#this shitpost has unfortunately evolved

[captain-krow-drozdov]

I See Four Outcomes For What Happens To Non-Looping Siffrin

1. Non-Looping Siffrin Has Just Been Evaporator. He's Gone. Reduced To Atoms. [Super Angst Cause They Essentially Killed Siffrin]

2. Siffrin Got Booted Back To The County™ [Sorta Angst Cause Like Do They Forget Him Once He's On The Island? Do They Remember Siffrin But Siffrin Forgets Them? Who Knows]

3. Siffrin Has Been Put In Spectator Mode/Ghost Tethered To Post Canon Siffrin Till The Looping Problem Has Been Fixed. [Having A Panic Attack As An Unseen Unheard Sorta Ghost As Someone Else Replaces You And Your Family Wanted This Random Guy To Replace You Angst]

4. Non-Looping Siffrin Is Now With Post Canon Party Having A Mini Meltdown Cause WTF Is Happening What Do You Mean Time Loop??? H U H?

Who Made The Wish?

Probably Bonnie In A Fit Of Frustration Like That One Response You Can Get Post Adults Only Death Talk. But Honestly All Of The Party Has At Some Point During The Loops Wished For A Siffrin That Remembers The Loops.

How Does The Loop Work Now?

In Order For The Loops To Not Just Immediately Stop Once Post Canon Siffrin Shows Up I Think The Wish Has To Be Attached To All The Party's Subconscious Desire To Stay Together And The Loops Won't Stop Till They All Learn How To Communicate. Siffrin May Have Performed The Ritual But It's The Entire Party's Fault They're In The Loop. Maybe Siffrin Taught Them How To Properly Wish At Some Point And That's Why IDK

How's Post Canon Siffrin Doin? + So No Loop? [The Memory Of Back In The Blinding Building Again AU]

After Waking Up In The Meadow™ And Subsequently Screaming In Frustration As They Mentally Cursed Out Every God They Know (As Well As Brushing Off Mira's Concern About Their Violent Awakening With The Excuse Of A Bad Dream) Sif Quietly Goes Through The Stages Of Grief And Adds A Stage In About Three Loops As They Try And Orient Themselves In This Fun House Mirror Version Of Their Own Personal Hell.

Denial; This Is A Bad Dream Caused By Stress (Loop 1) Anger; Fuck This House, Fuck That Rock Trap And Fuck The King (End Of Loop 1 Beginning Of Loop 2) Bargaining; Maybe It's A False Awakening Dream And I'm Not Back In The Loops (Loop 2) Depression; I'm Really Back In The Loops Huh... And This Time There's No Loop... (Mid Loop 2) Acceptance; Yep I'm Definitely Back In The Blinding Loops Again. Time To Dust Off That Script. (Loop 3) And Bargaining 2 Electric Boogaloo; Fuck It I Guess I'm The Guide Now. Call Me Stardust You're Helpful Guide To The Loops. (←Post The Party Is The Ones Looping Not Siffrin Reveal)

During The First Couple Of Loops They Do Their Best To Remember The Script And Try Not To Snap At Anyone Or Just Start Crying.

They Are Disappointed That Loop Isn't Here But Mostly Their Just Happy It's Only Him That Has To Do This All Over Again. Loop Deserves Whatever Peace They've Found.

They Soon Switch To Half Sticking To The Script Half Trying New Things In An Attempt To Understand Why They Are Back In The Loops. Currently They Have Two Goals; Protect Their Family And Gather Information.

Thanks To An Alternate Sus Odile Loop Siffrin Discovers That This Version Of The Party Has Been Looping Instead Of Their Siffrin And That Their Siffrin Is Now Missing.

Due To This Revelation Siffrin Decides To Adopt The Currently Vacant Guide Role And Begins To Go By Stardust And Does His Best To Help The Party With The Loops With Slightly Bitter Sense Of Amusement With The Whole Situation. Because Of Course This Would Happen After A Solid Year Of Having His Happy Ending. At Least He Still Looks Like Himself Scars From His Original Final Loop And All.

This Eventually Ends In Him Abandoning The Script Entirely With Good Old Fashioned Fuck It We Ball Mentality (Possibly With The Help Of Some Snagged Alcohol) And No Longer Holds Back During Fights Which Is How They Discover They Have The Highest Level Of The Party.

His Mental Health Will Get Worse Or Better Depending On What Happened To Non-Looping Siffrin Cause Let's Be Honest The Loops Did Nothing For This He/Theys Abandonment + Self Hate Issues.

How's Post Canon Siffrin Doin? + So Two Guides? (AKA Looping Party Already Had A Loop At Home) [The Memory Of Back In The Blinding Building Again: Two Loops Are Better Than One AU]

The Second Siffrin Wakes Up In The Meadow™ For The Second Time He Comes To The Unfortunate Decision That This Might Not Be A Dream And Beelines It To The Favor Tree.

Now The Loop Of This Timeline Is Used To The Clueless Non-Looping Siffrin So When They See Siffrin With A Wild Look In His Eye Rapidly Approaching They Shortcircuit A Little Bit Cause That's Not Supposed To Happen????

While Siffrin Is Having A Half Conversation Half Interrogation With Their Starry Alternate Self The Looping!Party Are Panicking Cause Siffrin Acted Strange Last Loop And Now He's Just Straight Up Missing ✨ He Never Leaves The Meadow Without Someone Waking Him Up It Is Time To Panic.

This Ultimately Leads To Everyone At The Favor Tree Doing The Time Looper Equivalent Of The Spiderman Pointing Meme.

How's Post Canon Siffrin Doin? Except It's Post Canon Loop. [The Memory Of Get Soft Locked Idiot AU]

I Can't Do Better Than What @felikatze Offered [Here] Also Known As Mega Angst =3

Everyone Except For Siffrin Is Looping Au Except Someone Wishes That Siffrin Knew Everything There Was To Know About The Loops And Subsequently Accidently Replaces Their Non-Looping Siffrin With Post Game Canon Siffrin And They Only Find Out Cause Siffrin Gets The Memory Of Back In The Fucking Building Again.

[kafus]

ok quick team tour before the E4 because i'm way more attached to these guys than i thought i'd be. and by quick i mean this might be a long post sorry. i will go in order of acquisition of various team members :]

first up lovebug! named by my friend venty and also who i'd consider my starter :] butterfree's movepool isn't super wide and getting the twisted spoon or silver powder would be more trouble than it's worth at the moment, so aside from teaching Psychic with a TM, i left him with his level up moves and a quick claw for some speedy sleep powders. he has compoundeyes which makes sleep powder nearly 100% accurate and has been incredibly useful this entire run, especially with catching pokemon since sleep is so effective. i love him

next up QUIVER MY BELOVED... i saved her evolution for level 53 literally in the middle of victory road, was super satisfying. nidoqueen can only learn crunch as a nidorina, once she evolves she can't learn it anymore, and nidorina learns it at level 53 so i played the long game to get that one cool move. she has blackglasses to boost the power of it. earthquake is from a TM and i used her as my strength user during my playthrough, but it's a pretty useful move so i just kept it instead of going out of my way to remove it. and then after evolving her i used the move reminder after farming some tinymushrooms to get superpower to top off her moveset. very proud of her she's come so far from being a level 6 nidoran lol

say hello to TACO (BELL)... thanks for the shitpost name @ my qpp SDJFKDFS the miracle seed is from the celadon game corner! did you know weepinbell learns razor leaf at mfing level 42? and before that it only has vine whip for grass stab? it's awful. i waited that long to evolve him. i wanted to save some of my tms for the postgame so i decided to hold onto giga drain and solar beam and the like, decided to just keep razor leaf. i didn't wanna repeat niches by giving him sleep powder or something so i grinded even more tinymushrooms and taught him spit up and stockpile from the move reminder for the meme LOL who knows if i'll actually get use out of it. but i love taco he has been fun to use since i almost always have bulbasaur as my grass type

EGG!!!! he's named after my real life jolteon plushie with the same name. bite is exclusive to eevee at level 30 and since all dark moves are special in this game, it is actually useful on jolteon! i went pretty overboard on this guy because i love him. thunderbolt was a tm from the game corner, and uh... well... i found out he has hidden power water, with 70 base power, which while not the literal Best means he can hit ground types for super effective special damage at the maximum power possible for hidden power which is Based. UNFORTUNATELY hidden power can only be obtained through a 5% pickup drop in FRLG, so i caught a team of 6 meowths and spammed pickup until i got one lol. as for his held magnet item, that's exclusively obtained in FRLG by stealing off of wild magneton... a 5% chance. so i caught a level 31 meowth by bond bridge on two island, taught it thief, and used a repel trick with it to get all encounters to be magneton at the power plant... and just kept encountering until finally got the magnet 18 encounters in. pretty epic. nothing on his moveset is jolteon's natural moveset except thunder wave LOL and he has a pretty rare item for before the postgame

next up is creamsicle who is surprisingly one of my favorites despite being a pretty straightforward pokemon with a limited movepool. icy wind, ice beam, and rest, are all levelup moves, while surf is obviously an HM. mystic water is from the celadon game corner. all of the pokemon on my team are pokemon i've never brought to the endgame before, but dewgong is among the pokemon i've never used before in like... any capacity. so it's been really fun to use her! dewgong is underrated and very cute. but i understand why no one uses it, pretty out of the way in lategame seafoam islands

and last but not least here's torch! a pokemon i've DEFINITELY never used before as mt ember is optional before the postgame and i sometimes don't even take up bill's offer to go, much less linger on mt ember running around for a 5% encounter that late in the game post-blaine. BUT i wanted variety and this is certainly a fun choice after using ninetales a million times in my life. moveset is just levelup moveset except brick break which i taught by (thankfully renewable) TM, and the charcoal is from the game corner. he's the only mon caught in an ultra ball bc i could not be bothered oops... but the yellow matches! (btw he has a special attack IV of 0. LOOOL i still love him though)

and that's my weird ass leafgreen team where i boxed my starter and went out of my way to get pokemon i've not used before. i am at around 30 hours of gameplay and i'm going to fight the E4 shortlySDFKFSD

[enlightenedrobot]

I posted 7,119 times in 2022

That's 2,536 more posts than 2021!

90 posts created (1%)

7,029 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@pandaslowpoke

@joey-wheeler-official

@zonerz

@questbedhead

@enlightenedrobot

I tagged 123 of my posts in 2022

#shitpost - 14 posts

#disney - 11 posts

#art - 9 posts

#disney+ - 8 posts

#music - 7 posts

#hip hop - 7 posts

#dall e mini - 6 posts

#puella magi madoka magica - 6 posts

#tumblr - 6 posts

#generated images - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 94 characters

#a lot of people who make hating marvel movies there only personality trait will point this out

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

@teeth-collector64 (my brother) is collecting unused official urls. Direct action.

142 notes - Posted November 8, 2022

#4

The Problem with deconstructing the Powerpuff Girls

The Powerpuff Girls is already a subversive show.

It’s a pastiche of superhero comics that keeps the action and violence of Marvel and DC properties and attributes it to cutesy little girls.

In essense, it’s already a parody. It’s already a subversive take on existing tropes. And like, even without a serialized story, it’s surprisingly smart in how it handles all of these older tropes.

So before the writers of the Live Action Script decided that Professor Utonium should actually be a showbizzy bad dad, they should of probably asked themselves... did the original show already do this?

Cause like... they did. 

The character of Dick Hardly, from the episode Knock it Off was designed as a foil to Professor Utonium who creates shoddy knock off Powerpuff Girls that he sells to cities across the world for profit. He’s one of the most despicable characters ever animated in the show, and the character of Drake Utonium has way more in common with him than he does that actual professor.

And it’s episodes like this that every other reboot of the show seems to forget.

The Powerpuff Girls isn’t Strawberry Shortcake or My Little Pony. It’s not a show created to sell dolls or produce merch. 

It’s a parody, a deconstruction, a Robot Chicken sketch before Robot Chicken was a thing. And that’s a compliment. It’s subversive humour is influential... the Powerpuff Girls walked so that shows like Kids Next Door, Kim Possible, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and almost every other cartoon after it could run. 

It’s a smart show with a surprising understanding of satire. Which unfortunately also means any parody of the show is going to be redundant. It’s kinda hard to make fun of a show that’s already so good at making fun of itself. 

And like, I’m saying this as someone who is actively working on a dark humour tinged dark comedy heavily inspired by the Powerpuff Girls. Everytime I write, I find myself making jokes the original show already made. Sometimes I’ll accidentally steal entire scenes because I think I’m being subversive. 

The big thing is... I’m pretty sure it’s still possible to make a subversive take on the Powerpuff Girls. As smart as the show is, it’s also kinda dated and stuck in the late 90s and early 2000s. Superheroes have evolved and there’s a lot more material the Powerpuff Girls could actively spoof.

Maybe the show should get a Samurai Jack styled soft reboot. Stay true to the original show, but show how time has passed. Give the show a TV-PG-V rating and the same kind of overarching plot you get with shows like Infinity Train or Gravity Falls.

But to any potential writer writing for this franchise, please, please, please do your research. You can’t pull a Riverdale with the Powerpuff Girls, because the girls we’re never as wholesome as Archie and the gang. 

177 notes - Posted March 27, 2022

#3

There is no way Matt Reeves thinks The Batman is anyway "grounded" or "realistic".

Gotham is way too stylized; all at once the 30s, the 90s, and the modern-day. The gangsters featured are caricatures. And Robert Pattinson's Batman is tormented in the most "I shop at hot topic and have an angsty myspace page" kinda way.

I enjoyed this movie mostly because it's the first time I've seen a Batman movie actually understand that it's, well, a Batman Movie.

This isn't a grounded political thriller with the aesthetics of Batman thrown on like the Nolan Movies. It's not a pointlessly dark and complicated take on comic book lore like the Snyder Movies, and it's definitely not a character exploration of mental illness like the Joker.

Instead, it's a heavily stylized action movie with cartoonish doses of FIlm Noir. Batman's violent and angsty, but no more than I think you'd expect from a comic book anti-hero. And given the ending, I'd also argue that this Batman is probably one of the nicer incarnations of the character we've seen in recent years. He's flawed and kind of bad at his job, but that just makes him all the more relatable.

Not everything aesthetically dark is deconstructive, and not everything that's violent is realistic. The Batman is probably one of the purest comic book adaptions I've seen in recent years, and frankly, people who think movies like this are in any way realistic have a very skewed perception of reality.The

230 notes - Posted March 8, 2022

#2

Thoughts on Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers (2022)

I nervously stand up to the mic, prepared to exclaim to my audience of dozens a controversial fact. I'm shaking. I'm sweating. 

I clear my throat. Words drop from my mouth like wet clay.

"The Chip n Dale reboot is pretty great, actually."

Okay, it's not perfect. It's a solid 7 or 8 out of 10. It's delightful, hilarious, and super creative. It's not nearly as good as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but it's also probably the closest thing to a sequel we'll ever get. And I'm kind of okay with that.

I'll get to the good stuff soon enough, but first let's talk about the bad. 

This movie is the same kinda metahumour drenched post-shrek styled Children's movie, and like, that's not everybody's thing. It's pretty light on fart jokes, but it is pretty heavy on breaking the fourth wall and having celebrity cameos and making jokes about Pop Culture. 

That said, it's a little closer in tone to something like, say, Enchanted or the original live action Scooby-doo movies than it is to Alvin and the Chipmunks. If you enjoy a post Modern Disney Princess or a postmodern Mystery Inc, then this movie works fine. But if you're not open to movies that make jokes about other movies… then maybe stay away from this one.

A slightly bigger issue is the usage of cel shading on most of the Rescue Rangers. It's not nearly as bad as the trailers showed them to be, and in stills, they could almost be mistaken for drawings. But in motion… it really doesn't work. 2D animation just happens to be a better medium for expressive faces and body movement, and as good as the celshaded animation is, it's kinda hard to escape the feeling that it was still, ultimately, the wrong choice.

But I think maybe the biggest issue I had with this movie is the lack of the attention given to the other Rescue Rangers. Montery Jack has a fun scene early on that almost makes you wanna go back to the old show. Gadget and Zipper also make appearances and even have a few good jokes… but for most of the run time… they're just… not there. 

Also, Monty's recasting feels weirdly redundant? Jim Cummings appears quote a few times as other characters and Eric Bana's role is so short and so similar to Jim Cumming's voice, I can't help but wonder why they bothered recasting him at all.

But with all that negativity aside, let's go on to why I actually enjoyed the movie.

This is a pretty good take on Chip n Dale as characters… its true to their personalities of the show, but with a Ducktales-esque revamp of their voices. And while they don't start the show out as detectives, they basically become their characters from the show anyways.

Even the other Rescue Rangers feel true to their original incarnations, with maybe a few odd new takes. There's a twist with Gadget and Zipper that's a little questionable at first, but downright hilarious when it came back up towards the end. 

Outside of the cel shading, the animations actually pretty great. CGI can't replace 2D animation, but I do have yo give them props for so faithfully mimicking both stop motion and puppetry so accurately. There's a Swedish chef parody who's so close to the Muppet style, I initially thought he was just a straight up puppet. 

The movie's biggest strength is actually the diversity of animation styles used. It's not just 2D and 3D… it's everything. Of course the cameos all stay faithful to their original sources, but even the original characters look like they could come from other actual properties.

Off the top of my head, we get cheaply animated insurance mascots with plastic textures occupying scenes with Aardman sheep. Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast shares a scene with Tigra from the 90s Avengers cartoon. And without spring too much, I'm obsessed with a specific scene where photo realistic Disney CGI interacts directly with characters from a certain rival studio.

You could argue that this movie is Disney shamelessly shilling their own IP, and to some extent, that's true. But the sheer number of non Disney cameos really cements this film as a spiritual sequel to who Framed Roger Rabbit. Hell, one of the best cameos in this film doesn't come from Disney IP at all.

The Roger Rabbit influence also shows itself in how weirdly dark this movie can get. It's nothing inappropriate for kids… but like… there's body horror. Cartoon body horror, sure, but it's made with the same stuff that made the scariest Disney scenes we watched as children. It's a weirdly Nostalgic kind of horror, and I'm happy we get to traumatized my little brother the same way I was when I first watched Roger Rabbit.

All n' all, I really liked this one. It's a fun watch. 

342 notes - Posted May 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I am a normal person. This is a normal thing to do.

1,577 notes - Posted June 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[modern-oedipus]

I’m retiring for a while. Taking a break or a permanent leave because I’m starting to feel drained and tired from the repetitive things here. On the bright side, I’ve already found new shows, new hobbies and new habits to add up to myself. I will start posting again after I finish Wednesday’s presentation, mostly about Banana Fish. This blog may have new content as well. I am excited, but also felt like I needed to make an accounment. I have been silent recently, but thing is, I want to be by myself for a while. Not a too-extended while, maybe a few days. I want to just refresh before the term starts. Binge watch anime series, read my favorite webtoons, cook my favorite food. Unfortunately, due to covid I can’t say “Go and wander/meet up freely”, but I will still have ways of recharging myself. I need this. I’m unapologetic of this.

I’m grateful for everything I’ve experienced in TPN fandom. I learnt so much about myself and others. I connected to many wonderful people. I am not really a people-ditcher, so even though my blog content may change, the friends I made along the way definitely stay (as long as you want it too!). To get a little proof on this, know that I’ve been up to date with many friends I’ve made even from 2012-2013 etc., up until today.

But, as I said. I am mentally tired. This was a long, tiring summer with economic crisis, pandemic, workload, stress, confusion, divorce and new responsibilities. I have done my best. But right now, all I need is to be by myself and recharge. I really need this. So please. Unless I personally choose to contact you, do not contact me. Do not take it personal. If I’m not texting, then don’t initiate it. For this specific while. I really don’t have any time or motivation to be with anyone or anything that can cause further stress on 2020.

But hey! This is not a gloomy post! I am going to be fine. Consider me as an atlethe who has just finished running a marathon and is taking a refreshing break. I am alright. I am going to be even better than this. I am just refreshing and evolving. It’s good. But as I said, do not contact to me unless I initiate contact— I muted my social media notifications and deleted some apps, so you won’t get a response if you do. Even if I see your text, since I made this announcement I’ll not respond to it.

So! Happy September 1st!

I am planning to watch Banana Fish’s remaining two episodes this week, which means I can follow everyone back, start posting and actually engage in fandom content. I don’t think so much of fandom is left since the series aired in 2018 but I’ll appreciate what I find! I am hoping that it will be a new refresher as well 💛

Stay safe, wear a mask, practice social distancing, and remember that just because I am taking time for myself doesn’t mean I love you any less or that you should take it personally!

Until then, Nila off!

P.S. You may see me shitposting. I might be scrolling or I may not. This heads up is for a no-contact phase of mine in which I am recharging. Cheers!

[nxtherold]

                                                                              MUN      VS.     MUSE        !

⸻⸺—        FIVE  SIMILARITIES   .

We can both be pretty awkward (though Hawke is only awkward half the time whereas I am awkward all of the time lmao).

We both have severe ADHD. When I first started writing Hawke, I used her as sort of a vehicle to work out my own relationship with my ADHD, and though she’s evolved A LOT since then, I’ve made a point to keep this as part of her character because having a character that has ADHD and isn’t interpreted as a completely inept loser (as is unfortunately popular in the rpc and media in general) is super important to me.

We’re both Sagittarians.

Modern!Hawke would definitely be a shitposter so I guess we have that in common.

Aesthetic. Another thing born from Hawke’s early days as one of my first ocs. Back then I just picked an aesthetic for her from things that I personally liked rather than what I thought fit her as a character, but rather than distance her from that as she evolved like I did other muses from my early days, I feel like she grew into it rather than apart from it (though her main color scheme went from my favorite combo of pink/black/white to red/black/white as red suits her better)

⸻⸺—         FIVE  DIFFERENCES   .

She’s a lot more outwardly confident than I am, that’s for sure. She doesn’t mind being the center of attention whereas if I found myself the leader of a group or the focus of a room I would probably fake my death lmao

I realize that I talk a lot about Hawke’s more wholesome aspects but really she lives a pretty violent lifestyle and while it is mostly a product of her setting and circumstance, she’s still willing to kill even when she doesn’t have to. Not that she likes to do it, but she’s willing to, and that should be enough to warrant a second glance. For example, she straight up tracks down Gascard duPuis and kills him in Darktown after learning of his involvement with the man who killed her mother, so her capability towards violence is not always something that is justifiable even in a setting where killing is something that has become a casual affair to many Thedosians. But I am not from Thedas, and violence has no place in my life. Last night I cried because my cat caught and killed a mouse. Not even my own offense, and I still cried over it. I wouldn’t last a day in Thedas.

She’s very graceful. I am not. I have to be extra cautious just trying to use a staircase.

She has a few tattoos and I am so averse to pain that I could never get one.

She’s obsessed with dragons. While I personally love dragons, I’m more obsessed with cats.

tagged by:   @theharellan​ (thank you Tas <3)

tagging:   @illustrii​ (June or Velani),   @hopewrought​ ,  @chaotiicgoods​ (Isabela or Fenris),  @pxperhearts​ (Gamora or Roland),  @quiisquiliae​ (Talon or Logan),   @yivohn​ ,  @kvvatch​ ,   @quiprava​ (Alexander or Seraphim),   @lightlorn​ (Aria or Inessa),   @seahaloed​ (Visus or Jenny), @dragonversed​ (Alistair or Dorian)

[derangedhyena-zoids]

You know what there doesn't seem to be a preponderance of on Zi?

Kids.

fair warning: this is a goddamn mess of a horseshitpost about history, population and reproduction dynamics, and chucklefucking about character genetics that I have unfortunately have actually spent time thinking about because my brain literally doesn't accept "idle" as a state. 

this probably gets a little weird and also contains mention of sensitive topic (tagged) so please be aware of that

Ok so

Compared to say, the society pictured in Fuzors (which doesn't comply with the xCentury-verse sufficiently and thus gets ignored by me), NC0 seems equally prosperous but a lot more resource-strained. Not "at that time" but simply as a way of life.

Nobody thinks of themselves as resource-poor, but nothing is terribly robust except in the largest cities (eg the modern day rebuilds of the old capitals, Guygalos and New (Helic) City.)

This isn't a secret. It's more or less been the case for the entirety of humans' colonization of the planet. That's why locale self-sufficiency is so important and why there's huge stretches of nothing everywhere. You simply cannot live wherever you want. The environment is fucking hostile and You Will Die.

So first off, let's be real: when you first colonize a planet and want to establish yourselves there, there's going to be rules/procedures in place regarding reproduction to make sure nobody ends up genetically representing too much of the population. It'd take a bit to get to the point of non-directed (and/or non test-tube) reproduction even being allowed.

Basically, space humans colonizing alien planets gonna have hella birth control tech available. There are no "oops" offspring. I'm inclined to think it's actually something that's been modified on a very base level (read: likely genetic modification, is heritable) level, that would require outside intervention of some kind (eg chemical) to make reproduction possible.

The point of "safe to naturally mingle" would likely correspond with the eventual, initial tech-dip as the stores of things from initial arrival were finally depleted (because it was probably planned out that way), and tech that was arrived with started to go offline permanently.

They'd have to be settling into what they could do and make with the resources available on Zi, meaning that avoiding uncontrolled population growth was still a huge priority, because the let's-successfully-establish-civilization mindset would still be thoroughly ingrained at that point.

There'd be hundreds of years of "danger zone" population levels where large adverse events could've easily wiped them all out if they weren't mindful. But, they were, and humans colonized Zi successfully (...again), good job, hooray

The overarching society-level birth control was well-codified in the various cultural groups that arose. But these inclinations did change over time as larger and more friction-prone groups formed (read: the Empire, over time, became large and in charge, discontent developed and huge chunks of people kept trying to detach. Eventually the Republic cropped up. You need more people to be a bigger thing.)

Any desire to handle the population with kid-gloves all but went out the window as the first conflicts started and people were killed. These conflicts eventually escalated into the long-standing wars between the Empire and Republic, and restrictions on reproduction basically went away. (+depending on who was in charge things may have even Yikes'd in the other direction)

(just a canon-fyi I'm not following the Battle Story in the slightest, I'm only trying to make the xCentury anime(s) function. Zoids' various canons are like Transformers' canons - A MESS)

Before these wars started happening, not much besides the occasional natural disaster, accident, or simply old age killed anyone. People can live a long time on Zi! Much longer than usual.

Why? Because a lot of human common human pathogens from Earth simply *wouldn't exist* there (space humans are gonna be really careful to not tote that shit around), so there's only really lifestyle-related issues, latent or new-mutation genetic problems, and any micro-organisms on Zi that mutated sufficiently to be able to affect people. (which is not really a stretch if we're going by the thought that Zoidians were long-evolved humans. The Zoidians were there a LOT longer than humans have been)

so. modern day. I have NC0 a few hundred years after CC/GF. As a whole I think the human race on Zi is relatively young, but a lot of the oldest information (like "exactly when we fucking got here") was lost in Imperial/Republican wars.

Those went on for hundreds of years themselves, enough to establish mass Zoid manufacture as The Way Of Things(tm) and otherwise entrench what became the norms for human society there. (I STRONGLY suspect there's still a lot of residual Imperial/Republican tension in places/families and that Backdraft was founded by, for lack of a better word, Imperial sympathizers with a longstanding grudge against a unified GF-run government *coughhh Alteil cough* but... I digress)

Humans are at a perfectly serviceable population. I actually hesitate to put a number on it because I don't know what # value would properly represent "a sustainable amount of people on a barren planet with very limited resources" but it'd be a sizable population (I'd guesstimate tens of millions). I imagine the GF, being the unquestionably-global governing body*, is relatively authoritarian as far as the core population and major cities go. They obviously can't tightly police the whole planet, but they can certainly keep an eye on it.    

This doesn't mean it's a dystopia or that the GF is evil or that it's anything bad, really. I sort of picture it being run by Committee, likely made up of various descendants of powerful families ([insert 10 tons of political intrigue here that I'm picturing, it's amazing, ANYWAYS]) Zi's government is definitively a plutocracy.

There were plenty of people on the planet who were ambivalent towards the Empire and the Republic's nonsense and just carried on what social norms and culture that had been established by the early colonists. Many didn't LIKE that all the fighting was happening because innocent, uninvolved people kept getting killed, and that sucked because they just wanted to live quiet lives in secure towns and be left alone.

There was also a desire for more law enforcement in general, since gangs, bandits, and the Zi equivalents of sovereign citizens kept causing problems. So when the Guardian Force was established initially to wrestle peace into place, it was largely welcomed and people were very, very glad to get rid of hundreds of years of war.

This also meant a lot of people had kids because things became markedly more stable. In fact what led up *to* New Century was probably several solid centuries of strong population growth, establishing additional stable strongholds in habitable areas (new cities were established and built up), modernization and other general signs of prosperity.

So, all this blah blah blah leads up to several key realities for New Century:

-There isn't a strangehold on population growth, nor are there formal limits. However, the chemical-whatever that causes the inbuilt birth-control to fuck off is under the purview of - or at least monitored by - the government. So... there's that. It's also overwhelmingly likely that people have figured out other sources for this over time, if for some reason they're distrustful.

-This inbuilt bc is in effect for everyone. Both folks involved have to be on board. I mean, it'd technically be possible to surreptitiously slip some of the chemical-whatever to an unwilling partner? But it's not like that would be difficult to figure out.

-Family units range from what we'd recognize as a 'family' to entire towns sharing children/parenting responsibilities. Monogamy is the norm but polygamy isn't weird. People can be pretty sexually loose and it's not frowned upon at all - because let's be real, NC0-society is at full-on bread-and-circus levels of operation. There seems to be a moderate anti-intellectual bent and Zoid battles are the height of achievement. People are chasing highs as a way of life.  

Topically relevant individuals' headcanon:

I think Steve's wife died in childbirth (having Leena.) It neatly explains what happened to her and Layon's unhealthy obsession with Leena.

Feel like Bit and Brad both were raised in the more "communal" type of settings.

Harry's family comes from old Republican money.  

Stoller came from a family that's the equivalent of a house in the south that has confederate flags everywhere. Except they're Imperial.

ARE YOU STILL HERE? GOOD LORD WHY. WELL NOW THIS IS A SHITPOST ABOUT ZOIDIAN HYBRIDS AND OTHER ANCESTRY FUCKERY

Remember in some other post I wrote I said that when you start to hybridize Zoidians in, reproduction becomes more difficult? That's IN PART because of the bc thing, and in part because general genetics fuckery. But once you *had* a hybrid you had very robust individuals, who initially lacked a fully functional version of the inbuilt bc. Over time that was mixed back in, but there were at least a couple janky generations.

Literally every hybridized line in existence is either from Hiltz or Ryss. Fiona didn't reproduce (wasn't for lack of trying. Both her and Van being bonded to the same Organoid caused problems in that department.)

Ryss had two kids with Raven. The reality of Raven aging and dying sucked. The reality of her kids, grandkids, etc aging and dying sucked. Though her immediate offspring lived a lot longer than progressive generations did, as the bloodline became more diluted, a slightly-improved human lifespan became the norm. This was incredibly depressing to Ryss and is a large part of why she fucked off to the middle of nowhere to live with things that wouldn't age out and die on her. It's also why she didn't continue to have children.

Hiltz... Hiltz fucked (and well, raped) a lot of people (50% as a power/hate thing and 50% because he's from the Feed-Fuck-Fight club) and some of the people that lived to talk about it had offspring. The same aging issues were in effect for these offspring, but unlike Ryss's family they didn't have the benefit of anyone explaining what the fuck was going on. So they had a strange time.

Remember that these direct hybrids would've been of age squarely in the aforementioned, post-GF "everyone is having kids" time, so a fair number of distinct new lines were created and persisted. There was also a weird range of ages involved, because the direct hybrids lived A WHILE and could have offspring for most of that time.

Now, in the context of "many years later", this means a fair number of people carry these genes in varying dilutions. It's not a large amount in the context of the entire human population. It's a handful of family lines with increasingly baffled histories. But family groups frittered a lot in the aftermath of GF, so a lot of that knowledge was functionally lost.

Basically no one has any idea anymore, what little idea that they had in the first place. The only families with distinct and traceable genealogies are the rich/old-money ones.      

So, in the NC0 cast I officially headcanon 5 folks as these dilute-hybrids. You know most of them; Sara, Vega, and Brad, but I'm impolitely adding Stoller and Iyaga (Ehga?) to that mix because reasons.

Brad and Iyaga are from Hiltz's line. Sara and Stoller are from Ryss's. Vega is unique in that he draws from BOTH; Ryss from his mother's side and Hiltz from his father's. Sara had a *really* hard time actually having a kid as a result of that particular genetic fuckery. IMO this explains some of her behavior towards Vega - by the time she had him she was so emotionally estranged by both the loss of Vega's father and the loss of numerous pregnancies (and by that time was more involved with her 'backdraft career'), she struggled with BASIC AFFECTION.

anyways, thanks for coming to the world's most useless ted talk  

*ZBGF is like world-police, GF is world-gov, ZBC is a branch of ZBGF that keeps battles in line (and monitors usage of things). The GF is "background", in that it's using the more-friendly-seeming ZBC as its eyes and ears while keeping track of things on a higher level.

p.s. the bc thing is actually adapted from another story of mine's background, so don't worry I didn't spend ALLLLLL this time thinking about that for this only sdhgfjdfdf

[cloudbatcave]

More adventures in Wanting to Punch Cheren in the Dick!

I wander onto the route to the left since I can now do so and unfortunately Caspar gets killed by a Darumaka’s fire punch. Simon the Maractus is a powerhouse, though, he’s doing just swell.

So as the omens foretold, I take out that Solosis I caught and stick the exp share on it. Time will tell if Mito fares any better.

With nothing else to do it’s time to take on the gym! Let’s see how that goes for me.

It actually goes decently. I taught my Herdier and Throh Rock Tomb to combat the Emolgas, which worked, and even Cockmunch the Liepard played a part by using pursuit to take the second Emolga down when it Volt Switched and died nobly while I healed my Throh so he could take the Zebstrika out with Dig.

Halfway through the badges! Lost three (six if you count the throwaways) pokemon so far, but we’re getting there.

Annnnd it’s Cheren.

“Why? Why can’t I beat you?”

The true secret of battle is to [frozen voice] let it go.

Elesa strolls along and says it’s nice how we’re friends and we’re helping each other get better by competing.

In Unova, friend must mean “person I have not yet tried to murder.”

Here comes Alder.

Cheren asks why Alder the champion is “goofing off in a place like this” because he is a joyless creature made of nail clippings and despair.

Thankfully ol’ firehair calls him out. Then Alder makes us battle preschoolers, for some reason.

At least Cheren has the decency to heal my team before we do.

Rivali my Herdier almost dies because of this stupid impromptu fight but thankfully she hangs on and I switch Fiend the Throh in.

“The Champion is the strongest of the strong! That’s all there is to it.”

What’s it like being more boring than unflavored oatmeal, Cheren.

“What I am is a trainer, I prove I’m right by getting stronger in battle.”

You’re the worst is what you are.

I do little of consequence except level my team up until I wander down to Cold Storage, which is where Clay the creatively named ground-type leader told Cheren and I to go to recapture some Team Plasma members…who somehow escaped when we came over on the bridge Elesa had them bring down for us.

Yeah, don’t hurt your head trying to make sense of that one.

Cheren pops up again and honestly I don’t even have the energy to make fun of him this time. At least until he next unloads some absolute wankery.

“Chirae…do you think Team Plasma could be in there?”

I already beat up everyone in the north route, and unless they have powers I know not, they couldn’t have gotten past the giant electric spiderweb blocking the entrance to charge stone cave, so I’m going with yes.

“I don’t like cold places, but we have to check. What a bother.”

If I rip off your arm and use it as kindling for a fire, will you still whine at me? Yes? Damn.

“Is there anything more important than strength for Trainers, like the Champion said?”

Mr. Selective Hearing living up to his name, I see.

“Oh, I’ll never understand just by thinking about it. What a bother. Let’s hurry up and check the inside.”

You’re so much fun, Cheren, I love how the plot keeps tying us together in its sticky and questionable embrace.

At least Bianca has more than one single obnoxious goal in life. I almost long for the days of blondiedork dunderfuck.

Into the depths of Cold Storage, the token sliding ice puzzle! Not a hard one, thankfully. 

I pick up Scald, a useful TM if I ever get another decent water type.

“When it’s cold, wear lots of clothes! Only humans could come up with something so clever!”

Who lets you people out of your homes, I swear. Half the NPCs in this game are living shitposts.

“I am storing thick fat to resist the cold…I didn’t just get fat. Please don’t get me wrong.”

It’s 2019, fatshaming is dumb and outdated. I mean, it’s weird you’re telling me this, but don’t feel bad about yourself.

“Although I am in the Cold Storage, my heart is burning!”

You should probably get that looked at.

This guy sends out a Gurdurr, which isn’t good news for me because my Solosis is still two levels from evolving, and until it does, it’s still as fragile as wet tissue paper. I have to hope my other guys can kill it.

Never mind, Simon comes in clutch and nearly K.Os it in one giga drain. Bless this cactus.

Rivali tries to learn Roar and I’m almost tempted, given my absolute bullshit wild encounters I’ve had, but nah. Too useless in trainer battles.

“K-know what? This place is cold.”

I think I heard something about that. Weird!

Cheren pops up behind me to ask if someone is in this weird dark open container.

I have no idea, but let’s prank him and say yes.

Unfortunately inside we find an old man and more cosplaying weirdos. Cheren for once is useful and shares the duty of kicking their asses with me because there’s eight of them.

Clay shows up with some dudes to arrest them, which is nice, if ultimately useless since their security system for keeping them locked up is apparently two tin cans and a piece of string.

[chuckling-chemist]

Subscriber Desperation

((I make one “Youtube’s not a real job” joke on skaian-heretic’s post and suddenly I’m making Jacksfilms jokes and writing a goddamn crackfic featuring Ardata. I’ll be fair...I’m not sure exactly how IC this is for Ardata, and more importantly I’m not sure I care. This was just for some hopefully dumb humor.))

“I cannot believe Grubtube changed their algorithm! And to attempt to introduce user feedback. The nerve…” the blueblood typing furiously on her keyboard scowled deeply. “No wonder I’ve lost so many subscribers.”

Naturally, due to Ardata’s high status and sinister persona, the number of people commenting on her work in comparison to her views was low. But for sweeps, such hadn’t been a problem. She always managed to keep on top of Grubtube’s changing formulas to keep her on the top of trending tags for weeks. Obtain subscribers by occasionally making a video unrelated to your regular content, then push them to watch your other videos? Early on, of course, but she did. Get trolls to click on a video they’d hold no interest in through thumbclaws and titles promising sexual content that only appeared for seconds? Easy. Falsely inflate her video lengths through elongated intros and outros? Simple. But getting people to interact with her videos aside from a like? Impossible. Lowblood trolls wouldn’t comment on her videos to keep their olfactories safe from her, and higherbloods had better things to do with her time than leave a comment on a video involving brutal murder when they wouldn’t have to comment much in an online redblock. She had better things to do with her time.

With a frustrated groan, she clicked over to her imitators’ profiles. She needed some sort of method to make her look - Ardata shuddered at the mere thought of it - approachable. Enough so they might comment on her videos. Unfortunately for her, almost every profile she scanned did something different. Many relied on sponsorships from small, Internet companies. Some engaged in online feuds. And if those acts weren’t reprehensible on her own, others were worse. She held far too much pride to tell her subscribers to “smash the flush/pitched buttons” if they felt any strong feelings or run videos ran wholly on content produced by commenters. Her videos were art. The gutterbloods in her basement, her muse. Commenters weren’t allowed to dictate the type of art she produced, even if they drove her numbers up.

However, the longer she scrolled through her competition, she realized they all did something she hadn’t ever quite done. Many of these trolls seemed eager to talk about themselves in front of the camera with questions supplied by subscribers. Ardata did enjoy talking about herself. And, while she preferred working behind the camera as the director with complicated shots and angles to truly capture the spirit of the poor troll, an easy night of sitting at a camera and talking sounded just that: easy. She made the announcement on both Chittr and her most recent Grubtube video, informing them of an upcoming Q&A so please send your questions now.

The results were instantaneous. Her most recent video’s view count hit record highs within hours, placing it firmly in Grubtube’s top trending videos. Questions flooded her video, her Chittir, her inbox, anywhere they felt they could send them. For the first time in perigees - the first time since meeting that odd little alien - she was a big Grubtuber again. Famous. Esteemed. She set an established date for a full livestream set to be hours long (again, good for the algorithm), and pulled all the questions to be used from a random generator. So close to re-achieving the fame she once had on Grubtube she’d never have to try again if she wanted to. She set everything up the night before, from her husktop littered with questions to the camera itself.

Her preparations made the filming easy. She only had to start up the livestream on Grubtube, waiting for the red light to indicate she started filming and grimace menacingly at the camera. Of course, she made herself look equally enticing and imposing on her black couch, but that was just her regular aesthetic. To do anything else was disingenuous. “Hello. I’m sure you’re all here to watch Alternia’s best up-and-coming filmmaker on Grubtube answer your questions.” She smirked. “I’m so flattered you could make it. Unsurprised, judging by your ridiculous interest in my personal life, but flattered. So, let’s get this started before I lose interest.”

The first set of questions her husktop pulled up were straightforward. Trolls asked her about simple questions about her personal life: everything from her lusus to her quadrants, on top of numerous questions about all sorts of favorites. One even asked her about dayglow, and if she preferred it to other poisons. Ardata gave the viewers of the stream cryptic answers. After all, she didn’t really want to talk about her private life. She didn’t even want to answer questions at all. This was all just to please the Grubtube algorithm and gain her viewership back.

About halfway through the questions, after a slog of political minefields seemingly only there to upset some subjuggalator watching her videos, the questions started to get...well...weird. “‘Ardata,’” she read, “‘I’m a huge fan of your videos, but I gotta ask, I keep dabbing on my haters like other grubtubers told me to, but sometimes they dab back. I haven’t gotten an answer from them yet. Please help, I’m scared.”

Ardata’s smirk twisted into a dark frown. “If you’re scared, don’t dab at them. Shouldn’t that be simple?”

She flipped over to the next one, reading “Ardata? What’s your opinion on the film ‘The Funny Faces on Your Palm Husk Develop Personalities of Their Own Separate of the Ones They Are Supposed to Emote in a Sellout Family Comedy Featuring An Overabundance of Propaganda and Product Placement, The Plot Relying Wholly On Overused Concepts Done Better in Other Films? I heard it’s a visual masterpiece.” She scowled. “What kind of question is this? Did anyone even go see that refuse incinerator heap of a film?” She scoffed. “Please. Next question.”

She flipped down through the comments, reading many of them outloud as she skipped them. Ardata, when will you start giving us sponsorships at the end of your videos? Can’t wait to skip all of them!

Ardata, has anyone told you your lusus is half as cute as JuhannFlicks’ barkbeast?

Ardata, when will you do a collaboration with a screaming Grubtuber?

Have you considered what it feels like to be like us, an asshole talking to a camera?

Ardata, I need more challenge vids!

What’s your opinion on the Eastern Alternian flag made entirely of triangles? Do you agree it’s the absolute worst?

Over and over. The whole middle portion of Q&A seemed like...shitposts. Pure and idiotic shitposts. Her scowl deepend. “Understand, viewers, these questions are so inane I’m not even giving them a thought. Now, this one, since I ignored so many…” she flitted her gaze over to the next post, not even bothering to check to see what it said, “this one I’ll answer.”

Hey Ardata, how does it feel to know that you have no skills for the Ordeals because we all know Grubtube’s not a real job?

She paused, blinking slowly. Anger swelled in the pit of her stomach. How dare some troll insist what she did wasn’t a job! She profited, didn’t she? “I assure you, viewer, what I do is very real. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here right now,” she said tightly. “Now, let’s move on to the--”

She gasped. A whole slew of comments, none of them from the same troll, all asked the same question. Worded differently, but functionally the same. Grubtube’s not a real job.

“Q&A’s over early. I won’t be doing another one,” she snarled. With a quick snap of her wrist, the husktop clicked shut, ending the stream immediately.

It wasn’t until she sat there for several minutes, fuming silently, that she realized what she did. But it was too late now. She’d have to find another way to bring in new viewers through other means, and hope her outburst only drove minimal numbers away.

Hopefully.

***

Meanwhile, Juhann Scanan, popular oliveblooded comedic Grubtuber, watched the whole stream with anticipation. His lusus, a tiny little fluffy barkbeast he affectionately called Klondike, nipped at his arm. Normally he wasn’t interested in the drama of Grubtube, but the fall of Ardata Carmia was equal parts funny and necessary. Grubtube held enough bloodshed without yet another redblock wannabe hogging all the attention.

The video ended with a loud click, and Grubtube shoved him off the video onto her regular profile. The same question his followers asked over and over, she couldn’t even handle once.

Juhann laughed. Maybe it wasn’t the kindest idea to let his followers know he sent in one bizarre question about dabbing after making a song that happened to reference this Grubtube redblock trend.. But the bubbly satisfied feeling watching another villain of the website crumble under their own infamy felt justified, in a way. If you can’t adjust to the changing tides of a constantly evolving website, you’d fall behind. Ardata, and any other troll who mistakes ultraviolence for art and content, relying wholly on a supervillain status for popularity, would fall victim for that.

“Okay Klondike, get off me,” he said. “I gotta finish editing for tomorrow. Gotta finish that song.”

Klondike yipped happily in his face, making no attempt to move. Moving seemed out of the question. Juhann stretched, smiling sleepily at his lusus and yawning. “Fine,” he said with a light pat of the barkbeast’s head. Editing could wait for a day. “You win. I’ll sleep.”

((I’ll just say it here, yeah his matesprit’s just troll!Erin/2ToesUp and she has a similar lusus named Sundae))

[kansetsukiss]

Winter 2018: First Impressions

The new year always comes with a bout of unwarranted confidence and energy, and what better way to spend it, I thought, than by keeping entirely up to date with the new anime season. (I say “entirely,” though I have clearly omitted several shounen / fantasy shows out of respectful disinterest, and Citrus, for reasons that may evolve into their own post.) Here are the first impressions of the season’s first episodes. I’ll be checking back in halfway through and at the end of the season to chart each show’s progress. Saa, hajimaruzamasu yo!

Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san

Though they’ve since been deleted, the first episode of Koizumi-san encouraged two extremely negative reviews to surface on MAL. Why anyone would submit a formal review after one episode is beyond me (get a tumblr blog, you herbs), but why this of all shows should warrant such backlash also confounds me. Yes, it’s silly - it follows goofy lesbian Oosawa Yuu as she follows her crush, the enigmatic Koizumi, from one ramen eatery to another, while Koizumi rebuffs her flirtations and educates her on various ramen cooking styles. It should be pretty fucking clear from this set-up that we’re not in for a thematically dense thrill-ride - why is this Cute Girls Doing Cute Things show apparently that much worse than others with equally pointless premises? All this said, I’m certainly wondering if the show can expand on its small roster of characters and settings to fill a full cour. Stranger things have happened. I’ll be following along, if only to hear more of Ayaneru’s darling voice acting, dreamy sigh.

Yuru Camp∆

(Don’t forget that delta!) This season’s iyashikei delivers exactly what was promised on the package, resulting in not much to say about it at all. I’m not sure the ambience here is quite luscious enough to warrant this many slow shots (cf. Studio Ghibli, Mushishi), but I was never bored, and it looks like we’ll be heading to more slice-of-life settings soon enough anyways. It’s quiet, thoroughly nice, even somewhat educational. Healing as it may be, it’s also definitely a Cute Girls show, and yes, the girls so far are very good. Fingers crossed we get some yuri with that yuru…

Sanrio Danshi

Ahh, a familiar conflict: a mega-corporation creates / sponsors art that supports progressive politics, but is also using the medium to shamelessly promote their products - cf. Pepsi, Heineken, etc. This time it’s Sanrio fighting restrictive gender stereotypes: why can’t boys be into cute animal mascots too? It’s a sweet message, but the irony of it coming directly from the merchandiser is hefty. Sanrio Boys makes an inoffensive first impression - the titular boys are entirely generic in design and expression, distinguished mostly by their mascot kyara of choice (disappointingly, my lovely Cinnamaroll has been claimed by a boofy-looking doofus). It’s shallow and ironically enjoyable, as most teen-girl-oriented media inevitably is, alas. Here lies another mystifying contradiction: a clearly low-effort show featuring an ensemble cast of five handsome but emotionally vulnerable boys is so clearly aimed at girls, so how is their boys-can-have-feelings-too message even going to land with its supposed target audience? Are the boys themselves just another marketable Sanrio product for girls?? Christ.

Violet Evergarden

Speaking of mega-corporations, Netflix is still on track to subsume all art and artists by 2020 - but hey, they’re putting out some good stuff. Violet Evergarden is a decisive question mark. I’m partial to both its main tropes of “post-war melancholy” and “emotionless person learns to feel again,” but they can intersect respectively with “leaning heavy on the Feels” and “literal objectification of women.” Violet’s emptiness doesn’t make for a compelling main character - it’s strange to see KyoAni’s unparalleled expressivity lavished upon an unexpressive character - and it’s hard to say whether her traumatic past will justify this, or just fall flat. I’m cautiously optimistic for now, and if it all does go south, I’ll always have Sora no Woto to give me the good stuff. (Special shout-out to both all-too-brief timelapse shots. KyoAni, you magnificent bastards.)

Sora yori mo Tooi Basho

I think it’s understandable that I would enter into this with trepidation - it seemed somewhere between a sports anime and a Cute Girls Etc., both of which can stretch to ridiculous settings. But it seems, in a weird way, fairly grounded. Well, I mean, for a show about high school girls travelling to Antarctica. I’m really hoping they’re not just on their way by episode 2 - Shirase’s struggle with the depressive realism of her ludicrous dream is ripe for exploring in itself. Both the main characters are wonderful; Shirase’s design indicated another taciturn raven-haired maiden (cf. Kousaka Reina), but she’s wonderfully expressive, and I’m always happy to hear Kana Hanazawa doing any voice other than Default Kana Hanazawa. Overall, it’s very nicely animated and paced, quietly comic, and almost definitely going to trip over its absurd premise by the time I next check up on it, but I suspect it will still be a fun, if silly, ride.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card

OH MY GOD. I’ve only been living in a post-Sakura world for about 2 years, and this was still a quasi-religious experience; I can’t imagine how this would feel to the fans who grew up on the show. Everything about this is fucking fantastic. I’m losing the ability to criticise. I’m dangerously close to “I can’t even”-ing. The production is perfect, the sakura petals are abundant, there’s a fucking oboe solo stripped-back rendition of Platinum when Syaoran appears, the fucking ED is so beautifully animated. I’m sorry, I’m doki-doki-ing all over the place. This is the by far my favourite of the season so far. Not even Meilin’s absence can sour this for me. (Okay, maybe a little, if I really think about it :c)

Pop Team Epic

Hmmm. This was preceded by its reputation, evenly regarded by my Twitter feed as “a shitpost in anime form” and “excellent lesbian representation.” Given how dense my watchlist already is, I’m pleased to say I absolutely don’t care about this. It conveys the same humour as short-form absurdities like Teekyuu or Plastic Nee-san, but mostly leans on shallow pop-culture references and crudeness. The face that it’s a full-length show - let alone the fact that the first episode is the same half-length episode played twice - is exasperating. As a fan of Wonder Showzen and the Eric Andre Show, I see the appeal of the style, but it definitely falls short of both such marks. (And though I know this is unfair, it’s a little hard to get into something so well-received by 4chan dipshits.)

Darling in the FranXX

There’s a sexual harassment joke roughly 4 minutes into the first episode - nowhere near Bakemonogatari’s record, and not damning in and of itself, but it unfortunately does reflect the overall tone. This feels like a weird teenage rebellion by Studio Trigger, defying their parent by making their own Evangelion, with blackjack!, and hookers!, and absolutely none of the subtlety or character exploration that made Eva great. Zero Two is a deafening klaxon of fanservice masquerading as a sexually autonomous character - I wanted to believe otherwise, but her fucking robot has nice boobs, and even gets its own panty shot. The robot, which is powered by making out, mind you. I’m not one to hold low-brow shows to higher standards - I will call a fanservice-y spade a spade - but I expected more out of Trigger at this point, especially on the heels of extremely wholesome Little Witch Academia series. Even the mediocre Kiznaiver had loftier goals. I’ll keep tabs on this one - if nothing else, Trigger’s animation style and an excellent OST will sweeten a bitter pill. 

Mitchiri Neko

Hard pass. If you’re gonna watch a banal, cutesy, 3-minute runtime cat show - like, if you really need that - watch Bananya.

[joel-furniss-blog]

Shitposting and Dada

I discussed briefly in my project statement how I sense a certain lack of ambition and that I enjoy and produce work that is often of low-effort and low-quality, and in the previous semester I intended to sort of trick the examiners into giving me a better mark by overloading them with a quantity of work, trying to sort of test the ‘quality ≠ quantity’ saying. This method of producing work is quite like another of my favourite pastimes, the online behaviour of shitposting.

As vast as its internet domain, shitposting can take up a myriad of different forms on different forums, but a generally agreed definition is ‘posting large amounts of content "aggressively, ironically, and of trollishly poor quality” to an online forum or social network,’. Usually this is in order to derail otherwise orderly online discussions or alternately to bastardize a site to its regular visitors. Its usage dates to the early 00’s under the influence of niche online forums and imageboards, in which comment threads were often derailed from discussion by anonymous users either adding unconstructive posts out of ignorance or malicious intent. The resulting environment of chaotic misuse it results in is commonly referred to as ‘cancer’ (highlighting just how seriously an issue it is thought to be).

From its initial days as a minor annoyance on obscure online sump, shitposting has since changed into a much more mainstream culturally practice, especially in the intersection between internet trolling and politics. With its ability to aggravate, avert information, and overload systems, shitposting has fit well into the maddening expanse of contemporary politics and its sensationalist coverage, its first prominence being in the 2016 United States presidential race among examples of other radicalised internet phenomena—such as the appropriated mascot Pepe the Frog who has his own shitposted legacy—where the internet-savvy right-wing circles used memes as a new age propaganda machine to entertain its recruits and alienate its enemies through a stream of coded slang and images pumped out at a perpetual speed.

A most extreme and unfortunate example of the extent of the radicalization shitposting can cause is the 2019 Christchurch shooting in which an ethno-nationalist terrorist livestreamed his attack on Facebook and released a 74-page manifesto publicly on Twitter and imageboard 8chan as well as being sent directly to more than 30 recipients including multiple media companies and the New Zealand prime ministers office. The manifesto was allegedly littered with multiple memes including references to video game Fortnite, YouTube personality and alt-right running dog PewDiePie, and the classic Navy Seal copypasta, as well as alt-right associated meme and Serbian anti-Muslim turbo-folk song commonly referred to as Remove Kebab, paired with the method of distribution the manifesto could be seen as a most radical version of shitposting, intended to throw out morsels of the shooters philosophy to confuse outsiders and tempt those who might sympathise.

But shitpostings use is not exclusive to the political-right, as left-identifying groups have also used it for their own advancement, such as Facebook group New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens with over 175,000 members who produce and exchange memes and general discourse related to environmentally friendly and socially accommodating urban design schemes and transport reform, whose impact has seen 2020 United States presidential candidate Bernie Sanders become a member and supporter. Shitposting and trolling has even cropped up in the UK political scene, with current Liberal Democrat party leader Jo Swinson having to explicitly state that she does not murder squirrels after a fake screenshot of a news article saying so began circling Twitter.

With its relation to the fake news phenomenon and the post-truth environment, shitposting has found a comfortable place in the current political climate, but for my own sake I have to ask; how does it relate to art. Surprisingly, shitposting—while not in its current form—was very crucial to art history. The conceptual elements of shitposting, its ideas of producing an output of notably low effort, with enough capability to rise reactions from those lacking in acumen, and then continue to overwhelm the viewers by reproducing the same min-effort/max-impact work are comparable to the pursuits of the Dada movement. With its lack of principles, no cohesive aesthetic, and overt anti-normality take on making art, Dada holds many similarities with shitposting. Even contextually they are somewhat parallel, with the birth of Dada spewed from the loins of a WWI-era Europe in which class divisions widened between the uppers who were protected and profiteered from the war and the working class who suffered financially and psychological from its first-hand effects, paired with a spike in nationalism and a deduction in perceived human rights it was the turmoil and the bastardizations of the modern human society that spurred the reflective works of Dada, in essence producing shit art for a shit period. Whilst lacking in the same kind of industrialised killings of a World War, today’s society can be seen as comparable to the same conditions Dada was born under, a sharp rise in nationalism broaching into outright fascism in many places; a correlating increase in alienated peoples changing the other side of the political pendulum; governments which actively undermine their own people for financial gain (as if that’s anything new); consequences from governments decades past haunting marginalised communities and countries; a revolt every other day in every other country; an alphabet or damaging ‘-isms’ and ‘-phobias’; and a general feeling of slow and sinking madness infecting society, it’s easy to see why such absurdist practices as shitposting were born.

It’s easy to see certain similarities, even in famous—or infamous—examples such as Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) which was sent to a gallery exhibition as an absurdist remark on arts dichotomy between the aesthetic and the conceptual, the ceramic shitpost (or rather pisspost) of an overturned urinal embodied the same attitude as a modern shitposts, irritating to any traditionalist constant, and amusing to those who either don’t understand it or do. Shitposting is an effective way to overturn expectations and subvert opinions. Even the way it spread so suddenly, with a rise and fall caught in six years in over ten countries across the globe mimics the viral sensationalism of internet trends, rising to a global impact to suddenly deconstruct itself through saturation.

Both subjects were also entwined with the political game, with Dada practically challenging any traditionalist view it could, condemning the rising nationalist tendencies and capitalist fervour of societal ‘progress’, found especially amongst the Berlin group. Under the depression of the Weimar republic and the following rise in oppression by the Nazi party, German Dadaists continued their absurd political communication and activities through art, with their efforts corralled in with other morally objectionable art labelled as ‘degenerate’—a word that has also found relevance amongst certain shitposters—they rebelled nonetheless, with artist John Heartfield even sending postcards of his work directly to Nazi leaders, a literal shitpost.

However, just as concept and context can be applied, so can criticism to both subjects. Some art historians have noted Dadas perverse relationship with race, with a streak of using racially charged language an imagery with little to know relation or appreciation for other races, especially that of Africans with prominent member George Grosz often performing a minstrel show at the movements epicentre the Cabaret Voltaire and the Incoherents Paul Bilhaud painting an all-black work titled Combat de Nègres dans un Tunnel (Negroes Fighting in a Tunnel by Night, 1882). Paired with a fetishization of racial others as ‘primitive’ Dada had problematic effects, much like shitposting which, as previously discussed, has become lumped in with the narrative of deplorability within right-wing margins, and later majorities. However, from personal experience I have seen just as much shitposting from left-wing sources as right-wing, because it lacks any concrete coding and has evolved from mindless pastime to activist tool, but there are obvious questions on whether politics should be taken in such a Dada direction, whether it’s anti-sense sensibilities will reduce politics to further churlishness that it already is, whether elections will do away with voting systems for a game of ‘how many memes can either side send’.

I’m not here to concern myself with the politics of shitposting, I’m studying this topic from a sincerity past politics and into a wider philosophical scope. I love shitposting, the anonymous nature of the internet lets me crawl into someone else’s life, sew whatever discourse or confusion I can and then promptly leave, like a stray rat running across a kitchen floor only to never be seen again, moved on to another person’s virtual kitchen. However just as a rat searches for food, I search for shitposting grounds that are comfortable to me, things that I care about or have some sort of personal opinion on, things like euthanasia, suicide, societal expectations, abortions, issues on morality, art, and other various philosophical conundrums that I am slowly devolving. In some cases, I think it’s the most earnest thing one can do, to laugh into the void as it were and generate absurdist rebellion to normality that’ll upset its balance. I even think it has practical applications, take into consideration the increase in targeted advertising algorithms, in which websites and apps hijack personal information you send or even speak privately to sell you products. But by streaming false or flagrantly inflated information instead it is possible to confuse and disrupt the targeting algorithms, a small rebellion against corporate injustice. Some may call it sadistic, or sociopathic, or just plain sad to deliberately seek and produce such effortless and meaningless content, but I see it to hone my ideological axe, to build my ideas into more concrete forms. Paired with the previously mentioned anti-normality connotations with the Dada movement, and the current cultural relevance of it, I think the philosophical implications behind shitposting are essential to my current work and I will continue to take inspiration from it.

 “How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, Europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul; dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world’s best lily-milk soap

Why can’t a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident limitedness. The word, gentlemen, is a public concern of the first importance.”

[juniper-novella]

Journal entry #0001

I guess a blog is for updating people on your life from a public platform. For nearly the past year I've been mainly shitposting random drawings I've made hoping over time that I'd evolve as an artist, i was wrong. I've barely evolved at all since my first posts. Now though I still want to progress but I need motivation. Originally for a while I was working on a small 30 page story I was gonna post on here to get some feedback but I see that's going to be hard. This blog lives in obscurity, not that I'm complaining I kinda like just being another random voice in the abyss. Yet I want something. That story I was working on has been rewritten and redrawn probably over 15 times by now. I think it's definitely improved allthough i have my doubts on how good it is. I about two months or so I'll have around 50 comic pages of that story completed. I'll post them and I hope someone out in this odd crevasse of the Internet tells me something. I think I've been rambling for too long now. I originally began this post with the idea of what a blog is typically about. Well unfortunately that's the problem. I don't like talking about myself. So that's what's gonna happen gonna post that story, see where it takes me, then i dunno. Well thank you for reading this rambling post, hole you have a nice day. With respect, Cassius Novella the man in the Jungla hovella.

[shanny-tired]

(OOC) What it Does For Me.

Hey! How’s it going there pal? Still following this blog I see. Sick of Shanaris yet? Tell me what ya’ think of this grumpy old hag in an ask or something, if nothing else to expel some of your own dislike into the open! I’d honestly appreciate it and adore feedback.

Ah-- that ain’t why I’m writing this up though. I’m self-conscious enough as it is. Nah-- writing this up because I just thought I’d give my two-fifths of a nickle on things and stuff. Now it might get a bit TMI as we get further down, but I promise I ain’t gonna be saying what color my underwear is, if any is being worn, or how I almost kicked the bucket. This is all just a winded summary of why I write which most of ya’ probably don’t care much to hear about.

First off, for those that don’t actually know or never bothered to know-- or just don’t really care but would like some insight on the writer themselves: I’m diagnosed with major depression. Eh, so what yeah? Me and half the world, yeah? Yeah, at some times it does feel like so what. Problems are a mile away and things feel like a god damn floppy rainbow I’m riding off into the sunset, or at least a very cushioned wall. We all know how depression can be, yeah? Listlessness, gloomy, broody, isolation from others, reticent qualities, and often times emotional or numb qualities or some such. I ain’t a psychologist! Could be wrong, but that’s how I feel most days.

Alright, now it gets to the TMI part. Feel free to skip this if ya want. Oh-- and warnings on suicide and rape if you’re adverse to reading about that stuff. Look for the bold!

So...yeah! Life is shit and blah blah so forth. I’m young, probably younger than most of the people I know online think of me as. Which is good! I’m honestly flattered when people think of me as older than I truly am. As such, with the youth come times of vulnerability and ignorance and whatnot. Been through some shit man, been through a whole lotta shit that I’d be damn well happy to do without. We all have, yeah? Of course! No one has been through their life without a moment of suffering by their own perspective. Of course, what you may see as a time of suffering is often seen by others as a “Quit being a lil’ bitch you scrub.” moment. Unfortunately I’ve been through those moments. I’ve been deeper than many go and watched Death french kiss me three times over. Weren’t it for cowardice and hesitation, sloppy work or all around listlessness to even off myself? I’d be pretty dead already. If I did manage to get rid of myself, well-- I never wanted to deep-throat decomposers of the animal kingdom. Yeah, I’ve been.. numb a lot in the recent past. So numb that I hadn’t even cared about the shit that lady did to me in Junior year of high school. Or-- was it Senior year? Fuck, I really don’t remember, but it did happen, and it was my first time with anyone really. Last time I go to another chick’s house on the premise of them being my friend, yeah? I won’t touch on that too much though, no one wants to hear about that sorta thing-- not even me. Past few years up until now? Yeah it’s been pretty fucking shitty. Went like... a whole two months without shaving or bathing or washing my hair-- really nasty. No one noticed though. Or maybe no one really cared to look at the kid in college that sits in the front corners of the room to stay close to the teacher and away from the noise. A very... muted scream for help, in my experience. Yeah... it was nasty! I don’t think I’ll ever go into that realm of the pits again-- at least I hope not.

Now, I know we all didn’t come here to read about all this sad depressive shit, least I think so. I hope so! You don’t get off on my misery do you? If ya’ do well that’s.... that’s kinda hot.

I don’t wanna go on and on about my issues, so I’ll try and keep the rest short as I can, yeah? All that shit that happened to me? Tore me from the inside out. Now I ain’t saying I had it worst-- that I am the most miserable person. Nah, none of that. People out there with miles more problems than myself, but everyone reacts differently and is effected by their past whether we wanna be or not. I just... had no idea what to do at the time. So... I took to writing and RP on a playful whim. Someone said they wanted to RP with me on some other-- no through text message! And I was all like “Ah, sure, whatever, how do?”. I got given a crash course and by fuck I loved it. I loved being anything but me-- loved trying to think like someone else entirely. I loved the way it exploded in my imagination that every time I closed my eyes I saw these vibrant images of a multitude of things: sex, death, gore, hand movements, facial expression, tone of voice-- all of it was so... alive. I wanted more, so I sought more. On various different platforms until I got dick deep into the RP community on SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic) back when it still dominantly existed. At the time it was just... a lot of erotic roleplay, because that’s really all there was on that game, yeah? Either you did some erotic shit, or you went and got gored by some Sith or lil’ open skirmish. I did the erotic stuff-- did a hell of a lot of it. Did I get off to it? Nah, it was just amusing and all-around pleasant to just...write in general. Even if a Chiss had to take a Rancor in the face. Fuck-- TMI again, apologies. What I’m trying to say is that RP brought me a whole realm of enjoyment and excitement to my otherwise entirely numb and shitty life that... I made it my escape.

Over the short years it only evolved and grew more complex. What was a severe detachment from my characters became an emotional connection that made me realize how alike I am to the people I write-- especially Shanaris. Maybe that’s why I enjoy writing Shanaris the most: she is more like me than I really realize. It all reached a point where I started to find friends, and eventually went back to World of Warcraft from reasons other than shitposting and ‘roleplaying’ on the Horde Moonguard server. Like-- I was roleplaying before I even really understood what it was and how it made me feel. No-- I went back to find a community that wasn’t dead and dying-- a group of friends that weren’t always down and depressive. A change of environment was needed, yeah? Well, I definitely found it and it’s been little over a year since I did.

All the Roleplay, all the writing, even writing this shitty post has been more helpful than people realize. It all started because one person decided to take a chance and RP with the quiet, idle person standing still in Cathedral square. Everyone and everything that had happened the past year was both extremely shitty and extremely helpful. We all Roleplay for different reasons and often time we need a certain drive to Roleplay. Well, not me. My drive to roleplay is the RP itself. My reasons to write is the writing itself. It helps me escape a reality I often times want nothing to do with. I would like to think this is the healthiest coping mechanism I got: writing-- typing, whatever!

Really, what I wanna say is thanks to all you lovable fuckers-- you know who you are, won’t need to tag you. Y’all been a tremendous help to me and are often times too pleasant to bear. So, do a writer a little favor the next time you’re online and ain’t got much to do? Find someone who is just sitting all by their lonesome and just... talk to them. Lotta times they may just be alone to be alone or soemthing. Other times they might be like me and have a problem initiating things, so they scream in wishful silence hoping someone notices them enough to interact. We never know until we try, yeah? It’s amazing how such simple gestures can help people along just a little bit further.

Again, thanks to you all for reading this, Roleplaying with me, or just being an all-round good person to chat with. Alright, I’ll give the blog back to Shanaris and the memes. Thanks for reading down this far guys! And thanks again for the fun times and future times to come.