sick of people writing off m/f interracial couples as if the idea of black men being with white women isn't still demonized irl and rare in the media. this book was for kids, written in the mid 00s, and it managed to do what most mainstream media still rarely ever does.

[ciriceart]

IN THE ABSENCE OF GOOD IDEAS - Another non-comprehensive playlist

You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognize each other. You drink a little too much, and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, that was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.

What if there was another story?

A History of Bad Men

It's easy for me, I got a head start running away [...] How did you learn to be sick, so cunning / It's easy to sing, but you just keep on humming along / Did you hear that? I got a real bad feeling

This is not the place for you to be in, my man. Stop ignoring the red flags, you gotta get outta there! This one works very well thematically. The instrumentals and vocals really drag on and give a good look into Cirice’s general disposition as well as his taste in music. He likes sludgy, doom and gloom-type shit. 

Everyone Gets Left Behind

Sometimes we're drunker than a little / And I swear I don't have to throw up (liar) / And the best times are always the worst with the people we love [...] I must have died and gone to Heaven / 'Cause this is boring as Hell

Works for both early and later plot points! No further commentary necessary.

Some Kind of Disaster Relief

You got more trouble than you can handle, honey! / The fuck you gonna do? How you gonna scrape on by? / I do believe that there are two things you do in this situation / Leave town, or go into hiding / Cause some people got brains and other people got talent, others just look good / You and me, we got none of those things, but listen up [...] It's a rabbit suffocating in a rabbit hole / It's politics as usual.

Lyrics-wise, this song doesn't have very much to do with what’s going on outside of the intro. The intro is pretty fucking spot on. (If you ignore the glaring issue of P2 having more than enough brains/talent/looks for the both of em.) 

The title is the same as a certain very important chapter, but it’s here because this is more or less what Cirice sounds like when his voice gets above mumbling-speaking level. Every time he’s depicted as loud, obnoxious and yelling, I want you to hear this intro in your head. 

Mental Illness as Mating Ritual

I'm a number, I'm a clown / I'm a ruined halfwit, in a hospital gown / You're a victim? Get in line! / It's okay, I'm damaged by design [...] This body's wrecked, but it's mine [...] It's okay, I know, better luck next time. 

Sort of coming to terms with the whole, you know, thing. Sort of. Lots of aggression, lashing out and feeling overwhelmed, and then some more lashing out for good measure, but trying very very hard to look like he’s owning it. 

Goddamn These Hands of Mine

So goddamn this city / Goddamn these people / Goddamn this weather / And goddamn these broken down hands of mine

Have you ever been so angry and tired and fed up with the nonstop inane bullshit of everybody around you and everyday life that you can’t see straight, and your hands are shaking, and you can feel your pulse hammering in your throat, and it’s made even worse by you knowing that you’re part of the problem? Don’t you get tired of (trying and failing at) being nice all the time? Don’t you just wanna go apeshit? 

This song is pretty much exactly what hypomanic agitation sounds like. Trust me. 

A Drink To Death

It'll eat your insides, your brain burns, and your skin dries / Bumbling through the alleys, like you think you're still alive / I wanna hold you closely, I wanna smell your sweat [...] There will be no candles, there will be no romance, I will be alone, we will not hold hands [...] And if I pass out, wake me up / I may be drunk, but I'm not drunk enough / We were nice together, weren't we once?

This one is a holdover from the original version of this story, which was written in late 2018, if you can believe it. During the rewriting process, I thought it would be nice to write something... nice. I still have a lot of fondness for this song in the context of II/Cirice - it still works quite well for both of their inner disasterbrain feelings and respective bad coping skills, even if it isn’t as applicable anymore in a literal sense. Doesn’t mean they can’t still dance half-drunk in the office past closing time to some That Handsome Devil played over shitty desktop speakers.  

There You Are (Hiding Place)

Stumbled on a long walk somewhere / So many places we don't belong / So few we do [...] I was afraid to find an older me alive in you [...] And you go silent by your own hands / You break down and you leave / You go nightly with my panic / I get angry / I can't sleep

This one is... a lot. Probably one of the most important songs, relationship-wise, but I don’t have many words as to why. I’m mostly sort of embarrassed to even explain this one in detail. The song speaks for itself, probably. 

Pepper

I don't mind the sun sometimes, the images it shows / I can taste you on my lips and smell you in my clothes / Cinnamon and sugary and softly spoken lies / You never know just how you look through other people's eyes

The listing of names and descriptors that make up the bulk of this song does a fairly good job of capturing, I guess, the way that Cirice views the happenings around him. He listens to a lot of shit from a lot of people; it’s part of his job at first, before he moves on to the job given to him by Papa II later on. 

There’s a clear image that I have of Cirice leaving the administrative building right around sunset and pausing on the front steps before he starts making his way home. He listens to his headphones during work a lot and Pepper makes for a pretty damn good “walking home and contemplating some interesting new tender feelings” song, in my experience. “I don’t really give a fuck about all the rest of this shit, but I kind of give a major fuck about you” kinda vibes. 

Fun fact, this song also played a role in figuring out Cirice’s “voice”. In the instances where he’s feeling shut down and closed off, this is a close approximation of what he sounds like. 

And just like the previous post, these are only a couple songs. They’re mostly in order now though, seeing as pretty much anyone aware of father cirice is aware of the circumstances of his backstory. 

Next up is (drumroll) the Nihil/Imperator 80s road trip ficm, which gives me a crisis every time I get sent an update/asked to read something over. I’ll probably type up some stuff later after Shiv has another listen to my playlist to make sure the mood is right =^) 

[billyhargrovesbabe]

you should see me in a crown | pt. 1

The first part of the series is here, and I’m honestly super excited! I’ve had a lot of fun planning and writing. I’m hoping to update pretty regularly, and I’d love to hear what you guys think. It’s gonna be a slow burn and a longer series. I have about fifteen chapters planned so far, but it might wind up being longer than that depending on how it goes. The first few chapters are written and ready for proofreading, so it shouldn’t be too long a wait. Feel free to comment or message your thoughts or if you want to be added to the tag list!

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of a bad past relationship, but I don’t think much else aside from that

Words: 2,664

intro | pt. 1

The first time Billy Hargrove approached you was practically straight out of a scene from a movie. If there had been a camera on you on that fateful October day, it would’ve been teen heartthrob gold.

The bell for lunch had just rung, and your classmates stampeded through the school in true high school fashion. The wafting smell of Friday pizza from the cafeteria down the hall wasn’t exactly mouth-watering, but it was enough to encourage you to get to your own slice as quickly as possible. You knew your girls would have your slice already waiting for you, used to their captain’s pre-lunch ritual. You were eagerly throwing your textbooks into your locker when it hit you.

The smell of cigarettes, hairspray, and men’s aftershave invaded the pleasant smell of lunch, assaulting your senses. The only thought that crossed your mind: here we go again.

You were no stranger to boys (because really, that’s what all these high-schoolers were despite their obvious thoughts otherwise) trying to approach you. Sometimes they were sweet and shy, sometimes they were blunt and upfront, and sometimes they were just obnoxious and crass. Hell, sometimes they were some bizarre combination of the three. Regardless of their approach, they were always met with the same result: denial served with a side of pitying kindness. It wasn’t that they were all pigs or anything. Sometimes guys you genuinely cared about and appreciated were the ones who approached (and they were always the hardest to turn down). You were just tired of the same old drama. Between the girls on your squad who ran to you for everything (like their pseudo mother hen) and your own... experience during your freshman year, you had suffered through more than your fair share of painfully awkward relationship drama. Besides, you had more to worry about. You had a squad to lead, a school to run, and a college resume to build. The times you were approached tended to be few and far between, so it wasn’t a frequent occurrence anyways.

Guys, in general, seemed to be intimidated by you. You’d think a girl who was smart, funny, kind, feisty, and a student leader would be dream girlfriend material, right? Apparently, that only worked for the heroines in teen romcoms. Once upon a time, it used to frustrate you: now, you welcomed the reprieve. Steve was the only one who could really hold his own, and you two had never been more than friends. All the others were too terrified. Those who weren’t scared off by your reputation and dating history usually backed off when they had to talk to you around your squad. You typically had at least one or two of your girls back you up. Besides, it wasn’t like you had a bunch of spare time to waste on guys. This was the only time of the day you could really be found alone. You enjoyed the quiet solace of stopping by your locker during lunch, especially on Fridays when all the other students in Hawkins rushed to get a slice of the weekly pizza. The hallways were typically bare, and people had learned not to mess with you during your locker breaks. Between cheer practice after school, the many social needs of your squad and demands of being captain, and your rigorous course load (because you were getting into college and as far away from Hawkins as possible), you rarely had time to yourself. And you loved it. You really did. But these precious five minutes at your locker during lunch was the only time you were really able to breathe. They were sacred, and everyone knew that.

So who the fuck was stupid enough to interrupt that?

With a dramatic sigh, you stretched your cheeks into what you hoped was some semblance of a smile (even if it was a painfully fake one). You could sense them, whoever they were, on the other side of your locker door. And they didn’t seem to be budging any time soon. You tried to stall for time, mentally counting down the seconds of freedom you had left.

Ten... You grabbed your calculus book and practically chucked it in your locker.

Nine... You shoved your composition book into your backpack.

Eight... You tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

Seven... You prayed this jackass would take the hint.

Six... No such luck.

Five... You searched both your locker and backpack in vain hope of finding anything else to stall.

Four... You figured you’d have maybe a minute of having to endure some painfully awkward conversation as you secured the lock, zipped your bag, and booked it the fuck out of there.

Three... You mentally double-checked that your fake smile was in place.

Two... You sent up one last Hail Mary they’d take the hint.

One... You took a calming breath.

And your time was up.

You had a sneaking suspicion whoever this was had planned it all out.

The hallways were practically empty, with just one or two stragglers making a futile dash for the cafeteria in the hopes there would be some pizza left. Your breath caught in your throat as your eyes met a pair of beautiful, crystal blue irises. Your fake smile dropped for just a moment as you took in sunshine curls, honeyed skin, plush lips, and slightly freckled cheeks. Your eyes traced over the almost gentle features of his face. His sharp cheekbones, lovely nose, and square jaw were practically begging you to cup his face in your hand. And his body... Damn. Nothing delicate there. You knew your fair share of jocks and hunky boys. But none of them compared to this. He wore a faded jean jacket, and he filled out every inch of it. It was clear he was buff, but you’d bet he was cut too. This blond in front of you was... Well, he was beautiful. You had never met a man (because fuck, but that’s what he was) who left you so thoroughly speechless. And then he had to go and ruin it by opening his mouth.

“Like what ya see, sweetheart? Cause I certainly do.” The lazy drawl matched his lax stance as he leaned against the lockers. He was posing for you, you quickly realized. This was a guy who knew exactly what he was working with, and he wasn’t afraid to shamelessly use it. A chill ran down your spine. 

Oh, he had definitely planned it.

Too bad he hadn’t planned for you.

You had more than your fair share of experiences with a guy like that. It wasn’t something you were looking to repeat anytime soon. The smile slid back across your face, a mask you had perfected and an armor you had worked all the chinks out of long ago. You watched, almost bemused, as a flicker of annoyance slid across his face. He knows, a voice whispered in the back of your mind. He knows you’re putting walls up. He can see it.

“Just getting to know a face I’ve never seen before.” Most guys would take the perky tone and sweet grin for the superficial flirting it appeared to be. The diversion you intended for it to come across as. You had a feeling this guy was smarter than that. You upped the bubbly factor, wanting to see how it would affect him (and a small part of you hoped it would annoy him). “You must be new to Hawkins. Welcome!” You had to stifle a giggle as he visibly bristled.

“Not that new,” he mumbled as he released the smooth facade for just a moment. He was clearly upset by the idea you hadn’t heard of him yet (which, of course, was not the case. Everyone and their mother had about the hot new guy with a killer car, but he didn’t need to know that). He managed to recover relatively quickly though. His eyes widened a fraction before that smirk snapped back into place. “Been here nearly four days, sweetheart. And in those four days, I’ve heard you’re the girl who runs the show around here.”

“And what makes you think that?” You figured playing innocent was the best way to go here. As helpful as your girls were in getting the gossip, it never hurt to have a little more info. No matter how high up the ladder you climbed, it was nearly impossible to get a real grip on the rumor mill here at Hawkins. Secrets and lies just tended to have a way of getting out, so no one ever quite knew what the truth was. Sometimes, you even second-guessed what you knew about yourself.

“Well, you’re the only cute (h/c)-haired, mini-skirted spitfire I’ve met so far. And I’ve made it a point to look out for the... feistier girls. Y/n, right?” Interesting. So he was going to keep his cards as close to his chest as you were. The suggestive smirk he sent you and the emphasis on the word feisty weren’t lost on you. You could hazard a guess as to what he really meant. So, the new kid had done his research. This should be fun.

“I’m so embarrassed. Here you are, knowing all about me, and I don’t even know who you are. What’s your name?” Of course, you knew exactly what his name was before he even said it.

“Some girls might call me the man-they’ve-been-waiting-for, but you can call me Billy.” The smile on his face would dazzle any crowd, leave any competition judge putty in his hands, and make the girls on your squad melt at his feet. It was clear this guy trying to work you over. But that was why you were the captain: you weren’t so quick to fall.

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Billy. Hope your first week went well.” And with that abrupt dismissal, you were off. In your years of evading hormonal and horny teenage boys, you had perfected the well-timed retreat. Flirt with them and talk just enough to let them think they’d hooked you, then cut it off quick. You had subtly worked the zipper on your backpack closed during the conversation, so all that was left was to fasten the lock and run. You were only a few steps away before Billy recovered. Impressive. Usually, you could get halfway down the hall as they were left reeling from your attention.

“Y’know, my first week has been fine,” he drawled again as he easily fell into step with you. A slight stab of annoyance tore through your chest. You checked your fake smile. “But it’d be even better if you agreed to show me around this weekend. Since I’m new here and all.” You pretended to consider it. You waited just long enough to make it seem like you weren’t going to turn him down before the words had even left his mouth. You were all about giving new kids a chance, but not when they had interrupted your precious alone time and stood between you and your pizza.

“Sorry, but the squad has practice tomorrow. And then the girls and I have team bonding on Sunday, so I’m all booked for the weekend.” You simpered, throwing a flutter or two of your lashes and a mock pout his way for good measure. You thought you had won that little confrontation until you saw a determined gleam in his eyes.

“I take it you aren’t going to Tina’s Halloween party tomorrow night, then?” Damn. The new boy was already connected enough to cinch an invite to a party? It usually took new kids weeks before they broke into the social scene enough to even hear gossip about the last party. Hawkins might’ve been small, but it was a pretty tight-lipped town when it came to outsiders. This guy must’ve known exactly what he was doing if he had already gotten that far in. And, worst of all, he had you trapped.

After all, you couldn’t exactly lie and say you weren’t going. By now, the two of you were close enough to the cafeteria that there were people around. If you lied, said you weren’t going, and then showed up anyway, it would make you look fake. Two-faced. Bitchy. And you had worked so hard to get your reputation to where it was after the disaster that was your first two years in high school. You were depending on your friendly and kind reputation to get you a student body position next year that would look killer on a college application. You couldn’t run the risk of ruining it because of some gossip about being a bitch to the new kid, who hadn’t even been in town for a week. Besides, that familiar tingling of a guilty conscience seemed to whisper. You barely know the guy. At least give him a chance.

“Silly me,” you forced yourself to giggle for fear of biting the words out instead. You didn’t want to judge him preemptively, but there was something about him that set alarm bells off. “I must’ve forgotten. I can’t believe it’s Halloween already.”

“Honest mistake. I tend to have an effect on girls that leaves them forgetting a lot of things...” He moved to step closer into you, and that was when it hit you. You knew exactly who Billy reminded you of. Eric. Your douchebag of an ex-boyfriend who had left you scarred against relationships. As the blond in front of you leaned over you, you were struck with the flash of an image of green eyes instead of blue. You refused to give ground and carefully tried to breathe. You tried to remind yourself this wasn’t him. Hell, Billy probably didn’t even know the guy existed. He didn’t know what he was doing. He shouldn’t be written off because he reminded you of a monster. But it did send a worrying thought through your mind. You hoped you were wrong, but there was a nagging sense that you couldn’t be too careful. You needed to get away from him, now.

You sent him another falsely sweet smile and quickly scanned the cafeteria over his shoulder. Your eyes desperately searched as you forced yourself to back up a step, feigning butterflies when you were really just trying to buy yourself time. It was Pizza Friday, so he had to be somewhere nearby. He loved Pizza Friday. Nancy told you how he always ditched after class to make sure he got some. Surely he hadn’t wolfed it down that quickly... There. Your eyes landed on the luscious head of hair you had been searching for, and you practically leaped at your chance to escape. You let your eyes flit back to Billy, trying to send him a flirty smile whilst internally panicking.

“Sadly for you, I don’t forget things easily.” You let the words hang in the air, unsure if you meant them as a threat or a promise. If only he knew how true they were. “Guess you just got lucky this time.”

“Oh sweetheart, luck had nothing to do with it.” He stepped in closer again. Your heart had practically crawled up into your throat. You snapped your eyes back to Steve, praying either he or Nancy would somehow sense your distress.

“Y/n!” Steve called, waving you over after catching your eye. Finally, it seemed like someone was up there listening.

“Well, looks like we’ll have to see if lightning strikes twice. Catch you later.” You sidestepped the blond’s advance and, without giving him a chance to respond, made a bee-line for the couple’s table. You had to warn him. You couldn’t be sure, but you had a feeling you knew what the research, the quick invasion of the social scene, and his singling you out immediately meant.

Billy Hargrove was gunning to be king.

And he wouldn’t be the first guy to try and use you to get there.

taglist//

@asheseiler | @chaoticbillywrites | @speedmetalqueen | @keira1416 | @familybusinesswritingbro | @axxl-rose | @hargroves-dingus | @agustdpeach | @gracieadorable | @loveofshows | @queenmissfit | @octaviamoore-15 | @billysgodcomplex | @jojo-buttercup | @salemlysi | @beyxlm | @littledeadgirlwalking

[marblelies]

hiii, im glo & i havent written an intro in ages and i forgot how to be funny and witty in a whole paragraph but shooters out for exo, my intro is under the cut 🤘😖

*  //  𝙻𝙾𝙰𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙵𝙸𝙻𝙴.../𝚃𝙷𝙴_𝙵𝙸𝚇𝙴𝚁  :  alec moon also known as pirate is wanted for grand larceny. he is a twenty-four year old cis male who has ties to the mastermind because he bailed alec out from jail five years ago.  𝙰𝚂𝚂𝙾𝙲𝙸𝙰𝚃𝙴𝙳 𝚆𝙸𝚃𝙷  :  half smoked cigarettes, piercing your own nose at 4 am, biting your lips raw, secrets & leather jackets..  𝙳𝙾 𝙽𝙾𝚃 𝙼𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙵𝙾𝚁  :  im jaebeom.

tw: drugs, death

he is from new york ( has a very heavy, very ridiculous brooklyn accent its a joy ) in a very  sketchy family

he’s never met his father, but apparently he’s the type of guy who’s always in and out of prison because of petty theft & co., his mom was mostly working as a maid, but it was not a very secure job and so the lack of money stressed her out a lot

when alec was seven his uncle moved in with them to “help out” with money and raising him –– idk about you but selling weed from the window to strangers while babysitting doesnt sound like the most prosperous attitude

eventually his mom got a long term boyfriend and decided to move in with him, but since the guy wasnt very keen on taking in a 14 year old, alec was left living with his sketchy uncle, who begun introducing him to his business

he was mostly doing delivery and counting money, but as he got older he started his own little side hustle, basically pocketing a part of the drugs he was supposed to sell for his uncle and kept the earned money for himself + he started acting up in other ways too, which his uncle didnt appreciate very much nor did he care to try and push him in the right direction

he was 18 when his uncle had enough and literally snitched on him to the police for dealing drugs and was arrested in the middle of central park with his skateboard and his neon green bucket hat, looking like an idiot

he couldnt call his uncle since he was the one who told on him, his rs w his mom has been tense and distant ever since she moved away and none of his ratty friends had the money to bail him out so he decided to try his luck and used his one call to dial a random number

he literally couldnt have been blessed by the gods more because when he hastily explained the situation to the stranger on the phone, all they said they would be there in the next hour and that is how alec met j (the mastermind)

for some inexplicable reason, j has seen potential in him, decided to give him a chance at something better than selling cheap weed in sketchy clubs. he begun introducing him to a couple of the right people and then let alec discover his ways on his own

he is particularly talented in building relationships, acquiring connections that could be useful in the future, seeing potential in someone, has become his strongest skill by now. basically he always has a guy who has a guy who has a guy that can get something, anything you might need. just don’t ask too many questions about his ways, he likes to keep that a secret

he is a very chill guy, very friendly and open, but much of it is just a leftover from being on scouting mode 24/7, he is the biggest opportunist out there

thankfully hes long grown out of his rebellious ideas, the worst he does not is be obsessed with stick n poke tattoos, pierces his own nose at 4 am after drinking 2 bottles of wine and wear a leather jacket

scorpio sun / aquarius moon

he is into photography but in the obnoxious way like yk those ppl who carry 2000s small digital cameras with them to take fake artsy indie pictures? him

heres his pinterest board

he has a yugioh card collection unironically, dont ask him about it

is very grateful to j, doesnt ever really second guess his ideas or intructions

okay i cant think of anything more atm but <333 like this or hmu if you’d like to plot !

[takaraphoenix]

Oh oh how about Good Omens? Please pretty please thank you

Thanks for playing!

But, as you will notice when reading this, I say “I don’t remember” a lot, because I haven’t watched this in nine months and I haven’t actually thought about it in like... half a year. ^^°

So, I dunno, maybe for people who want to send another fandom: Perhaps consider how deep I am in that fandom, because an in-depth fandom ask game makes more sense then! Like, things I very frequently write/post/reblog about. If I barely ever put something on your dash, maybe consider just sending the questions you are most curious about? ;)

Top 5 favourite characters: Crowley, Aziraphale, Pepper, Anathema, Madame Tracy

Other characters you like: yeah no, I fit all the characters I like in up there! xD

Least favourite characters: SHADWELL

Otps: I mean there really is only one ship so there’s that xD Azira/Crowley

Notps: Shadwell/Tracy - GIRL YOU DESERVE BETTER

Favourite friendships: uuuhm Crowley and Aziraphale

Favourite family:yeah no the families really didn’t get me :D”““

Favourite episodes: don’t ask me for the title but like the one that was half of it flashback about Azira and Crowley throughout history

Favourite season/book/movie: there is only one season

Favourite quotes: not really a quote-kinda-gal

Best musical moment: ...oh gods I would have loved if there was a musical scene in this *blinks*

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: The end! When his dad came for him. I love when non-biological family is being validated

When it really disappointed you: when Shadwell and Tracy became canon, like... really? This show’s writing was so good and to put the kind woman together with the misogynist was cringey as fuck

Saddest moment: really not a sad show

Most well done character death: did... did anyone die? It’s been like nine months since I watched this show so I really don’t remember

Favourite guest star: what counts as guest star on this show? For some reason Pollution is listed under “recurring and gues”, while all other Horse People are listed as main?? So I guess I’ll go with Pollution because they rocked

Favourite cast member: David Tennant! The reason I even watched this! xD

Character you wish was still alive: Again, I don’t remember anyone dying, sooo... uh... the second unicorn that ran off, maybe? Because then Crowley could have unicorns now? xD

One thing you hope really happens: I would really like a second season, about the new prophecies that just got burned. Don’t come at me with “this won’t happen!!!”, it doesn’t ask what I think will definitely happen, it asks what I hope will happen

Most shocking twist: mmmh there weren’t really any twists, not as far as I recall, but again, it’s been nine months??

When did you start watching/reading?: Like two days after it was released did I watch it! It was an easy binge xD But I haven’t read it and don’t plan on reading it either

Best animal/creature: Dog

Favourite location: the bookshop...?

Trope you wish they would stop using: ...make Mark Gatiss cameo in everything BBC. Like. Nothing against the dude, but somehow it just always throws me out of a show when I see his face, I really can’t explain it...

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: uuhu the writing? May sound dumb, but this was such a perfectly well-rounded, well written piece of media in a world where media is so filled with unnecessary darkness, sex and drama

Funniest moments: been too long, I don’t remember

Couple you would like to see: none, really

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: Okay, look. I want a second season. Now, with the corona virus, I think it would be a brilliant take to bring back Pestilence, who “retired” in canon, and have them join the fun. I want Catherine Tate to play Pestilence - as a REALLY obnoxious anti-vaxxer suburban mom. (Also because I love David and Catherine playing off each other)

Favourite outfit: uuuh I got nothing

Favourite item: The symbols of the Horse People were really cool

Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: Nope

What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: uuuhm, like, angel v demon? I dunno. Human probably?

Most boring plotline: I... don’t really remember

Most laughably bad moment: I... don’t think there was one, but once again... don’t remember detailed enough to say fo sure?

Best flashback/flashfoward if any: Deeefinitely that half episode long flashback to Crowley and Aziraphale’s past!

Most layered character: Crowley

Most one dimensional character: That bitch Shadwell :D

Scariest moment: really not a scary show xD

Grossest moment: the demons. Every time we got to see the demons’ gross visuals up close. Could have absolutely done without those

Best looking male: Famine

Best looking female: War

Who you’re crushing on (if any): nope

Favourite cast moment: I don’t really care for behind the scenes stuff ^^°

Favourite transportation: uuuhm... do the... what do you call them, the moving stairs... do they count? Because them going up to heaven and down to hell, that was really cool

Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): it’s been like nine months or so since I watched it, I reeeally don’t remember that...

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you: I got nothing

Best promo: they announced David Tennant was gonna be in it. That was the only promo they needed to get me hooked :D

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: honestly, the opening scene was already so good - the intro set the world up so well and also the tone of the show!

IN DEPTH FANDOM QUESTIONS

[ofmara]

*record scratch* *freeze frame* yep, that’s me. BVCNJ hey lads ~ i’m ally, i’m twenty2, my timezone is est, i use she/her pronouns & full disclaimer: i don’t know what the fuck i’m doing! just keep that in mind when you read this.. trash lmao. anyways! if u wanna plot, feel free to hmu on d*scord at HE IS SO BIIIIG 😩👌🏼🧡#2581 or yk use the lil chat thing on tumblr if u wanna start small or w/e FDCNK no pressure. moving on..

mara’s pinterest: here!

content warning: ..none?? who am i???

( ariana grande & cis female. ) oh my god look, it’s mara de luca! she is a 24 year old singer/songwriter from queens, new york. they were first associated with the met cartel 3 years ago, and the tabloids are always saying she is so impulsive & irreverent, but their stans on twitter say that she is actually really magnetic & passionate.

first thing’s first.. i haven’t written a coherent intro in a fucking Minute, so i’m offering premature apologies for the shitshow that’s about to follow, especially since i really waited til the last second to type this out even if this blog’s been Done for a week smh ANYWAYS!

ok so! mara is what i like to call ‘a textbook new yorker’ in that she’s Loud, she Loves Her Family and she’s Unapologetically Herself. my character inspirations for her are joey from netflix’s the circle, fran fine from the nanny, molly gunn from uptown girls and a little bit of cher from clueless sprinkled in there ( mainly bcos of this gifset lmao ). since i came up with her a few weeks ago, i really had so many different personalities for her but like.. let’s keep reading to see that literally all of them were apparently Not True ~

she was born into a very tightly-knit family & grew up constantly surrounded by them. she’s got three older brothers, meaning she’s the Baby of the family, so she’s been uhhhhhh doted on all her life! we stan! that said, she’s never known what its like to be on her own, especially considering that her family was right by her side every step of the way as she slowly grew her career from childhood. she got her start singing the national anthem at a knicks game when she was 8 and slowly built from there. her parents were always suuuper supportive and did all they could to help her achieve her dreams, even though they were struggling to make ends meet.

her parents own a small bakery in queens that they started when her oldest brother was little and have been a staple in the city ever since. though they’re a somewhat popular spot for tourists and locals alike, ny real estate isn’t cheap, so paying rent both for the store and their apartment above it has always been a struggle, especially once they started dedicating a good portion of their money to plane tickets and agents and all sorts of necessities mara needed in order for her dreams to come true. the extra expense was difficult on her brothers as well, though they made a point never to complain when they had to get a second or third job to help pay the bills.

ANYWAYS she grew up veryyyy close to her family and the sacrifices they made on her behalf didn’t go unnoticed, so the first thing she did when she finally Made It was buy them a bigger space for their bakery ( since her parents Love working it even if its rough sometimes, buddy ) and a new house so ;) we love a Family First mentality!

HOWEVER!! when mara first moved to LA in like?? 2015 or something?? idk timelines.. but anyways when she first moved to LA she was.. how u say.... Depressed cos like even though she was Living Her Dream as the artist she’s always wanted to be ( she lived in queens w/ her family up until after her first Big Break cos she’s a big time daddy’s girl ) .. she was essentially on her own since her family stayed in nyc :/ yk, where they live? yeah. so she was on her own for the first time... Ever & it was scary and stressful and essentially, she wasn’t doing great mentally or emotionally, even if she put on that *ari vc* fake smile.

that was untiiiiiiil she got her first ~ hollywood boyfriend ~ aka someone famous who helped both with her career and as a salve to the constant loneliness the bitch always feelin. long story short, he didn’t last long, but she Needed to feel Wanted so she got Another ~ hollywood boyfriend ~ until it became, like, Her Thing to Always be attached to someone in the tabloids and the press and on Entertainment Tonight. we love a codependent bitch! that’s also kinda how she got to be part of the met cartel cos she immediately attaches herself fully and completely to everyone she meets & falls a little bit in love with every person who has ever said hello to her, so.. Yeah! most of her friendships were likely formed because she just would not leave them alone ( she’s clingy and needy As Fuck, but she knows she is, so she’s constantly worrying about it aka she’s always wondering if people really like her cos she’s been said to be “too much” and “annoying” by some people who.. weren’t interested in being her friend ) anyways.. feel free to lmk if u want ur chara to hate her cos she will fully have her feelings hurt but still want them to like her cos shes a, say it with me kids, people pleaser ~

its v clear why i thought of joey & fran for inspo ( espeeeeecially fran, now that i think about it: i.e. constantly searching for love, lovingly obnoxious ) but as for why she’s like molly gunn... bitch is uhhh naive as fuck and will trust anyone who is even a little bit nice to her so peep her constantly seeing everyone through rose colored glasses and immediately feeling like her heart is broken when they turn out to be someone completely different lmao! also yk in the little mermaid when ariel was like “but daddy, i love him!” ??? YEAH, that’s mara to a fucking T, m8!

i could quite literally go on and on for hours, but to keep it short and sexy, here’s her stats page & i’ll follow up with a list of some little tidbits of info.. some Quirks, if u will..

she hiccups when she cries & BOY does she cry often BVJNCDKM

cannot cook a single mf thing to save her life? yeah.. her parents wanted to let her work in the bakery but .. she burned everything so she was cashier ;)

can quote the entirety of bring it on: all or nothing & as a segue from that, she is very chatty during movies if she’s with even one other person but Silent when she’s alone

will challenge anyone and everyone to mario kart wii as long as she gets to play yoshi ( she has a vendetta against baby peach )

is Constantly Freezing, so she’s always in thick socks and turns the heat up high when she’s at home

has a cavalier king charles spaniel named piper ( yes, i'm using a fc for her dog )

i’m gonna b p selective with which ari songs she’s released both bc i dont like All of ari’s songs & for character purposes ( rip in peace, sweetener )

is classically trained on the piano and sometimes just plays classical music for fun, making up silly lyrics at parties and whatnot lol she’s just Fun & Quirky like that

owns every season of the o.c. on dvd

she has a car but i havent decided if she ever drives it ( or what kind it is, tho i assure u my virgo ass will be researching it at some point ) since she really just barely passed her driver’s test

is constantly in the tabloids for one dumbass thing after the other mostly as an excuse for me to make tabloid edits but like... i love that for her & will 100% be down to include any and all of u if u lmk u wanna be in one

and many more, but i’m really just sitting here rambling UGH EW so lms for plots cos i’m unprepared & i don’t have any wc’s! very on brand for me, i must say

[allhallowsreid]

just lots and lots of very long-winded, random thoughts about last night’s finale and the show itself...

so obvs no one has to agree with me on any of this, i just feel like there likely ARE ppl who feel like this and it’s easy to get shut down on tumblr for having different opinions, and i mostly just need to gather my feelings and thoughts in one place.

-ive seen a handful of ppl upset that the last ep centered around reid, but if you were to take 10 fans of this show, it’s a pretty good chance that 8 or 9 of them would say reid is their fave character. that isn’t me trying to insult any of the other characters, that’s just the way it is. whether it’s bc of his looks (and my lord was he gorgeous in this finale ep), or that he’s your typical cute white boi, or more organic reasons like he’s been there since day 1 and we were able to watch him change and grow, and he’s the opposite of the typical male characters we often see, especially on cop shows.. whatever the reason, he is a VERY popular tv character. and if it weren’t for that character, for better or worse, this show would have ended a long time ago.

-the ending itself.. i just feel like i don’t know what ppl were expecting?? this is not a show like supernatural or dexter or a show that has had a fluent overarching story to tell from start to finish. the story continues without us watching it. it’s another day at the office for them. was it a great ending? no, but it was fine. we see where all of them are headed. endings are so difficult, i’m just glad they didn’t kill anyone off or some garbage like that.

-so damn happy they hooked up luke and garcia. i have had such issues with garcia’s character since morgan left, i feel like she became a caricature, where she just overacts and i recently read an article with kirsten where she actually admitted that when shemar left she really didn’t know what to do with her character anymore. honestly? it showed. the obnoxiousness to luke was cute at first bc she obviously had a crush on him, but then it just became mean and out of character. this season i was happy to see her get a little bit more back to herself. all this being said, they were very clearly headed towards getting luke and garcia together this season with the overt flirting and one on one convo’s, i’m so glad they went through with it instead of leaving it open ended. and i will admit that of all the characters, i didn’t think garcia would be the one to leave, but it made sense. garcia is tough as hell, much tougher than she gives herself credit for, but like luke said, she can do this other job without the gore that she cringes over in literally every single episode of the show. also loved jj saying garcia was the glue of the team. so true, so well said. and side note, kirsten does a hell of a job writing these characters that she knows all too well, the other writers should’ve just let her take over in later seasons.

-prentiss... i love my emily so dang much, but man they give her the absolute worst dialogue. she gets stuck with all these long sentences that just.. they just don’t flow?? and it takes me out of the show so often. this has been since s12 when she became unit chief. there has been a handful of times since she became the boss that we have had flashes of old school smartass goth girl emily, and i cherished each moment, but it wasn’t enough. somewhere along the way they forgot how to write into the show that their characters had PERSONALITY. just as an example of the stupid dialogue she gets.. the end of the ep where it’s intended to look like rossi’s retirement party. then, idk who it was, emilys boyfriend maybe(?) says some dumb comment about oh gee i thought this was dave’s retirement! and then emily starts some awkwardly long line that could’ve been summed up in “dave decided not to retire afterall” and it was just soooo... weird?!!? if we are agreeing that A MONTH has gone by.. you are to tell me that it never once came up that dave said he was gonna retire and then changed his mind!??! that night, one month later, is the first that this discussion occurred!!?!?! and all of these dumb lines come out sounding so robotic, and i can’t blame paget, bc the lines are boring as hell. also unless i missed something i can’t rule emily out of being the next director, especially since their profile ended up being correct, lynch and the mom didn’t kill themselves, so i’m sure when that all came out, the next hurdle emily would have to clear is how they just blew up their very expensive jet right after having a budget meeting 2 episodes ago!!

- i’m gonna lump the newer characters together.. and just say that it was all too little, too late. they tried to give matt and luke more this season, and the ep’s centered on them were great, but it all felt forced to me. all this character development should’ve started as soon as they came onto the show. the relationships between the new and original characters also feels forced a lot of times, barring relationships like rossi and his boys, luke and garcia, tara and emily.. i mean that’s kind of all, right? we never saw much off-the-job, personal interactions between them and the rest of the characters, did we? and the way tara was treated on this show is inexcusable. aisha’s talents were so underused on this show it was criminal (pun intended). and actually, the above stuff i said about emily getting nonsense dialogue, you can throw matt in there too. his dialogue was friggin god awful at times on this show. in the words of early seasons reid, maybe try to be more conversational, writers!!

-man oh man was jj a badass and a half in this finale. tbh i always enjoyed liaison jj more than ssa jj, but when badass jj comes out i get all excited. i do feel like she would be the best fit to take over if emily left, she’d stepped into that role before and excelled. but she is another character that at times i think the writers just forgot how to write her personality somewhere along the way. i understand that the reality is that people change over time, but there were times that she was written like a typical high school mean girl, and that was just an insult to the character they created. the whole jeid thing was severely overblown and unnecessary. i don’t hate the idea of them being together, but why wait til s14-15 to deal with this? in the end i thought it was handled okay, i personally didn’t feel like it ruined their friendship or stayed awkward, which i appreciated, it was just a storyline that wasn’t needed and wasted time. also, ppl griping about “oh but she clearly loves will, if she loves spencer then she can’t love will!” i mean, actually, ppl are capable of loving more than one person at a time, hate to burst that bubble for ya.

-this seems like a good moment though to pause and just get this out about will lamon-fuckin-tagne jr... this guy is too good for jj lol, i am sorry but he is such a great guy. and can we review some things about will and his wife’s bestest friend, godfather to his children, spencer reid?? when will and spencer first met, it was during an unbelievably personal case to will, i mean his father died sending him a message about this case that the fbi was called in on. and his first intro with reid?? let’s see, reid spent that ep strung out on drugs, and full on abandoning the case to go hang out with his friend at a club/bar/lounge/whatever. ok, so that’s will’s first impression of jj’s bestie, and will STILL okay’d him being the godfather of his kids. not to mention, can you imagine your wife has been gone in the damn middle east for who even knows how long, then when she finally gets back and you think you’re gonna have her to yourself, but oh no, here comes jj’s friggin bestie again to come cry on the couch every night for several weeks!!!! and he gives zero indication of not liking spencer, in fact he seems rather fond of him. will is the most patient man ever, i swear.

-ok that was an unexpected side track. moving onto rossi. not sure why they were all like oh pfft this guy will never retire. the dude literally retired before the show started lol. if he retired once, when he was fairly young, why is the idea of it happening again so impossible? again, dumb dialogue. i loved the stuff with him and young gideon (i may be biased tho bc i’m just so damn proud of ben savage), i loved that rossi knew more about the jet than the others, however that was an inconsistency bc when rossi came back from retirement, he couldn’t believe the bau had its own jet. unless i just misunderstood what emily meant when she said it all started with rossi and gideon. i felt like lynch was a very underwhelming villain. super forgettable. there was no charisma like foyet or cat adams, there was no creep factor like mr scratch, there was no mystery like the replicator or the fisher king. his whole story just fell flat, and if there were anything interesting about him whatsoever, it’s bc of what rossi brought to the table, not the “chameleon”.

-my boy reid. he has several lifetimes of baggage to unpack, and i think of all the characters on this show, no one hates unpacking their trauma more than reid. i feel like it was so relatable that he could barely speak in this ep without sounding on the verge of tears, like every sentence was painful to even get out bc of how much hurt is stored up inside him. his trauma has defined him for years now, and if they had ended the show without addressing even some of it, the show would’ve been incomplete. i understand that actors schedules just don’t work out sometimes, but idk what the point was of having strauss and foyet be his devil and angel. and foyet’s long explanation of how bc he changed hotch, he changed the team was so convoluted that he may as well have just said “they couldn’t get james van der beek or the dude who played mr scratch, so im here instead”. i liked what they did with reid and maeve, and i actually don’t mind that there was no mention of max. they’re still very early in their relationship, and i feel like him coming out with some “wait i think i love max!” revelation would just be too fast and ooc. we already know that the relationship between them is growing, it doesn’t need to be said. and can i get an amen that maeve and reid didn’t kiss bc god that would’ve been weird as hell.

- i hate that we couldn’t have hotch or morgan or blake or elle or any of the main characters that helped make this show what it was, but i’m still grateful for the crumbs they gave us if the actors just couldn’t be booked for whatever reason. i’ve seen many shows at their end just try to pretend their previous characters never existed, so that we got some flashbacks with them was appreciated.

- RIP bau jet. i wiiiill reMEMber youuuuuuu.

-the song choice of david bowie’s Heroes was perfection. strangely, when i was driving home from work yesterday that song came on my playlist and i blasted it on repeat and performed a car concert for my fellow drivers on the road, and thought to myself that this song would be great for cm to end on. never thought they would actually do it since they had previously used the song in penelope’s ep. but what a great scene of all them dancing and singing and laughing like the bunch of nerdy idiots they are.

-i came late into the game with this show. ppl have been telling me for years to watch it and i only picked up watching in s13, after i read a spn/cm crossover fic and became super curious about who all these awesome characters were. with that said, i’m aware that since i haven’t invested years of my life in this show, that my feelings and thoughts about the ending will be different than those who have been hooked on this show for over a decade. i’m still just so thankful for the family portrayed by this show, and these characters i fell in love with, and episodes i’ll never forget.

[zuxnon]

CEO SVT | wonwoo - fast pace

disclaimer: i don’t know what the fuck i’m doig, i didn’t proofread this or anything, i feel weird formatting it to look niceish when it’s bad but imma try anyways, i changed up minor details a bit into it and a good bit of it was written when i was half asleep so if you notice something’s wonky ignore it and/or lmk so i can fix it thanks. ANOTHER DISCLAIMER consider this somewhat of an intro i couldve just made it one long part since the next one is gonna be him too but oh well

summary: everything moves fast when you’re the ceo of a large company. you never have time to waste and when you want something, you get it. what do you do when what you want might not be used to the same lifestyle as you?

seokmin always had weird requests. it was nothing unusual for him to send you, somewhat of an assistant to him, on wild goose chases for random purposes. for that reason, you weren't particularly surprised when he told you to go to a small bookstore across town and buy exactly 15 copies of "The Case of The Missing Heart," a new murder mystery book that had just been published about a week before. you didn't bother questioning it like you might have back when you had just started here. you just grabbed your drink and purse, stood up from your desk, and smiled. "sure, boss." was the only reply you gave him, somewhat hummed in a tone of clear amusement, but he didn't seem to care. he flashed a pearly grin, sent you a wave, and turned back into his office as you turned to leave. there was nothing else to it.

soon enough there you were, scouring the relatively empty bookstore for your boss's most recent questionable request, and you found it. it had probably already been half an hour since you'd left work, you figured he'd probably expect you back in another half hour, and while you doubted he'd care too much, you still didn't want to be late. if you could call it late, that was. with that thought crowding your mind, you quickly snatched a book, then two, then three off the shelves. you would've continued, had you not been distracted by subtle movement out of the corner of your eyes.

standing there, to your utter surprise, was the grim reaper. or, well, you assumed it was more likely a very tall man under a grim-reaper cape, staring down at a game. a game that looked rather familiar from the corner of your eye, and with a risky glance away from the hooded figure and towards the game he was pulling off the shelf, you understood why.

"I worked on that game," you mused aloud, not entirely understanding why you felt the need to tell the grim reaper your life story. but it was too late to do anything about it now, wasn't it? he stilled for a moment, shocked, but slowly turned his head to look at you. you were pretty sure that somewhere under all that thick black fabric, you saw the glint of some silver-rimmed glasses and a few curls of hair.

"You did?" he asked, and if you were to give the grim reaper a voice, it would've probably been something similar to that. your mind briefly flashed back to the scene in goblin where eun-tak asked the goblin if he was the goblin in the library, but you smartly decided against recreating that for fear he might kill you. internally, you gasped. were you already dead? what if this was a test?

wonwoo, on the other hand, was horribly amused. he felt bad, finding amusement in a girl's struggles, but judging by the look on her face, she knew he caught her as soon as she saw his face. he lazily, reached up, finding no reason to continue hiding his identity anymore, and slipped his hood off. she seemed even more stunned. he almost had to bite his lip to hold his smile back, but he somehow managed to keep it at bay without such a show of amusement. she was cute, he noted, but she was also a liar. Wonwoo was friends with the creator of this game, had even made a few appearances to help when he could.

"that's interesting, i didn't see you working when i was there." he said. it was interesting, a change in character that any of his friends would've mocked for months had they seen it, but something about the awkward, familiar energy (familiar in the sense that in some way, she reminded him of himself) she held calmed him. he couldn't explain it, or really understand it, but he could tell she was nothing to be afraid of, she didn't have it in her to tell anyone that he was different around her than his image would suggest. nor did she have the guts to argue, which was also comforting because, well, neither did he.

contrary to his beliefs though, she felt a fire ignite in her veins at his words. the tips of her ears flushed red in embarrassment and she glanced around to make sure nobody was listening in. to her relief, there was nobody around.

"that's interesting, i didn't see you while i was working on it either. as someone credited on the back of the game, you'd think i'd recognize you if you were there." you hissed, crossing your arms defensively over your chest. it wasn't a particularly harsh hiss, but there was no denying the slightly confrontational diction you chose, and he was taken aback just as were you. you, of course, were proud of your work, didn't want that credit stolen from you by some grim-reaper cosplayer who just happened to go shopping and decided to pretend he knew everything about everything- you shut yourself up, knowing you should stop before you made yourself any angrier.

you knew you weren't exactly confrontational, and soon enough the adrenaline of your little outburst had passed and you were slowly cowering back to, avoiding his eyes and looking back to your bookshelf.

"what's your name?" he asked quietly, after quite a few moments of silent staring on his side, flipping the game to see the credits. you said you were on there, and of course you should know your own name.

you shot him a look out of the corner of your eyes, collecting more books off the shelf one at a time. "Why, so you can stalk me? i don't think so."

"oh, so you're admitting that you're not in the game credits?

"I never said that." you bit quietly, frowning to yourself. at this point, he had a bit of a frown on his lips as well. well, at least until he noticed the book you were pulling off the shelf.

"well, i published that book you seem to want so many copies of."

at this point, he was just being an ass. you knew for sure you didn't like this grim reaper. you weren't going to tell some random man off the streets your name, give him more opportunity to find and kill you, and he didn't seem to like that so he decided to mock you. well, it didn't sound like mocking when it fell from his lips but you could tell a mocking word choice when you heard one. you dished out a lot of them yourself, rather than actually confronting people.

"yeah, and i wrote it." you grumbled. with one big, bad idea of a swoop, you somehow managed to catch the rest of the 15 books that somehow fit on that shelf before you used your arm as a makeshift windshield wiper to knock them all in your pile and scurried off. but even though your encounter was brief, somewhat of a reserved argument between reserved people, it left him deep in thought. curious. wondering. and, of course needing that game more than ever before.

and then that was the end of it. you got back to work, followed seokmin's orders and studied more on game creation with the help of both him and the team working for him. you forgot about the cute but obnoxious grim reaper boy and continued on with day to day life. three months passed, to be a little more exact, until the next game launched, and seokmin threw a party. you were still too new to have experienced one of the launch parties before, but he always invited the people he worked most closely with and, of course, his friends. it was somewhat of a small event though, at least in comparison to the expectations you had for such a highly coveted event. or, at least you assumed it was because of the guest list. you didn't know much about your boss' personal life, but it was impossible not to know about seokmin's 12 high-end ceo friends because all of the young women in the building seemed to have a favorite. jeonghan was the name you heard the most. you weren't sure what he did, but you didn't doubt that he was probably gorgeous.

you just didn't find the time to look into it, as you were just finishing up school and devoting all extra time to your job as seokmin's assistant. you started out as an intern, but he liked your drive, your goals, and so he offered you a real job to help pay the bills and get you more experience. he didn't have to help you, but he did and you weren't going to make him regret it.

due to that, this would be your first time meeting any of his friends. you were a little nervous, but you felt the same way meeting anyone. rich, famous, cute as they may have been, you wouldn't let it make you any more nervous than usual. you had little time to be very interested in them, and they would never be interested in you anyways, you're just seokmin's assistant so what would be the purpose of it? theres no sense getting any more nervous around them than you would your mom's friends.

that thought, and any other, cleared when you walked in. it seemed normal. lavish, but that was to be expected. but before you had much of a chance to take in the decorations, you were swept into the madness by a familiar coworker.

time moved quickly, you were never granted with enough seconds to form proper thoughts or observations, feeling like a human hot potato as your coworkers passed you from conversation to conversation- which half the time you could only pretend to know shit about- each keeping you only until they found someone else to entertain themselves with. many of whom had already had just enough alcohol for everyone to tell they were drinking. it was somewhat entertaining, you thought as you finally snuck off to a corner off behind the snack table, slowly consuming a donut you grabbed off it in your escape. at least, until you bumped into something. originally, you thought it was a pole at first, or maybe a rather un-leafy plant, but upon feeling it stumble further back with a gasp, you realized it wasn't. with a squeak of surprise, you jumped around (almost tripping thanks to the heel on the back of your shoes) reaching to help catch the boy, but he had already caught himself and so you reaching for someone who wasn't actually falling caused you to fall, right into his chest.

he caught you with his hands on your upper arms, catching you with the tip of your nose mere centimeters away from smearing your foundation all over his pristine black suit jacket.

your breath is caught, a lump in your already-tight throat because you're so afraid that if you move at all you'll ruin his outfit. so you don't move. he moves you. slowly, he pushes you back up into your feet, neither of you meeting each other's eyes until you're steady, a safe distance away from him and his expensive looking suit.

oh, but when you do meet each other's eyes, all hell breaks loose between you. it takes mere seconds for you to recognize him, seconds of silently wondering where you recognized his face from until you unintentionally gasp aloud, "grim reaper!"  at the same time as he gasps in a similar tone "bookstore girl!"

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Fruits Basket 2019 Ep1: “See You After School”

The first episode of Fruits Basket 2019 Season 1 has finally dropped, so now I can finally start making posts about it. I’m almost certainly gonna talk about every single episode of this, since I have a lot to say. I’m also gonna use this as a chance to talk about the manga and the original anime in addition to this reboot, so I’m not gonna hold back on spoilers.

Anyway, I’m gonna put the rest under a cut. [TL;DR: It’s absolutely great, but if you’re really attached to the specific brand of zany comedy hijinks that the original anime had, you might be put off by the more subdued tone of this reboot]

I have no idea where to even start with this since there’s so much to say, but right off the bat, this already feels like a near-perfect adaptation of the manga. I’m already liking it a lot more than the original anime [which I saw for the first time a few weeks ago in preparation for this].

One of the things I was most worried about ever since they first announced this reboot was how they were going to handle the pacing, since the manga’s 23 volumes long, and thankfully they seem to be doing a great job thus far. As we knew from the theater pre-screenings a few weeks ago, this first episode covers chapter one of the manga, and the second episode will cover chapters two and three. At that sort of a pace, I think it’d work really well if they split this into three 24-ish episode seasons, but we’ll see how it goes.

We at least know that there’s going to be multiple seasons, and it looks like season 1 will be split into six BD/DVD volumes, with the first two currently being listed as containing four episodes each, so this first season should be at least 24 episodes. I’ve seen some rumors lately that season 1 will be 26 episodes, but we haven’t gotten an official number yet.

It also sounds like this reboot has a healthy production schedule, with them already having a fair amount of episodes pre-produced. Which makes sense, since the promo material we’ve gotten has a lot of animation and voiced lines from what’ll probably be the first twelve or so episodes. The animation studio behind this reboot has a lot of history doing long-running/multi-season anime, so it sounds like they know what they’re doing.

Anyway, onto the episode itself, it’s really interesting to compare this to the first episode of the original anime, since they cover basically the exact same material, but they’re handled really differently, in a way that really reflects how they’re from two very different eras of the industry.

I’ve been thinking for a while now that one of the most divisive aspects of the reboot is actually just going to be the differences in tone and atmosphere between this and the original. The original anime ignored a lot of the story’s nuance and the set-up for future drama and plot points, and filtered what was left through the director’s personal style of wacky comedy hijinks. The reboot still has comedy in it [more than I expected it to, actually], but it’s handled in a more subdued way that both matches the manga’s tone a bit more, and feels more like something that would actually air in 2019. Going by the reactions I’ve seen to this first episode, I really think that there’ll be a bit of a schism between people that are really attached to the specific brand of comedy that the original had, and people that thought it was obnoxious and didn’t fit the series at all. People will probably get used to the character design changes and stuff quickly enough, but the reboot is going to just get more and more heavy and dramatic as it goes on, so I think that might become a deal-breaker for people who really liked the original and don’t like the more subdued/heavy tone that this is gonna have.

The reboot is clearly leaning more into subtle comedy, with lots of scenes where the joke is about stuff that characters are saying in the background to each other when they’re not the main focus point of the shot. There’s also lots of moments where there’s hand-written notes on the screen like there were in the manga, which add their own bits of background comedy. It’s fun and silly in it’s own way, but already notably different from the comedy in the original anime.

Personally I thought that Akitaro Daichi’s brand of comedy didn’t work well in the original anime at all, and I’m glad that it’s gone. At least just going by this first episode, I’m glad that the reboot didn’t try to do anything like the whole Yuki fan club dance sequence thing from the original. I’m actually a little surprised at how the reboot handled that whole scene, though. In a good way. I hadn’t put much thought into it, but it makes a lot of sense that they’d change it a bit so that Motoko’s actually there from the start. When I was rereading the manga a while ago, I thought it was kinda weird how she doesn’t actually show up for a while, even though she then becomes the only important character in that club. So it just makes sense for the reboot to include her from the start. I’m also really surprised that they’re having Rika Aida apparently be a regular part of the club from the start as well, since in the manga she only shows up in one chapter in volume 8. But either way, I liked the little changes and additions they made to that scene to make it more consistent with the rest of the story.

I thought I heard people say on twitter after the theater screenings that the reboot didn’t have the part where Hana threatens the Yuki fan club and the screen goes all static-y, but that scene’s actually pretty much exactly the same. And I still like it just as much as I always have, lol.

Having Yuki be in the cooking class along with Tohru and her friends was a nice little addition that helped make their whole conversation about him a bit more natural than it was in both the manga and the original anime.

In general there’s a whole lot of parts in this episode where they really flesh out the material in both minor and major ways, that overall make it feel much more consistent with the story as a whole.

The biggest example of that is the scene at the very start of the episode that shows off God and the original banquet without really going into detail about what’s going on with it. It’s one thing that the reboot’s, like, introducing some side characters a bit earlier than they were in the manga, but that whole intro part was taken directly from the end of volume 22 of the manga, so that’s a pretty big change. I really liked it, though. Some people might think it’s too much of a spoiler, but I think it worked really well. They didn’t really explain what was going on so it mostly just served as a teaser for what was to come. It also makes it clear right off the bat that the story is going to have supernatural elements in it, and that there’s at least some kind of grander story/world-building going on, which I think does a good job at letting new viewers know that this isn’t gonna just be a silly rom-com.

I also really liked how they fleshed out all of the flashbacks and made them feel more like actual scenes and not just vague slideshows of Tohru’s memories. For the most part it’s all lifted straight from the manga, but there’s some really neat little additions like the red butterfly wind chime in Tohru’s old apartment, and the shot of Tohru as a kid doing taxes. And as a lot of people have also talked about, the shot of Kyoko’s blood pooling into a street gutter was way more heavy than how either the manga or the original anime handled that whole part. It’s a good example of the sort of heavy moment that might put off some people that liked the original anime’s comedy, but I liked it a lot. Tohru’s grief and trauma over her mother’s death is a really major plot point that gets explored and fleshed out across the entire series, and is pretty much the core of her character development in the long run, so it works really well to have a lot of emphasis on how big of a deal this all is to Tohru.

And, of course, there’s the hat. I already know that episode two is also gonna have a small original scene involving it, but I’ll talk about that next week when episode two actually comes out. Just in terms of this episode, it was mostly just in the background, but I liked how they handled it. Having it be right next to Tohru’s picture of Kyoko in her tent was a really nice way of subtly putting it there for people to see without drawing attention to it specifically, and I liked how it actually looked kinda old and worn down. We also got to see the flashback to her first getting it as a kid, which was neat. I liked how they shadowed out Yuki’s face so that we don’t know exactly who gave it to her.

I understand why the original anime completely cut out the hat and everything to do with it, since the manga hadn’t even gotten to the point where we really find out what the deal with it is, but it’s one of the little details in the story that makes it clear early on that there’s gonna be some overarching mysteries and plot points that’ll slowly get explored. It makes the story feel like it has more going on with it behind the scenes, and the original anime felt a bit more flat and shallow because it ignored those parts.

One of the few things that I actually wish the reboot could have ignored was the whole plot point of the zodiac members being able to communicate with their respective animals. It’s really not a big deal one way or another, but this is like the only part of the story where it’s actually relevant at all, aside from maybe like one scene with Kureno waaaaay later on. It’s one of those things that basically just gets immediately abandoned in the manga, so I think it could have just been cut out and nobody would have noticed, but oh well.

This isn’t necessarily a complaint, but I feel like this is the sorta thing where you need to watch at least two or three episodes to really get a feel for what it’s actually about. This episode spends so much time on introducing the main characters that it ends right when the whole zodiac thing first comes into play, and the actual explanation of the curse won’t happen until the next episode. But this is an issue that I also have with the manga, so it’s not really the reboot’s fault. It’s a really minor nit-pick, but I think that new fans might be kinda confused about what the actual story and focus of this is going to be in the long run. Though this is one of the reasons why I really liked how they added in the banquet scene at the very start of the episode. It helps tease at the supernatural elements of the story right off the bat, so the scene at the end doesn’t come completely out of left field.

On top of the whole issue of the tonal differences between this and the original anime, I also really love the art and cinematography in this reboot, way more than in the original. The direction here feels way more cinematic and dynamic than the original anime ever did. I remember reading that the production staff used 360-degree cameras in different places to get detailed reference material for doing the backgrounds and scenery in this reboot, and you can really see that in how spacious and 3D it all feels. A lot of people have pointed out how the shot of Shigure and Yuki walking up the stairs in their house felt really interesting, but I also liked the scene of Tohru running down the stairs at school before walking home with Yuki. It all just comes together to make the reboot feel really detailed and down to earth, with environments that actually feel like lived-in, three-dimensional spaces.

I also think the character designs in this are really nice. It’s still gonna take me a bit of time to get used to them, since they’re intentionally different to how they were in the manga, but they look really nice. There’s a lot of die-hard fans of the original anime’s character designs, but I’m one of the people who thought they looked kinda awful for the most part. One of the things that really struck me about the reboot was how bright and warm the colour palette is, especially compared to the original anime, which felt kinda dull and muddy. The reboot’s just really soft and pleasant to look at, but not to the point where it detracts from the serious parts.

I was actually kinda surprised at how much of the visual comedy and silliness they captured. It never feels particularly jarring, but it still feels pretty light and fun. In particular I really liked some of the cuts where the characters had really thick outlines.

The animation staff are also clearly putting a lot of attention into animating the animal forms, and they look great thus far. I’m almost sad that after a while we basically never see anyone transform anymore, since they already look so fun and dynamic. Especially in the ED theme, but I’ll talk about that in a bit.

Even with the obviously intentional differences in style from the manga, I love how recognizable everyone is, and how they all just have the same core spirit that they’ve always had, if that makes sense. Although I do really like that Yuki in particular feels quite a bit different to how he came across in both the manga and the original anime. It’s kinda hard to explain why, though. A big part of it is that his new JP voice is just really nice, but that’s also part of the broader topic of how it comes across like the reboot isn’t trying quite as hard to make him ‘cool and mysterious’, and they’re also not trying quite as hard to make him seem feminine. He basically just comes across as a cool, suave pretty-boy in the reboot, which works really well. The original anime in particular made him unintentionally creepy and weird with how it portrayed him, though it also didn’t help that I really don’t like Eric Vale’s weird raspy voice for him.

I actually think it’s kinda interesting that they’re leaning heavily into him just being a suave pretty-boy who doesn’t come across as being particularly feminine. There’s not much to go off of, but it feels like they’re tweaking that aspect of him a bit, especially with the drastic change between his JP voice actors. Mostly I think it’s interesting because, especially after my reread of the manga, I think the whole running gag with Yuki being feminine really hasn’t aged well at all, and I think the reboot would probably be better off by just focusing on portraying him as a cool, princely pretty-boy. I at least think that it’d seem even more jarring in the reboot if it tried to pull the same jokes that were built upon the idea that he looks/sounds like a girl, since in the JP dub especially they don’t seem to be trying to make him sound like a girl at all.

I think that’s about all there is to say about this episode specifically, and this post is going on long enough as it is, but I wanna talk a bit about the OP and ED. Or, well, just the ED, since this episode didn’t actually have the OP in it. I assume they’ll just use it in the next episode onward. But anyway, the ED was amazing. It’s incredibly laid-back and chill but also poignant in a way that really fits the series’ tone. I was kinda surprised at how Yuki-focused it felt, though. It’s not quite what I expected, but it’s nice. I really liked the shot of him looking out the window as a kid while the other zodiac members are walking by and having fun without him. The split-second detail of Ayame turning to look at him before Shigure and Hatori pull him away was fantastic.

I also really liked the shots involving everyone’s animal forms. It really shows off how nice the animation for them is. It’s all super playful and energetic and dynamic. Especially the bit with Ayame trying to chase after Yuki and tying himself up in a knot, lol.

I was also kinda surprised to see Kisa and Hiro in this at all, since I don’t think either of them will show up until the second half of this season, by which point there’d probably be a new set of OP/ED themes, unless they plan on using these ones for the whole first season. I really like what little we saw of their designs, though. I love how fluffy Hiro’s sheep form looks in it.

Anyway, that’s that. Now I have to deal with waiting for the next episode to come out, lmao. I’ll probably end up rewatching this episode with the English dub, but I don’t wanna get a Funi subscription just for that, so I don’t know exactly when I’ll end up watching it.