#the worst thing anime does is make characters all look older than they are

[zukkaoru]

[ID: an illustration from the Bungou Stray Dogs Manga that shows Dazai and Chuuya. they are being led opposite directions - Chuuya to the left by Kouyou and Dazai to the right by Mori - but they look back towards each other. Chuuya frowns, eyebrows furrowed. he holds his hat in his hands. Dazai is using a crutch, as one leg is in a cast, and he is also frowning. both Chuuya and Dazai are short enough that their heads are not quite level with Kouyou and Mori's shoulders, respectively. Mori and Kouyou's faces have been cropped out of the image. /End ID.]

flinging myself into the sun oh my god they're actual children

[proshipconfessions]

i think the worst part about this whole anti vs proship discourse is the way it damages the minds of so many kids and teens

there are teens as young as 13 on tiktok unironically asking if having a crush on an anime character that does not age while they do makes them a pedophile....

and that's the scariest part!!!! kids and teens shouldn't be thinking about these kinds of things!!! they should be focused on their schoolwork and homework and making friends and connections!!! not worrying themselves to death questioning if they are a pedophile because they have a crush on an anime character who is 2 years younger than them

i really hope these kids one day look back on this when they're much older and realize how pointless all this was and how calling themselves an anti only ended up making them more miserable in the long run (but them again ive seen antis as old as 35 so im not holding my breath....)

———

[edennill]

If Tolkien characters had Tumblr blogs part 2:

part 1

Finduilas:

url: waitingtothewind

pfp: drawing of a fictional crush in pastel colours (babygirl fulfills her royal duty to exercise patronage over artists by comissioning reams of fanart lol)

bio: ✧˖･* princess finduilas of nargothrond :) ✧˖･* 47 ✧˖･* poetry appreciator ✧˖･* romantic at heart ✧˖･* girl of many fandoms ✧˖･* favourite animal: doggos ✧˖･* favourite food: strawberry juice ✧˖･* and if I had a voice that could make mountains melt I would walk over stars just to see how it felt ✧˖･*

title: ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

has a very pink custom theme with a fancy font. runs a fandom/aesthetic blog and stays clear of discourse. writes really good meta that is quite popular and poems that get notes in the single digits. doesn't really know how to deal with anon hate. participates in every tag game she comes across.

Maeglin:

url: keeps changing it between @molelol and @twilitdark because he likes small animals, but wants to sound edgy.

pfp: keeps changing it between a baby mole and the kind of very dark photo where you can't really see what it's supposed to be.

bio: M / not a minor

title: the dark under the trees

guards his personal info incredibly closely (a good practice, but how much of it is due to his father having been so controlling that he learned secrecy early on is up for discussion). rarely posts, mostly reblogs photos and shitposts. vaguely vents about his idril/tuor/gondolin/treason problems. when he gets into discussions with people he can be uncomfortably fierce, has sent anon hate on occasion.

Celebrimbor:

url: craftingsilver

pfp: red eight pointed star (default variation, not technically fëanorian) on yellow background

bio: older/younger than you think | look I've seen the Trees that's enough | Noldorin jewelsmith | male

title: time and soul, wrought and tempered

mostly posts and reblogs crafting tiktoks and tips, sometimes adds a dash of science, philosophy or something personal. has made a resolution to filter out any posts pertaining to his family on his dashboard and keeps to it almost till the end. shows a strong sense of humour and has gathered quite a following.

Idril:

url: celebrin-does-things

pfp: blurred photo of her with her back to the camera

bio: 500s - architect, wife and mother - everyone is welcome

title: "ammë, there's winter in my boots"

started off as a miscellaneous blog, but shifted to being mostly about Eärendil's shenanigans. she vaguely vents about maeglin/gondolin/cousin's treason sometimes, but still comes off as way more laid back than irl. hardly used her tumblr before her son was born and still treats it mostly as a place to document things he has said + a way to talk with like three treasured mutuals. the architect part in bio is mostly a ruse because she has only ever completed one or two projects but can hardly reveal she's a princess, can she? (before the fall of nargothrond if she got on tumblr it was to nag Finduilas to remove her personal info from bio hah)

@eri-pl, this is in part because you asked (a while ago, sorry), though I'm afraid I don't have much to say about all your suggestions. I prefer not to get into Sauron's headspace actually, but the idea of him having access to social media is horrifying lol. And Pharazon has all the worst characteristics of Reddit atheists, non-ironic modern white supremacists and racist trolls rolled into one with the added horror of the new unsavoury state cult. Míriel is not allowed a sim card🙁😬

also I'm just now realising I tagged a compatriot in something I wrote at 3 am so if you have time stamps on you now know my messed up sleep schedule and if you don't I've just told you lol but never mind.

[sofipitch]

Interview with the Vampire first draft trivia

I've been meaning to make this post for a while now so I'm doing it. The Vampire Companion is a reference book for the Vampire Chronicles made in collaboration with Anne Rice. It is basically the VC wiki in book form from the 90s but with analysis of lots of themes and symbolism (there's entries for literally anything got even a passing mention in the series, and example of entries on one page chose at random are " adventure, Aegean sea, aesthetic choice" with multiple paragraphs each I shit you not like the "Aegean sea" entry explains it is basically just mentioned in passing it is COMPREHENSIVE. It also famously has an entry for penis/phallus (none for vagina or vulva tho booo). This book features a lot of analysis of VC and it's themes and it is legit some of the worst analysis I've ever seen. A lot of it is in the Freudian mindset/style which *Kubrick stares in psychology student*. It also just reflects a lot of the opinions Anne Rice had about her characters she had in the 90s, the entry on Louis really shows she hates him.

HOWEVER The Vampire Companion has one really cool feature and that is that it mentions things that were in the first draft of IWTV which was later removed. I love this kind of trivia, I love reading the IMDB trivia for these kinds of facts, so I'm collecting them all here in this post:

Lestat was supposed to die in the fire at Rue Royale. When he comes back from the swamp it was originally his last appearance and even then when they meet the Nosferatu/zombie-like vampires of Eastern Europe Louis concludes that the murder attempt left Lestat like those vampires, literally an animated corpse when he came back from the swamp and to Louis, whether Lestat survived the fire or not, Lestat is dead

Lestat's original backstory in IWTV is that Lestat was a poet as a boy. I'm just transcribing this part bc I love it so much: "....it was his poetry full of dreams and longings, that endeared Louis to him. When Louis tries to get Lestat to talk about his poetry, Lestat curtly dismisses it, as if he views it as an idealistic boy's worthless fancies." T_T I think about this part a lot and I kind of wish this part had not been removed but given that Lestat was originally based on Anne's husband Stan who was a poet, she probably removed it for personal reasons.

Rice had originally planned for Louis's tone in IWTV to be similar to that of Oscar Wilde but it changed when she changed from the POV of Daniel (1st draft) to Louis (final version). As annoying as the constant quotation marks are in IWTV, I think nonstop "the vampire said___" would have been worse

The reporter says that Louis looks to be around 35 instead of the final 25

When in Paris Louis and Claudia both accidently run into a random vampire and he runs away scared, Louis and Claudia then make themselves more obvious as vampires to attract the others to them

One evening they come home and a whole bunch of vampires are in their flat, and they take them to a rotting mansion with older human servants who are hoping to be turned into vampires. There they finally meet Armand

The vampires then get together in a room and recite Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal" and then a blonde woman is brought in, begging for her life, and she is passed around as they drink from her. Louis is horrified but drinks from her, and then Armand takes Louis to his bedroom where a woman is asleep on the bed and Louis crawls into the bed and drinks from her, killing her in her sleep

The group of vampires have more strict rules than the theater ones seem to described as loving conformity, abhor wasted opportunities, and constantly provoking each other into dares and challenges (vampire Jackass). Louis doesn't like the vampires but Claudia joins them, dressing in all black, dies her hair white, and befriends 3 brothers and has fun tormenting priests

In the original version of IWTV Claudia goes off with three vampire brothers she meets in Paris and does not die (I think Claudia leaving and meeting Bruce in the AMC show might have been an allusion to this). However AR claims she experienced "psychological difficulties" (the book's phrasing not mine) until she rewrote the ending where Claudia dies. Having Louis grieve Claudia was cathartic for her

When the vampires learn that Claudia killed Lestat they think his death was just and no punishment is required XD

Louis finally leaves not fitting in and Armand chases after him, asking why he left and then leaves the others for Louis. He also tells Louis his backstory (which is never revealed in IWTV)

In the original draft of IWTV Claudia is described as 3 or 4 instead of 5

Anne Rice did not originally realize that Claudia, the 5 year old who can never die, was a projection of her own desire for her daughter who died at 5. She originally saw Claudia as a way to talk about how women can be infantilized or considered inferior to men, by making the way women can be treated (not intelligent, not strong, not rational) physical in the form of a child

AR did use Michelle's (her daughter's) physical appearance, blond hair and blue eyes for describing Claudia, but again, denies that she was aware of a deeper significance at the time, but says it made a lot of sense later. However Claudia's personality is not based on Michelle (which makes sense bc we mostly see an adult Claudia in the book and movie and Michelle died at 5)

AR originally planned for Armand to be a central figure and villain in Queen of the Damned but decided he wasn't evil enough (I think this is cute)

Armand was completely different. He is described as innocent and angelic and in his twenties (However the final version of IWTV simply describes him as young, being 17 was added later and I personally always see him as early 20s bc of how I pictured him reading IWTV)

Armand was originally only from Venice, not Kiev, son of a guilder and later living with his maker for over a century (similar to what we learn in TVL and TVA but not nearly as dark, no sex trafficking or pedophilia)

Louis and Armand originally genuinely have a good relationship, traveling the world together after leaving Paris, and at one point Louis convinces him finally that vampires are inherently evil, he offers to go into the sun with Louis T_T However Louis cannot bring himself to do that so he adopts Armand's morals

Armand shows Louis a way to humanely kill and drink, by identifying "Those Who Want To Die" and Louis describes going to a cemetery and finding the mother of a child who had passed doesn't want to live anymore and Armand gently kills her. However Louis decides he simply likes it better when is victims fight back

The original ending of IWTV is Louis mentions that he hates going back to New Orleans because it was where he met his mortal love, but he never elaborates on who this was. (??? Anne???) As the interview ends around there Daniel notices the sun coming up and starts backing out of the room while Louis keeps talking because he was still afraid of Louis eating him. XD Louis finally realizes what was going on when Daniel makes it all the way to his car XD and is angry with him and asks for the tapes back. Armand arrives and says Daniel should have the tapes, that what Louis really wants is the tale to be public. Louis and Armand get in a cab and ride off into the night together (I also wonder if the end of s1 being Louis and Armand holding hands in front of Daniel is an allusion to this)

AR also points out that the book has large tonal differences, she wondered if it was an issue but then decided she liked it, saying Louis is a cynical cold person who warms up and then grows cold again throughout the novel. This character arc was never intentional though

Anne Rice says two main inspirations for IWTV are Richard Matheson's "Dress of White Silk" which is from the POV of a child vampire, and the movie "Dracula's Daughter" which had a tragic and sensual vampire.

The original IWTV short story (which you can still read) is very different, the vampire is not like Louis but based on Oscar Wilde, she intended the tone to be ironic and witty. The vampire enjoys killing and tells the reporter that, and like in the books says "the room the interview is in is just a room" but at the end reveals he is waiting for the occupant to come home so he can kill him, and the reporter runs away frightened. Lestat does not really exist other than as a nameless maker and Claudia and Armand also do not exist

The Vampire Companion does not really have "first draft" comments on any of the other books (only the first 4 had been out when it was published). I imagine it is because an author's first book is usually subjected to more edits and rewrites while they are struggling to get it published, but once the foot is in the door you don't have to do that as much (and AR took this a step further with firing her editor after becoming a NYT bestseller!).

However there were a few things about characters who appear later which I found interesting:

In the Daniel entry she says she wanted to explore Armand and Daniel's relationship more in future books, which we know she never does :(

Gabrielle was deliberately based on AR's own mother. Her mother was a feminist activist, often making AR feel like her mother paid more attention to her activism than to her, which mirrors Lestat wishing Gabrielle would teach him to read so he can enjoy the escapism. However both Gabrielle and AR's mother were unhappy in their domestic motherly roles, which is reflected in Gabrielle. AR's mother was also an alcoholic and died when AR was young of complications due to alcoholism. AR deliberately wrote Lestat saving his mother from death by making her a vampire, and Gabrielle being freed from the expectations of her gender as a wish she could have done the same with her mother T_T

David is also meant to be her father, he was dying due to some heart disease at the time she wrote TOTBT (he was not actually dead yet but I think was by the time she published or shortly after) and David is described as dying due to similar causes. So she wrote once again one of her parents not dying but becoming immortal. TOTBT is also much darker compared to TVL and QOTD, the previous two Lestat narrated books, and her grief helps explain why (but also "AR pls go to therapy" challenge)

I also find this excerpt on Anne Rice projecting onto Lestat interesting bc this is VERY similar to what Gabrielle says to Lestat: "As a writer I put myself into Lestat much more deeply than I had put myself into Louis because I was dealing with aggression in Lestat, and dealing with my own repressions. Lestat was my male hero who could do what I couldn't. I wanted to get out of the mindset of the passive grieving person [from when she was writing IWTV]." :/

[saccharinescorpion]

Sorry OP, feel free to ignore this ask but I need more context. I watched a playthrough of the dlcs, and I'm now checking the wiki, and the reactions to your post really confuse me. Why are people talking about Carmine as if she's this awful person. People are talking about Carmine like she is constantly bullying and belittling her brother??? When she actually goes out of her way to try to not make him feel bad??? Which is really hard because Kieran has a lot of insecurities and it leads him to assume people want the worst for him???

Am I missing something? Is there a secret subtext of "Carmine is actually really mean to her brother behind our back and that's why he's Like That" I missed or are people just making stuff up?

lol, i think you've understood more than most people who've played the game

now, to be fair to those people: Carmine REALLY does have an attitude problem, as well as a terrible temper lol (but that's what makes her so entertaining!... in my opinion) and since Kieran is the character she interacts with the most that's who has to bear the worst of her bad traits, especially when he pushes back at her. in addition, Carmine is the older sibling, so i think we have a natural instinct to side with or at least feel sympathetic towards Kieran since we see him as the "weaker" party in the dynamic. their designs and animation only reinforce this- Carmine is tall and has a lot of aggressive body language and poses. meanwhile, Kieran is introduced peeking out from behind his sister, like he's literally hiding behind her. he's short, hides under his hair, has a lot of more drawn-in body language, he's a scrunky scrimblo wimbo meow meow wet little so on and so on

so, for the record, i think it is by at least some design that we are meant to "root" for Kieran, but i think that also ignores a lot of more subtle writing- "subtle," i say, but in my opinion, it's pretty obvious, lmao. Pokemon is a series for children. but yeah, the big one is that after time it becomes really apparent that a lot of Carmine's attitude is born out of deeper things- she's harsh and kind of controling towards Kieran in a misguided display of her protectiveness towards him, her hostility towards visitors to Kitakami is born of a worry of tourists turning their home into some sort of attraction

this is dipping into headcanon territory, but i think it's also a little subtextual that Carmine's overblown pride is her trying to overcompensate for what she inteprets as being looked down on or mocked. my big thing for this is the fact that Kieran speaks with a "Kitakami dialect" (based on real Japanese dialects associated with rural areas) but Carmine doesn't. (supposedly there's some random dialogue where she talks about this but i haven't seen it myself yet) since Carmine has been at the (ritzy, attended by a lot of students from important families) Academy longer than Kieran, i've always interpreted this as her trying to intentionally not be the kid from the sticks that talks in an "uncool" way

(incidentally i looked up 'Kieran dialect' and found someone else talking about this https://twitter.com/PokeSuutamie/status/1698625784775430234)

and finally- this may just me speaking from experience- but i always thought that a lot of Carmine and Kieran's issues clearly are really heightened by the fact they're teenagers? lol? puberty dials all your emotions up to 110% and smashes all delicacy with a sledgehammer. Carmine is TRYING to help Kieran but all of her feelings are constantly at a boil. and meanwhile, as you said, Kieran's self-esteem issues constantly lead him to project on other people and assume that everyone's mocking him or looking down at him, and i think that makes people forget that he has problems with being overdramatic and lashing out too (THIS IS NOT ME SAYING KIERAN IS A BAD CHARACTER DON'T YELL AT ME)

and for the record, as much as i love Carmine, i think that GF really dropped the ball on her reconcilliation with Kieran and her overall role in Indigo Disk, which may also be a factor in players being less sympathtic to her, but i already spent way too long on this and talking about my mixed feelings on Indigo Disk will probably double this post's length lol

in short, while i have some mixed feelings on Scarlet/Violet's overall story, i definitely can't say the character writing is bad. i think they're really making an effort to think about why each character acts the way they do and what they're actually thinking/trying to do. so i think we players should, in turn, approach them with the nuance they deserve

[crookedkingdomruinedme]

Kimchay in Hogwarts <3

Yes, I'm still stuck on my fic but here's a Kimchay Hogwarts AU.

Like I said in my last post, Kim's a Slytherin in a house full of Gryffindors (straight parallel to Sirius, who was a Gryffindor in a house of Slytherins) and Porchay is a Hufflepuff, just like his brother.

To make all characters fit in, let's just pretend that Kim's only a year older than Chay but they're in the same year as Kim rolled in late. So, both of them are in their 5th year. Chay's 15 while Kim just turned 16.

Kim's the lone wolf of 5th year. (Inspired by Regulus Black my beloved) and doesn't really interact much with anyone. Dubbed the Ice Prince due to his stunning looks but his cold face, he mostly stays to himself with his nose stuck in a book and does his things without bothering anyone. He's, obviously, a star here as well for his music, but it's always uploaded anonymously, and so far no one knows who actually Wik is. So yeah, he's more than a bit touch starved and very bad at actual student social interaction. He doesn't even talk to his brother/s at school at all due to the constant rivalry between Gryffindors and Slytherins (never mind the fact that he thinks Kinn doesn't even want to talk to him after his sorting). Vegas, for the most part, leaves him alone unless there are some "joint jobs" to do with Kim. Macau, being the annoying cousin he is, always seems to stick to Kim and disrupt his peace. But that's all anyone sees on the surface.

Porchay's the sunshine of 5th-year students. A chill guy who's fun to hang out with and never judging. Everyone knows him or has at least heard of him (just like everyone knows Kim but for exactly different reasons). He's famous for his kind personality and acceptance of all things weird(TM). He's comfortable with his sexuality and is a great help to students who just want to explore or talk about their gender/sexuality issues to someone other than an adult. An absolute Wik fan and always daydreaming about who the person could actually be. So yeah, he's comfortable in his lanky form, has a cool brother who's also a pain in his arse, helps around at the herbology garden whenever he can, and is a good tutor, even if he is not that extraordinary at studies. The other students are kind of freaked out by the two brothers. It's like they have twin telepathy with the way they understand each other by just looks.

Anygays, That's their background in the school.

Kim's a straight-A student, obviously. He's an extraordinarily strong wizard, being able to do a variety of spells that someone of his age shouldn't be able to. This just adds to the rumors that already surround him though, about how he's secretly a dark magic practice and stuff. He's on top of the class by a mile to the other students, untouchable even in his studies. The one class he thrives the most is Defense Against Dark Arts, it's as if he was born to do it. Ironic considering his overall image at school.

But of course, every smart student faces a challenge in at least one class, and for him it's Herbology. Even though animals absolutely adore him, it's as if these plants can't even look in his direction. It's frustrating him to no end. He's mad at himself too, how can a few plants hate him with such an intensity that they won't even come near his hands???

It's bad for his OWLs too, which he's already stressed enough about it as it is, he doesn't need saplings adding to it. He needs to pass this class damn it!

The worst part is that no one's willing to help him. He doesn't really have anyone to ask for help. He's 100% sure Kinn would walk the other way if he even comes close to him (he already averts his eyes whenever they see each other anyway). Macau's just as shit as him in caring for anything, no matter alive or not. Vegas doesn't even take these classes, and even if he did, Kim wouldn't go near him with a ten-foot pole. It's not really as if he has any friends, with students always walking the other way if he so much as comes close to them. And he gets it, okay? He absolutely does. He wouldn't go near himself if he could, either. But this also means he's stuck without any help and he's scared of falling behind in his classes and what Papa would do if he failed one.

Enter Porchay, An absolute god at Herbology but horrendously lacking in his Defence against Dark Arts skills. He also wants to pass OWLs with flying colors, if only to help his brother and make him proud. After all, Porsche passed with one of the highest scores of his age, and who is Porchay if not competitive?

It starts one evening when Porchay's helping Professor Sprout with arranging the new batch of seeds needed for the second semester when he sees Kim, sitting in one of the greenhouses and looking at a book with such fury Porchay was scared that it might just catch fire.

Of course, Porchay recognized him. Kimhan Theerapanyakul is a mystery to everyone in Hogwarts. A kid that didn't speak much but always seemed to look superior to anyone. Porchay has seen him around the school, and even shares a few classes with him, but has never talked to him. He's beautiful, Porchay thinks, vastly different from his two older Gryffindor brothers.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he asks Professor Sprout what Kim's doing here, to which she sighs and tells him how that kid just won't give up on this class even though he's on the verge of failing.

And hey, Porchay can respect a stubborn person with enough fire to keep going. It's when the professor goes on to say how he's got more than enough points from his DADA classes that a light bulb goes off in his head.

Porchay's always been a bit reckless, a trait shared between both the Kittiswat brothers. He knows and has heard about the different rumors surrounding the other boy, ranging from curious to borderline disturbing, but will he listen to them? No. He likes to make observations on people by himself, something that will eventually be his downfall, but for now, it's that curiousness that pushes him forward to stand behind the green-clad boy and tap his shoulders.

He interestingly notes how Kim didn't even flinch at the sudden contact but simply looks at him with an eyebrow raised.

For now, Porchay extends his right hand out for a handshake, smiles brightly, and says, "Hello, I'm Porchay, and I'd love for you to be my DADA tutor"

[castellla]

ok but fr kikuri is my fave because

1: same hat - i too, am 30something and on substances For Reasons.

the audience is basically handed a diagram that says: why does kikuri drink so much? :( -> oh right, yeah. Capital-and-Other-Isms

2: audience stand in - thank you for laughing at bocchi-chan's faces. wipes tear from eye they are funny

3: best damn mentor for a non-sober person award - look, seika can have the 'responsible person' stuff. who doesn't appreciate a distant, yet loving manager? the kind of person who secretly makes her kid sisters dumb friends 401k's and starts dumping whatever she can in there cause you think they're gonna do it? compounding interest compounds.

not this scrungly oneechan. come to kikuri's awesome boozehouse of fun and mistakes for the 'oh, you're pretty fucked up too! nice lol. like sux actually but Nice throws bocchi-chan a life-saving liferaft like it was nothing (come back here bitch i said i Owe you my Life)

and, well, she's so salazzled all the time that she's running Default Kikuri.OS which seems to be: just a happy lil guy. just here 2 have a good time and help other people have a good time also. if there's swears to be said, she might do it. if there's horny flirty things to be said, or perhaps, senpais to get handsy with...

will there be property damage: yes & it's why i'm worried she's Without a Home :sob: but it's worth noticing none of the property damage was damaged in anger - just like, drunken childlike joy/lack of impulse control. christ, you put a hole in the wall that easy? do you work out? are you on the straight dude workout regimen? ...o-or the not straight girl workout regimen? ...anyway, this does not negate the fact that shit did get broken.

will vomit be vomited: yeah, but in anime it's really funny and i can't smell it. i mean her throat probably hurts like fuck and shes gotta be nauseous tho

will thoughtless comments be commented: yes, but i feel like a villain for saying so!!!! oh well.

but i ask the Perceivers among us to consider what kind of things they last said when drunk - stupid? embarrassing? overly horny? - and remember that she's drunk basically All the fucking time. like all the time. the fact that she manages to say anything BUT the worst shit anyone's ever said out loud is a testament to her character as a human.

seems like the drunker + more rejected feeling she gets = sometimes, the harder in she leans to "keep tapping the skinner box of love until love come out"

Various Content makes her do a brock eyes opening thing to indicate shit's hitting a little different for ol kikuri-neechan

e12 -- bocchi-chan is gonna have a fucking panic attack at the worst possible moment; the dutch angle is kind enough to let us know kikuri saw that happen and gets it. i mean, wtf is she supposed to do from even the front for her, other than hope she'll be okay? thankfully, kita wanted to be a constellation so bad she watched her, saw it about to happen, and shredded to saved bocchi's hide. s-stupid femme beautiful rock princess i love her to death

consider her past; she started drinking to overcome the overwhelming anxiety of stage fright because she had no choice but to play music live for people. bocchi had nicobicobouga (assumed name) because the internet was around - but people older than her just didn't. if you wanted to play, and for people to listen, they'd have to be standing in front of you. yeah, shit sucks, actually. if you perhaps... suffer from social anxiety so badly you couldn't speak to your classmates, but wanted to play music soooo fucking bad because you couldn't imagine a life with you in it otherwise?... what other options did she have? booze is easy to get. especially in japan, and i imagine especially in a music setting. (i am a loser with sensitive ears so have no firsthand knowledge, however.) frankly i want kikuri to get a weed card slash dealer but that's just for me personally as a stoner dyke

she is lightly pushy about offering bocchi - who is of course, underage - alcohol. however, i really doubt it's her intention to do a hey bocchers. wanna WEED? at her: she is probably literally not able to cognitively remember the previous conversation(s) they had about it. she's never taken her 'no im too babey to alcalahol :(' and gone 'lol, sure. PEER PRESSURE, WOOO!' and kegstanded the poor little dweeb against her will.

given how just literally drunk she is and the level of impulse control that typically affords, i have to imagine: in the second in front of her: all she sees is - hey, look who it is! it's ol' bocchi-chan! bocchi-chan who is clearly having a Hard Time Coping. wonder if she wants a drink to chill out! better offer her some so she can have it. hey bocchers wanna Weed

...but the hardest thing about alcohol if you're underage is getting it! so, she offers, but hitori gotoh has the moral compass of a (insert competently-written metaphor - we'll definitely fix it in post!), so she truly seems content with not touching it until she's Of Age. uh, okay, "content" might not be the right word. aside from her own cynical, but not inaccurate mind palace excursions into the possible future that awaits her if she were to start drinking. plenty of people drink underage and don't become alcoholics - bocchi herself just has too much physical anxiety to cope with the thought of something that could have such enormous stakes. for her, the stakes of 'drinking' are social more than anything - she's paralyzed with worry about becoming a disappointment and burden to her loved ones. and she doesn't trust future bocchi to not do that. she sees every road as yet another slippery slope to humiliation and rejection. it is an utterly miserable way to live.

the human brain is wired to comprehend 'social rejection' with 'the threat of death.' for our evolutionary ancestors, not being able to fit in with the group meant getting ditched out in the middle of nowhere, literally left to starve and die alone. this is partly because one of our evolutionary legs-up was our ability to communicate with others, form groups, and cooperate. this is hunter-gatherer level lizard brain shit. it's important because we have to all understand: one way or another, we're all wired this way. it's more complex now, because society and technology have become more complex. but brain-wise? 'oh god, am i saying too much about LIZARDS and CAVEMEN' feels the same to bocchi as 'i was so annoying, even my own family would leave me alone to starve, because i was that permanently, irredeemably loathsome.'

a caveman bocchi-chan would be interesting. unga bunga

on a brain level, this is the fight-flight-freeze response bocchi is experiencing when she has her very funnily animated episodes. is it funny she's doing that? well, sort of... her face is pretty funny. her reaction is pretty funny. her internal experience is that of someone so absolutely petrified with the thought of being 'annoying' that she cannot proceed with her life.

no, she can't make an instagram - haven't you ever seen someone attention whoring so bad, you wanted them to die alone? no? ah, well. what if you thought they deserved to die for the sin of wanting attention? - she has an entire mind palace about it and screams like a broken speaker and all her friends are like 'shit! sorry! won't ask again. we cool?' and shes like 'oh yeah. my bad' and that WORKS, MAN, FOR SOME REASON.

it's nijika. nijika is the key. nijika's the reason kessoku exists. she's so fucking reasonable and normal and responsible and caring and kind. she goes, "excellent slapstick, chums. i shan't blame you all for being Such Big Lesbians All The Time, because i love you for it, but perhaps let's get out of the direct line of public sight, where harmful misunderstandings can occur, and wrap things up as cleanly as we can? no need for shame or angst; i don't need those apologies! ayamaru ga iranai! (would she yoko kanno/maaya sakamoto? huh. not very roccku...) she has her priorities straight.

we know who raised her, so nijika-chan is nijika-chan, but it's silly to pretend there'd be no influence. 'you're suddenly my only family and it's my responsibility to step up and Protect and Raise you right' is a hell of a drug. (seika i starts crying ALSO OWE YOU MY LIFE)

4 hot anime woman - they are free to obsess over without being a lil freak, so that's nice. okay maybe scratch the freak part ive been typing this for way too long for that qualification anymor

5 WHAT DO THOSE SHARK TEETH DO FOR REAL

6 "shinjuku, i LOVE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!" if not the point i fell in love with her, the point i definitely fell more in love with her

[addomfarm-ogf-updates]

Siblings and Questions Tag!

Thanks to @spideronthesun for the tag. (x) I loved getting to read about the absolute Boys for a bit.

I’m going to put the spotlight on Frame (she/her) and Leigh (he/him), since they’re the only siblings I’ve got marked down!

1. Who looks the most like Dad?

Leigh inherited more of their father’s traits than Frame did. Frame’s got his jaw, though.

2. Who looks the most like Mom?

Frame. But they both have their mother’s eyes.

3. Who eats the most?

Leigh. The men are expected to be big and strong. He simply must bulk up.

4. Who has been in the weirdest situations?

Frame has a costume of an in-world fiction character. She puts it on to engage in chicanery. She likes to steal animals and generally be loud while holding onto them.

5. Who sleeps the most?

Frame sleeps for ages and ages. Leigh gets up early to start most days. He’s expected to be sufficiently rested with the minimum number of hours.

6. Most stable romantic life?

Leigh’s had a non-zero amount of crushes in the past, but most recently, he has been set up with a lovely young woman named Trust (she/her), from the nation Estray. She’s served as a great confidant to Leigh, and he offers an aura of stability for her. Frame is another story: While she expresses great enthusiasm for her crushes—who are many—she finds it difficult to hunker down on just one. She wants them all! She does eventually “settle down” on Slate.

7. Worst habit of each one?

Leigh tends to be hard-headed and dismissive of others. He doesn’t like to be told what to do. Trust has softened him up a bit, though. Frame is often single-minded, only considering what she wants and what will make her happy. This makes serious discussion a struggle, pushed further by her distractibility.

8. Who’s the most dramatic?

Leigh can really huff and puff when he’s miffed, but Frame is far more expressive more of the time.

9. Who had a weird phase?

Leigh once had a phase where he tried to eat just about anything that wasn’t food, to prove that he would be fine afterwards because of how powerful his body is. Frame is consistently considered to be weird. Her “weird phase” was a period of several months where she didn’t behave in any remarkable way whatsoever.

10. Best cook of the family?

Leigh is the only one of the two who knows how to cook anything, and it’s mostly meals made of wild animals and plants.

11. Best memory together?

During her “normal phase”, Frame helped Leigh learn how to do a particular dance—The Feather Bridge—for an upcoming Festival of Shucked Husks.

12. Worst memory together?

Frame needed comfort one day. Leigh was unable to provide. He yelled at her. She doesn’t ask him anymore.

13. Dream trip together?

Leigh and Trust ride out with Frame and her partner to a lake. They all drink peachwine and dance and laugh together. Leigh puts on a sword-balancing act for everyone. Trust shares facts about the animals they see.

14. Would you rather not be able to shower for a month or have the same clothes for a month?

Frame would go mad if she only had to wear one outfit for a month. She needs some variety. Leigh’s actually done it before, but that was a particularly bad month for him. He chooses the same as Frame.

15. Who’s the older one?

Leigh.

16. Role model?

Frame looks up to their mother. She wants to be just like her… or rather, have all the things and the love she has. Frame doesn’t know how to actually be like her. Leigh looks up to their grandfather. They didn’t get to see each other when the old man died, but he has fond memories of his grandfather’s stories of conquest. Leigh’s parents always disapproved of grandfather.

17. Who usually has the worst ideas?

Frame has a few cockamamie schemes that end in disaster. She doesn’t consider how it might affect the people around her. Leigh has a worse time planning to accommodate others’ needs. If he’s in charge, he tends to neglect the people he’s working or traveling with.

18. A GIANT insect is on the wall, who’s taking care of it?

Frame would call out for Leigh. He’d say “what” from another room. She’d call out louder this time, and with a touch more urgency. He’d reiterate his point: “What”. He only comes in on the third, loudest “Leigh!” She’d point to the intruder. He’d inquire if her limbs are too broken to take care of it herself. She doesn’t want to touch it. He grabs a cup and sweeps it in. (If Trust is there, she scoops it up as soon as she sees it, and speaks softly to it on their way out.)

Tagging: @apolline-lucy @cowperviolet @sentfromwolves and anyone else who wants to!

[cf56]

Ripping them a new one

What. The. HELL?! I can't even begin to describe the depth of my anger and sorrow right now.

The following profanity-laced rant represents only a fraction of my true feelings on this.

If you don't know what I'm referring to, I'm talking about the line to start episode 8, where Yakko and Dot say, in front of him, that Wakko is the worst sibling and they don't need him. Well, I thought it'd only be a line, but it turns out they did it MULTIPLE TIMES!!!

And then the stupid fucking cop out that feels like it's mocking us for giving a shit.

I was spoiled on this line over a month ago because someone talked about the storyboard leaks in the Animaniacs tag. Reading about it almost killed my fandom. Right there, instantly, my love for Animaniacs came this close to dying. It took me weeks before I felt anywhere close to where I was before in regards to loving this show. Why? Because the main and only reason I remain so attached to Animaniacs is the Warner Siblings' love for each other. What's the point in angst if there was never any love to test? What's the point in fluff if that love is hollow and empty, if it never really existed at all? Now, I'm glad I was spoiled and had time to recover. If I saw this bullshit raw, in the show for the first time, there's no telling what it would have done to me. I might have just stopped watching.

I don't care about Yakko's flimsy cop out. This is not what you say to someone you love. This is not something you say about someone you love, even if they didn't happen to be sitting right there. You realize what these words mean? They think they'd be better off without Wakko. THEIR BELOVED BROTHER. It's not so much that they joked about him dying and coming back. I can excuse that as sibling jabs, even if I would still hate it. It's that Yakko said he's always thought that their act would work better as just him and Dot. No, you didn't always think that. You BETTER not have always thought that.

Wakko has suffered emotional abuse before. He's been paraded around as the least popular sibling, as smelly and uncultured, as a gluttonous pig. Through all of that, what did he always have? His siblings, boosting him up, protecting him from the noise. Now the noise is coming from inside his family. That's unacceptable. There was one instance in the original that came close to this. When Yakko tried to sell Wakko in their Jack and the Beanstalk parody, because he gets less fan mail than Dot. That was still miles better than this. For one, it wasn't in their base reality. It was in a parody that would clearly be non-canonical. Second, Yakko didn't go out of his way to verbally abuse his little brother and try to make him feel less valued as a member of the group. It was just a hard necessity, as callous as it might have been.

Yakko would never say something like this. The thought would never even come close to crossing his mind. Dot would never agree to a statement like that. If she heard Yakko say it, she'd wonder what alien came in and replaced her older brother. Least of all would they say it right in front of Wakko, as if they're deliberately trying to hurt him.

It baffles me. It truly baffles me. Was this the writer's first day on the job? How do you go three fucking seasons and not know the first thing about the characters you're writing? The way Yakko and Dot are portrayed here is ten times more out of character than they've ever been written in any fanfic ever posted. Worse, this had to go through producers, storyboarders, animators, the showrunner, and they all looked at this and thought it was okay. I can't truly blame the voice actors, because they're under contract and have to do their jobs, but they should have known their characters well enough to know they would never say these lines. That they shouldn't say these lines.

I truly can't wrap my head around it. Where does this come from? What could possess anyone to think this is a good idea, even an acceptable idea, for even a single millisecond? Does it come from the Family Guy writing culture, where absolutely nothing is sincere, even relationships between friends and family? Do they just not know how to write sarcastic characters that also truly love their closest family members?

They had the audacity to claim they were listening to fan feedback for this season. Tell me, look at all the most popular fan compilations on YouTube about the reboot. Are they filled with moments of the siblings being cold and callous to each other, or are they filled with the opposite? How blind do you have to be to misunderstand the soul of your show and your fanbase so fucking badly? It almost feels malicious. Like someone on the writing staff had a bad experience with their own siblings and made it their personal mission to destroy and pervert the bond between the closest set of siblings on TV. I thought they were starting to get it right with season 2. Season 3, they had to look at what all the fans were saying and realize that they could go even further, right? Give us all the sibling fluff we could ever need? Instead they went the opposite direction. It's becoming clear to me that "listening to fan feedback" really meant listening to "Pinky and the Brain fan feedback." I don't mean to drive a wedge between certain parts of the fandom, but that's just how it seems to be. It's absolutely not the fault of any of the fans who talked about the show.

People will tell me to just forget about it, to consider it non-canon or as something the Warners had to do as part of the script. I literally cannot. Have you ever wondered why all my headcanons are so close to canon? I have freaking OCD. I need everything to be in order, I need there to be a way to make sense of everything together. I can't just ignore certain parts of the show and pretend like they never happened.

I can't even make angst out of this. I can't explain it away in a fanfic or with theorizing. This is the only thing in Animaniacs I can say that about. That's how unforgivably bad it is. It just goes so completely against everything about the characters of the Warners and the spirit of the show that it might as well be foreign to it.

This will affect me for a long time. Some might look at this rant and think I care too much. Yes, I care too fucking much. Look at my blog, for God's sake. Being aware of that doesn't change how I feel. Normally, I try to be courteous. I try to give the reboot the benefit of the doubt, because I truly do value many of the things it's added to Animaniacs. In this case, I don't care. Fuck whoever wrote these lines. Fuck every single person who saw them along the way and gave them their approval. Congratulations on a job well done. This hurts my heart and it will continue to do so for years to come, if not my entire life. I am devastated.

[crybaby-capri]

so i finished imas 2011, shiny festa, and the movie a while ago and something bugged me when i was watching it (and when rewatching) that i wanna talk abt cause idk if im just being nit picky.

i feel like imas 2011 treats some of its characters so poorly sometimes. the worst victim of this is miki, i think. earlier on in the show, i REALLY liked her. and i still do, but i feel like after a certain point she sort of lost all her personality. she already had a lot of her screentime dedicated to fanservice, and by that i dont mean the sexual boobies in your face kind (which actually does happen in the first ep iirc lmfao) but like. her winking and being cute for the camera, or doing something cutesy with the producer (who i believe is meant to be a self insert, based not only on character but also the role of the producer in. well. everything else related to imas)

but when she started her weird obsession with the producer is when it really started getting to me. the "honey!!" thing was okay at first i guess like its not the end of the world, but it got irritating very quickly. it also felt uncomfortable, considering shes 15 and the producer is way older than her. yeah i get that teens get crushes on adults all the time but it didnt seem like it was portrayed in that way. to ME at least it just seemed like boring fanservice that they refused to give up on, probably because they knew a lot of fans liked imagining themselves in producers position. i still like her but the constant fucking "HONEY!!1!1 DONT LOOK AT OTHER GIRLS HONEY!!!" makes it really hard to even though i know it aint her fault.

Azusa is another victim of something similar. i watched that whole anime waiting to find something of interest in her, and while there definitely was, it was buried under a heap of gag moments. the whole "im just a woman with big boobies and i got loostt agaaiinn ouuuhh nouu me so dumdums :(" thing just got so tiring so quickly. ive learned to appreciate her more by now but idk is just annoying how she feels like she only exists to be hot and stupid

these are all just my thoughts! i still really enjoyed what i saw of imas, i just wish it weren't so. That sometimes. but then again from what i know i think the series has always been like this. im posting this just cause i want to see what other Ps think about it, whether they agree or disagree, etc. also lmk if im just flat out wrong anywhere!! ty for reading :)

[sonofthesaiyans]

Unpopular AOT Opinions

Not that I have ever held much in common with the rest of the AOT fandom, especially as someone who has called themselves an Ex-Fan for the last five years.........Nevertheless, a few thoughts that sure to leave the typical AOT fanatic a bit salty. 

* Eren Yeager is actually one of the worst anime protagonists. Even back when I was on his side, I never found him to be an especially phenomenal character. There was a time I liked Eren Yeager, but I was never ever enamored by him. And you know a character is bad when he has his foolish fans insisting that he was completely in the right to wage genocide on the earth and should have finished the job. 

* Likewise, Mikasa is still one of the worst anime female protagonists. While not an outright awful character, she is far too one-dimensional due to her singleminded fixation on Eren. Even after he goes off the deep end. I don’t give a damn about her feelings about Eren. And you should not either, Eremika fans. 

* Attack on Titan’s worldbuilding is crap. We don’t even know the name of some districts of the Walls yet and there’s much of them still unexplored. We know about the nations of Paradis, Marley, and Hizuru, the last of which NEVER made an onscreen appearance. And we certainly didn’t get enough development of Marley as the main enemy faction, they never felt like a fully fleshed out plot point. They’re one-dimensional. And never grew beyond an explanation for the Titans’ origins. That’s to say nothing of the world beyond Marley, or of other Eldian survivors worldwide. Or the Mid-East Aliiance! 

* Erwin should have inherited the Colossal Titan. Armin doesn’t utilize his nearly enough to justify his possession of it. Erwin almost certainly would never have wasted such a powerful advantage. 

* Annie was revived too late. Far too last minute for her motivations to feel organic and her arc to feel properly played out. She should have died in Season One and her Titan consumed by one of her captors. Plus her popularity is unwarranted, especially once we learned how unremorseful she is over her crimes. 

* I don’t care about Onyankopon. I’m not saying he’s a bad character, he’s not even a character with any characteristics we can really hate. But I can’t be bothered to remember he’s there half the time. Probably because there’s little he can do to balance out the many bad elements of the final arcs. He’s hardly a critical player. 

* NicoSasha is one of the WORST pairings ever conceived, mostly because they got zero onscreen time together aside from a single flashback. See this is the stuff you idiots need to consider before you kill off one half of a pairing you want to push as a relevant plot point. 

* The Uprising Arc is largely irrelevant. I can’t be bothered to even look at that part of the story with more than passing acknowledgement. Why do you people get your rocks off at the sight of Kenny Ackerman, anyway? Is he somebody I was supposed to care about either? 

* The Warhammer Titan, as I touched upon in an older post, is a total waste of time. If you’re gonna round out the Nine Titans, you can’t afford for any one of them to be a footnote in the story. And that’s all it and its wielder Lara Tybur are; a footnote in the story. Does it honestly even need to exist in the narrative? Kind of makes me wonder why Liberio was even a part of the story. Could’ve saved us a TON of grief on that one. 

* I hate Mikasa’s S4 redesign. She looks far too masculine and not in a good way. I have no problem with such things, but in her case she just does not look good. And Sasha’s S4 look is one that sits poorly too with me now. Probably because of its obvious association with the miserable events of that season. 

* Falco..........More on him later. 

* Ymir Fritz is one of the LEAST engaging plot points of the series and I think a shoddy explanation for the Titans’ origins. It’s already a needlessly complicated story as it is, but I feel nothing for this walking little spoiler. And don’t get me started on this idiotic revelations in the finale. 

* Lindsay Seidel’s performance as Gabi is every bit as abysmal as the character she agreed to play. And I never want to hear her voice in anything to follow her work on Titan ever again. 

* And that goes equal ways to Bryce Papenbrook and his overrated ass. 

* They did Hange Zoe dirty in Season Four. I am PISSED they framed her as such an inept commander as they did. It definitely hurt my otherwise warm opinion of her. Fucking disrespectful that they’d waste her like that. 

* Fuck this grey morality BS the fans keep pushing. I do NOT appreciate being made to hate Paradis by the end of the series, the faction we were supposed to be rooting for early on. I am REALLY not kosher with this at all. Not having any true heroes to root for by the end destroyed my ability to hold on to even a speck of genuine investment.  * I did NOT approve of Artur Braus and his family forgiving Gabi Braun. You do NOT place the murderer of your child above said child. That wasn’t a show of moral integrity. That was failure to honor the memory of the person who they owed justice to. Treating them in the right for how they handled that situation is not as noble as Isayama frames it as. Anyone want to try to disagree?  * The Thunder Spears are actually pretty pathetic weapons, rarely ever landing an outright kill.  * The Rumbling by SiM? DOGSHIT. I hate it because of the season and opening it’s attached to. You can’t polish a turd with this grunge crap. 

* My War is also an extremely forgettable AOT theme. 

* Hiroyuki Sawano’s music is the only consistently good element of the series aside from the aforementioned. And it too is poisoned by its association with this. Guilt By Association. 

* Jean Kirstein isn’t nearly as interesting as fans have been making him out to be in S4. I dare say I stopped caring if he would die well before that disastrous finale. The same goes for Connie Springer, who had no business surviving this due to having zero plot. Does that count as an unpopular opinion? I know some people tire of Sasha’s potato gag, but Connie’s hardly a funny character on his own. 

* Hajime Isayama is DEFINITELY a closeted fascist. 

* Studio MAPPA’s animation is hideous compared to WIT’s. 

* People like Yelena. I do not. Why does she exist again?  * Eren’s descent into villainy is one of the worst bad calls in anime history, right up there with everything involving Gabi Braun. Both of these characters brought down AOT. 

* Gabi Braun’s fanbase represents some of the biggest fucking ASSHOLES I’ve ever put up with. If you’re a fan of this character, fucking get help, because I’m not listening to your pathetic attempts to defend something so unnecessary as if she’s the second coming of Christ. The fanaticism from her end is incomprehensible. 

* Pieck Finger is a wholly unnecessary character. She’s not even that cute. She’s just there. No plot, no point.  * Ymir’s reasons for leaving Historia and getting eaten for her troubles? Total horseshit. Like this was an egregious waste of someone set up to be a much bigger presence in the story. This was when the fanbase should’ve deserted the entire thing. Just the first of many abandoned subplots and character arcs. Is that an unpopular stance? I don’t know, but I’m going to count it anyway. 

* And finally.........THIS STORY ENDED WITH THE OCEAN. 

[gobbogoo]

Rewriting Megamind 2 to Not Suck So Hard

Ok, ignore the God-awful lighting, lifeless animation, and bland-as-possible character designs for a second. Take a moment to appreciate that they looked at a film with a CORE THEME of loneliness and decided:

"Let's give the protagonist a bunch of friends he never brought up!"

So to really drive my point home, I figured I'd try and pitch a version of this premise that DOES work with the original film:

FIRST, the idea of Megamind trying to put together some sort of "Legion of Doom" back during his villain days isn't THAT bad. It sounds like something he'd try, though he'd give it a much more melodramatic name, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, you'd make it that nobody wanted to join!

We've SEEN Metroman in action, we know how blatantly overpowered he is. As the first movie discusses in detail, Megamind fought him ENTIRELY because he loved the game, not because he actually expected to win. Most villains aren't like that. They're in it for money and power, and would consider Megamind an absolute tool for not just moving his operations to a different city.

This establishes Megamind as an outcast within this wider villain community and ties into all the themes and concepts explored in the first film. ESPECIALLY if you have it that Megamind used to WANT the approval of these people. Even give him some older villain idol who first inspired him to upscale from mischief-maker to full-blown supervillain. One that reflects a darker version of the supervillain he used to be.

Now instead of being "old friends," these supervillains are toxic opportunists, showing up specifically BECAUSE they've heard Metroman is out of the picture. And like toxic opportunists, they immediately start telling Megamind how impressed they are with this whole "pretending to be a hero" thing. From their perspective, he killed Metroman, created a new supervillain, then "saved" the city from the villain HE created to earn everyone's trust as a hero. What a brilliant evil scheme!

This makes Megamind doubt his qualifications as a hero.

They then tell him they want to HELP convince everyone he's a hero by doing the same pagentry he and Metroman used to do. They play the villains, he plays the hero. The city continues to give him the acceptance he craves, and he lets the villains get away with JUST enough to keep their operations running. Everyone gets what they want with minimal collateral damage. WAY better than if they all moved in and started doing REAL villainy... right?

Megamind's arc here is one of learning confidence in his new role and coming to accept he doesn't need people's adoration to be happy with who he is. He initially accepts the villains' offer both because he believes it's the best way to keep the city safe, and because he doesn't think he can actually take them on as a hero. After all, the WORST thing possible would be the city seeing him fail, because who would accept him then?

Then as the film progresses, the villains begin taking advantage of Megamind more and more, using his initial agreement as blackmail by threatening to reveal him as a fraud to the city, robbing him of their acceptance.

The finale involves Megamind realizing that a TRUE hero would stop these villains even if it costs him his reputation. That he's unintentionally fallen into the same trap as Metroman, where he's more focused on fulfilling the ROLE of a hero than actually BEING a hero.

Tada! A sequel that builds on the original while exploring new themes and ideas! In the words of the Megamind 2 trailer:

[dangermousie]

Before I get to the substantive meta post, let me just say that Sun Yi Zhou is ridiculously my RL type in terms of looks, and is 100% equipped to be one of those sexy general mains in danmei or het web novels. 

But also! The first time around and even more so on this run, He Xia is a wonderful character who is just as interesting and complex (and in some ways more so) than our OTP. This drama is 62 eps and sometimes it’s to its detriment (the separation near the end could have been shortened in terms of runtime) but most of the time it uses its time wisely and the run time allows all characters to breathe, not just focusing on the OTP, making it more epic and real. 

In another drama, he’d be the hero, a loyal, brave and competent general betrayed and hunted by his own king out of insecurity and returning to seek vengeance; Lan Ling Wang is actually about that very topic! (And is next on my rewatch list.) 

The pontentiality for him and Chu Bei Jie is actually the same - both of their rulers are insecure losers and CBJ’s king comes pretty close a couple of times to doing to CBJ what He Xia’s king did to him. The difference is solely in that CBJ’s king is somewhat more functional (and has a somewhat deeper relationship with CBJ than Yan ruler does with He Xia) and that CBJ is older and tougher. But in a less lucky universe, I can easily see the Jin king overstepping irrevocably and you know CBJ would embark on the path of vengeance. In a way, it is fitting that He Xia is CBJ’s ultimate and final opponent because it’s CBJ who created him by intriguing with Yan king against Yan’s best generals’ family. It is totally understandable CBJ would do that as a Jin subject but the concept of you sow what you reap is delicious.

Why yes, the Yan king is the type of man who decides to hunt down his best general(s) while he’s fighting an existential war. Clearly he doesn’t have TV and never watched The Young Warriors, Patriot Yue Fei, Rebel Princess, Lan Ling Wang or a dozen other dramas about perils of the same (and not even getting into reading a single rudimentary chronicle either.)

The thing that gets me in these early eps is that He Xia is just...good. He is a good person - a loyal subject, a brave general, a devoted son, a lovely quasi-brother/potential husband for Ping Ting and his incredulity about what is happening to him, to them, his attempt to believe that if he could only EXPLAIN, they would understand they are wrong and this is a good faith error, is heartbreaking.

By the end of the drama, he is a broken monster for whom death is a kindness, a man who amassed huge power but lost all humanity and everyone he’s ever loved. And he should be removed; a monster should not be allowed to rule the world. But when Chu Bei Jie kills him it isn’t a pure triumph of good over evil; it’s bittersweet at best and tragic at its base. Because CBJ is not the only reason He Xia is broken - the monster dimwit ruler is one, his psycho family (I agree with @mousieta his father’s “I am gonna off myself so he seeks revenge” is gross as hell), his own descent into darkness as the result of sufferings and humiliations he undergoes all play a part. But in a lot of way, Chu Bei Jie is putting down a monster he himself created, a man he once respected and who respected him, even if only as an honorable enemy, he is the one who set into motion a set of circumstances that turned a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche into a rabid animal. 

It’s interesting though because CBJ is ruthless but he has his own set of rules and honor. When he comes for the old prince of Jin’s head, it’s because the man broke his word to retire. Unlike so many others in this narrative (including later He Xia), he is willing to give you an out if you take it; it does not have to be blood. (Side note, hell of an entrance!)

Even here, he spares the old general because he realizes he’s too old to be a threat. Too bad the man is one of the characters who’d rather die that be worsted and live to fight another day. Old man, congrats, you are building a road for your son to become a psycho.

CBJ’s grim face at that. Old man ain’t wrong, he’s wrecked CBJ’s life for many years to come as payback (though ultimately works out.)

And He Xia survives his horrible battle and finding his mother having stabbed herself to death (a woman who did not think about her kid, both his parents are no good) only to find his father dead (I love love love that CBJ respected his fallen foe and made him a plaque.) PS when he starts digging into the burial mound with his bare hands!

PS This convo before it all goes truly to hell is super interesting because they are loving and affectionate but I do not get any romantic vibe on their part, just friends and quasi-siblings. The thing is, if nothing bad somehow happened and Ping Ting and He Xia got hitched, it would be a functional marriage with liking on both parts but not only is it not the passionate love she experiences with CBJ (or he with the Princess), Ping Ting would never truly be as fierce, as unleashed, as her own woman coming into her own as she is with CBJ. She’d always feel she owed He Xia’s family, and also much as I love him he’s not her equal the way CBJ is.

@renewedmotionforjudgment​ said that one of the things she liked that Ping Ting and CBJ are adults making adult decision in an adult way and that is so perfectly put! But also, the rest of the characters are the same. Even characters who are petty or self-absorbed or immature are so in an adult way, if it makes sense. This drama is so damn good!

[blogtaculous]

I read The Deep by Nick Cutter and I have some thoughts. I’m also going to spoil the shit out of the whole thing.

The first 100 pages are almost sublime. I couldn’t read fast enough. The world literally falling apart from the seams from the disease feels so real. People are just losing the ability to be human and everyone else is trying to carry on like normal. It feels eerily prescient considering it was published years before the same thing would happen during the first heights of Covid-19. The Disease itself is very cool, and only teased at (eventually it’s revealed that it’s basically Colony Collapse Disorder in humans, but the cause and transmission are not explained), but for the first 100 or so pages it feels like it’s going to be a dynamite reveal (it won’t be) and it’s so exciting.

The characters are interesting and the conflicts as initially presented are memorable and even fun. The terror of the deepest depths is so visceral, and the backstory lore teases are well done.

Unfortunately, it fucking unravels fast.

The things I liked:

- Luke’s son vanishes and has not been seen for years. It’s spooky and haunting, a parent’s worst nightmare. The conflicts that arise from that aftermath feel grounded and it is a good bedrock of terror that’s much more real than, say, being 8 miles underwater and having hallucinations.

- Luke’s mom is evil, and at the start she truly feels like the actual antagonist, the 11th hour see, she was the real horror all along, and the delight she takes in being awful was good. She sucks but it made for good reading. This will change later.

- The technical details feel grounded enough to make you think that a research base in the Mariana Trench could be possible. The Ambrosia, also, is well introduced and seems like a neat macguffin that will play a cool part in the story to come. It’s just sinister enough to get the ball rolling, and I was really looking forward to more.

- The body horror was (mostly) very good. Sick, twisted, and flirted with The Line enough to be fun instead of just uncomfortable. I was squirming in a few sections. Alice’s body being incorporated into the evil beehive and her face peeled open and birthing some monster was a highlight, but the scars upon scars corpse was also good.

And now… The Bad

- Killing the dog for shock value is stupid, and it’s also stupid to draw out that entire incident into like four pages.

- Luke’s mom is revealed to have sexually assaulted his older brother numerous times, and then he poisons her to death. This is how the story acknowledges Luke’s brother is a psychopath. It wasn’t the unspeakable experiments be performed on animals, or how he didn’t care for anyone else on earth, or how he tried to make deals with extradimensional evil… it was when he killed his abuser, a Good and Right thing to do.

- The plot just fucking derails. It does this in two ways. First, the actual plot doesn’t take very long once Luke and Alice (I’m not calling her Al) get to the Trieste so the length is padded out with an absolutely insane number of dreams and flashbacks. They exist to feature some creepy imagery, but most of it has no bearing on the plot or characters. And they’re long! Let’s talk about the goddamn tickle trunk, as an example.

What is the tickle trunk? The short answer is it’s a fairly innocuous toy box with some clowns on it that Luke’s abusive mother forces into his bedroom. That’s it. Does she use it as a torture device? No. It literally just sits in his room and is vaguely creepy. The worst part about it is that while Luke is having his little dream-flashback about it Alice is also having one… about half of a corpse of a submariner she worked with in the Navy plaguing her with guilt about his death. Which do you think would make a better spook? The box, or animated bloated corpse? Like… come on. Alice is like “wow I had this horrible dream about this gross dead body chasing me with my own guilt” and I had to sit there and think about how instead of diving into that I was reading about a toy box.

I’ll bring this toy box up later, don’t worry.

Other bad flashbacks include Luke gathering frogs for his scientist brother and seeing a spook in a gated tunnel and anything to do with the “millipede.”

And second, the Big Reveal sucks. I’m just gonna dive in because it’s so bad.

Ambrosia is a tease to get humans to build a research base in the Mariana Trench. Why? Because two extra dimensional beings of terror have been banished there. Most egregiously, how do we know this? Because they literally fucking sit Luke in a chair and explain the entire thing like a fucking Scooby-Doo villain. The entire scene reeks of Dumbledore talking to not-quite-dead Harry fucking Potter. It’s so fucking bad. And the worst part is these motherfuckers somehow planned the whole fucking thing. There were three researchers on the base, and all of them were specifically groomed by the baddies to be there so they could manipulate them into going looney so that Luke could be brought down there to free them. That’s right, Luke was a Chosen One all along.

It’s further revealed that the monster in the tickle trunk and the gated tunnel were real the whole time. The extra dimensional horrors, despite being banished 8 miles under the ocean for being evil can force project monsters to terrorize people. They do this to slowly torture all the researchers their whole lives to lead them to the Trieste. In fact, they fucking kidnapped Luke’s son.

I cannot begin to describe what a stupid thing this was, and how fucking stupid it was for the extra dimensional horrors to just flat out explain it to Luke like it was a college lecture.

Like, what even keeps these motherfuckers down there if they can so easily do all this? They also reveal the following complete bullshit:

- The Disease was a happy coincidence for their plot. Just background noise. Shrug!

- All the torture and dreams and bla bla bla was just for fun. To quote the extra dimensional horrors: “For fun. And games.”

That’s right, literally less interesting than fucking Jigsaw. Just for funnies. Jokes, even. Their presence, often described as curious, was just silliness. They already knew everything there was to know and were just having a ball.

All right, so prior to Luke being soft-captured to witness this monologue of total garbage, he had grabbed some Go To Sleep medicine (that he knew how to administer since he was a veterinarian) and it just sat in his pocket. He didn’t use it to spare the dog from being Assimilated into evil, or to spare Alice from her ecstasy of pain and suffering, so when he gets captured I’m thinking “okay, here it comes, this is important.”

The extra dimensional horrors reveal that they’ve kept Luke’s son “safe” (he’s a monster now, by the way) and they want Luke to merge his consciousness with it. They explicitly tell him they need him to do this and that it will help them escape to the surface to bring horror and madness. I smiled, “Aha! Luke will use his Go To Sleep chemicals to kill himself, preserving life on earth and rejecting the Thing That Is Not His Son, showing how he has grown and healed.” I was confident in this assessment because Luke literally tells the bad guy that he won’t do it. He knows that this monster isn’t really his son and he’s ready to die.

NOPE!!!!! !!!! !!1! That motherfucker does it! He just fucking merges with Not Zach and lets them out. No big moment, no deep breath, no clarity. Just “yeah I guess.” So what happens? The unholy amalgamation of Luke, his son, and two extradimensional horrors goes to the surface in the only submarine and they get out. The last line is like “what emerged was unspeakable” but what I thought was unspeakable was how fucking stupid this plot was!!!!!!

Read the first 100 or so pages then chuck it in a bin.

[writer-and-artist27]

11 Questions Writer Ask Game

Got tagged by @windwardstar.

(ｏ＿　＿)ｏ Thankie, Osie. Beloved friend. I'll do my best.

Rules: Answer the 11 questions of the person who tagged you, make up 11 questions, then tag 11 people to answer them.

1. How is your writing going right now?

Right now, I feel like I'm in a funk. I'm able to write things if it's to help others, but when it comes to my own writing for myself, it's mostly... well, dead at the moment. I think it's from the recent family death that my writing's slowed down. I want to hope the unconscious grief can pass.

2. Give me a song that gives you vibes for your wip? (If too hard, just a song you've been listening to a lot lately. This is literally just me trying to get new music to listen to and your excuse to ramble about writing stuff.)

The Things You Mustn't Avert Your Gaze From and Hitorime no Tomodachi Ni, or in English, "My First Friend" for all my WIPs. Because they capture the soft feelings I try to write for in the first place, to illuminate the dark.

3. Do you have any headcanons for your wips that you can't/won't include for some reason? (If do, why?)

I... think I have a couple. And those are because of (1) lack of energy to write them, (2) they cover territory I have yet to experience in life, and (3) I'm honestly concerned I'd start crying if I write them because of how emotionally invested I get into writing in the first place for specific characters.

4. What's a scene/character/plot/thing you're excited to get to write in your wip?

When I do go back to S&S and CP and Naruto stuff? A lot of things post-Kannabi. Including Team Minato being kids. They deserve more time to have fun as kids.

For Fate/Passing Days stuff? Including some of the older memories I've had from playing the game, such as bonding with older Servants through Tumblr bond level stories again, or even when I Grailed specific Servants (looking at Shiki, Musashi, Skadi, Melt, and Astarte, especially). Even more character-driven, Bond 10 specific chapters when I have the energy for them.

5. Is there anything you have to make a specific pass in editing for?

By "pass", do you mean "excuse"/"look the other way"? Because if so, it's definitely repeating/filler words for me. I know I use a lot of "only," "sometimes," and the like in my first drafts, and when writing the first draft of a scene out from my head, I've been trying to forgive myself more in not having more detail-oriented words to get the thoughts out.

6. How many rounds of editing do you usually do?

1-2. Basically first one being while I write it or right after I finish the chapter. Second being if I allow myself to sleep on the doc and come back to it the next day. Or that second round is me actually reading the published version on AO3 to check for typos and the like.

7. Biggest challenge(s) with writing (in story or out of it)?

My main thing's really all out of writing for me: Just trying to find the right words to articulate what I see in my head. Because imagining any kind of scenes playing out like anime isn't always easy to write out. Fight scenes are the worst offender. Same thing with emotional stuff, at least to a smaller extent.

8. How do you utilize your non-writing writing time?

Reading manga/light novels, as well as rereading previous source material to keep the ideas fresh. I even make it a personal policy to take three books with me in my purse on my work days so I can read/refresh on my breaks.

9. How do you personally define a good or bad day of writing for yourself? / what does it take to feel like you've made decent progress?

A good day of writing for me is writing more than just a few words/sentences. A bad day would be if I'm unable to come up with anything and just sit there, staring at the same words and wondering how to continue.

10. Do you write in discrete units of time/schedule or is it just whenever you have time?

It's just when I have the time. Since I take the trolley to and back from work (which is about one hour and 20 min one way already), I've been trying to write more during those moments when I can.

11. What are your current wips? (+ short description if u want)

Civilian Pianist (CP) - Currently on idea hiatus, but wishing to go back.

The Sea and Stars (S&S) - Also on idea hiatus, because fight scenes.

Passing Days (Fate) - Ongoing, just slow updates (about once a month) due to energy and some things in FGO hitting worse than others. Some part of the fanbase is definitely a big factor. Had to let go of some friends and be civilly distant with others with how big and picky the fandom is. Can count on one-two hands the number of people I can share my ideas with without worrying about backlash or anything.

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

My questions:

What is one habit you picked up in your daily life because of writing?

What's your ideal writing space? (Desk? Out in nature? Just curious.)

What's the topic you've had to do the most research in to write?

What's a concept you liked at first when seeing it in consumed media, but found yourself not liking when trying to write it later on?

Have dreams inspired you before?

What's one piece of a positive review that someone gave you that actually stood out to you?

Any concepts you'd like to try your hand at in writing?

What's the easiest genre to write for?

How do you handle writer's block?

What's the word count on your longest story? How did that happen?

Who was your first writing inspiration? What about them (or it if said inspiration isn't a person) inspired you?

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

Tagging: @partialdignity, @abalisk, @teddog, and anyone else who'd like to try this? Only for fun, though.

o(_ _o)ノ☆ Now to bed with me because it's 10:02 pm when I post this.

[hater-of-bad-sonic-stories]

Sonic 4 was 🗑️ 🗑️ 🗑️

Not the review I promised, but that's coming next eventually! Once again, this was inspired by darkqueenofshadows85, who makes great reviews of various Sonic media!

So I was going through my older digital downloads when I saw the Sonic 4 logo, and remembered it was a game that existed. I don't remember how I felt about it at the time, but it wasn't a game I went back to often.

This game seemed like a perfect comeback game for the classics that concluded in S3&K, the game that would save the series from the "awful" Dark Era Hell: the numbered title, a seemingly more modernized take on the classic gameplay, homing attack added, no characters except Soni - wait, what?!

This was a huge part of its marketing: each day, more and more other characters would be rejected until the end, leaving only Sonic. I wasn't around for the marketing at the time (otherwise I would have likely passed this game), but looking back, it's weird: why would they advertise having LESS content than CD and 2??

Also, Tails isn't even named! WTF?!

Another thing to be noted is that it, not Colors, was the actual start of what many call the "Meta Era". Despite everything, it wasn't 4 that saved the series in the eyes of consumers, but Colors (more about that in my next review).

Over a decade later, how is Sonic 4 Episode 1? It's bad.

The presentation is shit, it looks very low budget. Some purists complained that it used the modern model, but that's not a problem for me (other 2D games used it and looked fine) but this just looks bad. Nothing really looks like it belongs. And the animation isn't much better, it looks really stiff and weird. The music is pretty bad, even the ones that are better composed are weighed down by the instruments used in a sad attempt to imitate the Genesis/Mega Drive sound.

This is the worst offender: it's just annoying! Imagine scraping the bottom of the barrel and remixing a beta unused version of a 3D Blast track and then making it even worse!

Much better, and this is far from my favorite!

A lot of that could be forgiven if the gameplay is good like the classics, right? Maybe a decent plot?

The plot is nothing, it's basically "Eggman does bad thing. Sonic must stop him." Moving on to the real shit...

The gameplay is garbage, the zones are all rehashed/ripped off from earlier zones, just with a new terrible gimmick most of the time that only detracts from the gameplay. Much has been said about the physics and how bad they are already - they try to hide it by sometimes throwing enemies that simply serve as Homing Attack chain fodder and it doesn't work. All it does is highlight how little the levels have going for them. Because of the stiffness of the game, any sense of speed is miniscule at best.

So we've established this game has basically no redeeming qualities and is not a game for basically anyone. Is Episode 2 any better? The improvements are:

Better graphics

Better physics

Tails is there

Some new, original content

While better than Episode 1, it's still not really worth your time.