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sabugabr · 3 years ago

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Why the Clone problem in Star Wars animated media is also a Mandalorian problem, and why we have to talk about it (PART 2)

Hi! I finally finished wrapping this up, so here’s part 2 of what has already become a mini article (you can find Part 1 here, if you like!)

And for this part, it won’t be as much as a critic as part 1 was, but instead I’d like to focus more on what I consider to be a wasted potential regarding the representation of the Clones in the Star Wars animated media, from the first season of The Clone Wars till now, and why I believe it to be an extension of the Mandalorian problem I discussed in part 1 — the good old colonialism.

Sources used, as always, will be linked at the end of this post!

PART 2: THE CLONES

Cody will never know peace

So I’d like to state that I won’t focus as much on the blatantly whitewashing aspect, for I believe it to be very clear by now. If you aren’t familiar with it, I highly recommend you search around tumblr and the internet, there are a lot of interesting articles and posts about it that explain things very didactically and in detail. The only thing you need to know to get this started is that even at the first seasons of Clone Wars (when the troopers still had this somewhat darker skin complexion and all) they were still a whitewashed version of Temuera Morrison (Jango’s actor). And from then, as we all know, they only got whiter and whiter till we get where we are now, in rage.

Look at this very ambiguously non-white but still westernized men fiercely guarding their pin-up space poster

Now look at this still westernized but slightly (sarcasm) whiter men who for some reason now have different tanning levels among them (See how Rex now has a lighter skin tone? WHEN THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN KKKKKKK) Anyway you got the idea. So without further ado...

2.1 THE FANTASY METAPHOR

As I mentioned before in Part 1, one thing that has to be very clear if you want to follow my train of thought is that it’s impossible to consume something without attributing cultural meanings to it, or without making cultural associations. This things will naturally happen and it often can improve our connection to certain narratives, especially fantastic ones. Even if a story takes place in a fantastic/sci fi universe, with all fictional species and people and worlds and cultures, they never come from nowhere, and almost always they have some or a lot of basing in real people and cultures. And when done properly, this can help making these stories resonate in a very beautifull, meaningfull way. I actually believe this intrisic cultural associations are the things that make these stories work at all. As the brilliant american speculative/science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin says in the introduction (added in 1976) of her novel The Left Hand of Darkness, and that I was not able to chopp much because it’s absolutely genious and i’ll be leaving the link to the full text right here,

“The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrodinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future — indeed Schrodinger's most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the ‘future,’ on the quantum level, cannot be predicted — but to describe reality, the present world.

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.”

[...] “Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That's the truth!

They may use all kinds of facts to support their tissue of lies. They may describe the Marshalsea Prison, which was a real place, or the battle of Borodino, which really was fought, or the process of cloning, which really takes place in laboratories, or the deterioration of a personality, which is described in real textbooks of psychology; and so on. This weight of verifiable place-event-phenomenon-behavior makes the reader forget that he is reading a pure invention, a history that never took place anywhere but in that unlocalisable region, the author's mind. In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane —bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.”

[...] “ In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find — if it's a good novel — that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

The artist deals with what cannot be said in words.

The artist whose medium is fiction does this within words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words. Words can be used thus paradoxically because they have, along with a semiotic usage, a symbolic or metaphoric usage. [...] All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life — science, all the sciences, and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another. The future, in fiction, is a metaphor.

A metaphor for what?” [1]

A metaphor for what indeed. I won’t be going into what Star Wars as a whole is a metaphor for, because I am certain that it varies from person to person, and everyone can and has the total right to take whatever they want from this story, and understand it as they see fit. That’s why it’s called the modern myth. And therefore, all I’ll be saying here is playinly my take not only on what I understand the Clones to be, but what I believe they could have meant.

2.2 SO, BOBA IS A CLONE

I don’t want to get too repetitive, but I wanted to adress it because even though I by no means intend to put Boba and the Clones in the same bag, there is one aspect about them that I find very similar and interesting, that is the persue of individuality. While the Clones have this very intrinsically connected to their narratives, in Boba’s case this appears more in his concept design. As I mentioned in Part 1, one of the things the CW staff had in mind while designing the mandalorians is that they wanted to make Boba seem unique and distinguishable from them, and honestly even in the original trilogy he stands out a lot. He is unique and memorable and that’s one of the things that draws us to him.

And as we all know, both Boba and Jango and the Clones are played by Temuera Morrison — and occasionally by the wonderful Bodie Taylor and Daniel Logan. And Temuera Morrison comes from the Maori people. And differently from the mandalorian case, where we were talking about a whole planet, in this situation we’re talking about portraying one single person, so there’s nowhere to go around his appearance and phenotypes, right? I mean, you are literally representing an actual individual, so there’s no way you could alter their looks, right?

(hahahaha wrong)

And besides that, I think that is in situations like that (when we are talking about individuals) that the actor’s perspective could really have a place to shine (just the same as how Lea was mostly written by Carrie Fisher). In this very heart-warming interview for The New York Times (which you can read full signing up for their 5-free-articles-per-month policy), Temuera Morrison talks a little bit about how he incorporated his cultural background to Boba Fett in The Mandalorian:

“I come from the Maori nation of New Zealand, the Indigenous people — we’re the Down Under Polynesians — and I wanted to bring that kind of spirit and energy, which we call wairua. I’ve been trained in my cultural dance, which we call the haka. I’ve also been trained in some of our weapons, so that’s how I was able to manipulate some of the weapons in my fight scenes and work with the gaffi stick, which my character has.” [2]

The Gaffi stick (or Gaderffii), btw, is the weapon used by the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine, and according to oceanic art expert Bruno Claessens it’s design was inspired by wooden Fijian war clubs called totokia. [3]

And I think is very clear how this background can influence one’s performance and approach to a character, and majorly how much more alive this character will feel like. Beyond that, having an actor from your culture to play and add elements to a character will higly improve your sense of connection with them (besides all the impact of seeying yourself on screen, and seeying yourself portrayed with respect). It would only make sense if the cultural elements that the actor brought when giving life to a fictional individual would’ve been kept and even deepened while expanding this role. And if you’re familiar with Star Wars Legends you’ll probably rememeber that in Legends Jango would train and raise all Clone troopers in the Mandalorian culture, so that the Clones would sing traditional war chants before battles, be fluent in Mando’a (Mandalore’s language) and some would proudly take mandalorian names for themselves. So why didn’t Filoni Inc. take that into account when they went to delve into the clones in The Clone Wars?

2.3 THE WHITE MINORITY

First of all I’d like to state that all this is 100% me conjecturing, and by no means at all I’m saying that this is what really happened. But while I was re-watching CW before The Bad Batch premiere, something came to my mind regarding the whitewashing of the Clones, and I’d like to leave that on the table.

So, you know this kind of recent movies and series that depicted like, fairies in this fictional world where fairies were very opressed, but there would be a lot of fairies played by white actors? Just like Bright and Carnival Row. If you’ve watched some of these and have some racial conscience, you’ll probably know where I’m going here. And the issue with it is that often this medias will portray real situations of racism and opression and prejudice, but all applied to white people. Like in Carnival Row, when going to work as a maid in a rich human house, our girl Cara Delevingne had to fight not to have her braids (which held a lot of significance in her culture) cut by her intolerant human mistress, because the braids were not “appropriate”. Got it? hahahaha what a joy

Look at her ethnic braids!!!

One of the reasons this happens might be to relieve a white audience of the burden of watching these stories and feeling what I like to call “white guilt”. Because, as we all know, white people were never very oppressed. Historically speaking, white people have always been in privileged social positions, and in an exploitative relationship between two ethnic groups, white people very usually would be the exploiters — the opressors. So while watching situations (that every minority would know to be very real) of opression in fiction, if these situations were lived by a white actor, there would be no real-life associations, because we have no historical parameter to associate this situation with anything in real life — if you are white. Thus, there is less chance that, when consuming one of these narratives, whoever is watching will question the "truthfulness" of these situations (because it's not "real racism", see, "they're just fairies"). It's easier for a person to watch without having to step out of their comfort zone, or confront the reality of real people who actually go through things like that. There's even a chance that this might diminish empathy for these people.

Once again, not saying this is specifically the case of the Clones, majorly because one of the main feelings you have when watching CW is exactly empathy for the troopers (at least for me, honestly, the galaxy could explode, I just wanted those poor men to be happy for God’s sake). But I’ll talk more about it later.

The thing is, the whole thing with the Clones, if you think about it, it’s not pretty. If you step on little tiny bit outside the bubble of “fictional fantasy”, the concept is very outrageous. They are kept in conditions analogous to slavery, to say the least. To say the more, they were literally made in an on-demand lab to serve a purpose they are personally not a part of, for which they will neither receive any reward nor share any part of the gains. On the contrary, as we saw in The Bad Batch, as soon as the war was over and the clones were no longer useful as cannonballs, they were discarded. In the (wonderful) episode 6 of the third season of (the almost flawless) Rebels, “The Last Battle”, we're even personally introduced to the analogy that there really wasn't much difference in value between clones and droids, something that was pretty clear in Clone Wars but hadn't been said explicitly yet.

In fact, technically the Separatists can be considered to be more human than the Republic. But that's just my opinion.

So, you had this whole army of pretty much slaves. I know this is a heavy term, but these were people who were originally stripped of any sense of humanity or individuality, made literally to go to war and die in it, doing so purely in exchange for food and lodging, under the false pretense that they belonged to a glorious purpose (yes, Loki me taught that term, that was the only thing I absorbed from this series). Doing all this under extremely precarious conditions from which they had no chance of getting out, actually, getting out was tantamount to the death penalty. They were slaves. In milder terms, an oppressed minority. And again, I don't know if that was the case, but I can understand why Filoni Inc would be apprehensive about representing phenotically indigenous people in this situation. Especially since we in theory should see Anakin and Obi-Wan as the good guys.

(and here I’d like to leave a little disclaimer that I believe the whole Anakin-was-a-slave-once plot was HUGELY misused (and honestly just badly done) both in the prequels and in the animeted series — maybe for the best, since he was, you know, white and all that, and I don’t know how the writers would have handled it, but ANYWAY — I believe this could have been further explored, particularly regarding his relationship with the Clones, and how it could have influenced his revolt against the Jedi, and manipulated to add to his anger and all that. I mean, we already HAD the fact that Anakin shared a deeper conection with his troopers than usual)

Yes, Rex, you have common trauma experiences to share. But anyway, backing to my track

As I was saying, we are to see them as good guys, and maybe that could’ve been tricky if we saw them hooping up on slavery practices. Like, idk, a “nice” sugar plantation owner? (I don’t know the correct word for it in english, but in portuguese they were called senhores de engenho) Like this guy from 12 Years a Slave?

You know, the slave owner who was “nice”. IDK, anyway

No one will ever watch Clone Wars and make this association (I believe not, at least), of course not. But if we were to see how CW deepened the clone arcs, and see them as phenotypically indigenous, subjected to certain situations that occur in CW (yes, like Umbara), maybe some kind of association would’ve been easier to make.

I mean, come onnnn I can’t be the only one seeing it

You see, maybe not the whole 12 Years a Slave association one, but I don’t think it’s hard to see there was something there. And maybe this could’ve been even more evident if they looked non-white. Because historically, both black peoples and indigenous peoples went through processes of slavery, from which we as a society are still impacted today. And to slave a people, the first thing you have to do is strip them from their humanity. So it might be easier to see this situation and apply it to real life. And maybe that could lead to a whole lot of other questions regarding the Clones, the Republic, the Jedi, and even how chill Obi-Wan was about all this. We might come out of it, as lady Ursula Le Guin stated in the fragment above, a bit different from what we were before we watch it.

Maybe even unconsciously, Filoni Inc thought we would be more confortable watching if they just looked white (and because of colonialism and all that, but I’m adding thoughts here).

And of course I don’t like the idea of, idk, looking at Obi-Wan and thinking about Benedict Cumberbatch in 12 Years a Slave or something like that. Of course that, if the Clones were to play the same role as they did in the prequels, to obediently serve the Jedi and quietly die for them, that would have been bad, and hurtfull, and pejorative if added to all that I said here. But the thing is that Clone Wars, consciously or not, already solved that. At least to my point of view, they already managed to approach this situation in an incredible competent way, that is giving them agency.

2.4 AGENCY AND INDIVIDUALITY

So, one of the things I love most in Clone Wars is how it really feels like it’s about the Clones. Like, we have the bigger scene of Palpatine taking over, Ahsoka’s growth arc, Anakin’s turn to The Dark Side, the dawn of the Jedi and rise of the Empire and all that, but it also has this idk, vibe, of there’s actually something going on that no one in scene is talking about? And this something is the Clones. We have these episodes spread throughout the seasons, even out of chronological order, which when watched together tell a parallel story to the war, to everything I mentioned. Which is a story about individuals. Clone Wars manages to, in a (at least to me) very touching way, make the Clones be the heros.

Can you really look me in the eye and say that Five’s story didn’t CRASH you like a full-speed train???? He may not have the same amount of screen-time as the protagonists, but his story is just as important as theirs (and to me, it might be the most meaningful one). Because he is the first to break free from the opression cicle all the Clones were trapped into.

His story can be divided into 6 phases.

1 - First, the construction of his individuality, in other words, the reclaiming of his humanity.

2 - Then the assimilation of understanding yourself as an individual of value, and then extending this to all his brothers, not as a unit, but as a set of individuals collectively having this same newly discovered value.

3 - This makes him realize that in the situation they find themselves in, they are not being recognized as such. This makes him question the reality of their situation.

4 - Freed from the illusion of his state, he seeks the truth about it.

5 - This then leads him to seek liberation not just for himself, but for all the Clones (it's basically Plato's Cave, and I'm not exaggerating here).

6 - And finally, precisely because he has assimilated his individuality and sought freedom for himself and his brothers, he is punished for it.

His story is all about agency. Agency, according to the Wikipedia page that is the first to appear if you type “agency” on Google, is that agency is “the abstract principle that autonomous beings, agents, are capable of acting by themselves” [4], and this abstract principle can be dissected in 7 segments:

Law - a person acting on behalf of another person

Religious - "the privilege of choice... introduced by God"

Moral - capacity for making moral judgments

Philosophical - the capacity of an autonomous agent to act, relating to action theory in philosophy

Psychological - the ability to recognize or attribute agency in humans and non-human animals

Sociological - the ability of social actors to make independent choices, relating to action theory in sociology

Structural - ability of an individual to organize future situations and resource distribution

All of them apply here. And this is just the story of one Clone. We know there are many others throughout the series.

Agency is what can make the world of a difference when you are telling a story about an opressed minority. Because opressed minorities do exist, and opression exists, and if you are insecure about consuming a fictional media about opressed minorities, see if they have agency might be a good place to start. So that’s why I think that everything I said before in 2.3 falls short. Because the solution already existed, and was indeed done. Honestly, making the non-agency representation of the Clones (the one we see in the prequels) to be the one played by Temuera Morrison, and then giving them agency in the version where they appear to be white, just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

And honestly, if they were to make the Clones look like Temuera Morrison, and by that mean, take more inspiration in the Māori culture, maybe they wouldn’t even have to change much of their representation besides their facial features. As I said in part 1, I am not by any means an expert in polynesian cultures, but there was something that really got me while I was researching about it. And is the facial tattoos. More precisely, the tā moko.

2.5 TĀ MOKO

Once again I’ll be using the Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand as source, and you can find the articles used linked at the end of this post.

Etymologically speaking,

“The term moko traditionally applied to male facial tattooing, while kauae referred to moko on the chins of women. There were other specific terms for tattooing on other parts of the body. Eventually ‘moko’ came to be used for Māori tattooing in general.” [5]

So moko is the correct name for the characteristic tattoos we often see when we look for Māori culture.

These ones ^. Please also look this book up, it’s beautiful. It’s written by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, a New Zealand academic specialising in Māori cultural issues and a lesbian activist. She’s wonderful.

According to the Tourism NewZealand website,

“In Māori culture, it [moko] reflects the individual's whakapapa (ancestry) and personal history. In earlier times it was an important signifier of social rank, knowledge, skill and eligibility to marry.”

“Traditionally men received moko on their faces, buttocks and thighs. Māori face tattoos are the ultimate expression of Māori identity. Māori believe the head is the most sacred part of the body, so facial tattoos have special significance.”

[...] “The main lines in a Māori tattoo are called manawa, which is the Māori word for heart.” [6]

Therefore, in the Māori culture, there’s this incredibly deep meaning attributed to the (specific of their culture) tattooing of the face. The act of tattooing the body, any part of the body, is incredibly powerful in many cultures around the globe. The adornment of the body can have different meanings for these different cultures, but all of which I've come into contact with do mean a lot. It’s one of the oldest and most beautiful human expressions of individuality and identity.

And in the Star Wars universe, the Clones are the group that has the deeper connection to, and the best narrative regarding, tattoos. In fact, besides Hera’s father, Cham Syndulla, the Clones are the only individuals to have tattooed skin, at least that I can recall of. And they do share a deep connection to it.

For the Clones, the tattoos (added to hairstyles) are the most meaningful way in which they can express themselves. Is what makes them distinguishable from each other to other people. Tattoos are one of the things that represent them as individuals.

And I’m not BY ANY MEANS sayin that the Clones facial tattoos = Moko. That’s not my point. But that’s one of the things I meant when I said earlier about the wasted potential of the representation of the Clones (in my point of view). Because maybe if it were their intention to base the culture of the clones after the polynesian culture, maybe if it were their intention to make the Clones actually look like Temuera Morrison, this could have meant a whole deal. More than it’d appear looking to it from outside this culture. Maybe if there were actual polynesian people in the team that designed the Clones and wrote them (or at least indigenous people, something), who knows what we could’ve had.

Even in Hunter’s design, I noticed that if you take for example this frame of Temuera from the movie River Queen (2005), where we can have a closer look at the design of his tā moko

Speaking purely plastically (because I don’t want to get into the movie itself, just using it as example because then I can use Temuera himself as a comparison), see the lines around the contours of his mouth? Now look at Hunter’s.

I find it interesting that they choose to design this lines coming from around his nose like that. But at this point I am stretching A LOT into plastic and semiotics, so this comparison is just a little thing that got my attention. I know that his tattoo is a skull and etc etc, I’m just poiting this out. And it even makes me a little frustrated, because they could have taken so many interesting paths in the Bad Batch designs. But instead they choose to pay homage to Rambo. And I mean, I like Rambo, I think he’s cool and all that.

Look at him doing Filipino martial arts

But then, as we say in Brasil, they had the knife and the cheese in their hands (all they had to do was cut the cheese, but they didn’t). Istead, it seems like in order to make Hunter look like Rambo, they made him even whiter???

2.6 SO...

Look, I love The Clone Wars. I’m crazy about it. I love the Clones, I love their stories and plots. They are great characters and one of the greatest addings ever made in the Star Wars universe. They even have, in my opinion, the best soundtrack piece to feature in a Star Wars media since John Williams’ wonderful score. It just feels to me as if their narrative core is full of bagage, and meanings, and associations that were just wiped under the carpet when they suddenly became white. It just feels to me as if, once again, they were trying to erase the person behing the trooper mask, and the people they were to represent, and the history they should evoke.

I don’t know why they were whitewashed. Maybe it was just the old due racism and colonialism. Maybe it was meant for us to not question the Jedi, or our good guys, or the real morality of this fictional universe where we were immersed. But then, was it meant for what?

The Clones were a metaphor for what?

(spoiler: the answer still contains colonialism)

Thank you so much for reading !!!! (and congratulations for getting this far, you are a true hero)

SOURCES USED IN THIS:

[1] Ursulla K. Le Guin, 'The Left Hand of Darkness', 14th ACE print run of June, 1977

[2] Dave Itzkoff, 'Being Boba Fett: Temuera Morrison Discusses ‘The Mandalorian’', The New York Times, published Dec. 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/arts/television/the-mandalorian-boba-fett-temuera-morrison.html (accessed 15 September 2021)

[3] Bruno Claessens, 'George Lucas' "Star Wars" and Oceanic art' , Archived from the original on December 5, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20201205114353/http://brunoclaessens.com/2015/07/george-lucas-star-wars-and-oceanic-art/#.YEiJ-p37RhF (accessed 15 September 2021)

[4] Wikipedia contributors, "Agency," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Agency&oldid=1037924611 (accessed September 17, 2021)

[5] Rawinia Higgins, 'Tā moko – Māori tattooing - Origins of tā moko', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ta-moko-maori-tattooing/page-1 (accessed 17 September 2021)

[6] Tourism New Zealand, ‘The meaning of tā moko, traditional Māori tattoos’, The Tourism New Zealand website, https://www.newzealand.com/us/feature/ta-moko-maori-tattoo/ (accessed 17 September 2021)

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maxwell-grant · 3 years ago

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I was gonna put the Spy Kids quote here but then I’d probably get an ask if they or Sharkboy & Lavagirl are pulp heroes.

Okay, jokes aside I can’t put it into words just how much I appreciate the feedback and reception I get from you guys, never in a million years did I think I would ever get the notes I get or the amount of asks I receive. I can’t believe I’m nearing 200 followers as is, that’s insane to me. I am eternally grateful that this place lets me finally put out my essays somewhere people will read them and that you guys actually humor my ramblings, and frankly I don’t think I’m ever going to find an outlet like this elsewhere. Please don’t hesitate to send questions.

But I’m gonna have to start rapid firing a couple of those 50 questions so they don’t pile up more, and for these “Is X a Pulp Hero”, I’m gonna start off by pointing that I made a chart specifically to address this question, to try and at least give the cat I let out of the bag a structure to work with so it doesn’t destroy the furniture (not that it ever stopped my cat). Although again, the chart is just a basic attempt to put this on working order, sometimes it really is just a particular vibe that a character or property gives off.

Anyhow, on a case by case basis:

Santa Claus: Not a pulp hero, waaay older than those, but has appeared in pulp stories (I mean, it’s Santa). There have been pulp stories that featured Santa, there’s a murderous Santa Claus in the canadian pulp Guy Vercheres, the Jimmieboy short stories had him meet Santa, and The Shadow’s killed at least one criminal dressed like Santa as well as posed for a holiday picture with the real one in Edd Cartier’s final drawing before he passed away, which is as official as a crossover could possibly get.

Samurai Jack: Maybe. The most directly pulp thing Genndy Tartakosvky’s done yet is Primal, that is just 100% cartoon pulp, the Conan/Lost World stuff bleeds through the screen. Samurai Jack is kinda near that ballpark but that’s because Samurai Jack has a zillion influences and pop culture references, most of it seems taken straight from comics. Pulp stuff is in there but that’s because pulps run in the blood of everything, and it doesn’t make everything pulp. The whole premise of Samurai Jack is designed for the contrast between an old-fashioned samurai coming to face and adapting to whatever wacky future nonsense and pop culture archetypes Aku’s throwing at him that week because that’s what they felt like doing for the episode. There’s gangsters and Lupin and Star Wars and historical fantasy and robot violence and...shit, it really is pulp, come to think of it. Still not gonna say a definitive Yes to Jack being a Pulp Hero but the vibe is definitely there and maybe that’s all that really counts.

The Belmonts: Maybe. There’s definitely Simon, because Simon is Conan. Julius Belmont also gives off a strong old-school adventurer vibe. The others are a lot more distant but they are definitely a lot closer to that ballpark than most videogame heroes, characters like Richter and Alucard wouldn’t look that out of place fighting monsters next to The Spider or Elric. Again, there’s not many actual connections to pulp properties or periods, but the whole point of Castlevania is that you get to cartwheel through graveyards and whip your way through exploding skeletons and Frankensteins so you can give Dracula a wedgie. So I’m gonna actually say a Yes to this one.

Scrooge McDuck: Yes. He’s in the chart already, and really I probably could have placed him in the True Neutral section considering Scrooge was created in the 1900s-1950s time period and was pretty explicitly modeled after a pulp magazine kind of adventurer.

The Joestars: No. I don’t consider Joseph a Pulp Hero in the first place, it’s really more Battle Tendency having an Indiana Jones globetrotting vibe than Joseph himself, I put the characters in the Radical Pulp Anarchy section as extreme examples to show how far you can conceivably stretch the term based on superficial connections. But I don’t get neither much of a pulp vibe from any of the Jojo parts besides Part 2, and pulp material has never been within Araki’s influences, and I obsessively catalogued all of them in my Jojo phase. You could maybe make an argument for Jonathan since he’s the old-school adventurer of the bunch, and maybe Jotaro since he’s both the wandering warrior type as well as Clint Eastwood in a school uniform, but at this point you gotta separate what’s “genre” and what’s “pulp”, and they can intersect without being the same thing.

Fast and the Furious: No. Pretty hard no, actually. I don’t think there’s even much of an argument there other than I guess they both have a reputation for being trashy low-class entertainment, but that kinda goes for way too many things to ever be placed under an umbrella term. The terms “high class” and “low class” don’t even really see much usage anymore in media discussion, they died and it’s a good thing we killed them.

Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Stratemeyer Syndicate was pretty specifically centered around hardback publications of juvenile adventure series, which means they could not be considered pulp characters in their time despite being from the 1930s, and in fact were pretty specifically defined as being the opposite of the pulp publishers of the period. Still, that distinction hardly matters much once people started talking about serial and radio and comic characters as pulp heroes, and currently a lot of what it takes for a character to be considered a pulp hero is just being from any kind of 1930s fiction. I wouldn’t include them in any listings but, you do you.

Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction: I mean, it’s kinda the big thing you get when you even look up the terms “pulp” or “pulp fiction”, by sheer osmosis it’s replaced the things those terms were created to define in pop culture popularity. It’s been forever since I watched it and I don’t particularly have any interest in watching any Tarantino movie, but I guess the fact that this is a movie with several different stories interconnected on crime drama and doomed love affairs and philosophical hogwash and bantering men of action is very much structured like a typical pulp magazine, which usually consisted on an anthology format that I suspect is what the movie may have been homaging. Either that, or it’s just named Pulp Fiction because it’s sleazy and gorey and shamelessly excessive and those are terms that are very much associated with the pulps, for better or worse.

#replies tag #pulp heroes #pulp fiction #jojo tag #jjba #scrooge mcduck #santa claus #samurai jack #tf2

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baldeagly · 3 years ago

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Multiverse of Madness

Review below~

Tons of spoilers be warned.

It's official, my ability to give a damn about the MCU lives after it died off sometime in 2017-ish? Amazing what SAM RAIMI brought to the table, thought people were full of BS and gassed him up but it just goes to show his Spider-Man trilogy and skills were not a fluke at all! This is the freshest and most earnest attempt at a MCU movie I've seen in my life. Easily my favorite without a shadow of a doubt! Multiverse of Madness is lovely to look at, the colors, the aesthetics, the lighting, the VFX effects, I adore the costumes and accuracy of America Chavez and the Scarlet Witch's costumers. The usage of VFX effects really made things feel magical, intense and psychedelic. The imagery of colors with Wanda's Red, America's Blue and Strange's magic. I enjoy what they did with their cast of characters and how they were utilized. I just literally watched WandaVision for the first time ever over the course of this week so I'm fresh off the boat on that one, that being said Wanda appearinig as a straight up villain and antagonist this movie was insane.

Agatha's line that still stuck with me was her telling Wanda that it was her destiny to destroy the world or something to that effect, seeing her straight up utilizing the Dark Hold to recapture her lost children and go down an even darker road was insane. The tone of this movie got really horrid at times, not scary just very jump scary, people getting impaled, people getting crushed, cut, there was such a large amount of blood and just general nightmare fuel compared to the usual MCU movie. I thought Disney had a tight lease on them for this kind of stuff but apparently not so, Raimi just went in guns-a-blazing and the style really did harken back to his Spider-Man triologies in terms of some scenery being a bit wrenching. Watching Wanda go from a sitcom housewife who is grieving to a abrupt killing machine was pretty insanely enjoyable, not even did they drag things out. They let you know in the first twenty minutes she's the villain of this story, it felt very fresh? No joking or corny nonsense breaking the tone just absolute madness from beginning to end.

The Illuminati being what they were without being direct fanservice and string of cameos for people to gush over is how I liked their roles here, I love seeing Mr. Fantastic and what I presume to be this world's version of Monica Rambeau? The little shoutout to Captain America's old catchphrase. The fight was essentially Wanda massacring this universe's avenger force owning her title as the supreme strongest of the Avengers. They were definitely here for exposition and played a role too in explaining how things went down with their own Strange. Professor X's sequence was an incredible way of showing who this character is without a lot of time to do it. The cinemagraphy of red smoke "overtaking" the area as he tries to save his own universe's Wanda.

I really liked America? I thought she was just going to be a designated kid character or something and just kind of there but they gave her a good amount of agency? Her figuring out her powers in the third Act and queeling the Scarlet Witch's rampage felt like a very organic way to end this? For a moment I thought they would force the idea this half-pint can suddenly hold a candle to Wanda with a few punches, she's clearly strong enough to break the glass in the cage but that was a red herring. They didn't go that rough at all! She defeats Wanda by "giving her what she wants" by controlling her power and showing her the path to her children. The way they freaked out reminded me of Kingpin in Into the Spider-Verse. She was reunited with her children in the wrong way which felt like a nice moral victory from her earlier line to Wanda about if her kids saw her for who she was. I like her aesthetic, I loved the star-shaped portals, I felt like her contributions were valid and she didn't completely play the role as a Multiverse Taxi and damsel.

I feel like this my first introduction to Strange as a titular character and I'm definitely a fan, he's great as a character. Definitely shot up my list of favs a bit, my only hang-up was at times it felt like he didn't use his powers? You have Wanda tossing magic left and right and he at times seemed a bit inactive in comparison? That being said the fight against his Dark Hold-wielding counterpart was insane, again incredible usage of CGI/VFX effects. The musical note fight was super enjoyable and mesmerizing to look at, I appreciate the sound correlating in proper with that. It's those moments that make movies feel like art to me. I'm glad things ended on a note of him not being tied up with his lady, seemingly casually moving on and calling it a day. The ending with the Darkhold taking root a bit was a bummer (honestly Strange's using the Darkhold felt a bit forced), am not savvy enough to know of the final character he ran off with either. I have a larger respect for Benedict Cumberbatch after this showing, I'll have to go back and catch up on some other MCU content involving him.

#mcu #multiverse of madness #wanda maximoff #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #scarlet witch #me talking #america chavez #review #dr. strange

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pacexlikexaxghost · 6 months ago

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❝Stars, my life probably would have been easier if I were aromantic...❞ Pearl mutters, though she feels guilty even saying that. She wouldn't trade what she had with Rose for the world.

But she also can't deny how much it hurt sometimes. But that's what made it so real, the feeling was- is- so intense that it causes particularly high highs and particularly low lows.

Pearl and Steven both also laugh at Valor's interjection. Greg is Jewish, so they don't really celebrate Christmas, even for Steven, but it's impossible to miss the holiday and it's songs come December.

She quietly listens as Flicker explains their terms, nodding. She's familiar with the concepts; she just didn't have those words for it. She would have assumed- especially based on the other terms- they would be called homosexual. Language is strange like that like; any number of factors could have caused a word to fall out of favor.

The statement that lesbian can be used by nonbinary and agender people gives her a moment's pause though, especially as they go on to note this is a way gender matters, and she quickly holds up a hand as she processes that.

❝Consider me L then as well, Stars. I hadn't even considered that.❞

It's not as if she's ever pursued anything with women, depsite Rose's downright encouragement sometimes.

She tolerated Rose seeing other people, with the relationship being open, but she had no interest in that herself. It never felt right, for other people to be part of their relationship.

She just didn't fight it past a certain point, because she couldn't be enough for Rose.

But it's not as if Rose pulled it out of nowhere. Insofar as humans caught Pearl's eye at all, it was always women (and usually the rare woman taller than her). And of course, other gems, who- as prompted this entire conversation- don't have genders, but do... appear feminine.

It's definitely not just a matter of the aesthetics of gender, because there have been plenty of more masculine women that Pearl had fleeting interest in.

To say nothing of Bismu-

No. No.

There was nothing going on with her. Bismuth was a best friend, and nothing more. Nothing more.

Even if... maybe it would have been different, if not for Rose.

No no no- This isn't worth dwelling on.

Steven frowns as Flicker says not everyone is lucky enough to get that. ❝Yeeeeah, that was... unhappy thing to find when searching it. I had no idea, really, that some people weren't. Like I said, it's all so normal to me, and the people here in Beach City have always been cool about it to the point where I didn't realize it wasn't normal until Connie said.❞

Pearl sighs, ducking her head. ❝That I knew about. Rose told me, ages ago. I... asked not to hear any further unless and until things improved. I spend enough of my life not being respected as a person; I didn't want to hear about how humans wouldn't treat me much better.❞

Rose told her to explain why it maybe wasn't a good idea to be open about their relationship around humans, which Pearl certainly understood, but it just made her avoid humans all the more. And was all the more reason for Rose to... wander. Her and Pearl had to be secret again, like so, so long ago.

It was agony, really. So she didn't want to know any further.

The comment about singular they snaps her out of that past pain, and she frowns. ❝Ungrammatical? What are they talking about? A singular they for indeterminate gender has been around since before modern English! And that's not even getting into how fluid language is! Even if something wasn't grammatically correct before, by consistent usage it becomes grammatically correct! I have not been around for the entire development of the English language and able to speak basically every iteration of it for people to say such nonsense!❞

Flicker's description of people's attitude toward aromantic and asexual people strikes a bit of a nerve too, and she winces, looking away. How many times did Rose try to convince her that it would be fun if she just tried it? That she would like it and get it if she would just try... The very thought made Pearl viscerally uncomfortable.

And it became yet another thing Pearl couldn't give Rose that Rose had to seek elsewhere. She was just never ever enough.

❝You don't need to apologize, Flicker. You're amongst like-minds here.❞ She smiles faintly. ❝I know back in the 60s and 70s Garnet was involved with some fighting on that front. She particularly likes telling a story about "rocket punching a cop down the street."❞

Valor grinned. "Oh hey we're also two of the A's!"

"Aromantic and asexual, both of us!" Flicker clarified.

"I mean, I guess it still is an antiquated term for joyful-"

"Make the yuletide gay," Valor interrupted, causing them to erupt into giggles.

"But," they continued when they got a hold of themself again, "Nowadays it's used to describe people attracted to the same gender they are. Lesbian is also that but specifically for women." They paused. "It's not as strict as that when it comes to nonbinary and agender people though. If they relate to the term lesbian then they can use that, even if they're not actually a woman." They tilted their hand from side to side. "Gender is wishy washy and weird."

"Oh!" they added, remembering how this conversation started, "That is a way that gender matters though! Some people are attracted to specific genders. In the same way that straight - uh, heterosexual if you don't know the other meaning of that word. You know. Men attracted to women and women attracted to men. In the same way that they're attracted to specific genders, so are gay and lesbian people, and bisexual and pansexual people can have more interest in some genders than others."

They laughed softly. "It's . . . honestly nice to know you guys are chill with it." They folded their hands in front of their waist. "I don't . . . always get that. A lot of people don't always get that. Some people have never gotten that." They looked at Steven. "You're lucky to have such accepting family." They looked at Valor. "We're lucky to have such accepting family."

They returned their gaze to the others. "But . . . strangers don't always get it. I mean, same-sex marriage isn't even legal here. There are fights to get it legalized, of course, as there's always been to get our community accepted, but as it stands right now, it's . . . not. And then a lot of people don't even know what nonbinary is or state that the singular they is ungrammatical." They rolled their eyes at thought. "Or they claim that it doesn't exist."

"Even aromantic and asexual people!" They tossed their arm out to the side. "They don't think it's possible to just! Not be interested in people! Always saying 'you'll find someone eventually' or 'you're just a late bloomer' or 'you're just saying that because no one's interested in you', and even the people who do believe that it exists think that it's sad instead of just another normal way to exist and-!"

They cut themself off when they realized they were tearing up and huffed, looking away and rubbing their arm. "Sorry, I just. It sucks. Anything that's not cisgender and heterosexual is considered strange and wrong and a lot of people don't accept it. And that's not even counting the people that have actually physically attacked or killed people in the queer community just for existing. So . . . yeah. It's always nice to find people that are chill with it."

Valor silently nudged his hand against Flicker's free one, and they took it. He had to deal with the people that didn't believe him about being aroace, too, and it sucked, but Flicker had to deal with that and the transphobia on top of it. Their romantic and sexual orientations didn't often come up, but Flicker's pronouns were used daily. More than once he'd gotten into a fight defending them. More often Flicker had stopped him from doing so, claiming it not worth the effort. There had even been times where they'd asked him to not even mention their pronouns at all, and he had to watch them grin and bear it the whole time they were misgendered.

He hated it. This wouldn't have been a problem in the demon realm. But instead they were stuck here with people that refused to listen and respect them.

Thank the titan Will, at least, was fine with it. And their closest friends.

He grimaced as Pearl confirmed about gems generally not being allowed to interact with organic species. "That . . . honestly unfortunately makes sense."

#Pearl you useless lesbian. why are you feeling guilty for a crush you had and never acted on when your girlfriend REPEATEDLY CHEATED ON YOU #|❝We’ll Always Save the Day!❞| Steven Universe Early Show Verse #| In Character |#goldenbeastkeeper #|❝If You Could Only Know; What We Really Are❞| Pearl Early Show Verse

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kkmm32 · 4 years ago

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So I made a Frenrey Fic-

I haven’t had two characters to ship together in forever and haven’t written since school ended so wHY not get some practice with both of em? At once?? Now don’t worry, it’s fluff (lord knows theres too many NSFW HLVRAI fics out there already...) and it’s probably like- mediocre but thats ok!! So anyway, without further ado I bring you “Northern Lights” Enjoy!

It was late out when Gordon found himself staring up at the ceiling yet again. How many times had he done this? Three? Five? Twenty? it's not like he had bothered to count. He had found himself startled awake by all too real nightmares countless of times, staring up at the ceiling or the sky, wherever they had decided to sleep. It's true he had faced aliens, the military, death, to put it simply, right in the face hundreds of times while on their journey and at this point his nightmares should be just like any other day... or well any other day past the incident. But unfortunately the human mind couldn't adapt to such things easily and thus his trauma forced him to relive the scariest moments of his life over and over, whether he liked it or not. It's not like he hadn't tried to go back to sleep before, even if his dreams had caused him to wake in a cold sweat more times than he cared to mention. But every time he tried he found himself too...awake, for a lack of a better term. His mind had already been tossed into fight or flight mode and it would take a while for it to return back. He had no choice but to wait it out every night. Most times he would just lie there, motionless, staring up until he felt his eyes begin to droop, but he found himself too bored this time. He had the need to move, do something. The memory of his nightmare flashed in his mind and he'd rather distract himself from it than let it fester.

He hoisted himself into a sitting position, groaning as he felt his sore muscles tense. The days of fighting and running around had left quite the toll on him and he could no doubt feel it. He looked around groggily. They were still in the rocket launch room, the "Science Team," as Coomer had called them, was sleeping peacefully, although they looked like they were in the most uncomfortable poses. He chuckled slightly at the sight, though quickly regretted that as he felt his chest ache. He let out a sigh and glanced over at the windows. He couldn't make out much, as the moon and the stars were the only light illuminating the outside. He did, however, notice the outline of a figure. He almost jumped out of his skin when it moved to look at him. He was taken quite aback at first when he saw who it was.

"Wuh...Benrey? Is that you?" he asked hesitantly.

"In the flesh." Benrey replied in his unmistakable stoic voice.

"But...how?" Gordon started, puzzled.

"How what bro? You gotta finish your sentences, Feetman." Gordon huffed slightly at the jab.

"I mean- how are you here? Didn't you get, y'know, incinerated by the rocket?"

"I jus' respawned bro. Like a..uhhh...video game character or whatever. Like Steve minecraft."

"Right, right, you can't die..." He let out a long sigh and stared past Benrey, out at the sky, or at least what he could see of it. "What are you doing up this late anyway? Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Benrey glanced at him, almost a glint of… confusion In his eyes. He quickly shook his head though and went back to staring into nothing.

"Gotta keep watch brooo, can't let any of those military dudes get y- get us."

"I guess that makes sense..." There was silence as Gordon struggled to come up with something to talk about. He wasn't particularly a bad conversationalist, per se, but when it came to Benrey you never know what could send him into a flurry of nonsense. It was like traversing a minefield, one wrong word and he'd become incomprehensible...well, more than he already was. His stream of thought was cut short, however, by a high pitch sound that made his nose scrunch. He turned back to Benrey, who was surrounded by colorful orbs of light that started at pleasant orange and dipped into a light blue. They glowed faintly around him, lighting him up in an almost majestic way. But as quickly as they had appeared they faded. Gordon sat there for a moment before shaking his head slightly. "Orange to blue? What does that mean?" Benrey looked at Gordon for a moment, almost contemplating, before stating-

"Orange to blue means a song for youu"

"So you're just...singing?"

"Yeah bro. What, you got a problem with my singing or something? Lil Feetman can't stand my tunes?" Gordon growled at the comment.

"No I juST-" Before he got any further with his sentence he took a deep breath and sighed, which prompted Benrey with a slightly puzzled look. He glanced away as he stated "It just surprised me is all, usually they have meanings or something, or they like- have some purpose. I didn't expect them to be for entertainment.. and your singing is pretty nice actually.." Gordon was almost baffled at his own words. It was unlike him to compliment Benrey, especially after he had just insulted him. And, when he glanced back up at Benrey, it appeared he was caught off guard as well. He let out a high pitched pink and quickly turned away. "Pink? What does pink mean?

"Itmeansyou- you stink!" Benrey quickly retorted, still turned away. Gordon let out a huff of annoyance. Just when he thought he was getting on some kind of good terms with Benrey. He shuffled to his feet, giving a glance a Benrey. He had turned back to look at Gordon but unfortunately his face wasn't lit, and Gordon couldn't tell if he was smugly smirking or not. He turned away and made for the door that led outside, he figured it'd be best to get some fresh air.

He made it over to a comfortable looking ledge, or at least as comfortable looking as a ledge can get, and sat down, gazing out into the sky. Gordon hadn't really gotten the chance to look at the night the past few days, what with being stuck in the stuffy halls of Black Mesa and all, so it was nice to finally relax and gaze out at the stars. Of course, it wasn't long before Benrey was making his way over to antagonize him some more. He plopped himself down beside Gordon, a rather blank expression on his face as he stared at him.

"What, have you come to insult me some more or something?"

"Naw bro just gazin' " he replied nonchalantly, though Gordon could swear he saw the slightest flicker of hesitance in his eyes. He sighed and stared back out at the stars with Benrey.

It was sorta nice to just sit in silence and let his mind wander, even if Benrey was right there beside him. As he let his thoughts drift he slowly came back to the sweet voice. It was quite the marvel honestly, and he wondered why he hadn't questioned it before. Benrey wasn't human, that was obvious, but how exactly did he get the sweet voice? Was he born with it? Was it something he learned? Was the sweet voice even learnable? He knew Tommy could read it but he wasn't sure he himself could use the sweet voice. Actually, how could Tommy even read the sweet voice? Who taught him how to? Benrey? Why would Benrey teach him how to read sweet voice? Now that he thought about it Benrey never really explained the sweet voice at all. Gordon knew it had properties, that was for sure considering it magically calmed his nerves countless of times before, but outside of that it was more or less a mystery. Benrey seemed to be the only bearer of it though and nobody had ever really asked to know more about it...maybe all he had to do was ask and Benrey would tell him?

"Hey Benrey?"

"Wuh?"

"How exactly does the Black Mesa Sweet Voice...work? Like- how do you read it? What do the different colors mean?" Benrey seemed to freeze for a moment before tipping his head to side with a smile, glancing away.

"That's classified info ffffeetman."

"What do you mean it's classified? Are you going by Dr. Coomer's logic because I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply in our situation anymore-"

"Sorry bro, can't break the Black Mesa roolzzz."

"Why would Black Mesa issue a rule for the entire facility that only applies to ONE person?" Benrey simply shrugged, which only further enraged Gordon. He was about to speak again when Benrey promptly covered his mouth with his hand and stared Gordon down.

"Look bbbro I can't tell you, it's as simple as that, ok? Just chill..." He removed his hand from Gordon's mouth and stared back up at the sky calmly, his stern look gone. Gordon gave a grumpy huff and turned away, staring towards the ground. Benrey glanced over at him, and looked towards the ground himself. There was a moment of silence before it was Benrey who was the one to break it this time. "You said you couldn't like....'sleep' or whatever right?" Benrey asked, catching Gordon off guard.

"Yeah..? And?"

"Just like- wait with your eyes closed for like.....uhhh.......5 seconds broo you'll see." Gordon turned slightly to glance at Benrey from the corner of his eye, curious.

"Why do I have to close my eyes? What are you gonna do?"

"It's- It- It'll be like....a big surprise yooo. Epic surprise, super poggers. You wouldn't wanna ruin the surprise now would you? Be a lil- lil party pooper- lil bitch baby man and ruin the surprise?" Gordon gave a long sigh and, though he hated following Benrey's orders, covered his eyes. There were a few moments of silence before Gordon could hear the distinct sound of the Sweet Voice. It lasted for quite some time and Gordon had to use a good portion of his self-restraint to peak through his hands at what in the world Benrey was doing. Why would he have him cover his eyes if it's just the sweet voice?

"Ok broo you can like- open you socket stuffers now" Gordon cringed at that usage of words but removed his hands from his eyes regardless. He was...stunned.. baffled.. amazed.. it was a range of emotions to say the least. Benrey had somehow managed to spread a wide variety of pinks, oranges, and blues all across the sky above them like little fireflies. They showered the area in a faint glow that looked..incredible and Gordon couldn't help but stare in awe.

"Benrey... you... how.. why'd you.." Benrey settled down beside Gordon as he spoke.

"You said you couldn't sleep bro, doesn't uhh... pretty stuff help people sleep?"

"I mean I guess I just... I never expected you to.." Gordon's words drifted away as he stared.

"What d'ya think tho? Pretty poggers right?" Gordon paused before turning to face Benrey as he placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Benrey it's... it's beautiful." Benrey paused for a moment, almost as if he was processing what had been said before turning away, covering his mouth to keep any sweet voice from escaping.

"Well- psh- yeah duh. I mean it's- ahaha- it's like...supposed to be bro. Be pretty pointless if it wasn't, right?" Gordon let out a hearty laugh at Benrey's response.

"Yeah, I guess so." They stared up at the now colorful sky for a long while before Gordon spoke again. "Hey Benrey could you..." he paused hesitantly. "Could you sing for me?"

"...Huh?" Gordon quickly tried to make the situation less awkward by elaborating.

"Could you- could you sing for me? To like- help me sleep? Music usually helps people sleep and the Sweet Voice is pretty calming and I was just thinking-" before he could finish his sentence Benrey abruptly cut him off.

"Sure bro" He began to sing out blue's and oranges once more and Gordon found that, while looking at the colorful orbs in the sky, though there weren't much left, and listening to Benrey's voice, he felt very peaceful for once. It had been days since he had felt even a smidgen of peace and somehow, sitting here with Benrey, it was stronger than ever. As he felt himself relax, leaning onto Benrey, his eyes began to droop and soon he was plunged back into the dream world.

#HLVRAI #Frenrey #Bendon #fan-fiction #writing #Benrey #Gordon Feetman #Black Mesa Sweet Voice #fluff #I...love them so much...........#long post #my writing

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aruviwrote · 4 years ago

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5 reasons why you probably shouldn't say 'womxn'

“1. I say so. Not because I'm special or anything, but this word claims to cater to me and include me and I just don't vibe with that nonsense. I'm not a woman and I'm not a woman with one character substituted out. So if you're going down to reason 2, you're telling me I hear you and I know better than you how to include you, in which case, here's some more reasons:

2. It has its origins in trans-exclusionary feminism. Womxn is understood to have been coined in response to "womyn," a solid TERF construction which was to signify that they hated men - and trans women - so much so that they didn't want "men" to be a substring of the word denoting them. Womxn is supposed to fix this - I'm not sure how or why. The word does not have any coherent transfeminist history that I can see, and I have been searching for a while. If you can find an authoritative source for the origin of 'womxn' that contradicts this, please contact me. Mark Peters in The Boston Globe writes that ““Womxn” is one of a few similar lexical and social phenomena, including the adoption of “x” in naming LGBTQ and non-gender-binary people.” I think that’s shoddy. Unlike ‘womyn’ which has a coherent traceable history, going back to Wolf Creek Womyn’s festival, womxn has no such known origin point. Some trace it to the 70s without ever demonstrating this trace - please @ me politely or otherwise if you find that I haven’t done my research and there is a coherent source and etymology for womxn. If you construct a term where the founding logic is "let's take out all traces of 'man' from this word so as to exclude trans women who we believe really are men," then in my book it doesn't get subverted by changing its spelling. The purpose of modifying the word "woman" was trans-exclusionary in the case of 'womyn' and I fail to see how it ceases to be trans-exclusionary for 'womxn.'

3. There cannot be one term including everything 'womxn' claims to include and excluding everything it claims to exclude. I posit that any sentence that demands its usage is carelessly composed. Womxn is intended to lump together cis women, trans men, nonbinary folks, and exclude cisgender drag queens, cis men, and other AMAB castaways of the queer community. As far as I can see, the criterion for being a womxn, far from being the all-encompassing all-progressive umbrella, turns out to be far too reliant on gender assigned at birth. That's shady as hell. I personally don't know any trans man that wants to be called a womxn; and I abhor the term, of course. I think really it just reeks of cis-feminism trying to reduce all gendered violence to a conception of sexism where only cis men can be perpetrators and cis women are the highest hierarchy of victim to the extent that the word "woman" forms the root of this word to represent all marginalised gender identities. As a nonbinary person I reject the cis-centeredness of this term, and I also reject my inclusion within it.

4. It is a prime symptom of the NGO-industrial complex trying to worm its way into progressive communities by appropriating the language while not adopting any principles of social justice. Every woke organisation is probably sending out internal memos to search-replace instances of "women" with instances of "womxn." Womxn is considered to be the more 'woke' version of the term, used to signal a certain progressive credential. It is best to be cautious of such usage. As an approach to inclusion and liberation and progressiveness it is highly suspicious, one that involves reinventing language not for linguistic or community purposes but to cover up exclusion and to add clout value to sentences to make them look aesthetically revolutionary.

5. An umbrella term already exists to signify nonconformity to the assigned gender at birth, to denote many of those who are marginalised due to gender identity, expression, and experience differing from gender assigned at birth, and differentiating us from cis folks: transgender. Unlike 'womxn,' transgender denotes an umbrella of people with actual shared experiences and identities and communities. While ostensibly claiming to be inclusive, "womxn" is predicated on the cis gender binary and focuses inordinately assigned gender at birth.

Aside from that, reading the work of Anbu Esvi reminded me of how cis queer spaces had somehow made me feel like "transgender" is a dirty word, a word that's not enough, that I had to use "trans*" or other alternatives to replace an 'outdated' term, and how that is sheer folly.  They write -

"In my personal journey, I have now arrived at happiness with ‘transgender person’. I have arrived here after rejecting queer and only trans* that I used to earlier uphold, as part of my solidarity with some queer feminist spaces. I am happy with transgender asexual person because I have now spent some amount of time engaging with terminologies and their histories and political implications. Unlike queer (which was ‘reclaimed’/’subverted’ from a slur ... and still has little to no space for asexual expression), the origins of transgender terminologies are taken by the community ... however complicated its meanings and understanding of sex and gender differences."

and I find myself heartily agreeing. I have an exhilaration for "transgender" as a term to describe myself and an umbrella to identify under because of the power it holds. The history it holds. The amount of progress that has been achieved under its name. Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson aren't "womxn." They identified as drag queens, an identity that exists under the transgender umbrella. They are transgender. Say the word.

(Esvi's citations are in their article. My only citation is their article. Please read it: https://medium.com/@esvi.kot9/no-outlaws-in-the-gender-galaxy-a-trans-feminist-review-discussion-fda47fd478dc )

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 5 years ago

Text

Waver 1 - 13 (FINAL) | Prisma Illya 1 - 10 (FINAL) | Prisma Illya 2wei! 1 - 3

Another (and to be honest, the last) batch of impressions from the Fate/ project.

Waver 1

Well, this’ll be interesting. I’ve been hyping this show up for a while for myself, so let’s see how it goes.

Geez, this intro is like a dang movie! I’d love to see a proper Troyca movie! (<-Says the fan of Troyca.)

Wait, if it’s Kayneth Archibald, then is Archibald relatd to Archisorte? Or am I just making thing up here…? Also note Reines refers to Kayneth as “Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald”, possibly meaning Archibald is the middle name, since El-Melloi is a shared surname (or is that a title…?). That probably means Archibald =/= Archisorte and both are similar-sounding middle names. The fact Reines is Kayneth’s niece also explains things quite a bit.

Why is Waver upside down…? Won’t the blood rush to his head soon? (Sure, it allows me to ogle his hair more, but…logic rules more than my stupid whims, y’know?)

Interesting. You can see that although Waver grew out his hair, there’s two layers to it – the longer one in the front and the shorter one in the back. (I’m just curious because I like the hime cut – which is pretty similar - and long hair on dudes in general, in part because both are fairly rare.)

Okay, that explained my gripe with upside-down Waver. Thanks, Reines. (<-genuine)

Aw, Waver buddy, even at this stage, you’re plenty cute. Don’t ever change! (<- As you can see, I am an easily pleased person in most cases.)

Melvin who now???

Troyca’s comic animation rules! It’s too bad Idolish7 Second Beat is using chibis instead of this…

Professor Kayneth. I forgot he had a formal title. I wonder, does Waver - I mean, El-Melloi II – have that title as well?

I guess I should’ve known Saber had the capability to look scary, but…I never knew Saber could look so scary…

*cut to eyecatch* - *points at eyecatch* Okay, someone tried to save budget here, didn’t they???

Aw, friendship between fiction boys is cute…until it involves the puking up on blood on one end.

Waver is the OG underdog here…don’tcha think?

“…with several demands.” – Uh-oh…this is gonna be bad, isn’t it?

You need a Tuner for Magic Crests? (…Like a tuning fork, but a person?) *brow raised in suspicion*

…is it appropriate for me to say “Oh, good lord!” now? (Okay, I did that rather deliberately, but normally in these notes I’d self-censor it to be “oh, goodness” or something like that.)

Seriously, the black-haired dude in the Ionian Hetairoi is my favourite, even if only because he looks like Waver (and he’s really easy to spot, to boot).

Why is this in first person??? I’ve dropped entire shows based on their usage of 1st person cam! Room Mate and Makura no Danshi basically scarred me for life on that front…and both of those are TV shorts!

Hey, wait a second. This “use a quote on the titlecard” thing is clearly an Ei Aoki sort of thing to do. I mean, it’s in ID: Invaded as well…

Waver 2

*new blonde girl appears* - So this is the rumoured Animusphere girl (Mary), huh?

Bounded field, huh? I’m glad I chose to watch F/Z before this, then. Now I actually understand the (rough) mechanics of how that works.

There’s assassins and then there’s Assassins…*thinks about the Holy Grail War*

As it turns out, astromancy is basically astrology.

The one thing that bugs me about “Modern Magecraft” (there’s a similar concept of New Magic in Mairimashita! Iruma-kun) is…how is the magic “modern”…? Especially in a work like this, where the magic is based in arcane rituals and bloodlines…you really need to establish how the “modern” bit works.

Gray is facing away from the Animusphere girl (Mary), I noticed.

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Sherlock Holmes – Basically, the fact I’ve memorised this quote is one of the lingering impacts of my time in the Detective Conan fandom, as it can be used on things like quizzes, not just mysteries.

Can we please use proper English, Waver??? (Says me to a character whose name I still find nonsensical enough to not be proper English.) As I said previously, “whydunit” is modus operandi or motive…the new bit is “howdunit”, which would be the method.

I do believe the geocentric model was overthrown by people like Kepler.

Gray kind of looks like Saber with that hairstyle, come to think of it.

With the way Gray hides herself under that hood, it’s no mystery as to why guys love her…at least, I know ThatRandomEditor does. Of course, I’m heavily neutral on the whole affair because I don’t swing that way, but…you know…

LEMPC seems to stand for “Lord El-Melloi Production Committee”, if I’m guessing right.

I seem to remember there was a quote somewhere that said the only constant in this world was change…hmm.

Waver 3

They seem to keep calling Japan “the Far East” (or at least, Japan is part of the Far East). That’s a pretty antiquated term for a supposedly “modern” magic anime. I get vaguely peeved by the term “the Far East” because it causes people to take an oriental viewpoint on things and thus it’s kind of like people from the Anglosphere looking down on Asians. (I also get vaguely peeved by the term “Westerners” for much the same reason and “Caucasians” because it implies all people of the Anglosphere come from the Caucasus, which is false…then again, these niggles are specific to international studies, so I have a vested interest in explaining them.)

…Wow, that star-eyepatch girl is…really something, to be thirsty specifically for Waver’s Iron Claw. (Then again, with my weird tastes in things, who am I to critique her?)

Flitz von Erich. I was surprised to learn this guy actually exists…on Wikipedia, at the very least.

“Any lady should know about wrestling.” – I disagree, Luvia.

Blue furry electrical creature…I dunno how the zoology in this show works, but the fantasy series I’m reading as of the time I was typing this comment has a blue creature called a Raiju (literally “thunder beast” in Japanese, so it would suit the “Thunder” in the episode title). If it’s anything like that, I’d laugh myself silly.

This girl on the poster seems to be called Flan Noir (or something similar).

“…yellow, round, fluffy-smelling…” – What? Svin, you have no right to call a girl those words!

When is this series set if people don’t have phones as a standard? *Googles* Okay, if F/SN is set in 2004, then F/Z is 1994. That would make sense, actually. The internet as we know it was first used in 1995 and didn’t become widespread for home use until a few years later, as I remember having computers in 2004 (albeit the blocky ones with the dial-up).

I was looking at images for the source material and I think I know why I like Waver (aside from the fact he has long hair). Normally I like the boys whose appearances are hard to get right, such as En…Waver in the novels and manga for this series sometimes looks grumpy, sometimes he looks constipated and worst of all, sometimes he looks like Snape with a hook nose.

Okay, so I googled Caules to figure out who his sister was…and I got Apocrypha spoilers. See, his sister is Fiore, who is apparently in that series.

The videos got encoded funny again…

There seems to be a mystery around why Svin and Gray can’t be together…well, one deeper than just “Svin is gaga for Gray [for reasons we don’t know at this point in time]”.

Ha, the El-Melloi Class is basically just the Misfit Class from Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.

“Only the flesh was bitten off.”

This Jupiter gibberish, I assume, is drawing upon the mythology of Jupiter – that is, Zeus – as the god of thunder and king of the gods (thus presiding over living beings).

The English is good on the bill, bar a space between “Mystics of magecraft”.

Norwich is apparently a “faculty” which the Modern Magecraft Theories guys – i.e. Waver – rule over.

Can you imagine Waver swearing? Since I had the volume off, I basically made him say “…if Sir Gueldoa had resorted to brute force, we would’ve been f***ed” in my head…and that was hilarious.

Aw, thanks 7Mononoke. “A cowardly thief sneaks away in the night. If you stride away, bursting with song, you are a conquering king.” That’s a quote from Rider himself.

So the Association has set positions for Masters in the War? Geesh…that must be hard on Waver to find out they’re closed, considering how much Waver pines for Rider.

Waver 4

I finally got the chance to listen to the ED last ep and now it’s the OP I can hear properly. This OP isn’t particularly impressive, considering it’s an instrumental (instrumentals always seem to have less impact for me unless I’m looking for something to chill to), but it does capture the London-esque spirit of the setting very well.

What’s up with this metal (?) maid off to the side, anyway?

“Good thinking to leave the door open…” – For some reason, even though it’s a completely different and much more benign context, this made me think of KyoAni and my heart sunk.

Atrum Galliasta…I hate that man. He may look hot, but he was nothing but a b*stard to Medea.

Bolo ties…nrgh…Basically, ever since Arima wore a bolo tie, I’ve become fairly bugged by them. That’s why Bram’s bugs me.

Aw, Waver, buddy, plase don’t sacrifice yourself again. I read on the wiki you become a Servant’s vessel (specifically for Zhu Ge Liang), so keep your hopes up.

I’m seriously feeling ID: Invaded vibes from this episode, what with the lightning.

I suspect a locked room murder is going to happen soon, knowing the genre. Either that or some other crime.

Considering Fate/ was an eroge-based thing initially, these sex jokes…there’s probably plenty of them out there.

Well, it seems this series only makes sense in that non-Detective Conan way, i.e. you want to know how it all comes together and can’t necessarily figure it out for yourself until you know how the magic works. I’m randomly going to guess this is more Jupiter-based stuff and call it a day on that front.

Seriously, I never got what was up with nightgowns (or just pyjamas in general) having hats. You don’t need protection for your head at night…that’s what pillows are for, yeah? (The only reason I see a hat-like thing working with nightwear is a onesie and that’s meant to be part of the inherent appeal of the thing.)

Waver 5

I feel like Adashino is meant to be an Irene Adler-type figure…

“Peaceful Fairys” (sic)

Where did Kairi’s scar come from…?

The Black Dog was in Mahoutsukai no Yome as well, but this one looks a lot less inviting, huh?

It seems, like the name Rail Zeppelin implies (as “Demon Eyes Collection Train”), most of the people involved in this case have Magic Eyes (or whatever they’re actually called). I wouldn’t be surprised if Kairi had them as well, considering he’s wearing dark glasses in the middle of a thunderstorm.

“King Arthur is a dude, right?” - *laughs madly* They finally managed to parody their own bulls***! (Well, I’m not counting Carnival Phantasm or whatever else because this is the first time they threw a meta joke in there in the whole of this project, as far as I can remember.)

Trimmau seems to be the maid’s name…huh. They never mentioned that earlier, I don’t think.

So what’s the difference between Fairy Eyes and Mystic Eyes?

Wait, does that even work…? The entire house is the murder weapon? That’s basically breaking the “secret passageway” thing on a larger scale.

So what’s Trevor’s motive…?

The dogs running towards the Workshop reminded me of the Hunger Games for some reason…must be the climax.

That fairy isn’t emoting much…

Oh cra-Wills is going to sacrifice himself, like Adashino was going to do! That’s the second time I’ve seen that in 2 days (the first was in the Hypnosis Mic manga about the Dirty Dawg).

Uh…Waver’s not particularly fit or fast, is he…?

Can you be paid for your case if your client is essentially dead…?

Adra? I read around and Adra seems to be a way to spell the location (or whatever it is) in the first case…which got adapted into a stage play, but not an anime. That’s probably what he’s (Waver) referring to.

Notably, the title is translated to “lance” but yari means spear…

Waver 6

I seriously wanna slap that pink-haired girl…Update: Her name is Yvette.

This is basically Gray fanservice…

If Gray = Saber and Saber =King Arthur…hmm…does it count as a girl’s party?

Homeland? Since Britain is Saber’s (aka Gray’s) home country, I think they meant “hometown”…I’d hav to listen to the Japanese to make sure, though.

I still think Waver is a stupid, or at the very least false, name for a boy, especially if he did come from Britain. That’s basically my one limitation on him as a husbando.

The red bit of the eyecatch was shapd like an eye…it did catch eyes in a sense, after all.

So Trimmau is sustained by magic.

Locked-room…or rather, bounded field…mystery time!

Luvia did mention wrestling in another episode…

I had to google that, but the Separation Castle is from the Adra case mentioned in episode 5. No wonder I don’t remember it…

“Are you suggesting there were faults…” (from Luvia) - Ooh, I was thinking the perpetrator was caught inside their own bounded field or maybe it was an outsider, but that works too, Reines.

Add calld Luvia out for her extravagance, LOL.

Catch-as-catch-can appears to be “no-holds-barred fighting”, particularly wrestling.

That case was both informative and possibly solveable by the audience. Both good qualities for a mystery.

If you summon the spirit again, is it the same Rider with the same memories? Or can you summon a different version of the same Rider with amnesia, much like Rin did with Archer? Update: Oh yeah, I did read this on the wiki at one point but then forgot about it. The next episode (7) confirms that Rider wouldn’t remember Waver if he were summoned again.

Waver 7

…C’mon, admit it, show. The glasses are not only there for plot reasons but to up Waver’s status as megane boy for the rest of this case. Not that I mind – I actually really like megane boys, but I’m nowhere near the love of Meganebu – but in the case of plausibility, I wanna poke holes into it.

Auction for which Mystic Eyes now…?

There’s a guy…with an elephant head…I know I shouldn’t be bugged by it, but I need the MST3K mantra right now.

This is gonna be a Murder on the Orient Express thing, isn’t it? All cases set on trains seem to take cues or make homage to it. (I may not be that proficient on Christie in comparison to Holmes, since Holmes was Conan’s inspiration, but Murder on the Orient Express I have read and I did secure an anthology of 4 Christie novels at one point specifically so that I could improve in this area.)

The main series never explained the bad blood between the Church and the Tower, did they…?

*sweatdrop* Let me guess…when Yvette mentions “multiplay”, she means a threesome, right?

How do anime people see out of those blindfold thing, anyway??? (Or is it that Leandra has Mystic Eyes that were sold off or otherwise tampered with?)

I believe the word is “palate”, Kairi (or subbers).

Anime characters being bagworms with their blankets is always appealing, no matter the gender. It’s funny and/or relatable, after all.

Does Gray get motion sickness…? Update: Seems I spoke about a minute too soon. She does.

Waver 8

How does Waver know that Adashino got the documents about the train? Is it because she was in all those places at all those times and he connected the dots?

This lady has heterochromia. Specifically, one is brown and the other is blue or green.

Hmm? I thought the character design was familiar for this. As it turns out, Jun Nakai (who did the character design for this) also did Gate’s, which explains it.

Dionysus is the Greek god of wine, IIRC. Hephaestion is, as (s)he explained, the confidante of Alexander the Great (had to google this one).

It’s hard to see before the brightly-lit scene where Olga reappears, but as shown, Waver seems to have cut off part of his forelocks on the left side.

What’s an Odo???...ooh, fanservice…*ogles*

The summoning of Hephaestion and Trisha’s murder may or may not be related…we just don’t know how, yet.

I think a Detective Conan Murder on the Orient Express-style mystery would be a good video ga-*googles* There’s at least one of them out there already (albeit only in Japan)...namely, this one. Spoke too soon.

Oh yeah…this is Olga’s new room, isn’t it? I almost forgot about that.

Update: I think this look at the Adra Separation Castle case is interesting. It’s similar to posts I would write, but done by a professional – namely Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku and Anime News Network.

Waver 9

So if there’s a Servant…you have to find the Master.

Olga reminds me of Reines…kind of.

LOL, whoever thought of a zombie cooking show…?

This series really goes all-in on the zombies and the fake-outs thereof, huh? Dangit, Melvin, don’t scare us.

Melvin has a really odd relationship with Waver, huh? If you’re really insisting you’re “the only person to ever be able to hurt Waver”, I don’t quite see how you guys can be friends in the normal sense of the word.

Why would someone have a violin at a time like this…?

Interestingly, they don’t bother to do any fanservice of Caules. That scene with Gray and Yvette was fanservice for those who like them, but the only guy who’s getting to do any fanservice in this series is Waver himself…(what with him being naked and knocked out right now.)

“Sibyl” seems to be a synonym for “virgin”…(*whispers “Awkward…”*)

Update: After reading some of Marth’s posts on this series, I’m inclined to call this “Murders on a Train (with an Exploding Helicopter for Good Measure)”.

Waver 10

For some reason, there’s episode 0 – 9, then 11 – 13 on the service I’m using. Where’s 10?

I think Waver’s relationship with Rider is interesting because of the way I think of relationships myself. Waver has made it clear that he wants to see Rider again so he can basically prostrate at his feet all over again (and maybe win a wish and/or see Oceanus while they’re at it), but – hey, hear this! - I used to believe, when I was still an impressionable kid, all relationships, whether they be between friends, family or even lovers, lasted roughly in the same state basically forever (as in, friends stay friends forever, they’ll never be so far apart that they can’t kep their relationship alive etc. etc.)…Obviously, I was wrong and arguably, this change in thinking, plus the related changes in technology, are where my ability to fleetingly but passionate love both 2D boys and the series they come from comes from.

Wait, so the Child of Einasshe (sp?) is the forest, yeah? I don’t think I got that 100% straight.

I never thought the shield form of a Mystic Code could be used for snowboarding down a mountain/hill…whatever Gray just went down. I didn’t even know Add had a shield form, for that matter.

“[U]sual individual” – LOL. What a way to refer to Waver.

“Wait a minute!” – I’m just imagining Phoenix Wright all of a sudden. A Waver legal mystery series would be boring as all get out – I’m far less interested in the courtroom versions of mysteries and more interested in how the pieces fit together. (Update: Then again, I am a person who likes the action genre and courtroom mysteries don’t have much of that, which might also explain my choice.)

“…lacking the element of motive to begin with.” – Well, Waver’s not wrong…

I’m observing this apple and noticing someone skimped on the detail around the stem. Does anyone still remember Art Academy for the DS? After looking at some promo material for it, I basically learnt how to draw a proper apple (and nothing else, really). If an apple is just drawn as a circle, it doesn’t quite look like an apple up close. (Two of the main things I screw up on when drawing are perception and the colour of highlights, both of which are covered in something like an apple stem and the related indent.)

Oh goodness…I was hoping Karabo would keep his vision (or actual eyeballs)…but that’s gruesome.

I’m guessing, based on the wheelchair, that Waver’s still paralysed or otherwise not able to move around like normal. Update: Spoke too soon.

Someone encoded the video funny again…

Waver 11

What was that crossword thing…? A warding spell of some sort?

Is that an owl in the back?!

Stealth fighter…Rider wanted on, didn’t he?

Every time he appears on screen now, I basically curse Melvin. He’s entertaining to watch, sure, but he’s annoyingly prodigal (= wasteful). He’s basically Dice from HypMic at this stage (aka he’s the sort of person who’d bet away his own clothes, given the chance and incentive).

Look at the way Waver’s hair drags behind him as he walks…it’s gorgeous…

“Residual Image” (as translated in the title) is literally “the left-over image” (zanzou). Not surprising, but I find the exact combo of characters used interesting since it could be short for “nokoru eizou” (where the nokoru’s character is read as zan in the combo, as you can guess).

Waver 12

Wow…this series really pulled something out of its butt this time, huh? “The guy without a heart”…no viewer would’ve known that actually referred to a character called Dr Heartless unless they knew of his existence somehow (the closest they would’ve been was having an inkling that this pointed to a name of the culprit).

There is an owl in the back of the auction room!

Ay? So what the heck is Pandemonium in this case?

“dotard” – Turns out this means “an old person, especially one who has become physically weak or whose mental faculties have declined.” You can’t say I don’t enrich my vocbulary through watching anime, huh?

I’m still wondering…why adapt case 7 of this series (Rail Zeppelin)? Why not case 1 (Adra)? Update: I don’t know where I pulled the number 7 from, since this is volume 4 – 5 of the series. Apparently some of the cases were anime-original though.

Waver 13 (FINAL)

Oh, Flat, you stupid…

Waver’s exasperated faces are great. No wonder Reines likes to toy with him…

I can assume Rail Zeppelin is a Ghost Liner, yes?

Can I guess that Adashino ~likes~ Waver…? Update: Turns out that’s not quite the case.

Ooh, Waver without his shirt is se-okay, I’m getting distracted. Seriously though, Waver never showed his Crest in F/Z. I never even knew what it looked like until now! The fact it’s such a simple design in comparison to his Command Seals is…kinda underwhelming, really.

I think there’s a bit of a pattern between Jakurai (from HypMic) and Waver…namely, they suck when it comes to drinking. (Also, of course, the long hair. Don’t forget it, never forget it.)

Shut up, Add!

For some reason, I felt like a lot of that last part, while getting closure for Waver, it almost had connotations of “I’ll meet you on the other side, Rider”…so it felt kind of sad, to be honest. That talk between Reines and Olga I don’t think I’d understand without Apocrypha and Grand Order, but I guess that’s to be expected in such a huge franchise. Anyways, moving right along!

Illya 1

I’ve been a bit worried about what I’ll have to subject myself to for the sake of Magical Girls…

Was that…Taiga?

Who’s Liz…?

Okusama, huh? (Okusama = someone’s wife, although it seems to be used in the plural here since I don’t think Kiritsugu and/or Iri are dead in this timeline.)

The subs I’ve got say Shiro is adopted here too (when it’s not in the Japanese), although I wonder exactly how much of UBW is going to be true in this anime…

Hmm…a bit of digging reveals Luvia’s not a Master. So throwing out Lancer is really just a joke on how Lancer gets roasted early on in Grail Wars, right?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…squick, much…(Thank goodness the source I was using edited out the loli fanservice, so I can tolerate this series a lot more…but still, suggesting you have a romance with your step-brother, even if it’s known you’re not related from the beginning, is…you already know my feelings on that, based on my reaction. Shiro is, what, 15? About twice Illya’s age!) Update: Okay, so he has no confirmed age in Prisma Illya, but he’s 17 in F/SN so I’d assum the same or similar, seeing as he attends the same school. It’s fine if it’s platonic, but this is clearly an Onii-chan, daisuki! thing the likes of which Oreimo throws down! Thank you for calling it out though, Ruby.

Oh my gosh, this looks like the Rhongomynaid (Detective Waver) and Excalibur (or whatever Saber’s Noble Phantasm is called) summoning beam! LOL!

Ruby, you lech! Don’t go praising the angles! *shakes fist* (Seriously, what if magical girl mascots were paedophiles…? *blank face* Welp, considering what’s out there on the internet, I wouldn’t be surprised if a hentai or something had such a concept.)

Hmm? Turns out the word for Servant means something like “celestial hero”. Makes sense.

Nice callback to Saber and Shiro!

Illya 2

I thought Illya would say that her parents are dead…turns out the show’s not that grimdark (to the point where it wouldn’t set the show after Kiritsugu and Iri’s deaths), huh?

Do the sticks have a gender? The subs said “she” for Ruby…

LOL, it’s Rider. I thought Lancer was gonna get his butt kicked all over again (thinking more along the lines of CCS).

It’s Gay Bul-I mean, Gae Bolg! (I’ve been reading TV Tropes again…can you tell?)

This episode was pretty pedestrian. I like it more than the first one.

What’s up with the CGI…?

Oh! Bunbun, who does Yuki Yuna! Update: They only did the illustrations for some of the series. They also did SAO illustrations, although that’s of less significance to me.

Illya 3

The sticks do have genders!!! That’s like claiming Jesus for kakera with Mudae! (Yes, that’s possible. I got him in one server.)

The power of fujoshi…is amazing! How did it get to a girl who’s so young?!

These angles are a bit disturbing…

“Casao”, LOL.

Magical girl nakama, huh?

Illya 4

MST3K mantra!

Whose quote is that again…? “Don’t think, imagine”? Update: It turns out to not be anyone’s quote at all, if Google results are to be believed.

Uh-oh! Saber Alter!

Illya 5

Padding the episode already…?

The mist is a quality of a Berserker, right?

Geez the angles piss me off…

These sticks have brains???

Can you call it teamwork if they’re always complaining about each other?

Illya 6

More padding…

Illya’s UBW!

Geesh, that last-minute shot of Rin and Luvia popping out of the ground scared me for a bit…

Illya 7

*sigh* It’s the sick episode…

I recognise the vacuum cleaner. I have the same one at home.

*sigh* Random fanservice of elementary school girls. This is what gives anime a bad name.

*Sapphire pulls out a USB port* - Ohhkay, is that stick fanservice, in a sense…? Because that’s awkward too.

Maids went out of fashion years ago…

“Lyrical Radical Genocide” - I think this Lyrical Radical things is parodying Nanoha.

Based on the cloak, it’s an Assassin.

“Listen, if you aren’t careful, you’ll die!” – Yep, because people die when they are killed. I almost missed that meme for a bit.

Illya 8

Illya’s still reeling from Miyu’s talk, huh?

I noticed it said tomoda(chi) in the background at one point.

Does Miyu exist in any of the alternate universes?

Ah, there’s yuujou (friendship) in the background as calligraphy.

I think the video got encoded funny again…

Geez, complaining about boobs? The series got worse…oh, I forgot Shiro was around in this series.

…who’s left? There’s been Saber, Archer, Lancer, Assassin, Rider, Caster and…who? Berserker, that’s who.

Illya 9

Ohhhhhhhh brother, not more bath scenes…

Iri looks almost exactly like she does in the Eiznbern Consultation Rooms! (I found those around and watched them today.)

Thank goodness the fanservice is censored…

I never realised Berseker had heterochromia until now…

One thing that I assume makes Saber’s outfit look nice to thos that like girls is the window in the top…but it goes to waste on Miyu, LOL.

I find it interesting Illya has all these concerns – the ones (or similar ones) Iri harbourd in F/Z.

Hey, the bridge! This is the bridge where Rider dies inn F/Z, yeah?

The ED looks different this time…

Illya 10 (FINAL)

E-Eep…loli fanservice…

Now Miyu is basically what Waver is to Rider, no doubt about it.

Bulls***! Speak of the devil! I was wondering what Waver looked like in the Illya style, because I read on the wiki he makes a cameo in season 2, and…here he is. Didn’t expect him in season 1, though.

Another new ED animation. I find it interesting they’ve never once had to recast any VAs throughout the entire existence of Fate/ anime…not that I know of, anyway.

Hiroyama Hiroshi is the original Illya creator.

Okay, that’s the end of one season. I feel kind of fatigued since I finished the Eiznbern Consultation Rooms today as well, so I’m going to take a break from watching more Illya until it’s necessary to watch again in a few posts’ time.

Now that they’ve collected the cards, I’m wondering what the series intends to do next…

Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 1

They clearly skimped on the budget when Shiro was leaving the house…

I keep forgetting Illya is meant to be German…

That bad English…is actually there in the ep. title…

Oh great…schoolgirls talking about erotic swimsuits…

This s*** is what you call “Class-S”! I have no interest in it, because I don’t swing that way! (Sorry, yuri fans…)

The problem with series that aren’t 100% made with you in mind is that your favourite characters might look ugly…that’s especially the case with En, Jakurai and Waver.

Ryudou Temple, eh? Let’s hope Assassin still looks good.

I don’t think I’ve seen that before…namely, being able to hear what’s going on outside the transformation while it’s happening.

Now this 2 Illyas thing…this is new, alright.

Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 2

LOL, what a horoscope.

Truck-kun! I don’t think Illya would make a good isekai protag, come to think of it.

Who is this nurse? I feel like she’s from some other part of the Nasuverse… Update: My guess was right. That’s Caren Hortensia, protagonist of Fate/hollow ataraxia and Kirei’s…uh, daughter. I know he had a wife. We never met said wife, but seeing the daughter really drove that fact home.

Uhhhhhhhh…okay, now the lesbian loli scene just made things go off a cliff for me. I’m not against lesbians or yuri – to each their own – but that scene was clearly meant to be pleasing to a certain audience.

How does anyone kill anything gently…?

Ohhhhhhkay, strike 2 for loli fanservice.

I seem to remember…that’s right, Alice from the [something] no Kuni no Alice series was evaluated on her coffee-making skills (by Julius, I think it was). That’s why I’m thinking of Alice when I see Luvia praising Miyu on something similar.

Wa-hey! It’s Rin’s Azoth dagger!

Well, the mechanics of the transformation are also something you have to think about. I’ll give the show kudos for that.

Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 3

Can we not with the whole “Onii-chan, daisuki!” thing?! That’s it! That’s the last straw! I’m finishing this episode and aborting early so that I can preserve my dignity…and get some proper sleep for once.

The fact Miyu thinks Shiro resembles her brother must not be a coincidence…(I’ve become far too Fate/ savvy, haven’t I?) Update: It seems I was right. Apparently, Miyu was taken in by Kiritsugu in a certain universe, but apparently this is a bunch of spoilers.

Genki na aisatsu was in the back.

This is just getting worse and worse…

So now Kuro’s name is Kuroe (Chloe), huh? Anyways, good riddance, loli fanservice! So long! I won’t miss you one bit!

#lord el-melloi ii-sei no jikenbo #Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files #fate/kaleid liner prisma illya #Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya 2wei!

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sukunasdirtylaugh · 6 years ago

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“If You Ever Wanna Be In Love,” (honestly I need a good title name so pls hmu with some ideas bc I’m dead)

Words: 1.8K

Pairing: Bucky x Female Doctor Reader

Warnings: SOFTNESS OVERLOAD; light mention of explosion and light usage of medical terms. Other than that, we good (I think).

Summary: Lmao if you’re a Nurturer or a mom friend then you’re gonna LOVE this. There’s lots of fluff with the reader and I am emotionally attached I love her so much and you better too because I need her to fucking fix this broken white boi (this fic is somewhat light-hearted and comical so if that’s your cup of tea then buckle up to the Floof train sweetheart).

It had almost been a year since Bucky met you. You had luckily saved him from a successful mission. He could remember parts of it-some were told by Steve. Accordingly, there were still gunshots fired and as he covered behind a car, an explosion erupted and he had landed several feet from where he was. It was almost impossible for Steve to reach him so there was (at the time) a small chance of survival for Bucky. But then there you were.

You were a Doctor that worked for Shield and you happened to be good friends with Pepper that you somehow started working for shield-regardless of your protests saying that you could get your own job but Pepper being Pepper, convinced you to take to job for her-and you did.

So there you were-on a corner watching it all. Watching a battle go down before your very eyes. You knew you’d get in trouble for intervening, but you were a Doctor; saving lives was the sole purpose of your existence (as you believed) and you wouldn’t think twice to help anyone in need; especially after the explosion you had just seen.

“Bucky!” You hear a voice shout. To your surprise it was the very man himself; Captain America.

The source of the bullets seemed to steer away from the fallen man’s direction and you were so sure you could get to him in time.

I can do this, you thought as you gripped onto your Emergency Medical Case hard.

Heart beating like a heavy drum, you made sure to run at calculated moment. Luckily, he landed on the pavement near a corner. I can drag him there and check his wounds, you thought.

Making your move, you ran across the street-ducking as much as you could before falling to your knees to address your patient. Turning him to you, you instantly grabbed the stethoscope from your neck to check his heartbeat. Good, he’s steady.

Taking a small flashlight from your lab coat pocket, you opened his eyelids to check for any damaged nerves or any sign of bleeding. As his pupils normally reacted to the light, he groaned. He’s unconscious, you thought to yourself.

“C’mon Bucky,” you say his name in hopes of waking him up; gently preparing to lift him up, “Up we go,” It wasn’t any use. You had to get him out of there soon or else the two of you would be under attack for the noises were nearing you.

“Bucky!” the same voice shouted.

“Steve,” he mumbled with his eyes fully closed. Yeah he was definitely unconscious.

You could already see that the red, white, and blue uniformed man took you into notice. He could clearly see your shield logo’d white coat and stethoscope meters away.

“You take care of him, Thor!” He shouts, “I’ll be right back!”

“Got it, you take your time!” shouts a deeper voice, “I can do this all day!” he says before hearing a crash. Ouch.

“Hey,” the Captain says as he already got to you sooner than you hoped. “We need to get you two out of here so you can help my friend,” he says as you nod.

“I know, I was trying to do that but I-” you stop yourself as he carries the man up as if he weighed nothing.

“Yeah, that.” you said enough for him to hear. He was Captain America, of course his Physiology was stronger than the average man!

Taking you to a nearby alley, he settles Bucky down near some wooden pallets as a bed and takes no time to settle him down.

Quick thinker, you think as you take on his moves and take your coat off using it as a resting pillow for Bucky’s head as the Captain looks at you with a look that says ‘smart girl’.

“How long do you think he can last?” he asks.

“A couple of minutes. His heartbeat is still strong surprisingly but he’s unconscious. There might be some internal bleeding so he’ll have some minutes.”

“Minutes,” he says out of breath before nodding. “Okay, you stay here and help him while I go get you a team okay?” he says before getting up urgently.

“Okay,” you say as you give him a look, “Thank you,”

“Don’t thank me yet, Doc. Just...please take care of him.” he says with a hint of vulnerability lacing his words.

You nodded at his words in acknowledgment before he nods and leaves; leaving you alone in an alley with him.

“Okay Bucky,” you speak to him in hopes of him hearing-something you always liked to do with your patients.

“We’re gonna check you for any injuries okay?” you say as you reach forward to take his upper vestment off but you’re caught off guard when his eyes shot up.

“No!” he shouts as he roughly moves your hand away.

“I have to go!” he says once more and it takes you a moment to know that he’s in shock. He can’t feel any pain, the adrenaline is taking over the pain that he’ll say he won’t feel anything (for now).

You place your hands on his shoulders keeping him down, “No you don’t,” you say sternly and look at him. “Look at me, you’re going to be fine. But you have to stay here and let me help you, I’m a Doctor.”

His eyes show more panic than before, “No! No! Get off of me! You-”

“Quiet Bucky!” You half shout half whisper before he widens his eyes.

“How the hell do you know my name?” he shouts frantically before urgently repeating that he had to go and that you’re not gonna do anything to him and it comes to you that he probably went through a possibly traumatic experience.

“Steve,” you say softly giving him a look. “Steve helped me take you here, Bucky.” you say trying to include his name for as many times possible to calm him down and it seems to work, “ He’s getting help and he wants you to stay here-which means, that I have to take care of your wounds, Bucky.”

“I don’t,” he stammers, “I don’t know you,’’

You nod. “I know,” you say, “I know. and I don’t know you either but I need someone to trust right now and so do you. Can we do that? Can we help each other out? I promised Steve that I’d take care of you-”

“You know Steve?” he asks as soon as you say his name,

“Something like that,” you say and give him a reassuring smile. “But I can’t fulfill my promise to Steve if I’m not cleaning up your wounds so let me do that,” you say to which he nods and you’re already working on him as you notice his steel blue eyes.

“You’re unconscious in and out okay Bucky? I’m walkin’ you through the end of the line, don’t you worry.” you say as he nods probably already relaxing. “Steve’ll be here in just a minute but try to stay awake for as much as you can, okay?” you say as you see him failing to and your ideas seem to be flickering off like a lightbulb.

“Okay Bucky, tell me something, anything. Tell me something about you or Steve,”

You’re doing your best here. You’re finishing his wounds but you need to take him to an ER to check for anything critical. You’re just trying to keep him awake; just as you promised to Steve and to yourself.

“Okay, no?” you say as you take out your instrument to check his blood pressure. “I’ll say something about me then. I graduated at the top of my class my last year of med school and I love fuzzy socks, like literally love. I even wear some to work even if it’s not allowed in which case I don’t think it is but I just wear them to make me feel comfortable, okay? Sometimes,” you say as you pump the instrument, “I wear polka dots when in reality I should be really wearing stripes when it’s a rainy day here in New York,” you say already aware that you’re saying nonsense.

“And when it’s Christmas, I wear these Christmas socks that light up in tons of different colors! I swear,” you say looking at his blood pressure and release a mixed sigh and laugh at how it’s stable, “I swear, it’s like a dance party every time I wear them! They’re not the most comfortable, but they’re the only gift I’ve ever gotten from a friend, so it’s special, you know?”

Bucky groans for the first time in a while, “what...the hell?” he says

You nod and let out a dry laugh “Yeah. Hey, if you’re good through this then I’ll be happy to gift you some socks that I’m sure you’ll lov-”

“I don’t need any socks,” he rasps out and you’re wondering if he’s really conscious or not.

“Of course you do, everyone does! I used to think that I didn’t before I bought my first pair when I got here to New York and let me tell you-best decision I’ve ever made.”

He groans again and you’re already sure he’s gonna end in the hospital for at least a week.

“Hey, if you tell me something about yourself then I’ll make sure you get the nice kind of Jell-O the cafeteria gives out; not the stale icky kind but the soft and chewy flavorful kind, huh?” you say hoping to strike a deal before he speaks up.

“Okay,” he says.

You beam and notice him try to sit up, “Oh that’s great! I-”

“You wanna know somethin’ about me? Then do me a favor and shut up,” he snaps before mumbling on how his headache is killing him.

“Oh…” you say before biting the inside of your cheek. So he isn’t really the kind to talk much, huh?

“Hey 107,” the voice calls out, “that’s not really a way to talk to a lady, now is it? Especially not when she’s saving your life.”

Bucky’s eyes are soon opened again and for the first time ever, a small faint smile grazes his soft- his lips. His lips! That’s it. His lips. He’s smiling, nothing less, nothing more.

“Sorry about that,” Steve says as he’s flashing you an apologetic smile and you nod already helping the team that arrived informing them on every possible diagnosis and you’re quick to send out labs for any sort of internal bleeding.

As you’re walking him through on the transportable bed he’s on, his last dozing words are, “So when am I getting my Jell-O?”

#Bucky #buck #Bucky Barnes #james buchanan barnes #God this is so weird but here we go #bucky barns x reader #winter soldier #marvel #infinity war #endgame #Avengers #Sebastian Stan

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brazenbells · 6 years ago

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stretched on your grave

Happy birthday to my dearest @imindhowwelayinjune!

I wasn’t sure what to do this year for your annual dose of brotherfuckers, but then I stole an idea from @hylianthvs (SORRY I TAGGED THE WRONG PERSON WHEN I POSTED, OMG I’M SO SORRY IT WAS 4 AM MY BRAIN WASN’T WORKING) and decided to make some OCs in the Kingdom of Rust sandbox.

These OCs....may seem somewhat familiar.

(Also, please enjoy the titular song, which is eerie and terrific, as a sort of unofficial soundtrack)

Warnings for implied incest and implied dubcon/noncon. Everything’s offscreen though.

His half-brother was a complete bastard.

Oh, not in the literal sense, that was Taidgh himself—but in the common usage, yes. Indisputably.

Nothing stuck to him. His hands were, somehow, always clean—not the glamoured sort of clean either—and yet he advanced. In the cutthroat, smile-at-your-front-and-knife-at-your-back court, where ‘friends’ was a polite word for people low on your hit list, people genuinely liked him. What was that about? And it was a mystery how he found himself in their company to begin with. How did he get his title, how did he keep it? He could have killed their father at the height of his power, but instead he waited till the man was laid low, unable to conceal the pain anymore. A mercy killing. Who fucking did that?

Who did that and didn’t immediately get overtaken by a stronger adversary?

Fucking Gale, that’s who. He always came out ahead.

Taidgh had a little extra salt about that mercy killing, anyway. It was his kill to make. He’d struck the penultimate blow, the wound that wouldn’t put their father in the grave directly but finally made him weak enough to show pain. It had cost him dearly; he’d had to lay low for a month waiting to die or get stronger, and when he’d finally pulled himself together, his fucking brother had already put the man out of his fucking misery.

He wound through the dark garden, careful of the thorns (there were always thorns, in the gardens of Faerie). Gale would be here somewhere, and now Taidhg was ready for him.

In the distance, music welled up right at the edge of Taidgh’s hearing. Mysterious, directionless snatches of music weren’t unusual in Faerie, of course, but this wasn’t the usual haunting melody of not-quite-definable instruments. This was a soft, soaring baritone, with a distinct location; as Taidgh wove nearer through the hungry brambles, it resolved into a dark Irish ballad, because of course it did.

We’re not Irish, you pretentious fucker. Taidgh could overlook the hypocrisy inherent in thinking that, given what he called himself—because spelling it Tig and hearing people pronounce it with a short i was not to be borne.

“My apple tree, my brightness, it's time we were together…”

At least the singing made him easy to find. And, likely, masked any slight sound made by Taidgh’s approach.

“For I smell of the earth, and am worn by the weather…” Gale did smell of the earth, that was true enough. Not the damp graveyard soil of the song, though: dry, sunbaked earth, and nothing else. That made him stand out too, in the court, where everyone was masking something. It should have been suspicious. It was suspicious, to Taidgh, even if no one else seemed to catch it.

It didn’t matter. He’d killed their father, however pitifully, and now Taidgh would kill him; it was the way of things, the cycle proceeding as intended. The title would pass, justice would be done, and he would have all the power that was his due. It wasn’t the first time a usurpation had been short-lived.

Gale’s voice threaded through the hedges like a ribbon in a maze; Taidgh had only to reel it in, following its brightness through the moonless night.

There was a brazier burning in the clearing where the voice led to at last. Gale was facing away when Taidgh came upon him, the fire at his back; he wore a loose shirt of some gossamer nonsense that did nothing to obscure the fine musculature of his shoulders or the warm brown of his skin. The flame gilded his curls, tumbling loose to a little below his collar. He was sculpted very finely, even Taidgh had to admit; why had he never noticed it before? Maybe he should—he wanted—

He could swear he didn’t make a sound when he stepped into the clearing, but Gale broke off singing and turned, his face lighting in a smile that was far too genuine for someone in his position. “Tiger.”

Taidgh mentally shook himself—what nonsense had he been thinking? They were half-brothers, which was bad enough, and enemies, which was worse. You didn’t fuck with people you sought to eliminate; it was a good way to put all your vulnerabilities on display. Admiring (he didn’t even let himself think the word desiring) Gale would be positively unacceptable.

Not that he did—it had only been a strange passing thought. Maybe he wasn’t quite as recovered as he’d believed. Never mind, though. He was still hale enough to put a knife in his brother.

“Lord Nightingale.” He gave him the title, to keep his guard down.

“You heard the news, then.” Gale’s smile dimmed.

“I came to congratulate you,” Taidgh offered, and Gale’s expression shuttered completely. Pathetic. Soft hearts have no place in court.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” he said, and turned again, taking a few steps away from the glow of the brazier, staring moodily off into the darkness. It was inconceivable that he had survived this long. Who would turn their back on Taidgh in such circumstances, alone in a dark garden?

Taidgh took a silent step forward.

“I let him suffer as long as I could,” Gale said, and Taidgh stopped, confused. It was a strange sentence to hear in Gale’s voice; like his namesake, it was a sweet voice, cutting through the darkness with no darkness of its own. “I know it wasn’t enough, but you know I couldn’t leave him that way for anyone to see. I promise, I made it as terrible as I could.”

Taidgh didn’t know how to answer that. He also didn’t know why his arms were prickling, the hairs standing up; if anyone could startle him with brutality, it certainly wouldn’t be his brother.

Gale glanced briefly over his shoulder. “I’m sorry you weren’t here for it. I couldn’t find you, so I assumed you’d come to me when you were ready. We have a lot of work to do, you know.” He turned back to gaze into the night again. “Our name isn’t what it once was, and he let too many greedy hands take from what should have been our holdings. That will take time to build back up.”

Taidgh shouldn’t have lingered, but he couldn’t help the itch of surprise and curiosity. “We?”

“I need a lieutenant, of course. Name your terms. I assure you I can meet them.”

Maybe Gale wasn’t quite as much of a fool as he seemed. That might have neutralized a weaker challenger, forced teaming and the offer of reward without the risk of an open fight. It didn’t matter; there were no terms Taidgh would take.

“You want me at your side?” He let the slightest bit of reprimand slide into his tone; do you know you’re clutching the asp to your breast?

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Gale was impervious to the warning.

Taidgh didn’t have to be fair, but no one could claim he hadn’t been, even so. A flick of his wrist put his knife in his hand; he crossed the clearing to join his brother, opening the arm as if to embrace him.

Gale did not turn when he drew nearer. He seemed to have forgotten Taidgh was there at all; his voice raised again in song, a golden thread against the night.

“Do you remember the night we were lost? In the shade of the blackthorn and the touch of the frost…”

Taidgh hesitated.

Maybe—maybe this was a mistake. Was it really so unappealing, being Gale’s lieutenant? Especially when he could name the terms—assuming that was true. He could demand the manor. He could demand the right to come and go between Faerie and the mortal world as he pleased—he certainly hadn’t had that under their father’s command. He could demand all the resources at their disposal, for whatever pet project he might want to tackle.

He could demand—

“The priest and the friars they approach me in dread, for I love you still, oh, my life, and you're dead…”

Taidgh lowered the knife. He had come around halfway now, could see his brother in profile; even silhouetted in shadow, Gale was striking, the shape of his lips as he sang stirring something that shouldn’t be stirred.

“I still would be your shelter, through rain and through storm. And with you in your cold grave I cannot sleep warm…”

He could demand anything.

Yes, there were terms he would accept. He opened his mouth to say so; he tossed his knife away, somewhere in the hedges, who-cared-where. Gale was watching him now, still singing, still singing; then he realized he didn’t need to demand anything, because what more did Taidgh really desire than to please his brother?

The curve of Gale’s smile said that he understood; of course he did, because he was clever as well as fair. Taidgh came the rest of the way around, standing before him now.

“I am stretched on your grave and I’ll lie here forever. If your hands were in mine, I'd be sure they would not sever…”

Gale lay a hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently down to his knees. Taidgh went, with gladness; seeking to please, he leaned forward to nuzzle his face against the front of Gale’s trousers. Gale laughed softly and caught him by the braids, tugging him back. “Time enough for that later. I told you, we have a lot of work to do, first.”

“Command me,” Taidgh begged, and couldn’t make sense of the part of him that recoiled to hear the words. Why shouldn’t he say them? He was Lord Nightingale’s lieutenant.

What greater joy could there be?

But he had not pleased Gale either, it seemed; he sighed, looking almost regretful, and passed a hand over Taidgh’s braids like a benediction. “I did offer you the choice,” he said at last, shaking his head.

Maybe that was why he was unhappy. He had told Taidgh to name his terms, and Taidgh had not named any. He could do that, though, easily. “You. I want you.”

“I know,” Gale said, with exasperated fondness. “Maybe someday you will in truth. Or maybe,” he cupped Taidgh’s cheek, “you will go to your grave first.”

Taidgh would dig it himself, should it please his lord.

“For now, get up.” Gale put out his hands and Taidgh took them, letting himself be pulled to his feet; Gale took a half-step backwards just as Taidgh came to his feet, setting him off balance so that he had to catch himself against Gale’s chest. They lingered like that a moment, faces close, Gale’s gaze fixed on Taidgh’s mouth; but by the time Taidgh realized he should offer himself up again, Gale set him right and stepped back. “Later,” he said again, more to himself than to Taidgh.

He left Taidgh’s knife where it had fallen; made a short gesture to quench the brazier, and put them in darkness.

They didn’t need light, though. Gale knew the path blind, and went along it singing; Taidgh followed behind, leashed by the golden thread of the Nightingale’s song.

#my fic #incest tw #tiger prince #or at least #KoR/Tiger Prince crossover AU fic #the darkest timeline i guess #don't tell me it's pronounced 'teague'#the internet says 't-eye-g' is a valid pronunciation and i'm fucking relying on that #taidgh as in tiger prince okay #just go with it

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arttlations · 6 years ago

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two

From then on, Lu Feng and I naturally became closer. After sufficient time spent with the other and realizing that the other wasn't as hateful as he seemed and could be in fact, rather cute at times, our relationship rapidly became stronger. I guess the two of us were initially opposites that attracted (personality-wise) but gradually, we kind of rubbed off each other, as seen from Lu Feng's decreasing demerits and my increased cursing.

Not long after our friendship had stabilized, Lu Feng started his criticisms towards my appearance.

"You look really ugly with these glasses, kind of like a mushroom."

God , just when I start being nice, you start crossing the line.

"It's none of your business."

"It's really ugly though."

"If you're going to continue, then write the essay yourself." At that time, I was working on an essay for the useless trash who repays kindness with evil beside me in exchange for three of the canteen's famous pot-stewed chicken drumstick. The essay's title was "My View On Cheating". The school's something something cup essay competition didn't receive enough submissions and hence set a target amount to be collected from each class regardless of the quality.

Both Lu Feng and I hit the jackpot, all thanks to his wide smile after hearing my name being called which resulted in his name being the next one called, which then resulted in me being the smiling one instead. Lu Feng was rather strong in his maths and sciences, but when it came to his two languages, his mistakes could make one cry, making it hard to believe that he was a Chinese, and an American Chinese at that. Rumour had it his midterms' essay was written merely with his stream of consciousness, and by stream of consciousness it meant that he wrote whatever he saw, for example, if he saw a bird fly past or observed that the girl in front of him had on a skirt that was revealing her thighs, he could perhaps try to write a poem of sorts, but to write an essay based on that......

When he received an average result, I guessed the teacher must have been captured by the absolutely mysterious introduction and conclusion. Lu Feng's good handwriting that looked just like a work of calligraphy must have left a strong impression as well.

But if a miracle happens again, it wouldn't be called a miracle anymore. That was why Lu Feng's usual essays were basically pathetic scraps of paper, no matter how you looked at it, it was only at the standard of a primary school child. Giving him a pass was already a lot to ask. Lu Feng himself was clear about this, hence, he had taken the initiative to buy the chicken drumsticks and placed them in my lunchbox in front of me in order to give me some mental strength, at the same time, buttering me up further by fanning me from the side. (It was the end of November where people needed a woolen sweater to get by.)

For my own essay, I had painstakingly written my comments, analysis, and reflections about the unhealthy practices in the exam hall, and at the end, I had included a deep and sincere message, "For socialism, we as students should have a strong foundation in our education journey and should never cheat!" My essay was the perfect example of "a good youth's traditional ideas on socialism".

As for Lu Feng's, with a swish of the pen, I fired away with my baseless theories, reprimanding the education system and demanding for changes to be made. "If it exists, it must be reasonable. When cheating has changed from a rare occurrence to a frequent problem, changed from a figment of one's imaginations to a habit, then we have to take a closer look at why this is reasonable......"

"It is a gentleman's clever use of other tools rather than his prominent wisdom that helps him stand out.", "A good wind relies on borrowed strength to send me up to the heavens.", when an individual's ability is limited, appropriate usage of other tools as a means to reach his target cannot be said to be an unfair shortcut. From an educational point of view, I believe..."

"Furthermore, just like how the public's worries over their security do not necessarily reflect the decreased quality in character among people but rather the instability amongst the government, the increased frequency of cheating cases do not reflect the student's lack of knowledge and ideas. The real problem lies with our education system which is full of gaps. A change in the education system is, therefore, a much more pressing and effective measure as compared to catching students who are cheating in the exam hall..."

The rest was pretty much similar to those written above, all simply lines of nonsense which feared no god. The rant had left me rather contented when I was done. Watching me write as if I was possessed and coming up with large chunks of text within a mere half an hour, Lu Feng was too dazed to even guess that I was digging his grave.

After finishing, I munched away at the drumsticks, laughing to myself now and then. That big idiot Lu Feng didn't even give it a second glance before writing his own name and shoving the paper in his bag for submission tomorrow.

"Xiao Chen, don't wear this pair of glasses anymore, they look terrible." A standard example of biting the hand that feeds you.

"......" I wiped my mouth, then started, "My eyes don't look good, wearing this would shield you from some of that ugliness." A boy's looks didn't really matter, but having been criticized multiple times, I didn't feel all that comfortable either.

"Why don't you take it off? It wouldn't be worse than this current look anyway."

"......" I turned around and ignored him.

"Come on, Xiao Chen, we have no idea how you look without your glasses either. Remove them so we can have a look."

"I rather not... I'll look terrible and give you guys a scare." It wasn't my fault that I was

born ugly, but there was no need to show off this fact.

Suddenly, caught off guard, my vision became a blur as my glasses were removed by Lu Feng. Since the first year of senior high, my left eye had a power of 375 while my right was 425 (this later seemed to remain the same for about 7-8 years), and with my relatively bad astigmatism, the sudden loss of my glasses made everything before me appear as a mere blur, so all I could do was blankly stare ahead with my mouth slightly opened in shock.

My surroundings became quiet, and only after a while then did I hear the dorm head Xiao Shan laugh dryly before saying, "Xiao Chen...... You actually look quite cute."

Lu Feng returned my glasses by placing them on my face again. "Forget it, you should just keep wearing them."

"I already said I would look bad." I faintly smiled. Strangely, I felt a little upset over Lu Feng's remark.

I can't deny it, Lu Feng is the level's most charming male student. Due to the mixed genes, his features are a lot more distinct than most people. If you looked that good, you would definitely be more picky towards others' appearances - I'm simply comforting myself.

I'm actually still quietly hoping that Lu Feng wouldn't find me ugly.

Lu Feng gave me a small smile. After everyone had gone out of the dorm room to prepare for the night's self-study in the classrooms, he scooted closer to me and reminded me, "Don't let others see you without your glasses in the future."

"I got it." My tone wasn't all that kind. "I'm not wicked enough to go out and scare others when I have nothing to do."

Lu Feng's smile grew wider. "You understand my meaning?"

Irritated, I pushed him away. "Go away, I've to go for self-study now. If you find me ugly, stay further away from me. Don't stand here lest I scare you."

Suddenly, he grabbed me and pulled me towards him, his head lowering to speak lowly in my ear, "I'm saying, that look from before made me feel like kissing you."

"You- Have you gone crazy?" I was stunned for a moment, my face turning a ripe red before I bellowed angrily.

Lu Feng chuckled.

I turned around to avoid looking at that arrogant smirk on his face and kept myself busy by packing my journal and practice questions for the self-study session.

"Eh? Where are my socks?" Lu Feng lowered his head as he searched the room.

"I washed them."

This man looked absolutely fresh and clean from the outside, but on the inside, he was a mess. He never washes his socks, and after wearing a pair, he would put them under his pillow. Once all the socks have gathered under his pillow, he would pick a pair that was not as dirty or smelly as the rest and wear them. About more than half a school term had passed, but not once have I seen him wash his socks. I would bet that if I took any one of them, it would be hard enough for it to stand upright on the floor by itself. Even though I slept on the top bunk, I could barely stand the smell, and yet he didn't find it in the least bit disgusting. In the afternoon, after class, when he was out buying the chicken drumsticks, I took the chance and washed all of those pungent socks. It was only after I hung them up to dry then did I realise there was more than a dozen of them. Gosh.

"You washed them?" Lu Feng lifted his head, casting me a strange look.

"Wh-why?" I was starting to think that there were millions of pounds worth of notes in them seeing his terrifying expression.

"Xiao Chen, you helped me wash my socks?"

"Yes..." I was confused.

"I love you!" Lu Feng spread his arms and immediately gave me a hug. Having not avoided it, I was forcefully wrapped in his arms and given a peck on my face.

"You pervert!" The shock was too much for my heart to take.

"I am a pervert." Lu Feng smiled sneakily. "Here, I'll kiss you once more."

"Dream on." I smacked a thick chemistry textbook on his face, only to be smoothly grabbed by the arm and pressed down on the bed.

"Hey, stop it!" I begged, "I'm ticklish..." Before I could finish, I felt a small attack on my waist, causing me to erupt in laughter.

"Ticklish?" Lu Feng was smiling. "How about this spot? Here? Or here?"

The places he touched felt as if I had come into contact with lightning, making me curl up into a ball, laughing till I found it hard to breathe.

"Xiao Chen, you're really sensitive."

"If I'm ticklish, I'm ticklish. Why is there a need for such a sensual word?" I got up, eyeing his complicated expression as he bit down on his lower lip, his amber eyes sparkling.

"Why are you acting so weirdly? Did you hit your head or something?"

"Nothing." He smiled, wearing his Nike sports shoes barefooted before picking his bag up. "Let's go for self-study."

one//masterlist

#a round trip to love translation #arttl #a round trip to love #boys love #gay boys #bl novel #book translation

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zedecksiew · 6 years ago

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DIY D&D, October 2018

Google Plus, where I found all my best nerd-friends, is closing down. It was where I found the DIY D&D / Old School Renaissance community. This community:

Gave me my best roleplaying game experiences; Gave me the confidence to start writing RPG material; Taught me a lot about building a functional community.

I’ve gotten paychecks from people in DIY D&D. I’ve gotten postcards. In this day of social-media instant connectivity? Postcards. In my mailbox. With actual ink, and a stamp.

Google may be killing G+, but DIY D&D isn’t going away.

The OSR started as a network of blogs. Here’s a list. (Here it is as a thingy you can plug into your RSS reader.)

People are moving en masse to different platforms. Here’s a massive Discord server. Here’s a cool forum. Here’s a nice MeWe group.

Zak S has a questionnaire up for DIY D&D types. I’m answering because it’ll brew a snapshot of the scene + myself, as part of the scene.

OSR Guide For The Perplexed Questionnaire

1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:

“... after a run-in with some "filthy dwarf-types" (kobolds from the wandering monster list) Max lopped off a monster-leg and stuck it in his backpack. At the time, I thought he was just being weird. But later he very effectively distracted some white apes by throwing the grisly limb among them. The apes were much more willing to brawl among themselves over a quick snack rather than fight people bearing torches and swords. Max wasn't content to let his brief character sheet dictate what he could and couldn't do. He went out there and grabbed that dungeon by the collar and gave it a good shaking. And here's the kicker: Max is twelve years old and today was his first time playing D&D!”

All Hail Max, Jeff Rients. Pretty basic stuff, at this point. Still pretty fucking baller.

2. My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:

“The thing I really really dislike about how people use terms like problematic and "interrogate" "critical awareness" etc is they rarely (if ever) provide a framework to objectively measure harm or benefit. So if you say "classic adventures are problematic because it's kinda like a Victorian narrative about invading people and taking their stuff" that's your subjective opinion , which then , when one publishes or writes something extremely similar, you can turn around and declare you have "critical awareness" , and therefore not problematic. Which is utterly perfect for performing wokeness for marketing purposes while never actually doing anything different, e.g Evil Hat's whole business model Compare this to saying to pointing out something which can be used to hold ones on behaviour to a standard: "There are very little women artists in rpgs", "there needs to be more takes on colonialism other than one favourable to the invader" "freelance writers don't get paid a living wage" Then , you yourself can demonstrate that you are actually committed to your wokeness by doing something you can be held accountable for. Because you actually pay people, hire people and publish people in ways that benefit the people whose struggle you are using for marketing purposes.”

Scrap Princess, from this excellent G+ thread. Saying stuff that needs to be said about woke white indie RPG creators who’ve made a career handwringing about how games might be sexist / racist / colonialist / queer-phobic / etc --

But who never quite get around to hiring or paying non-white people / queer people.

(PS: the OSR does. Zak’s paid me. Hydra Cooperative is publishing something I wrote.)

3. Best OSR module/supplement:

“Veins of the Earth”. That blackest brick of a book. I love it most.

4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):

I like usage die! “Torches (d6)” means you roll d6 after every turn that torch is used? 1-2, it drops a die size. 1-2 on a d4 means it’s gone. From The Black Hack, I think?

5. How I found out about the OSR:

Back-of-the-book blurbs, for real. Le Guin, who blurbed China Mieville, who blurbed Scrap & Patrick’s “Fire on the Velvet Horizon”.

6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:

Not really a utility, more a personal thing. The Lavender Marshes. Filling in a few of its hexes was my first taste of Gygaxian Democracy. Thank you, Ramanan S.

Otherwise, Links to Wisdom.

7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:

It is still G+, right this very moment ...

8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:

Feel free to add me, at these places:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zedeck.siew Twitter: https://twitter.com/zedecksiew Discord: zedeck.siew#4237 MeWe: mewe.com/i/zedeck.siew

And these forums, I guess?

(I really want to do comments on this blog, too. But Tumblr makes it fiddly.)

9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:

“Play your character, not the screenwriter writing your character.”

Because I hate hate HATE games trying to get into Creative Writing 101 rules-of-good-narrative nonsense.

10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, because I have a strange inexplicable love for Warhammer.

11. Why I like OSR stuff:

Nowhere else in roleplaying games do you get writing this fecund, this poetic, this muscular, this good. Serious: I’m in with the DIY D&D crowd because of the writing.

12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:

Khairul Hisham is a old-school Star Wars nerd who’s written about Malay-language references in Star Wars; Dirk Detweiler Leichty should get gallery shows:

13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:

Patrick Stuart still has my heart.

14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:

How to kill a god, and then turn it into a mine.

15. I'm currently running/playing:

Patrick’s running Yoon-Suin using Johnstone Metzger’s “The Nightmares Underneath”; Camilla Greer’s running Luka Rejec’s Ultraviolet Grasslands with The Black Hack 2E.

16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:

Honestly I wasn’t around for this particular nerd bush-war, so I haven’t the faintest what’s ascending vs descending AC is even about???

17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:

Is at the top of this post. (Source)

The roundabout ingenuity required to turn the arse of a demon entity from mad alter realities into something as mundane as a cannon is totes OSR.

#osr #rpgs #diydnd #writing #games #community #whatthehelldowedonow

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aotopmha · 6 years ago

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Dragon Ball Super Chapter 39 Thoughts

So, Dragon Ball is the kind of story that started screwing with my suspension of disbelief fairly early on.

It all started with the King Piccolo stuff, when said villain spit out an egg from a hole in his stomach and it came to another turning point when Shenlong was able to revive Goku to fight the Saiyans.

The former is obvious - Toriyama clearly didn't have any obvious plans how to continue the story and the egg spitting was a last minute choice, if it wasn't, he would've had set this plot point up in advance by showing King Piccolo had another egg stored away somewhere, but that wasn't the case. It's the first really obvious indicator that this story was not planned at all. There were some iffy moments prior to that, but this was the place I kinda got the idea "oh yeah, he's definitely making it up as he goes along."

The latter is a problem because it was basically established that Vegeta and Nappa are so much more powerful than Kami that the dragon has no power to affect them. The problem here is that Goku equally passed Kami in terms of power, especially after his training with King Kai, yet unlike Vegeta and Nappa, he could be effected by the dragon (be revived). It basically said Toriyama could make Shenlong do whatever he wants regardless of previously established rules.

So that shifted my perspective to "whatever happens is fine as long as it does something interesting with the characters and makes a exciting story out of it that keeps me guessing".

Naturally I cared for none of this when I was a kid, but in hindsight I think these aren't very good storytelling choices because of what they signified in terms of how the storytelling would evolve. But they don't bother me so much as to completely not feel the story anymore because I found the results to be interesting enough and especially the second detail can pretty easily slip under the radar considering how there are many different details that are important to consider with the Dragon Balls. Y'know, maybe the dragon only considers some sort of magical potential, maybe the power difference has to be really overwhelming or maybe revival is in a different bracket from actually affecting the target. You can wiggle out of it somewhat.

In light of all the convinient rises of power and powerups in later story arcs (looking at you, Buu), this seems relatively minor and in the most tl;dr way to put it, they didn’t really bother me enough to ruin the enjoyment of the story. Choose a story and if you think hard enough you can find plot holes in it, plotting is just one part of a story and I’d argue even one of the least important parts in some ways.

Anyway, what I want to say with this long preface is that the manga version of Dragon Ball Super finally broke my suspension of disbelief for the story.

Yes, the anime stretches it, too and the whole original series stretches it a whole lot, but the appropriate explanations and assumed narrative reasons still helped to keep the whole thing at bay for me.

So, the big thing in this chapter is obviously Roshi pulling a Ultra Instinct look-a-like technique out of nowhere and even dodging and affecting Jiren in some way. The story doesn't give any explanations of how he learned to do this - nothing like him mentioning that he had been secretly training more now, which you could even potentially tie into Roshi feeling helpless at the end of the Saiyan saga, it just happens.

The idea it wants to convey does tie into some of Roshi teachings of technique trumping power and learning to move insinctively, something I actually really like, but because Ultra Instinct was established to be a technique of the gods, the difference between the levels of training ruins the whole thing. I think it's a stretch that this time around is too big.

But okay, you could still kinda wiggle around it if you really wanted to; I really do think the idea of technique trumping power is great and I give no crap about power levels.

What truly annoys me is how Goku's character is handled here. Roshi chides Goku for forgetting the very basics of his training. This would be alright drama if it had sufficent tension and setup to it. I think the intention is clearly for Roshi to be a reminder to him in a tough situation, to call him back to his senses so to say, but it just doesn't make sense because of Goku's characterization so far.

He learned that technique/smarts is better than power a long time ago and he has been using it constantly since he did - the cool Kamehameha he did with his feet against Piccolo Jr, the strategy against Raditz, his fight with Freeza, all the technique usage against Cell and Buu.

(This makes no sense to fall back to at this point, especially since the Freeza and Vegeta fights did not just ultimately involve power ONLY, either. The fights had plenty of technique usage.)

You could argue that the intention is again, to be a reminder to him, with the implication that he’s been focusing too much on just training his strength up and not much else, but even in the context of Super, his fight with Botamo and Hit were about figuring their abilities out, he easily picked up the Hakai technique and mastered SSJB by appropriate Ki control. Putting him through this lesson again here feels really forced, just some way to get Goku into Ultra Instinct.

Speaking of which, I think Ultra Instinct sucks, too. It feels just like a random powerup with no impact whatsoever. Goku sort of just gets it after thinking for a second. He isn't pushed in any way shape or form and the buildup is minimal.

The point here is supposed to be that he just briefly tapped into it and that it’s above all a technique, not a powerup, but even a new technique should have at least some impact or special framing when it's first used. The hints should be exciting and make people curious, but I feel like this achieved none of that.

Next, backtracking a little, I feel like Gohan vs Kefla isn’t all that good of a fight.

Firstly, Gohan's power jump, even with his established potential seems really nonsensical. A Potara fusion is established to be incredibly powerful, something far above unfused characters and Kale, only one part of the fusion, faced a Super Saiyan Blue in the previous chapters. The only hint we have of training for Gohan is him training by himself and training a little bit with Piccolo. The former is such a footnote it appears in a extra mini chapter.

Again, I can look past the wierd power stuff (power levels have been nonsense for a long time if you think about them even a little bit), but Gohan has had very minimal characterization, his training has had no buildup whatsoever and this fight itself is barely a few pages long on it's own. There is no impact to any of this whatsoever, and I think it’s a pretty good example of the problem with telling more, rather than actually showing.

In addition to that, while I like Gohan relying on his "human strength" with the Ultimate ability, he still does it with the same arrogant shtick as in the Buu arc, something I don't really care about unless it's done to build a character arc, something the manga hasn't really done.

The erasure of U6 is also weightless despite having the side characters we most care about. Like most stuff in this chapter, it just happens.

I initially also didn't really like how Kefla and Beerus were handled and I still don't for different reasons now, but they are at least consistent in terms of their portrayal.

Caulifla was willing to give up pretty easily in the manga when facing Cabba, which is where Kefla giving up came from.

Beerus doesn't have as much of his serious side at display in the manga - he doesn’t have all that many moments of intimidation or thoughfulness. So, they are consistent, but not all that interesting characters to me.

This is one of my least favorite manga chapters in recent memory among all the stuff I follow, which is why I had to make a longer post picking it apart.

I think it has a few interesting ideas going for it, but it doesn't execute anything it sets out to do right to me.

Nothing stews or builds, characterization isn't interesting and my suspension of disbelief is gone. Maybe some explanations can and will be given in hindsight in the next chapter, but I feel like how everything is executed, it wouldn't help much.

On the other hand, I did pick up the manga again. Not for good reasons, but I did and I am genuinely curious to where this goes as the increasingly nonsensical mess it is at this point.

#Dragon Ball Super #Dragon Ball #DB #DBS #Son Goku

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tirkarokujo · 7 years ago

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Was making a writeup about single player in fighting games for my twitter, but it got way too long, so now it’s a blog post. Incomprehensible armchair game design nonsense under the jump

Anyway heres my long tweet thread about fighting games, namely the single player portion, from a guy who wants to make one himself. If this was an actual article it'd probably be called "what fighting games can learn from Cuphead" so yknow thank christ this is just a tweet thread- oh fuck, what do you mean this is a tumblr post now? Well I’m still gonna spare you from that motherfucking storm so you better be thankful.

One issue thats plagued fighting games is how eternally niche the genre seems to be, even when they have occasional bursts into the AAA space , interest tends to wean until they just cruise along by enthusiast hype, never reaching the same level of interest of other "esports" games. This lack of ongoing interest persists for obvious reasons, namely that losing in a fighting game just feels bad. Compared to something like overwatch or mobas, you can't blame your failures on your team, nor can they carry you, yadda yadda, u heard this before

To a newbie, jumping into fighting games feels impenetrable just because losing feels so bad. But guess what? You gotta get your butt kicked to improve, just like most things in life. Often its just incomprehensible why you're losing so much, and while the clear course of action is to go online for some hot tips, the path of least resistance that we’ve seen exhibited by most players is to just give up after playing a while. This is of course mainly a problem if the first thing you do is hop onto online matchmaking, which ideally you really shouldn't. But is there an alternative? Well, the first solution is to find local peeps to play with, but if that's not an option? Why of course, there's the great beast known as

~single player modes~

Yes, arcade mode, story mode, training mode, challenge modes, you name it, as fighting games have progressed, so too has the multitudes of single player content become more complex and fleshed out. Nowadays it’s basically vital that your game has ample single player content, SFV stumbled out the gate without it, so you need yo single player fix.This is basically the entire subject of this blog post, so it pains me to say they also suck ass. all of them, every last one of them, they all suck. there isn't a single good single player anything in any fighting game ever made, no not even that one, nor that one, sit yo ass down, they're all irredeemable garbage and here's why

To use an example of the archetypical fighting game single player mode, I'll go over the story mode from Street Fighter V; Things uh kinda happen and you do a couple canned matches against the CPU. ok i wow i dont remember anything from that story mode at all, what the hell. Ok I think FANG does stuff and Rashid is there and then Karin gets way more screentime than anyone expected and Ryu is also there sometimes. Hey, what happened to that Necalli guy, wasn’t he supposed to be important? What happened to that. Wheres Necalli. Where...where did he go....

But anyway, for the gameplay portions, you go through a bunch of uneventful and really easy CPU matches that are just sorta thrown in there, you're guy A, there's guy B, go fuck em up not like they're gonna attack back its so easy even a 6 year old can do it. And hey don’t think your favorite game is off the hook either; There's the single player mode of DBZ too: Go across the map, level up your characters, and fight a bunch of really easy clones. Blazblue? Really complicated plots happen and you do uneventful battles to spice things up occasionally.

Most of these story modes, despite their differences, all mostly follow the model of "plot happens, play a round in the game against the CPU to unpause the plot." So what's wrong with this picture here? Well let's break it down from the beginning:

Fighting games have complex core mechanics, this is undeniable, but they're also just like any other game. In something like a platformer, level design is key. Surely you've seen all of Miyamoto's insight into the thought that went into level 1-1 of super mario bros. So much thought and effort was put into such a simple level bc the levels in platformers are strictly designed to work within the confines of the games mechanics, and require their usage as necessary. An important part of this is teaching the player through the level design itself, slowly and naturally. When you first boot up SMB, level 1-1 just assumes you know fuckin nothing about video games and you suck at life and everything, so it teaches you the mechanics through the subtle nuances of the level, there's a goomba, you better jump over it, if you try to touch it, you die, but thats ok bc little progress is lost, lesson learned, oh man i bumped by head on a flashy block now theres a mushroom, should I touch it, better jump over it, oh shit i cant better brace for impact aaaa oh wait i just grew bigger instead, mushroom good, etc etc

My point is, the level is designed around teaching you the very basic mechanics without needing to bring up the manual or read a text box. This is generally considered fun to play. The game mechanics and the level designs love eachother and are in a healthy relationship

fighting game story modes on the other hand, do not like the fact that they're attached to a fighting game. They're the ritzy theatre kid while the mechanics is a guy who replaces a good shower with a can of body spray and wears 2 sets of sunglasses and skateboards everywhere. In my life I have never seen a fighting game story mode, or even arcade mode for that matter, that felt like it was actually meant for the game it was attached to. I mean sure, you get to play against the CPU on occasion, but so what? You're not gonna learn terribly much besides getting the basest feel for your character via peeking at the command list and finding what various ways u can dunk on the CPU that wouldn't work against a human to any capacity. The game doesn't teach you the mechanics, but thats ok bc u dont really need to learn them. They’re just kinda there. The single player is toothless and generally works independent from whatever game its a part of. They don't take advantage or do cool things with the games unique mechanics or moves, you're just left in a room to beat up a CPU for a while until the silly plot trucks on. (Guilty Gear in particular seemed to have realized this and just skipped the middleman by making the story modes just straight up movies with no gameplay at all, not that I can blame em.)

So yea the story modes suck ass, but hey, that’s not all! What about stuff like training modes and challenge/tutorial modes, this is where it's at! At thats, true, it’s usually in supplementary tutorials where the mechanics actually get to shine, so already it has that over the story mode. And yknow what, I get it. This is where most of the innovation tends to happen. With every new fighting game I always see some new bragging point about how incredible the QoL improvements are. Wow! the new UNIEL lets you record savestates in training! Wow the new GG has matchup data! Wow Skullgirls goes over high level concepts overlooked in other tutorials! It seems like every week there’s a new anime fighter that breaks new ground in terms of how helpful and advanced the tutorials are, and how they teach you the ropes in a controlled environment and everything. This is where the magic happens. This is where you learn practical setups and combos and situations and shit. And yknow what? All these new innovations are mindbogglingly good and impressive. So what's the problem here? Well it's all handicapped by a minor drawback...

it’s uh....well it’s all kinda boring, really. Also you can breathe easy now, this is the part where this post stops being a copypasted tweet thread, so maybe it’ll read a lil better.

But yea, main problem, all that stuff about super advanced tutorials, it’s just...it’s not very fun to play. Or really, it’d be more apt to say that they’re not -as- fun to play as they could be, and it doesn’t have to be that way. Because as they stand currently, all those tutorials on footsies and wakeups and combos and setups and mixups, no matter how basic and dead simple you make it, it’s not gonna change the fact that it’s not gonna hold the casual player’s attention for long. It doesn’t matter how much you dumb down the game or introduce comeback mechanics or what have you, it all doesn’t matter unless the player is continuously playing your content without it feeling too much like busywork. So what’s the solution here? Well, it’s gonna require taking inspiration from other games instead of other fighting games, for one. Speaking of other, non-fighting games, hey, I hear Cuphead is pretty cool! *Children cheering in the distance*

Cuphead is a run n gun shooting them all up game from last year and one of my personal favorite games of 2017. And yea sure, it’s nowhere close to the first game of its kind, but it does display something, and that’s HUGE breakout mainstream popularity, despite its foreboding difficulty. Most of this can be attributed to the impressive art style of course, but it wouldn’t have endured had the core gameplay loop not been up to snuff, which of course it is, or else I wouldn’t be talking about it here.

The reason I bring up Cuphead in my blog post about fighting games should be clear; Despite the entirely different genre, I’d argue it still bears much in common with fighting games, namely what the single player portion could be in a perfect world. While the gameplay loop in Cuphead and tutorial/challenge modes in fighting games follow the same mechanical loop, which can be grossly simplified to “throwing yourself at the wall repeatedly until you can climb”, in Cuphead this rarely gets boring and tedious, while hassling with fighting game challenges feels like pure busywork. While that seems anecdotal, I can 100% bet you that there’s more people who played Cuphead to completion than people who got even kinda decent at your favorite fighting game...well, accounting for ratios and all that.

So what’s the big difference? Well sure, you can say that Cuphead has the advantage of much simpler mechanics, but I think the real key to success is just simple presentation. When you get down to brass tacks, the weird and wacky bosses you face in Cuphead aren’t much more than patterns to learn and habits to form, not unlike any other fighting game tutorial. Just like a fighting game tut or combo challenge, you’re probably gonna fail and restart like 50 times until you get it right, and then you move onto harder challenges. By the end of the game, I became so good at parrying that the game felt it necessary to have a boss pattern that does little else but fill the screen with parry-able attacks, which I easily overcame like it was second nature. So what makes Cuphead so consistently fun and replayable while doing challenges in the lab has more, uh....niche appeal?

It’s all context, really. Sure, it seems superficial, but its just objective fact that fighting a dragon with its own health bar and everything that wants to kill you dead with its fire breath is gonna be more fun than beating on the same helpless CPU 50 times until you beat on them in this exact specific way. Just imagine if Cuphead worked the way fighting games did- There’s no big funny bosses to kick your ass, it’s just a series of separate execution challenges you pull off over and over again to a Mugman with infinite health, and the win condition is to pull off the required series of jumps and shots a boss fight would normally require of you. Doesn’t sound too fun, does it?

In essence, what I propose here is just slapping some story context and maybe a health bar onto what a normal fighting game would consider a “tutorial” or a “challenge.” Yeah, it’s superficial, but so what? It’s a god damned video game, giving some emotional attachment to practical concepts should be key here.

Right now you probably notice my observations on “Story modes” and “Challenge/Tutorial modes” are two gigantic puzzle pieces that fit suspiciously well together, and that should be obvious; Take the meaningless fluff of story mode and the oppressive academia of the more practical modes, hold em up real close like and tell em

This is what I’d like to call the “fruits and veggie shake” approach to game design. For most fighting games, you have a direct segregation between these fruits and veggies, like to the point where they’re not even in the kitchen, the fruits are in the living room and the veggies are in the attic of the next house. So statistically while plenty of the playerbase will eat up those sugary fruits, they’re probably gonna ignore the veggies, which is a crying shame bc they’re good for you and will keep you healthy in the long run. Fruits are stuff like story modes, arcade mode, tekken ball, all that stuff, while the veggies are all the more practical shits that all the anime and indie fighters like to brag about. And if you’ve ever made a veggie shake, you would know that the fruit flavor always overpowers the vegetables. The kids don’t even know they eatin they greens, it all just tastes like fruit!

This is a groundbreaking approach to game design as exhibited by a select few classics such as DAMN NEAR EVERY OTHER GAME GENRE EVER MADE which is a winning formula bc its fun, and fun things are fun, why do I even need to explain this? Getting at least moderately good at a fighting game shouldn’t feel like an academic course, it should at least be tricking my dumb as shit lizard brain into putting all that time into learning it so I can wipe the dumb grin off that Boss That Teaches You About Footsies’ face.

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The only game I recall that came the absolute closest to this is, weirdly enough, the tutorials for the Darkstalkers Resurrection HD re-releases that came out a long time ago. It was an extremely minor touch, but every one of the character tutorials sorta contextualized the challenges you were about to take with a threadbare story, mostly having to do with a suspiciously similar recolor of your chosen character talking to you about needing to practice or whatnot. It only amounts to a few lines of dialogue in a text box, but it went a long way into giving me enough of an emotional connection that led me to 100% all of the tutorials, which is a lot more I can say for damn near every other fighting game trial mode. These trials weren’t easy either!

People also like to bring up the tutorial in Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator, which had you going through a very gamey representation of the core mechanics framed in the context of Sol Badguy vs Jack-O’s wacky cast of minions, which yknow, is a good step in the right direction. But I think we can go further.

For a basic setup here, let’s assume there’s a character in our hypothetical Good Fighting Game that has a crouching fierce that takes the form of a sweep, which in turns also chains into a standing fierce. Not much combo potential, but it allows you to recover faster so you can set up additional offense. The opponent will have to block low to guard, and the additional fierce will keep the chain safe on block. So sure, you could include that in a combo challenge, but we can also spice it up a bit for increased engagement:

So in this situation, let’s have a boss character that encompasses many of the core concepts inherent to a certain characters fundementals; For some convoluted reason, his brand of martial arts makes it so he’s invincible from all forms of attack besides down below, and if he does guard down there, he’ll immediately do a short ranged counter-attack unless you do the follow up standing fierce. After doing that enough times, Boss McAsshole will catch onto what you’re doing and adjust his strategy by acting defensively and crouching down. Thankfully, our character here can perform a very fast and near instant airdash much lower than other characters can; You can take full advantage of this and drain the Boss’ health quicker by doing this special airdash and attacking with an aerial fierce on the way in, which acts as an overhead, and finishing with a knockdown combo.

And yeah, this boss is rough and tough, but you’re at least slightly more likely to take up his challenges so long as you get the satisfaction of slapping that dude in the balls to his doom. It’s more satisfying to finally defeat that swamp-assed dragon in Dark Souls IIII than it is to just do the required canned inputs that would result in defeated said dragon but removed from its context. All it really takes is putting the flimsiest bit of context or story or whatever to what you already have in the trial modes, just reworked to be a bit more gamey. Take that GGXrd Rev tutorial and attach it to something with an actual health bar or something, or lock entire story content behind a combo trial contextualized as a dance recital or something. Imagine unlocking a new character, and the first thing it does is put you through a story sequence where they need to overcome a stage or enemy that requires using their specific tools in practical ways, so you have a good feel for the character if u ever feel like picking them up. Yeah fighting game mechanics are more complex than other games, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take those lessons from simpler games and apply it here. Your average Normie McBoremie is perfectly willing to get they ass whipped dozens of times over for the sake of seeing the next boss or lines of dialogue, people don’t dislike hard games, they just don’t like BORING ones. So stop being boring! FUN THINGS ARE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN

anyway, while this wouldn’t entirely solve the issue of newbies getting discouraged from getting bootybumped online, it would at least give them better frame of reference as to what needs improving when the supplementary content designed specifically to go over the core fundementals they need to improve on are at least mixed together with the mild amusement of the antics of your fighting game’s canonical universe, or I don’t know, SOMETHING. I dunno. Anyway don’t read this bc I plan on this being the main philosophical backbone for my own fighting game, which will take the entire world by storm and yours wont, so HAH.

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sixmorningsafter · 7 years ago

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76 Theses

Oh hey there, Gabi. Long time no see. Hope your summer is going well as if I don’t already know because I follow you on Instagram, and I hope your med school prep isn’t destroying you I’m going to grad school in the fall, so girl I can only imagine. EDIT: GIRL HOW DID YOU POST A CHAPTER TWO DAYS BEFORE YOU MOVED AND STARTED OVER IN ANOTHER PLACE FOR FREAKIN’ MED SCHOOL

LMAOOOO FWIW I didn’t start over, I literally moved like 30 minutes away (and my family did a solid 75% of the work because what are big over-involved Puerto Rican families for). Summer was GLORIOUS. And 6 months ago, loooooool, I’M THE WORST. But you’re the best. This review is the best. Hope you’re crushing grad school (I know you are instinctively but I also know you are because I’ve talked to you about it and despite your humble nonsense I can tell you’re killin’ it). ANYWAY, diving on in to this literary masterpiece of a review:

Anyways, let me start by saying, literally every time you post a new chapter, I think “I’m ready, let’s go”. But literally, every time I read a new chapter, I am not ready, and you slay me every single freakin’ time. Dude, I have no clue how you do it, but every time, I die. Any more deaths, and I’d be a freakin’ Winchester.

A/N: looooool that’s incredible because every time I post a new chapter I think ‘this is it, this is where everyone realizes I don’t actually know how to write, it’s been fun’. But in all seriousness, girl, the fact that you make a point to send reviews after every chapter and go into detail like this is just–like honestly it’s reason enough to crank out 30K words of my bullshit. Not even kidding. If literally no one but you read this story I’d still write it because getting your hilarious whip-smart reviews are life. It’s so appreciated. It’s so appreciated.

Off the bat, while you may believe this is a “filler” chapter, it is a damn good filler I wish I could write filler chapters as nicely and uniquely wtf. If you meant filler as in full of wonderful delightfulness, then yas girl this is the filler-est of filler chapters. Because if you meant this is some fluff piece that has nothing of substance, if you thought for once second that we aren’t thriving off the Bamon drama of the Steroline giggles, we’d all have to chase you out of town good thing you’re already moving.

This chapter is amazing, and on a personal spiritual level, I still can not get over your similes. I know that sounds silly and amateur, but while you’re hella awesome at metaphors, your similes, dude, are unique af, and every single time I write something that barely resembles something you’ve written, I’m staring at my screen like what the actual fuck is the nonsense? Sooooo, rest assured, this chapter is awesome (to be explained in great detail), and you’re awesome too (also to be explained in greater detail).

LMAOOOOO CASSIE I HAD TO LOOK UP WHAT A FUCKING SIMILE WAS HELP ME WHY AM I HERE. But DUDE, I actually have some words to say about this, the first ones being - GAH. Thanks so, so much love. I’m beaming. The second ones being - I ALWAYS think they’re weird when I write them. Seriously. Like that feeling you said you get when you try getting creative with a description is the exact same one I get -ROLL WITH IT. I had to learn that by just sucking it up and posting shit with unusual descriptions and then seeing what kind of feedback I got for it (which tbh makes it sound like I’ve been doing it for a while lololol but I actually just recently started challenging myself to get more creative with my descriptions for things). It actually came from constantly reading writing with cool imagery (Six of Crows was a great one!) and realizing that they never fell back on tired/common metaphors. They always used something unique (Kaz’s voice being like dry leaves scattering across pavement or w/e? Lmao you know how I felt about the constant descriptions of Kaz’s voice but I loved that one). I’m clearly nowhere near that level but I’ve definitely taken to stopping a few times while writing and going, ‘Wait. This is a chance to come up with something cool. Slow down. Do better.’ Cause tbh I have no instinct for it. I don’t think in creative metaphors or similes or whatever. But if I labor over it for a minute or two I can maybe come up with something, so yeah, THE POINT OF ALL THIS BEING - it probably sounds a lot better to a reader than it will to you. They feel and read unnaturally to me because they don’t come naturally to me, lol, but the people reading probs don’t know that so trust yourself! Do it! Knowing you and your talent they’re probably incredible.

Okay, so, in an attempt not to be mundane, let’s go through this fav line by fav line please forgive me if I just rewrite the whole chapter because ff.net doesn’t let you copy/paste

“She remembered feeling alarmed, a little helpless, like a plastic bag caught in the middle of a hurricane” (us FL girls can spot one another from miles away) (but also???? great simile). Poor Damon, but also poor Bonnie. This girl is just tryna help—it’s the core of her being, tbh—and this boy is too proud. Not like proud-proud, but that oh-shit-I’m-exposed proud. You know. A/N: AMERICAN BEAUTY REFERENCE WHADDUP. Lol I was channeling that plastic bag shot at the end of the movie. Granted there’s no hurricane in that but you know, us Florida girls put hurricanes into everything. And yeah, that’s a great read on Damon. His pride/confidence is something he uses as a shield more than anything, which isn’t to say it’s fake exactly, but more so something he relies on to stay detached and not really have to deal with things. It’s easy for him to be like ‘world sucks, I don’t care’. Anytime anyone sees below that confidence/armor, though, it’s really destabilizing for him because it makes the reality of his fears/anxieties harder to ignore, ya know?

Kai calling out “Friends?” is the most relatable thing. He’s a murdery little bean.

“And sure, maybe she’s being a giant, hypocritical pot to his doesn’t-deal-with-childhood-trauma kettle…” Yes girl, these lines are really awesome. Also, I like how Bonnie recognizes the cycle right away. She’s like ‘been there done that broseph’.

“Do you have any pop tarts?” this girl asks. Lol when you stress eat. Btw, we never find out if she got them??? I need answers???? I feel like Kai could 3D print pop tarts if he needed to.

“Toodles”: I had a friend (loose usage of the term) in hs who used to say that, for real, and it’s funny ‘cause she was this gossipy diva (Bekah?) and reading this just sent me back. Also, toodles is such a passive-aggressive thing to say, especially for Care. I don’t think toodles has ever been said without the backing vocal of ‘I hate you please die’.

“… the prospect of going through the whole song and dance made her bones ache, it was so tiring.” FINALLY, CAROLINE, YOU’RE FREE OF THE CURSE I can tell not really, but, at least, we’re getting through some of that warding doe. RIGHT!? Lol I was excited to put that bit in because it was sort of my attempted nod to everyone reading that it was okay (actually encouraged!) to feel frustrated with Caroline’s constant mood swings because she herself hated them. They weren’t meant to be read as a some ‘fascinating complicated girl’ thing, you know? I feel like a lot of shows (esp. with male writers) like to write these female characters that are difficult and volatile for the sake of being ‘interesting’ and I kind of wanted everyone to know that I wasn’t going for that. Caroline’s coming from a place of fear. She knows what she’s doing isn’t fair. She knows it’s angering and more trouble than it’s worth. And even more than that, she hates it just as much as everyone else does, and by the time we hit chapter 16, she’s finally too drained to listen to that frantic instinct to self-preserve. She just throws caution to the wind and lets it go. It’s still scary for her but what can you do. But you’re right, she’s getting there!

***Side Note*** when is Tyler gonna be a thing, I need some sma Tyler in my life rn Me toooooooo he’s my husband. He should be popping in for 18 or 19!

Stefan’s recap of what happened, “you planned the homecoming dance at the same time as the football game”/”False” is great. I really love your back-and-forth dialogue, like always, ‘cause it’s natural and it’s funny as hell. Idk, when I write it (or sometimes when I read other people’s), it doesn’t have that same fast pace hilarity. Maybe that’s just me. It’s definitely just you cause I’ve read your dialogue and it’s hilarious, but one thing I’ve found that super speeds up dialogue is removing the dialogue tags. Seriously. Makes a world of difference. Like I don’t think it’s even possible to write an extended snappy exchange with dialogue tags tbh, cause your mind will just naturally slow it down to read the description. Half the time I go back to edit, I’m just removing unnecessary dialogue tags or descriptions that felt needed at the time. It helps if you can pick dialogue that sort of speaks for itself in terms of how it’s said, too (and realizing that once you’ve set the tone of a conversation, you really don’t need to keep re-emphasizing that tone - it really only needs to be addressed if there’s a shift imo). Also, I’ve kind of found that leaving out subjects can both make dialogue sound way more natural and also speed it up. Like even in the example you used below: “You’re ridiculous”/ “Effective” / “Terrifying”/ “Productive”/ “And impressive as hell” it wouldn’t read the same if it was: “You’re ridiculous.” “I’m effective.” “You’re terrifying.” “I’m productive.” “And you’re impressive as hell.” See how it slows it down? And throw in dialogue tags and it’s even slower. “You’re ridiculous,” he said. “I’m effective,” I countered. “You’re terrifying,” he replied. “I’m productive,” I quipped. “And you’re impressive as hell,” he concluded. To me that just completely changes the speed/flow. So yeah, there’s my unsolicited advice on snappy dialogue, lolololol.

Caroline’s interjection: “Systematic overview” lol

“You’re ridiculous”/ “Effective” / “Terrifying”/ “Productive”/ “And impressive as hell”—ooooo, Stefan! Your heart-eyes are showing!

***Side Note*** so, uh, are we ever gonna find out what Stefan allegedly did? Muahaha yes. Kind of. Iz cute.

His deadpan face eased into a smile—one of those twinkling, warm ones that reminded her of honey spilling off a spoon—and predictably, annoyingly, her stomach did a flutter—gold. I feel like you can really get away with lines like this when it comes to Steroline because a) Caroline is a writer and b) Stefan is a Disney prince I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU USED THAT BTW I’M GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF BUT DUUUUDE LISTEN I have so much fun writing in Caroline’s PoV because I can write things in a way that I can’t with other characters. I think you’ll see a lot of that in 17 when Caroline dives into her Matt history. And Stefan’s fun because he’s such a fucking sap so I can get as dumb as I want. He has a scene in 17 where I’m like ‘jesus christ dude get a grip’. Damon’s my annoying son because he’s closed off as hell so I always have to keep his thoughts muted and on-the-brink-of-something. Bonnie probably comes the most easily. Anyway, there’s my response to a question that was never even asked.

“It was the elephant in the room, big and obvious and floating over their heads like a light-up blimp. None of this frothy, chit-chat matters, it read in a glitzy, scrolling marquee, waving its animatronic trunk, y’all are fake.” … Does it ever get exhausting? Knowing that you’re literally the best at this metaphorical imagery thingies that need an actual name so I can use it and throw it in your face like, look at this gabi, think about what you’ve done? I almost cut that out because I thought it would feel random! See? That was one of those ‘pause’ moments where I almost left it as ‘the elephant in the room’ and then was like ‘you can do better than that’, and then after I extended it I was like ‘that sounds weird as hell but whatever roll with it’. So roll with yours, girl!

“An awkward beat passed as they regarded each other in the bright, exposing overhead light”/ “the lighting too clinical for such a personal conversation”. So, recently, coupling physical and metaphorical description has really been my jam, and I am so totally digging this. I have this weird thing where I feel like the lighting has to be soft for intimate conversations and if it’s not I’m like not in the right headspace for it, looool. So I’m glad you’re weird about that with me!

“[Katherine] was tough. Cynical. Her arms would lock tightly around him, jaw set, damning the world and the fucked up people in it.” Nice glimpse at the infamous Katherine Pierce. Can’t wait for a possible cameo from her in the future. NYE! Hopefully. I might be overselling NYE.

“Melted, really, like a clock in a fucking Dali painting.” Ok so like, do you Google this shit or is your brain just going a million miles a minute, coming up with stellar ways of impressing us (me)? Like jfc Gabi, calm down. LOOOL okay that one was instinctive because I compare legit every melty thing to a Dali clock. My sister’s cat has no bones and liquifies into whatever space she inhabits and we call her a melted clock.

“Floaty, useless goddamn feathers” this is cute i’m fine

“The Tylers” mention: Tyler believes in love? Is Tyler a Stefan, and that’s why Defan gels? Does Tyler have a girlfriend or boyfriend or a something?!?!? How cute! I feel like the best way to describe Tyler is like… surprisingly well-adjusted. Like he definitely had some shitty things go down in his life (abusive dad), but he had a loving mom and an unexpected support system in Damon and Katherine and because of that, he’s grown up to be this easy-going, confident guy. He’s definitely got a wild streak because of Damon and Katherine, but even when he went out with them they always kept an eye on him, always kept him out of the real dangerous stuff. He grew up loved. So when it comes to romantic love, he’s a casual optimist about it. He’s not some heart-on-his-sleeve romantic, but he believes it’s out there. His issue is kind of that he gets along with everyone (one of those types), so no one’s really knocked him off his feet yet love-wise. “The Carolines”: oh shit, called out. I love that he can read her like a goddamn book even though they aren’t anything under the surface at all. Like that just shows how good he is at this. Yessss, love that interpretation. I kind of wanted to emphasize how much he has everyone pegged so that it would heighten the contrast to how much he keeps having to redefine Bonnie.

“She’d cracked his varnish”—nice—“so thoughtlessly, like it wasn’t something he relied on”—oh shit—“and for what?/ “For shits and giggles? To see if she could?” Like usually I can handle these lines I’m lying but how sad and fucked up is it that Damon thinks Bonnie was only kind to him for something. I totally understand his mindset (like get where he’s coming from), but jfc honey, Bonnie is the Hufflepuffiest (which kudos btw for using the house for both ships, nice nice, I’m honored on behalf of us honey-badgers) and she literally didn’t try to help for anything. He def. struggles with the idea of people being kind for no reason. AND YAS GIRL HONEY BADGERS UNITE! KINDNESS EVERYWHERE! YOU get some kindness. YOU get some kindness! ERRBODY IN DA CLUB GETTIN KINDNESS.

“He scoffed again, shaking his head—worry. Concern./ “Unwanted things.” CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IS THE SHIT, MAN. All us writers out here (or just me idk) are screaming and, probably totally weeping.

“Her eyes looked a little buggy in her magnifying goggles, hair in a mess of curls, and instantly, unwantedly, he felt a bit of the cool distance warm right off him.” Oh silly boy. Like you can actually resist how adorable Bon-bon is. Also, love nerd!Bonnie, can she come back some more? I’m going to incorporate it into 17! I think. Lmao I will now.

“It means I don’t need you to fucking fix me.” Yikes, dude. I always worry that those mood-shift lines aren’t going to pack enough of a punch so I love when you single them out.

“One little emotion glitch”… It’s really interesting you put it this way. Stefonnie are all heartstrings and mush, and Daroline are very ones-and-zeros, very programmed-and-defined. And this ties into Kai’s “logic” speech, because while these no-strings-attached sillies think they can avoid what makes us all human, they’ve got another thing coming. These fools are just as sappy-feely as their romantic counterparts. TRUEFAX.COM I wanna change the story description to just that ^^

“Relax.” IF THAT SHIT ISN’T THE MOST ANNOYING THING EVER I HAVE NO IDEA HOW BONNIE DIDN’T DECK HIM RIGHT THERE. Not to call him out, but my boyfriend does this whenever I get worked up, and I’ve warned him, next time he tells me to relax, he’s getting hit. I literally read Damon’s “relax” in my bf’s voice, and I got so irritated. (Great job). I THINK YOU MEAN YOUR FIANCÉ WHHHAAAATTTTTT

“Your blood type was ‘tequila’.”

“Does that bother you” / “Not as much as it bothers you” OOOO GIRL EXPOSE HIM YAS another line I hoped packed a punch.

“Cat, is he lying?” lol when do they actually name her Never.

“Casually vibrant and loose” reminds me of sunshine for some reason. Sunshiny Caroline is my fav.

“Bonnie’s Caroline. Spirited. Brassy… A hell-raiser with a sparkling stare and a laugh like a bell.” Stefan, babe, stop.

“Badgering the witness!” LOL I’m using this in b&b, you’ve been warned, bye DO IT.

“Memory Lane was closed.”/ “Detour to Platonic Avenue”: good, good, keep it up. I love how they end up talking about it anyways? And it’s lowkey a daroline convo, but without a doubt, Damon would flirt it up, and it’d probably end in more sex, but these two goofballs I swear: “Told you I was the class skank” and “it takes years of training” but also “No room left behind” “Nothing is good enough to make me forget about how much I hate heights” / “I am” OH SHIT IT’S GETTIN’ HOT IN HERE. But also????? Excellent example of what I was saying (re: daroline convo); Caroline lapsed into her natural, flirty confidence, not even realizing GIRL HOW AREN’T YOU REALIZING how something so saucy, that would naturally turn on Stefan, can’t be said so casually. HAHAHA honestly as I was writing that I was like ‘careful what you wish for steffy bear’ because like you said, that is natural Caroline. She’s confident, flirty, vibrant, etc, and if Stefan was already falling for the prickly, self-preserving version, how did he expect to survive this one, you know? I don’t approve of these characters’ dumb ass decisions I just write them.

“You’re Lawyer Dangerous-ing me, aren’t you?” and “Wow, I ruined you.” Love it. I feel like Kol pulled this shit on Caroline, and she lowkey trusts her brother, so she fell for things like this all the time. LOOOL Kol’s such a menace.

“You didn’t think you were Buttercup, did you?” / “That’s embarrassing”: I love sma Stefan so much. I liked tvd at one time, but that’s for another day lololol we’ve discussed this.

“Ugh, montage love” I’m sorry Gabi, are you in sma too? ya know every now and then I have to insert my frustration with how dumb everyone is.

“Was it real if the sun started to fade after a few years? Was it real if the gravity weakened and he had to struggle to stay in her atmosphere? Was it real if another planet got pulled in, too, one he could never see because it was always on the exact opposite side of her, moving in tandem with him, eclipsed by her glow?” Shit, girl. Like, go home already. Gah, thanks love. Another case of ‘pause. Think. You can do better.’ I’m telling you, you just have to roll with it!

“I don’t regret a second of that” oh Stefan, you lovesick fool

“I’m like a human Bermuda Triangle” love

“Just give him the Disney Prince look” and the process of him going through it, and him being like, “This is just my face” I’m dead.

“Danger Zone” lmfaoooooo, followed by “Whatever, Piss Pants”. Sounds like a classic Caroline x Kol moment Honestly, it was so nice to write them just having an easy convo, lololol. And TOTALLY a Care x Kol type exchange. Oh, Kol. I can’t wait to write him over the Christmas chapter(s).

“Bonnie knew the ball was in her court to be the bigger person” to “…they all made her feel caught between telling him that everything was going to be okay and asking him if he wanted a gold fucking star.”/ “Unfortunately, the latter seemed to be winning out.” Okay, so I have to admit this: this “petty, four-year-old” Bamon is a little shamefully like me and my boyfriend. We’re like the diluted version of bamon in this fic. I’m the nerd/caring one, my bf is the cynical/well-read one, and we’re both petty af, and our form of affection is kinda like bamon’s back-and-forth. I mean, we’re not as fucked up at all, but idk, I see parts of our relationship in bamon, which is why they are otp does that mean I think ryan and I otp? maybe but I don’t like being gross. Anyways… FIANCÉ RYAN. CASS IS GETTING MARRIED Y’ALL. I OTP YOU GUYS ENOUGH FOR THE BOTH OF US SO IT’S FINE.

“Must be depressing” / “Don’t worry about it” / “Just means it doesn’t matter” / “Because isn’t that the human way?” Ooooo this shit boils my blood this is the kind of crap ryan pulls sometimes omg but moreover, this baiting thing is so aggravating. Say what you want to say and be done with it! WEDDING BELLS AND RIIIINNNIIINNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG LMAO literally any mention of you and Ryan’s going to bring that response out of me bye

“I mean, didn’t you tell me last night that your biggest fear is that something’s wrong with you and it’s only a matter of time before everyone else figures it out?” and Bonnie’s internal monologue “her head was caught in a hum as she tried to shake off the burn of hearing her biggest insecurity thrown in her face, casual, smug”. I got to admit, Gab, you really know how to write ‘em. Like I was literally hanging on every sentence like oh. My. GOD. DAMON WENT THERE.

Side Note: this whole scene had me all sorts of fucked up, and like damn girl, you really know how to write ‘em. Like I felt for Bonnie. Not in a personal way, but like having someone just throw your deepest fear in your face? Someone who you were just warming up to? Like shit.

GIRL thanks so much, that scene definitely took some tweaking. I always stress about those moments because it takes me so long to get a sense for exactly what kind of mood I built (cause I’m almost like… already in the mood when I start writing it so I don’t actually know if I built it or not? Like if someone who wasn’t me would feel it through the writing alone? Does that make sense? I always try to explain this and fail). But anyway, gah, so glad this pulled you in. Like it’s one thing to try and be funny and fail at it (my life) but for some reason it’s way more nerve-wracking to me to try and be dramatic/intense and fail at it.

Kai’s crème-bru-yay is like opening Pinterest and seeing the first promoted post lol.

Damon’s “would it kill you to stay for one dessert” and her “it might kill you”, which I translated to “I might kill you, you fucker” Exactly what it meant.

The Bon/Kid talk. Nice. I love how it parallels to the Care/Stef talk earlier (dunno if you did this on purpose?) Nope, but I’m going to pretend I’m put-together enough of an author to do things like that and say of course.

“I don’t even know what your vulnerabilities are, Damon!” Have you read Lee’s “Parachute” bamon fic. Damon asks, “Do I ever say anything I don’t mean?” and Bonnie says something like Uh yeah, you say whatever will bother people the most. That. That is so true, and I didn’t realize it until I read it in her fic. Noooo, I haven’t, but now I really need to!

He was a friggin’ serial killer and they’d played right into his game Jesus fucking Christ they were all going to di—I love how off the rails Bonnie’s thoughts are. Like she’s stilly lowkey pissy at Damon, but at the same time, she’s like we’re gonna die. LOL that’s why Bonnie’s the easiest for me to write, because I too am often balancing serious emotions with cracky off-the-rails thoughts.

“I’m sorry but what the everloving fuck, dude?” So, first, amazing line lmfao; second, amazing scene, my friend. Damon, somehow, talking Kai down? Like who would have thought? “Not a good look, man.” I’m dead.

Jk that line is getting it’s own number. Just reading it makes me think that Damon must’ve said something like this to Tyler. Must have. Like, maybe Tyler’s talking about how he got into a fight at school, or maybe about how he screwed things up with a girl—idk idc, big brother!Damon is a good look. Toootally! I was 100% channeling big bro!Damon there, and I definitely hoped people would connect it back to Tyler. Tyler’s just someone that Damon wants better for, you know? Like him and Katherine take him along on their wild rides but like I said earlier, Damon definitely doesn’t want him to live the same kind of life or make the same kind of mistakes/sacrifices he’s made. So I can totally see him steering him off that path if he senses him heading down it. And just in general, so happy you liked that scene. It was one of the scenes I was most pumped for ‘cause I live for feels, and I thought it showed really cute sides of both Damon and Kai.

Kai’s fun fact about Dante, and Damon’s plain, “Bummer” lol.

Kai’s “Did you mean what you said earlier…thinking I was cool…?” I seriously don’t know how you made a serial killer adorable but how dare you :D

“Boyish, almost, like he was some angsty teen she’d walked in on listening to Britney Spears”, oops you did it again I’m hilarious my friend, you played with my heart for fantastic similes. Like, this one just epitomizes what you wanted it to, this sheepish, caught-in-the-moment-of-a-good-deed kinda thing. Like, Gabi, stop Yeeeesssss that was exactly what I wanted to get across but I wasn’t sure I got it across so YAY. Goes to show you. You never think that of your own stuff. Idk why this review response is turning into a giant PSA on cutting yourself some slack with your own writing but CUT YOURSELF SOME SLACK WITH YOUR OWN WRITING PEOPLE.

‘you are so much more than you think you are, you piece of shit’—see, that’s my kind of “terms of endearment”. LOL mine too.

Caroline vs. Cat, illustrated by “Are you trying to die?” is very much like me vs. a cat except I’m super allergic, so I’m doing the dying LOOOOOL love ya, Cas.

“Stefan!” She blustered out of her room with a scowl, padding down the hallway in Bonnie’s too-small Gryffindor slippers. First off, Caroline calling Stefan. Secondly, Caroline calling Stefan to be a meditator between her and the cat. Thirdly, why does Bonnie had Gryffindor slippers if she is clearly (eh) Hufflepuff (she could easily be Ravenclaw tbh). LMAO so I made them Hufflepuff at first and then I remembered Bonnie had a Gryffindor shirt and I thought it’d be funny for her to just randomly have paraphernalia from every house because she can’t decide who she is and goes through phases where she’s super convinced she’s one house and then it changes a few months later.

“Tide of amusement”/ “Wash of endearment”: teach me your wayssss I read that as ‘teach me your waaaavvveeesss’ we’re both hilarious

“Saint Stefan”: I really like (and appreciate) that Caroline is the one calling him this. That it’s not some jealous brother, but some girl who blatantly misunderstood him and is coming to the conclusion that maybe this savior complex isn’t as bad/ingrained as she thought. Honestly even just reading ‘jealous brother’ gave me such TVD PTSD. Gross. I’m with ya, girl.

Stefan’s advice, “Dazzle him with that Rebekah charm” literally is the most Dad thing I’ve ever seen lmao

“Demon.” / “Demons everywhere.” Lolololololol

“Do your thing. Give me the sisterhood spiel or whatever Hallmark collection it was you were planning on plagiarizing.” Well shit. I’d probably pay to hear Damon and Rebekah’s verbal sparring. LMAO Damon vs. Rebekah would be amazing. I feel like they’d be fast friends, which makes me laugh because Kol would totally idolize Damon and yet him and Rebekah would loathe each other.

“But more importantly… Tiffany will be social media stalking you every inch of the way, seething with jealousy, so take a lot of pictures.” I love how she gives the realest advice, and then brings it to Rebekah’s level lol. I feel like big sister!Caroline is something we were deprived of and didn’t know it. Hahaha you know Rebekah would totally ignore that shit if it didn’t circle back to making her nemesis miserable. But sister!Caroline is definitely something I want to do more of, so I’m so happy you liked that side. Christmas time will give her and Kol some quality time (and Mama Liz!)

“I’m going to need some tea,” she says lmao.

Oh this is the thing I was talking about when I referred to Lee’s fic: “he’d know before he’d even opened his mouth that he was going to hate what came out” and “why the hell had he even gone there? He could’ve just told her he needed space”. Very similar. You guys had the same revelation. That’s rad - I definitely have to go read her fic. Lee’s writing is always brilliant.

“Unfortunately, the hole he’d just managed to dig himself into had an echo, and the only sound in it was the disbelieving crack in Bonnie’s voice when she’d confronted him about bring up her parents.” Right in the heart.

“But maybe she thought he was a megadouche” he cares what she thinks! “Maybe she was waiting for him to prove that he wasn’t.”

“You missed a spot” / “A harsh spray of water cut him off from the pull-out faucet she’d shot straight at him”—if this petty shit isn’t me & ryan CAS AND RYAN ARE GETTING MARRIEDDDDDDDDDD

“And mean.” I love that tack on, it’s so childish, but epitomizes how she can’t even stay mad at him. “Very, very mean.” Their childish bits are my favorite parts to write. It’s in full-swing in 17.

“I just had a really shitty week last week.” Oooo glimpse into the past. Like Bonnie’s with the Enzo/Klaus mention. More of that ahead!

“And don’t stop calling me kid.” / “It’s cute and I like it.” Can they just kiss and be together already omg You would think but everyone in this story is stupid.

“And he was struck by the most bizarre impulse to kiss her” see, even Damon knows!!!!

The “pep rally” / “I was actually a cheerleader for a bit in college” convo. Classic Bamon

“Try not to do anything secretly heroic while I’m gone.”

“Maybe he was allergic to pep” / “maybe he was high on it” Damon and Bonnie sitting in a tree… D-E-N-Y-I-N-G

THE ALMOST STEROLINE NAME DROP I WAS ACTUALLY GRINNING LIKE A MORON WHEN I READ THIS MUAHAHA it was so stupid and I cackled writing it.

“I think I need to talk about Matt”/ “And I think you should probably tell me about Elena”. What? Caroline Forbes is talking about exes? Is doing something healthy that’ll further her relationship with Stefan? THERE IS SO MUCH PRIDE IN MY HEART – Also, I think this was a great way to end the chapter ‘cause it’s super cliffhanger and also super like a tvd episode, you know? Great, excellent, fantastic job! RIGHT? LOOK AT HER GO! She’s ready to confront some things! And because I took six months to reply to this and have the benefit of actually having the scene written now, I can tell you that she’s really going there. Saying things she’s never said out loud. It’s a hard scene for her. But she’s determined. So it makes me so happy that you’re proud of her (I’m proud of her!), and hopefully the next chapter will make it a little clearer why she is the way she is (and why it took her this long to get there). Also, YAY for show-like endings! You know that’s what I’m going for ;) TBH that’s a large reason why the chapters have gotten so long - I want like a whole episode in a chapter with a beginning, middle, and end, and I want them to set up a story for the next one, and for four central characters that usually ends up taking me about 8-10 scenes, loool. So I’m glad you like it that way, too ;)

Okay, so this is longer than I hoped, but I’m sure you won’t mind. Take your mind off med school, off the whole moving thing. Anyways, thanks a bazillion for being this awesome author that interacts with her audience, who puts at least 1000% percent into this fic when, really, you don’t gotta, and ya know… thanks for fulfilling the need everyone has seen tvd died (there were only 6 seasons right?)

Definitely only six seasons. And girl, psh, thank you for making all of the things you listed above worth it. Seriously. You guys make writing this story a legitimate joy - I literally have you in mind when I write. I anticipate who’s going to like what. Whose going to have a problem with what. And it makes me a better writer. Seriously. Anyway, you’re as lovely and witty and talented and kind and weird and wonderful as ever and I expect detailed updates on you and Ryan’s royal wedding every week and NEVER EVER APOLOGIZE AGAIN FOR WRITING A LONG REVIEW WHO ARE YOU KIDDING YOU’RE MY SUN AND I’VE SAID THIS BEFORE BUT I’LL SAY IT AGAIN IT TAKES ME FOREVER TO RESPOND BECAUSE I LEGIT CAN’T THINK OF A REPLY THAT’S WORTHY SOOOOO THANKS FOR MAKING MY LIFE K BYEEEEE

#reply #review #six mornings after #16 #cassie's review #that's going to be a tag #because it deserves its own tag #anyway here you all go you're welcome for bringing cas into your life #meta #submission

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