#which is hard in this AI era

[ronkoza]

hi, it was long time since the last time i've opened some slots and now any help and interest is priceless ✨

5 slots available

you will get your picture around one-two weeks

if you're interested please send me a DM

[fans4wga]

26 September: thread by WGA member David Slack

Twitter thread by David Slack @/slack2thefuture:

"As WGA leaders meet today to finalize our deal, we begin a new era for writers — and for labor in our industry. But we also begin to face the final and most insidious form of unionbusting propaganda: a years-long effort to sell the lie that our strike was not worth it.

Over the coming days, months, and years, the studios, streamers, and their surrogates will take every opportunity to undermine what we have won together. They will seize on the inevitable consessions and compromises made by our NegCom as proof that we “failed.”

They will urge us to overlook all that we won through hard work and unwavering solidarity. They will claim it wasn’t enough, that we should have gotten X instead of Y, that we lost more by striking than we gained in this new contract. And they will be wrong.

They will tell us that the strike was unnecessary, it was a waste of our time and our savings, that our agents or managers or lawyers could have gotten us everything we won through individual negotiations without anyone having to walk a picket line. Well… then why didn’t they?

As hard as it is to believe right now, these lies can work. They’ve worked before. During our 2017 strike authorization vote, it was shocking to discover how many members believed we lost the ‘07-08 strike, in which we went on strike for the internet — and won the internet.

This didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of years of whispering by studios and anti-union allies. And they don’t just do it because they’re bitter about losing. They push the lie that we used our power and lost because they hope to stop us from using our power to win.

Our strike was necessary because, in our individual negotiations, our employers consistently refused to acknowledge our right and reasonable demands. Because the profound changes we needed could only be won through the unique and overwhelming power of collective bargaining.

Our strike was necessary because our employers made it necessary by driving our income down 23% in 10 years. Because they refused to address free work in features, streaming coverage in comedy-variety, the abuses of mini-rooms and the threat of AI until we withheld our labor

Our strike was necessary. Our strike was effective. Our strike is a victory. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, it’s ‘cause they never want to see us stand up for ourselves again. Don’t believe it. We won this fight. We’re the WGA, and when we fight, we win. #WGAStrong"

[zg0nuwa]

Hey, hope you're fine...and i see that you're another fan for Miguel (we are) can you write the father day with his daughter and the reader as his wife please:(?....(i just hate my daddy issues)

★ best dad ever ! ⎯⎯

i don't think you understand how much power you just gave me with this (i had like half of this written already but tumblr crashed and i was one step away from going into my joker era)

miguel o'hara x wife!reader

warnings ; angsty fluff, i tried experimenting with the spanish but i feel like i failed miserably, lowercase intended, i'm not a spanish speaker so you're free to correct me on the spanish.

miguels work schedule was very unstable. there were times when he would be gone for the whole day and then there were times when he could spend most of the day at home. you understood, for the most part, he had the multiverse on his shoulders no matter how hard you wished for him to have a much less dangerous job. of course not everyone knew why he sometimes had to disappear for long periods of time.

and one of them was your daughter. all she knew was that " daddy does very important things and he has to go but he will always come back ".

this year, fathers day rolled up on a sunday which meant not only your daughter was home but also you. for your husband it was a little more complicated. he woke up in the middle of the night to a notification from lyla about another anomaly going nuts in the wrong universe. you loved the ai but in this particular moment you wanted to explode her with your mind.

" i'll be back before sunset, i promise " with that and a kiss on your forehead he left through the portal in your bedroom.

the next time you woke up that day was because of your daughter. she climbed onto your bed and started to shake you lightly with her small hands.

" mom? where’s daddy? " you opened your eyes to gabi hovering above you with her favorite plush animal pressed close to her chest. she had this disappointed expression on her small face. you knew it was because of miguel being gone. she planned this whole day for him, you even helped her organize everything.

" i’m sorry sweetheart… daddy had to go to work. " you pulled her in so her head was under your chin. she clung to you like a small koala bear as you played with her thick brown hair. definitely his genes.

" but, he promised he'll be back before your bedtime sooo, we can still make something special. what do you say about that? "

after a small argument about who gets the cooking part of preparations, which obviously ended with you being responsible for it, you and gabi got to work. as you were looking through your old mexican cuisine recipe book [ that you definitely didn’t bought only for miguel to feel more at home during meals ] you saw your dughter holding a box of artsy stuff.

" cariño, ¿qué estás haciendo allí? "

" making daddy a poster! it's going to say 'el mejor papa de todos'! " you couldn't help the big smile from appearing on your face. you knew how much time miguel put into teaching gabi spanish and it always warmed your heart when they sat down at the dining table and simply talked in spanish, your husband making little corrections in pronounciation or grammar from time to time. but no matter what he always looked as if he had hearts in his eyes.

★

you knew miguels work schedule was unstable and sometimes took him out of the house for a whole day, and you understood. but gabi not so much. so here you are, 10:48 pm on the clock and no sign of your husband. you spent the past two hours comforting her and promising her that it wasn't miguels fault and that he loved her. finally at around 11 pm she fell asleep in her bed. you turned off the cat shaped nightlamp and as quietly as possible closed the door to her room.

with a heavy sigh you went back to the kitchen to start cleaning everything up. while puting away food into the fridge you heard a specific glitching sound and you already knew who showed up home.

" you're late. " you weren't really mad at him , it was just tiring sometimes.

" i know, i'm sorry love... it's just - things got a little out of control. " you didn’t look at him and his first thought was to come behind you and hug your waist hoping it would make you feel even a little bit better. “ was there something that i forgot about today? is that why you’re angry? “

" i’m not angry, but your daughter is. she planned the whole fathers day for you. "

" ay, coño… " he sounded defeated, tired, and disappointed in himself. you pulled yourself away from him and came up to the poster gabi made, its was rolled in a tube to not spoil anything before the big reveal. you handed it to miguel with a tiny smile on your face. he was a bit confused for a second but he got the memo and rolled out the paper to it’s full extent. you could see the tears forming on his waterline as he chuckled. probably because of the spelling mistake made by gabi that you didn’t have the heart to point out.

" me and gabi made a deal for you, you have take us to the zoo tomorrow, and she demands that you let her piggyback the entire time to repay for your sins. "

" i guess there’s no other option. " he said with a smile.

cariño, ¿qué estás haciendo allí? - honey, what are you doing there?

el mejor papa de todos - the greatest dad ever

ay, coño - oh, fuck

[whovianbuffalo]

Dot and Bubble thoughts

This episode was first and foremost an allegory for racism and the entitlement of white elites, and this little touch of “charging rebranded as 'work'”(because it's 'tedious') is interesting here.

Lindy later says "my job's not easy, I get chapping" which shows she clearly hasn't worked out that "work" has become a meaningless phrase in their carefully-controlled society.

Before this, Ricky says people used to do 'manual labor, for money', but Lindy still self-identified as a wealthy person when Ruby asked, and said "Only people who can afford it" are sent to Finetime, yet

So... I can understand why some people feel that this episode is trying to take a shot at Gen-Z and no one else, but I will say it does seem to be a valid critique of performative activism.

Lindy mentions that she is using 'refurb' clothing and therefore isn't using up any of Finetime's resources, which is one of the only indications we are given that this 'utopia' is, of course, falling apart. The other indication comes in the opening of the episode when the newsreader informs them "Not going to lie, we are having trouble with the weather satellite".

A friend of Lindy's compliments her outfit- a woman who says "Kindness all the time" (an ultimately hollow phrase) is preferable in this society to The Doctor and Ruby, who are seen as impolite for daring to interrupt their bubbles, but, ultimately, The Doctor is shut out due to racism and colorism. Ruby is an outsider too, but because she is white and blonde and blue eyed they never question if she is a "contagion".

The Doctor was no 'ruder' than Ruby, but Lindy focuses on him anyway.

I appreciate that we see an early indication of Lindy's selfishness in her first meeting with Ricky here.

Interesting that instead of "heaven's sake" Gothic says "For land's sake". This makes sense for a culture so clearly obsessed with Manifest Destiny, and of course reaffirms their belief that Finetime is "heaven", of sorts.

It's clear that they still have some Religious/Phantasmagorical connection to a mythical heaven, as Lindy says "You mean she's in The Sky? Isn't she lucky!" rather than think about the realities of death or an afterlife. And just in case we were wondering if this culture was religious, they invoke the deity (and Manifest Destiny) directly:

The specific way in which Dot and Bubble forces the viewer to sit with Lindy throughout the episode- static scenes shot of her very boring life and her extremely vapid, empty social life (which I appreciate The Doctor calls out as being enough to drive the AI to homicide) makes us feel trapped and complicit in her behavior, and Ricky's, too.

We're watching the narrative unfold from within the bubble and the screen is literally obscured, peeling back the layers until we finally meet the doctor in person- but Lindy's reaction is off.

And then... We don't follow them. The camera shrinks back, and the impossibly wide world which they wanted to conquer shrinks back into a tiny dot as their boat fades out into the horizon. We're left with Ruby and The Doctor and a TARDIS which is bigger on the inside, but we don't see inside her.

Great work from the director of photography here and amazing work from the cast and crew all round to make a script which must have looked extreme repetitive on paper- the constant use of the word "Forwards. Forwards. Forwards" must have been a hard slog in the read-through— work so well onscreen. How prodigious that it would appear have been too expensive to film during the 11th doctor's era and was shelved for more than a decade until we could get Ncuti Gatwa to fully embody this experience.

This episode was an excellent satire (of multiple things!) and I'm not sure it would have landed the same way in a previous era... But it feels incredibly timely now if you are willing to listen to it.

[deepfivetraveller]

King Baldwin x Time!Traveler!reader

chapter 1

Chapter 2 here

Okay I’m a little new to writing romance so please take it easy on me. Btw I’ll try to keep y/n as neutral as possible but since this is set in the ancient era and religion is very important, y/n shall be hinted as being Hindu since that’s the only one that seems neutral in this situation.

“Alright that's all for the lesson. And since its complete I expect all of you to be thorough with ‘Life of King Baldwin iv’ during this weekend since there will be a test on this very topic next wednesday. Have a great weekend by the way.” The professor stands up and closes his laptop and all the other students start packing up.

“He had a pretty hard life didn’t he?” One of your friends chimes in. You look at her unsurprised. “You mean king Baldwins?”

“Duh! Poor man suffered an incurable disease almost his entire life! Imagine having skin infested in bacteria, euggh!” She recoils in disgust. “Imagine the cure to that disease being bacteria itself! Pretty sure Leprosy can be cured using multi antibiotic therapy.” Another friend joins in the conversation. You finished packing up your bag so you get up. “But no matter what, you gotta respect him. He never used his illness as an excuse to be a bad king.”

“That’s true….” Your first friend agrees. “He’s tough. When I catch a normal cold I give up all of my responsibilities since I’m sick. Wonder how hard it must have been for him.” All of you exit the classroom. A few minutes go by and topics have changed. A fun conversation lasted for a while before it was time to go, so you three parted ways.

As you entered your home your first thought was to take a cold shower after a long, hot and sweaty day. While eagerly hopping into the shower you get reminded of the conversation you had with your friends a while ago. What did king Baldwin even look like? There were no images in your textbook. Curiosity got the best of you, making you draw back the shower curtains to leave. You wrapped a towel and went towards the table where you kept your mobile, typed a quick ‘King Baldwin the 4th images’ and hit enter. Two images popped up. One being an actual painting from the 12th century while the other being an image reconstructed by scientists which looked…realistic to say the least.

His face in the second photo was majestic. His mouth and nose were almost non-existent, having only two triangular shaped holes instead of a nose. His skin was dry, withered and stretched while having the hue of a dry leaf during autumn. Even though he was severely disfigured his eyes were pure and bright, having a child like innocence towards them. King Baldwin was…Quite handsome.

Okay that’s enough now snap out of it! It’s probably just some AI prompt message image anyway. If anyone found out you found him handsome they’d call you crazy. Plus now is not the time to fangirl over a dead king, now's the time to study. In an attempt to distract yourself you pick up your books to do work. Hours painfully go by as you study but finally, finally it was bedtime. You could care less about eating dinner or even taking a shower, you plop yourself onto your bed and wrap the soft blanket around your body. Thoughts about King Baldwin strike your mind again. Seriously, what's wrong with you?! Why is this man plaguing your thoughts all day?

A sigh escaped your mouth from irritation. If only it was possible to console him for his losses or better yet, cure him entirely. The world would have been a better place if he had the lifespan of a normal man.

But there is no point thinking about this, time to go to bed now. As you try to go to sleep your body keeps doing the fake fall thing, annoying you to the core. And finally when your bodys heartbeat was steady and your breathing was quiet, your body did that fake fall thing again but this time it was actually a real fall.

Eyes widen as you try to grab onto the air to prevent your fall but of course, you fail. Adrenaline rushes through your veins for that split second before you finally make an impact on the cobblestone path?

Owch! That fall really hurt, especially at the back of your shoulders! You hope it’s not bruised there. But after that reality check, you look around only to find yourself in some village?

You can see a few small huts and buildings beyond the grassy field. Where are you? How are you here? Why are you here? Too confused and dazed from the fall, you try to look around for people for help. That is until a holographic screen with text pops up.

Congratulations Ms. Y/n. Your wish to cure King Baldwin has been approved by the ₦ł₥฿Ʉ₴฿₳Ʉ₦Ʉ₴. You are now at Jerusalem, Year: 1181.

“What?”

Yes it’s true Ms.Y/n, you really are in the 12th century.

Your blood is now boiling in anger. “Just because….Someone wishes pity over a dead king DOES NOT ACTUALLY MEAN THEY WANT TO CURE HIM!” You try to grab onto the screen to shake it vigorously but your hands go right thru.

Now now, let’s calm down and try to get over with this together I’m sure we’ll find a solution.

“Calm down…CALM DOWN?!?!?!? I’m in the middle of nowhere in Jerusalem during the 12th century and you want me to CALM DOWN???? I don’t even know French and not to mention I’M NOT CHRISTIAN!” You were screaming with your hand in the air. Pretty sure you woke someone up.

Y-Yes but that’s why I’m here. Don’t worry about communication, the language module for french had been uploaded into your brain while you fell here.

The screen flickers a little, maybe due to fear.

Uploaded knowledge? “But I’m a woman from the 21st century! I can’t live here! I’m wayy to accustomed to the privileges of my time!”

That’s one of my perks miss! By using currency of this time you may purchase products of your time thru me! The screen changes to an online store. For now you have access to basic necessities like food and clothes. As you complete missions you shall unlock other parts of the online market! The screens display brightness increases due to enthusiasm, convinced it has impressed you.

You however look at it in exasperated shock. “How is this even possible?” You say with dread in your voice. “Who sent me here?” You ask, no, demand.

Like I said You’ve been sent here by ₦ł₥฿Ʉ₴฿₳Ʉ₦Ʉ₴. I’m pretty sure you can’t read that since mortals don’t have the capacity to….

Mortals? Is this the play of some higher being? God even? Too many questions float through your head, making you visibly tired. You can feel the bottom of the skin beneath your eyes folding, an indicator you’re developing dark circles.

Ah. It looks like you’re tired. It’s night anyway. You should sleep.

“But where do I-”

“Excuse me madam.” You turn around to see a man standing behind you. “I’ve noticed you’ve been talking to yourself.”

So he can’t see the screen. From his ragged outfit he seems to be a commoner. He also genuinely seems worried so you guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask for help.

“Yes, sorry for that.” You say embarrassingly while you get up. “You see I’m from the family of wandering traders, here to sell spices from my land. I was talking to myself since I was quite irritated at how I didn’t have an inn for the night.” The explanation seems responsible enough I guess.

“But I don’t see any goods with you… And how did a young lady such as yourself travel alone? Where is your husband?”

Crap. He’s doubting you. You need to give him a reasonable explanation fast or he’ll call you a witch or something.

“Oh no sir you’re mistaken! My father is the one who has the spices, it’s his business after all. We had to split ways during travel due to inconveniences, I’m merely here to help him!” You put on your best smile to convince him.

“O-Oh I’m sorry madame! H-Here let me lead you, I know an Inn nearby.” Good. Looks like he believes you. But now it’s your turn.

“I’m sorry sir but how can I trust you?” You step back a little. “What if you take advantage of me? How shall I testify my innocence? The locals would definitely believe you over me.”

“No no please don’t! I’m a married man. My wife’s right there.” he points at the lady standing just outside the house, looking worried. You look at her and she nods her head in reassurance. “You seem like a noble from your land madame judging from your colorful dress, why don’t the both of us show you where the inn is?”

Hmm….Guess colorful clothing is rare here. And he really does seem like he wants to help.

“Very well then. Both of you show me they way.” The man eagerly tells his wife the incident and both of them show you around. The screen follows you, showing you a winking emoticon.

Congrats Ms. Y/n! You have officially begun your first mission!

[stra-tek]

Random spoilerific reasons to read Star Trek novels, with little to no context:

Ro/Quark is a thing

A Jem'Hadar joins DS9, tries to fit in but eventually snaps and tries to kill everybody

You learn the origins and final fate of the Borg

A thinly-veiled Dr. House clone joins the Voyager crew

Geordi briefly has 2 girlfriends at once (due to different writers not co-ordinating enough, but still)

There's a TOS book that's a musical

There are YA stories about Jake and Nog making mischief on DS9

YA stories about Worf, Geordi, Picard, Beverly, Kirk, Spock and McCoy at SFA

YA series about the Kelvinverse gang (including Gaila!) as cadets, taking on a drug problem at SFA and a very unique Borg scout in San Francisco

We very briefly meet the people who are to Q what the Q are to humanity

Janeway/Chakotay is a thing

Kirk's first mission in command of the Enterprise! Erm, at least twice.

Kirk was married between TOS and TMP

Her name was Lori

In the future, you have yearly marriage contracts that you either update or you don't and I think that's amazing

Trip didn't die! He faked his death to join Section 31 and go undercover as a Romulan

It's not great, tbh

The ENT books get better after the Romulan wars though, it's proper founding of the Federation stuff

We meet Jack Crusher (erm, the OG) when 4 timelines start overlapping and he's a bit unhinged

Teenage Kirk stole a car and his choice was go to jail or join Starfleet

What happened when Voyager got home? Seven broke up with Chakotay like 30 pages in

Kirk gets cloned, and his clone becomes the sub of an evil invincible super genius and its all very gay

George Kirk was Robert April's first officer on the first ever mission of the unnamed starship with the Naval Construction Contract 1701

Robert is a hard-core pacifist and has to turn command over to George whenever it's time to fire weapons

Data becomes fully human for a couple of days and it's really sweet

They never say "wristwatch" or "phone", it's always "wrist chrono" or "personal comm"

There are gays but they don't say that word because it's the 1990's and Rick Berman runs the franchise

Spock has a son in the past with Zarabeth

Everyone in the post-Nemesis era does spy missions all the time non stop, as if Starfleet has abandoned exploring the cosmos for doing Space Mission: Impossible

Bashir does it better than anyone else, he takes on Section 31 from the inside

Remember Control? It's from the novels, except the novels do it SO MUCH BETTER.

Remember how we never found out who Future Guy was? We do.

It's very underwhelming, nobody we know

We find out how the Romulans and Vulcans split

Surak was a Vulcan internet blogger

A Borg Cube eats Pluto

Janeway dies

Janeway gets better

At least one TOS book features a wizard

There's a Star Trek TOS/Here Come the Brides crossover novel

It had cameos from The Doctor (as in, Who), Han Solo, Starbuck and others

Whole book series about Section 31

Whole book series about the Department of Temporal Investigations

One time they do the Bill and Ted thing to escape confinement and it works

Wanna know how Riker and Troi met?

Wanna know what Picard got up to on the Stargazer?

Andorians have 4 sexes and it's very complicated

Data comes back from the dead as Data 2.0, and it was fresh and exciting because it happened long before ST: Picard did it twice.

Lal comes back too and we get father/daughter android stuff! They have a home and everything but keep having to save the universe

One time Mirror Seven is led around on a leash naked on Terok Nor

Geordi becomes captain of the USS Challenger, decides it's not for him because plot, and goes back to engineering on the Enterprise

Kirk is shot on the bridge and dies

Kirk gets better

They watch 3D holos of old Doctor Who episodes in the Enterprise rec room

The Enterprise also has an AI named Moira, which was Zora long before Zora

The TOS crew get together for one last mission. About three times.

There's a Perry Mason book except it's about Kirk's lawyer from that TOS episode

Data 2.0 owns and runs a massive gambling empire on Orion

Spock keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era

Scotty keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era

Bones keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era

You're on Tumblr so you already know about Killing Time

There's a guy named McKenzie Calhoun and he's a total badass and captains a ship of weirdos and misfits

Kirk comes back from the dead, saves the galaxy repeatedly, has an intersex child (who identifies as male) with a Romulan/Klingon hybrid

Kirk beats up Worf

Kirk's child has superpowers

Kirk's child saves the galaxy at age 6

The Kirk stuff is 100% ignored in the other novels

About 50% of the novels are ignored in the other 50%, and the ones that are meant to be in direct continuity with each other aren't always quite

Just like the TV shows and movies, then

Lwaxana Troi meets Q, and it goes as well as you'd expect

Someone tells Data, yes you idiot you had emotions all along and he's like, oh shit you're right

McCoy is left in command of the Enterprise as a joke by Kirk, who is then immediately kidnapped

Ro Laren is captain of Deep Space Nine

Picard/Beverly is a thing, they get married and have a child named Rene. No running away and raising your kid in secret here

Riker and Troi are married, serve on the Titan together with a bunch of adorable weirdos and have a daughter named Tasha

You get to watch all the 24th century characters die horribly in the end along with their entire universe. Holy fuck it's a bleak horror show. Personally, I love it. But if that's not your cup of tea I'd skip the Coda trilogy

[probablyasocialecologist]

This week, a 2,500-page leak, first reported by Search Engine Optimization (SEO) veteran Rand Fishkin, gave the world an insight into the 26-year-old mystery of Google Search. “I think the biggest takeaway is that what Google’s public representatives say and what Google search engine does are two different things,” Fishkin said in an emailed statement to Gizmodo.

[...]

King notes that one ranking feature “homepagePagerankNs” suggests the notoriety of a website’s homepage could prop up everything it publishes. Fishkin writes the leak references a system called NavBoost—first referenced by Google’s VP of Search, Pandu Nayak, in his Department of Justice testimony—which purportedly measures clicks to boost rankings on Google Search. Many in the SEO industry are taking these documents as confirmation of what the industry has long suspected: A website deemed popular by Google may receive a higher Search ranking for a query even though a lesser-known site may have better information.

[...]

In a video from 2016, a Google Search representative declared, “We don’t have a website authority score.” In an interview from 2015, another Googler said, “Using clicks directly in ranking would be a mistake.” It’s hard to make sense of these comments now in light of the leaked documents and Google’s response. “This response is a perfect example of why people don’t like or trust Google,” Fishkin said. “It’s a non-statement that doesn’t address the leak, provides no value, and might well have been written by an AI trained on the past decade’s most soulless corporate messaging.” In the era of AI answers, Ruby notes that the way Google ranks web pages is more important than ever. Instead of a series of links to various perspectives, you might just get one straight answer thanks to Google’s new AI Overviews. However, we’ve seen 10-year-old Reddit posts get strange amounts of authority, telling some users to put glue in their pizza. How Google chooses authority is increasingly important, since the top result may be the only one with a voice now.

30 May 2024

[akookminsupporter]

Rosie, I knew it was going to be absolute chaos after they announced Jikook enlisting together, going to be crazier after they announced AYS, but man, after they released the photobook and the behinds, it's like every single fucking vile hater of Jimin, Jungkook, and Jikookphobics ranging from tkkrs, solos, fake ot7s esp those big accounts, for some freaking reason, they can't have the basic decency to respect and acknowledge Jimin and Jungkook as individuals and their bond.

Do you know what it feels like to me? It's like they are either too into their delusions or they finally can't look the other way and explain away what jikook truly are, they can finally see what we can, but they're doing everything and saying anything just to avoid facing it.

We used to just ignore them and keep reporting and blocking, but right now, they're trying to be so loud, so whatever they're spreading becomes the "truth" to influence new fans. It fucking pisses me off. I feel so sad. These two have done everything for us, pushed themselves so hard to leave us with so much before they enlist, and this is what these people are doing?

It's frustrating, but at the same time, I know that we have people who genuinely support and love them, that they're just not active in social media. That in real life, Jikook are truly loved. Sorry for venting. It's been a crazy couple of months.

I’ve always said they see what we see, in the way we see it—and that’s the problem. That’s why they have a “salmon complex,” swimming against the current, against the obvious. At the end of the day, this fandom is inherently homophobic because, beyond the fact that many love to joke about BTS being in a poly relationship, they know it’s not like that, and that’s part of the appeal, the fetish. Jikook then breaks that idea and that “comfort” because they do seem real, and that makes people uncomfortable. I also think many people hate Jimin and Jungkook because of the success they’ve always had, and with that, they break the idea of equality that many have about the group—especially in the Solo Era. Even though each member has been successful in many ways, it’s undeniable that Jimin and Jungkook’s success has been different, and that bothers people. That’s why so many of those malicious comments include things like “the agency’s favourites” or “the chairman’s favourites,” which is ironic and wrong for so many other reasons.

But the truth is, the problem many have with Jimin and Jungkook goes beyond whether they’re a couple or not, though it’s undeniable that this seems to be the main issue. What I’ve never understood is the specific hatred they have for Jimin. That’s something I just can’t wrap my head around. I don’t know if it’s because he’s so good at everything, even—or especially—at being a good human being, that it bothers people. Is the world so messed up that they can’t stand someone being a good person? It seems so.

I think it’s undeniable that a lot will change once the guys are out of the military, and it will be… interesting to see the dynamics between all of them, especially between Jimin and Jungkook, and how the fandom reacts to that.

For now, we’ve just got to keep reporting and blocking the haters and see who gives up first—until June 2025.

[inkdemonapologist]

Way back before we got the BatDR trailer I had this wild theory -- basically, that the reason they couldn't show any concept art/trailers/etc was that BatDR was gonna pull a wizard of oz and suddenly be in colour partway through. So then that's why we were getting teasers like "look, its a model of A SHELF," because all the actual interesting stuff would've obviously been in colour and spoiled the surprise.

Part of the reason I thought this would work really well was that I assumed Nathan's acquisition of the Bendy IP and "revival" of the franchise in-world would be thematically relevant, rather than just... an excuse to have a second game. Like, Bendy is in new hands now, the cartoons are essentially being rebooted, and there's a LOT of thematic potential in that concept of Old vs New or the good and bad aspects of Change, and the idea that reviving Bendy in the real world would impact the ink realm was a fascinating concept to me. Now that we know the main thrust of the story........... actually I still think this could've worked with it? The sepia-toned Memory of Joey's Regret and the evil of the Ink Demon lingers over the studio and corrupts this new colourful world, while Wilson, the Man Who Killed The Ink Demon, is the one trying to forcibly extinguish these old stains and make the machine useful again.

Geez, you could tie Wilson's motivation in pretty directly actually if you dropped the ENTIRE thing where he says he's trying to BETTER THE WORLD THRU THE POWER OF THE MACHINE or whatever and instead just make him an actual janitor whose dad just gave him this bottom-tier job at his company. Give Nathan one audiolog about how his son is neglectful at work and its hard to find a job he can actually do or some such, and then you have Wilson as someone desperate to prove he deserves more. He sees his father's idolisation of Joey is naive, is able to realise the memory of Joey may be literally corrupting the business through the machine, and wants to eradicate that -- including Audrey, the most subtle infiltration of Joey Drew's influence. He's essentially the force of the New applied with no respect for the Old -- and then you could still give Wilson ties to that psychedelic neon ink from the Shipahoy battle; in fact, you could probably lean into it more: colour taken to the extreme, colour taken too far, something just as destructive as Joey's monochrome obsession.

(I've always loved the idea that Wilson isn't actually an artist and just stole the Shipahoy design while janitoring, which works great with the Shipahoy Monstrosity at the end being part crab because he couldn't actually create an isolated model to feed the machine... in this current era of The Threat Of AI Generation, the idea of wilson introducing a lot of mechanical innovation and incompetently dumping artwork into the machine to make new, too-colourful horrors in the interest of impressing his father while destroying all the old things these cartoons were first built on feels apropos lmao. obviously AI wasn't a huge talking point while BatDR was in production, but "ppl who assume more technology automatically makes art better while inadvertently destroying its heart" is extremely not new)

So the ink realm could be partially in colour (a world changed by the new cartoons), partially sepia (the infected memories of the old studio), and partially glowy neon (wilson's overzealous renovation). It'd be neat if Audrey became a bit of both -- partially colour, partially sepia -- and represented the new cartoons' ties to the old. Learning about the horrors that befell her father's old studio and the Gent technology that Wilson is now using are both relevant -- Joey's exploitation of actual artists who care was bad, and so is Wilson's complete disregard for the heart of these artists' work. The memory of Joey can't fix it because he is part of the problem -- he and the demon are the source of the monochrome infection -- so you have to be the one to bring heartfelt colour into this world, a power none of the others have; find a way to heal those trapped by old wrongs and restart the cycle in a better direction. Then, when Audrey says she wants to create a kinder cycle at the end, we have an idea of what that means and that she can do it b/c there's simple symbolism associated with it -- the new, colourful world that's neither corrupted by festering wrongs nor torn apart by Wilson's machines.

anyway. thats my half-baked idea. i still think its a shame that there WAS colour in there for like 2 seconds and they did NOTHING WITH IT!!!!

[jeonscatalyst]

Damn, after your last few posts with anons, it just became clear to me how much stuff Tae doesn’t know until he finds out in the group chat. And I’m sure it’s not like the other members are hiding it from him specifically (except maybe when JM didn’t ask him to go to Jeju because he thought Tae was too busy with solo promos). I’m sure all 7 have so much going on that it’s hard to keep up with the schedules of each member all the time.

But Tae’s the only one who bothers to show up (or arrange to be included) after finding out about a certain schedule? Whether it’s AYS or Suchwita or a Weverse live? Is it always and exclusively for JK?

I’m not a Tkkr, I promise. I’m very much in the Jikook camp. But I just cannot decide what to make of Tae’s behaviour. I still don’t know if he is a narcissistic attention-seeker and loves to feed the cult or if he is majorly misunderstood and just has intense fomo and JK is his only dongsaeng so he can get away with popping up unannounced.

Every time he went on live for two minutes seemingly just to drop JK’s name makes me think the former.

When he said to Jimin that he was hurt Jimin didn’t tell him about the Jeju trip, it makes me think the latter.

But then when he pops into a random ARMY chat to drop a selfie, it seems like he’s being self-centered again.

I just can’t figure him out.

Hey anon,

“But Tae’s the only one who bothers to show up (or arrange to be included) after finding out about a certain schedule? Whether it’s AYS or Suchwita or a Weverse live? Is it always and exclusively for JK? "

I think one would only come to this conclusion if they limit things to chapter two and this is also a sort of cherry picking or tunnel vision because before chapter two, we never ever really saw Tae show up for anything of Jk’s and he did show up for other members like Jhope and Namjoon when they had their solo shoots.

I think in chapter two, Tae was trying to do things differently. During seasons greeting 2022, he said his gift to members was going to try to spend more time with them more because that is something he didn’t really do before. Before the solo era Tae mostly spent his off time with his friends outside of work and his wooga members so I guess he wanted to do things differently in chapter two and that is why we saw him actually taking the initiative to spend time with members. He invited Jk to hang out with his friends, also invited Hobi to hang out with his friends, went to support Yoongi during his concert, made time to hang out with Jimin and invited him to his fanmeet and also joined Jimin in his video for CTT. I think he also visited Namjoon or something because he posted some shoes that were Namjoon’s or something so in my opinion, Tae was making a concious decision to actually spend time with his members which is something he didn’t do before.

Yea maybe he seemed a little more focused on Jk maybe by chance or design but it clearly doesn’t mean anything more than that he loves and wanted to support his friend because if they were together, he wouldn’t constantly have to find out about Jk’s schedules from the groupchat would he?

“But I just cannot decide what to make of Tae’s behaviour. I still don’t know if he is a narcissistic attention-seeker and loves to feed the cult or if he is majorly misunderstood and just has intense fomo and JK is his only dongsaeng so he can get away with popping up unannounced.”

To be honest with you I can’t say I know either but I don’t think he ever had any alterior motives. Maybe it was just something as simple as him wanting to spend time with Jk or maybe he is just misunderstood. I also think that some of his actions when it came to Jk were intentional but not because he was trying to feed the cult but maybe because he wanted to show that he and Jk were in a much better place. I think Tae cares about how fans perceive his relationship with the members and how fans see him as a person. I mean he admitted to going into a fan group chat, pretending to be a fan and saying bad things about himself to see what the fans would say. He also spends a lot of time within fan spaces as over the years, he has posted memes, pictures and fanarts that he could have only seen by being neck deep in fan spaces so I think it is clear that he is very aware of the things fans say so maybe he wanted fans to know that him and Jk were in a much better place after their talk on ITS. I could be wrong about this but that is how I interpreted some of his actions.

Also if you know Tae, you know that he has moments when he tends to fixate on particular members. There was a time when his fixation was Jimin. He would go on fancafe and talk about Jimin alot, make posts that could be viewed as romantic about Jimin and then immediately delete them, his weverse is packed with pictures and videos of Jimin, he responded to fans who were asking about Jimin etc. What he was doing with Jungkook in the solo era wasn’t new tbh because anyone who has been in the fandom long enough and paid attention to Vmin, knows that Tae used to go crazy lol.

He is an enigma and could be very difficult to read sometimes but I don’t think there is ever any malice behind his actions.

[coleslawleviathan]

okay so. i challenged myself to try and draw some snakes and try to capture the features i want to stand out for them. i wanted to see if i could make them all look distinct but where its obvious they look extremely similar.

heres the main lineup but i want to get into design elements for them as well as some personal headcanons.

FIRST! bibo.

okay so. i'm going to toot my own horn here. i think his beard looks so fire and i did a good job. i imagine this design is around the portable ops era... not much else to say because most of the interesting stuff (at least to me) comes from the differences the others have from him.

V!!! I LOVE YOU V!!!!!!!!!!

for venom snake, i made him look like big boss but Something's Off. in the game people often (notably huey and the boss' ai) don't recognize him as big boss for a few seconds. an imperfect replica because you cannot get that close with plastic surgery. i made the fat distribution on his neck a bit different from bibo's because i imagine the way that the human body configures itself is hard to change. if you noticed the little snake-tongue-shaped-hair-doohickeys, he is the only one with a slightly different shape. it's a genetic thing, you wouldn't get it. just thought that was silly. his hair texture is different, too. can u tell i like him a lot. also, my favorite detail might be his different nose shape. they never got bibo's nose right i guess. in mgsv, he actually has a bit of a downturned nose, and i honestly don't think i captured that enough.

TIME FOR MY FAVORITE BOY. LOVE OF MY LIFE. HOLDER OF MY GENDER ENVY. solid snake :3

SNAVID! the most obvious difference here is his nose. he broke it as a kid lol. i love headcanons. there's not as much to say about him as with venom, but i can say that he is incredibly handsome and i like him. i think he is cute. was he free yesterday? if so i would like to have dinner yesterday with him yesterday. well... i will say that out of this specific lineup i think he looks the most like good old dad. which is awful and i feel bad for him.

FINALLY: LIQUID!!!!!!!

i gave him his canonical sharp nose and high cheekbones! i based a lot of his features off how he looked as a kid so he really has little shit vibes about him. he also has thinner eyebrows, and i headcanon that he does them himself lol. he has less sideburny sideburns than his brother. his eyelids are also smaller. he also does look kinda like kaz so its plausible that he tricked dave! yippee! i also like drawing his hair. its such a great hairstyle. it reminds me of a lion's mane.

N E WAYS... i hope you enjoyed me rambling about giving these goobers a more realistic design for future reference. i like talking about this kind of stuff. life is so much better without same face syndrome.

[mrspark7777777]

The translation though

https://x.com/cFCKBtshEFcVgx0/status/1821583637718192150

does it make sense? I can’t grasp it, because it almost feels backwards. But really the gist is they weren’t free to meet up at the same time, a bit like what you said before about distractions. I almost felt that last year there was some self imposed ban on seeking each other, especially going to he others promotions, which is why when JK is free he didn’t go to music bank to see JM like Yoongi or on a show with him, or like Hobi to see the mv filmed, like they did it on purpose? I’m probably not making sense, but as in to lay low as best they could with impending enlistment, not that they weren’t seeing each other but not overtly or maybe not enough quality time?

Thanks for the ask my lovely. I've addressed some of this here but sure, let's talk about this too. Just like OP said;

Its been established JK had a hard time during FACE era. His boyfriend was MIA, he didn't see him much, it took a toll. A toll Jimin was very aware of. My friends and I were just talking about this and we agreed AYS could be a result of Jimin's guilt. Him wanting to make it up to JK. I also believe what happened with JK during that time was the reason why they applied to enlist together.

Jimin loves to joke and make fun and he loves to make us happy but he loves to make JK happy even more. Say what you will about him but he priorities JK's needs and always has. This travel show, we will enjoy the hell out of it and have a great time, but Jikook needed this. They needed this escape and if they could only get away but portraying it as work, then thats exactly what they were going to do.

So yes anon, you're correct. The operative word here is enough. They talked of course, but not enough. They spend time together of course, just not enough. They were busy, they needed to behave while waiting to see if they would be approved for the buddy system, and so they didn't get to enjoy eo as much as they would have loved to.

It's as simple as that

During 3D era JK said Jimin kept coming up to him and singing "pweuriri" clearly that means they were spending time together. In a live he talked about Jimin rearranging his lights at his home. Then just recently Jimin told RM him and JK drink alot and talk about music. I mean, these are just 3 examples and they sure as hell didn't happen via osmosis.

They saw eo, they talked, of course they fucking did. Think hickeygate. When it doubt, think hickeygate. They couldn't outright tell us what happened and therefore manipulated the truth or rather didn't give us the whole story. That has and will always be an ongoing theme with Jikook: a gay couple in the closet. Go back to that scene and watch JK during this conversation. At some point he does this thing where he's like scratching his neck but you can tell there is no itch. That to me was a sign that there was more to the story.

So just think hickeygate and go from there. There is more to Jikook than meets the eye...

[myobsessionsspace]

Hi! I hope you dont mind this. I recently was informing myself more about bts and their past experiences, and i’m very probably wrong but i noticed how a lot of members (all of them, actually) have talked about and showed more or less some struggles, such as jimin, or v when he looked really numb and lost during official events, or yoongi, except for jungkook (and maybe jin?).

Except for that time when yoongi told us he sent jungkook a message saying he loved him (which makes me believe jungkook was going through a hard time), or others “small” episodes, jungkook himself never expressed a specific period of time where he was struggling for whatever reason, and it shocked me to hear him saying in ays that he doesn’t feel like writing his own songs because he doesn’t have much to say. To me it looks like he maybe downplays/avoids talking about his own hard feelings and times, despite probably being one of the members who struggles and struggled the most (his unreleased song being a good example, in my opinion), but i still came here to get another point of view because i feel wrong for being so introspective and making psychoanalyses about him. Maybe my curiosity is having the best of me and that’s all this is about🙏. But really, the way he can go through the most gut wrenching moments and still smile on stage or lives makes this whole thing really interesting to me and it’s more of an appreciation and empathetic thing than anything else.

We saw him saying he doesn’t think he really has a worth, saying he’s not good at everything and has a lot of flaws, we saw him sad during last year’s lives on weverse, but i can’t find anything where he really shared something regarding his own sad and depressed feelings, despite him being such a sensitive individual and being… human, which means he definitely has had hard times.

Do you think there was a specific year/time when jungkook looked sad or different from the cheerful and happy jk we know, and what’s your opinion on him not really sharing it? I hope again my question doesn’t sound inappropriate or rude in any way, i don’t want this to come off as invasive or wanting in any way to force jungkook to express his personal struggles. And really, excuse me if i just missed content and i’m asking things i could easily find myself. I appreciate you so much.

Hi Lovely!

Thank you so much for this ask! It’s sooo juicy 😍

I’ve been mulling over it for a while because it’s something that I could talk about without ever stopping. It’s an ask that could allow me to get into the evolution of Jungkook from trainee days to now, you know.

It’s an ask that I could talk about and ‘compare’ (I hate that though, comparing people 🙈) the members and their different approaches to music when it comes to their group and solo work and how theirs to has evolved.

I’m not gonna lie I felt a bit defensive for Jungkook during his solo era. Something the fandom loves to do is ‘ours are better than yours’ with others, even within their own members, they like to be like ‘our group has the most song writing credits’ which leads to comparison with other groups, which leads to comparisons within the group and members solos etc.

When Jungkook’s turn came around I feel like there was a lot of expectation. I can only imagine what Jungkook himself felt.

Jungkook & Songwriting

‘and it shocked me to hear him saying in ays that he doesn’t feel like writing his own songs because he doesn’t have much to say.’

To this point I think it shows what I’m saying, the expectation and comparison. I think because BTS have always been lauded as involved in their music, because it was something that wasn’t really the standard to kpop for their generation and those before, there’s always kind of been an expectation of them? But I don’t know if it’s because JK is one of my biases, but I feel like he was more ‘vilified’ for an album comprised of songs written by others and solely in English

The thing is though BTS do and have had much more creative control than a lot of kpop groups of their generation and the generations before, it’s not as straightforward as that. I don’t want to diminish anyone’s contribution or years of work, but it would be worth noting how one can get a songwriting credit. The rap line write their own bars, so for any song rap line have a rap verse, that’s an automatic songwriting credit.

Within a song making process there can be so many hands involved and points where tweaks are made, sometimes people can all get together and think tank the creation of the song lyrics, leading to the core group of writers, then through the recording process when tweaks are made more songwriting credits get added etc.

Or someone could write a song and due to the song being their baby not allow for many changes made apart from maybe by one producer, leading to only one or two song writing credits vs 7 song writing credits on one song.

Jungkook’s solo & group contributions

Each song would have a story behind it as to the level of contribution from JK (and other members) but it wouldn’t change the fact that he’d be entitled to a songwriting credit. For example ‘Dreamers’ was a song already done and sent to him for recording, but through tweaks made in the recording process Jungkook earned a songwriting credit.

Songs for ARMY

Whereas we know songs like ‘Still With You’ ‘My You’ were Jungkook’s babies and songs with only credits for Jungkook and the producer.

Isn’t it interesting the songs that Jungkook has the most involvement, if not primary involvement, are the songs about ARMY?

Jungkook has said that he like Jin, don’t hold on to negative emotions. They deal and move on.

However it seems like there’s one emotion that’s always remained constant and true to Jungkook, his love for army. I mean this man was so confident in this that he tattooed ARMY. He grew up with army, they supported his career and cheered him on, he’s said it’s because of being in the group and the group being successful that he’s been able to experience things such as the travels and activities in shows for army and the delights 🥴 of twinkies.

Not only is it easy for Jungkook to speak to army via lives etc it’s easy for him to speak to army via songs. It’s not a feeling he wants to process and move on from.

A Dramatic Shift?

‘and it shocked me to hear him saying in ays that he doesn’t feel like writing his own songs because he doesn’t have much to say.’

Is that all he said?

Where Jungkook talks about wanting to focus on displaying his vocals and focusing on different songs to display them rather than focusing on songwriting

I think I again maybe it’s a combination of comparison and expectations?

He has spoken before of his wish to try singing different stories not his own

If you don’t do anything at all, please have a look at this post and watch the live & video in it, if you want some understanding about Jungkook from Jungkook himself.

Thoughts for Another Time

‘Except for that time when yoongi told us he sent jungkook a message saying he loved him (which makes me believe jungkook was going through a hard time)’

I actually have a whole separate theory about this moment right here. I’ve talked about it with others in the past. It’s something that would need a whole separate post to get into.

Do We Delve Too Deep?

‘i feel wrong for being so introspective and making psychoanalyses about him’

I think it’s the human condition to want to understand. I think it’s not an issue when you want to understand someone, someone that interests you, someone that brings you joy with their person and their talents. I think where you, myself and others have to be careful, is when we go from wanting to just understand someone to judging someone. Being disappointed in them for not living up to our expectations. When we thought we sussed them out and they don’t follow the path we thought made sense based on their past actions and our understanding of them.

With Jungkook, because we are not privy to the inner workings of of his mind, his emotions, his motivations, his day to day, it’s not fair to him as a human to be disappointed when he doesn’t do what we expect based on what he’s done in the past, based on what his members have done, based on what his fans expected.

It’s ok, I think, to sit and think on topics like this but I don’t think it’s ok to then project feelings onto someone because of it. They are our feelings and we need to understand why and then figure out what good they do to hold onto them? What it means going forward if those feeling hold value to us, do we still support, follow, invest or do we adjust our thinking or involvement? That’s what we have control over.

The kind of person Jungkook is

I’d like to preface this by saying I am one person on the internet. Same as anyone else, with no more or less access to him than the majority of us. The same media I consume is what is available to us all. His lives, his interviews, his songs, festas, memories, bombs, episodes, shows, documentaries etc.

All my inferences are from these, not Jungkoook himself, not a company insider, not a friend of a friend of the members, a sister of one of the members siblings friends 🤡 my opinion and opinion only 😅.

He is who he is. He says what he says. Even the members at times feel like they want to dig soul bearing emotions out of him

They’ve been saying for years

When is Too Much, Too Much?

‘Do you think there was a specific year/time when jungkook looked sad or different from the cheerful and happy jk we know’

I don’t think looking to the past and nitpicking, microanalysing etc to point out where he looked the most miserable etc would do good to anyone. Being there in the moment, if we were, we would be trying to show him our love and support, empathising, seeing it to make ourselves not feel as alone, to see him as human etc.

For me to do that now for no reason as to just point out that…he’s…human? Well I think we should already know that. I do think Jungkook really was vulnerable and as open as he could be as an idol with millions of viewers during his lives of 2023.

That, I think, was one of the biggest windows into Jungkook the person, more as who his is now, the adult and not who he was when he was 19, 22, 24 etc. There were so many nuggets that could easily have been missed amongst the fun of the karaokes and cooking and eating etc.

I would advise you or anyone to, whenever you have free time, just pop in one of his lives, start from Feb and work your way through whenever you have a free moment (I know you said you have been 💜).

‘We saw him saying he doesn’t think he really has a worth, saying he’s not good at everything and has a lot of flaws, we saw him sad during last year’s lives on weverse, but i can’t find anything where he really shared something regarding his own sad and depressed feelings, despite him being such a sensitive individual and being… human, which means he definitely has had hard times.’

The thing is with this, in my opinion...when have any of the members been completely and utterly specific? We get little sentences or conversations here and there where we can refer to, but if it’s one thing I’ve come to realise about BTS is that they are good at letting us in without really letting us in. The hardships they have shared tbh can be generalised to each of them, struggling with idol body image, tough schedules, dance routines, being in their heads. Yes some members have spoken about their mental health struggles more than others (Namjoon & Yoongi), they’re not learning dance routines as quick as others or being confident with their dance (Namjoon & Jin).

But they’ve also all talked sometimes as a group of struggles, general to the group as a whole. I think if Jungkook didn’t share their sentiments, he would have said he didn’t?

Did we really know that they were on the verge of splitting until they said so on stage and then afterwards. We know of the few fights they tell us about and then those are the only ones they refer to for years after, and we can count them in one hand, vmin dumpling fight, namgi throwing laundry fight, hopekook and banana fight…?

When watching something like their last Festa Dinner, where the others talked, shared, poured out, like it’s been said in the past, when his hyung hurt is when he hurts. Maybe it is that he didn’t/doesn’t struggle with the same things that the other members struggled/struggle with. Being a trainee and an idol is all he’s ever known being with his hyungs, his friends, family, working, travelling, enjoying good food and good drink is Jungkook. Namjoon (David Quinones and producer Tony Esterly) writing a song like ‘Begin’ to capture Jungkook’s essence?

Source: Doolset Bangtan

We know that Jungkook started trainee life in 2010? Born in 1997, ignoring Korean age system he’d have been around 13? I think we can guess the general kind of hardships pre 13.

Then once trainee life started we’ve heard him talk about having to learn to share, having to learn to dance and sing plus schooling where he probably had people either teasing him for thinking his was ‘a hotshot’ or wanting to be his friend because he was a trainee then a famous idol or constantly filming him, picturing him and gossiping about him? Away from home, constantly aching and exhausted, not knowing if he’d make it.

He has done vlogs where he talks about seeing his parents after a long time and how happy he was, he’s shown how happy he was to celebrate his graduation with his hyung and more interested in hanging out with them, than celebrating with his fellow schoolers. He’s talked with Jimin in a live about how after dance training he found a new passion and considered giving up being in the group.

Blog of his time in The US getting extra dance training & Part 2

It seems like with Jungkook he is someone to focus on the good, instead of the misssing his family, he talks to fans about the happiness in reuniting, instead of the difficulties of schooling he talks about the gratitude in having his idol career be successful enough to not be concerned with not being the best at school etc.

So I’d say over the years he has with little sentences here and there talked about his hardships but they probably don’t stand out as much because he, maybe through conscious effort, tells it to fans when there’s a positive to take from it. Like you also noted: ‘still smile on stage or lives makes this whole thing really interesting to me and it’s more of an appreciation and empathetic thing than anything else.’

He Is Who He Is

I wrote this at a point when I wanted people to understand a bit more about Jungkook, yes it’s in relation to his bond with Jimin but mainly focuses on Jungkook’s personality

His MBTI

Introvert, introvert, introvert!

He’s taken his MTBI several times through the years and one thing that has always remained consistent was his introvertion. talking about others, talking about ARMY maybe comes more easily to him than talking, writing and singing about himself?

He himself takes stock in his MBTI and seems to feel it does reflect him.

Music Is His Love & Passion

when all the members got to design their rooms, this was Jungkook’s design. Music is his love & passion through and through

When you want to make Jungkook happy, give him a karaoke mic and leave him be.

Suchwita - Jungkook Karaoke Special

I don’t think we have to worry for a long long time about not getting new music from Jungkook, songs written by others, songs written by him, songs about others’ experiences and songs about his own, we gotta just

‘Let Him Kook’ TD;LR

Jungkook is as complex a human as any other member but more often than not, a typical introvert, one to live in the now and man of few words.

Vulnerable, raw Jungkook. Listening to the song made by ARMY for BTS after their pause in group activities. Jungkook feeling with ARMY on world tour. Jungkook with ARMY on white day.

Ask him to write a song about ARMY and he can give you 10 but ask him to release a body of work that reflects him through and through, the perfectionist that he is, the introvert that he is, the experiences he’s had that he’s moved on from…as he said, there’s plenty of time for more from him in the future.

After his billboard number one’s for ‘Seven’ his debut solo single

He seems to not be someone to dwell on the sad and the hard but to deal with it and move on. He seems like someone who wants to share the good with people, not have people sad for him, in his songs he seems to want to reflect this hence his songwriting being more in that vein.

He like struggles like everyone else, has hardships like the others, has lows etc but his personality seems to not see the point in sharing to the extent some may want or get from the other members.

The reason we love each of them is BECAUSE they’re not the same, right? Right!

There is soo much more I could say (as one of my biases I could talk about him all day!) but tbh I needed to post this as is, because I was starting to obsess over this ask and letting it snowball🙈

Maybe we can come back to some points and tackle each separately one day. Thank you again lovely!

💜

[brucebocchi]

Spring 2024 anime, Pt. 2: Mixed bags and the gems

hey! i also post this on my ko-fi! this is very much a labor of love, so if you liked what i wrote consider throwing a few bucks my way! also you can find part 1 right here! thanks!

Yes, hello, I'm still here. Between work and AI: The Somnium Files -nirvanA Initiative-, I was struggling to find the time to get this out, but here we are! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go actually watch some anime again.

As always, the OP for each show is linked in the title. Watch them! There were some damn good ones this season.

Let's-a go:

Mixed Bags

Astro Note

I’m going to kick off this section by first stating that on the whole, I’m much higher on the anime in this section this season than I was last time: Nothing that I watched this season disappointed me nearly as much as Metallic Rouge or The Witch and the Beast, nor bored me to tears like The Unwanted Undead Adventurer. This truly is a collection of mixed bags; anime that I found enjoyable or interesting but still left me wanting in one way or another. “Good But Could Have Been Great” is too unwieldy anyway.

Astro Note was eye-catching from the jump: This is very clearly an homage to Rumiko Takahashi’s beloved romcom Maison Ikkoku, with character designs by Carole & Tuesday’s Eisaku Kubonouchi. The colors are soft and bright, everyone looks unique and has a wide variety of hilarious facial expressions, and the OP is a fun time right out of the gate. You come for the lovely visuals and Takahashi homage, and you stay for, uh, not much else.

Takumi, a down-on-his-luck young chef, answers a job posting at a boarding house that promises its residents breakfast every day. It turns out that Mira, the odd but beautiful new landlady, is a dogshit cook and tried to attract a new one with a plagiarized job posting. Takumi doesn’t really care because she’s, like, really pretty, so he takes the job and moves in. He’s soon beset by a cast of wacky characters that includes an enigmatic unemployed salaryman and his precocious son, an indie idol who looks like a hard-drinking Futaba Sakura in her downtime, a nosy neighbor, and a rich, handsome romantic rival. We’re already approaching Maison Ikkoku territory. 

Shortly after moving in, Takumi believes he overhears Mira saying that she’s a widow, which would firmly plant Astro Note’s flag right in Ikkoku’s turf, but it turns out that Mira is in fact an alien from the planet Wid, meaning she is of the Wido race (this is as good of a localization as you can ask for; in the original Japanese he heard “miboujin,” not knowing that she’s from the planet Mibou). So we’ve got some Urusei Yasura sprinkled in for good measure. Her adorable poodle, voiced by Junichi Suwabe (Sukuna himself!) is from the same planet and helping her find a MacGuffin, hidden by the previous owner, that would help her take over as queen. There’s also some blossoming romance!

The alien stuff made for an interesting wrinkle, and it went a long way toward characterizing Mira as an endearingly odd but curious woman, but it often played out in wacky hijinks caused by alien spies, which felt like a designated make-the-plot-happen button more often than not. It paid off splendidly in the last couple of episodes, and I loved how all of the flashbacks of Mira’s mother looked like grainy Showa-era space operas, but getting there took a lot of “oh no, chase that Thing!” sequences. I found myself tuning out on those until they finally became plot relevant.

The central romance was fine, if a little underbaked, but what kept me watching Astro Note was the smaller moments with the ensemble characters. There were moments with both Wakabayashi the salaryman and his son Ren that slapped the apathy right off my face, and a side plot with Takumi and a person from his past was incredibly sweet. I did also love the massive turn the plot took in the last couple episodes, to the point where I found myself almost wishing that the show up to that point was different.

And that’s Astro Note in a nutshell: A lot of good pieces mixed with some filler, weird pacing, and an overall uneven experience in a nice-looking package. A fun little distraction but nothing entirely memorable. If I can give this show one major positive, it’s that watching it finally convinced me to read Maison Ikkoku, and for that I will forever be grateful. Read Maison Ikkoku.

Go! Go! Loser Ranger

I keep running notes for everything I’m watching as the season rolls on, and sometimes I’ll indulge in other reviewers’ early takes and jot down some insights that might spark from hearing outside perspectives. During Gigguk’s opening remarks on Go! Go! Loser Ranger in his early Spring season roundup, I made a note that the easiest way to summarize this show for a western audience is “basically The Boys but with the Power Rangers instead of The Seven.” And then he said pretty much the exact same thing five seconds later. I just want the record to show that.

Indeed, this is a sentai series with some spice. 13 years ago, the invading forces of evil were soundly defeated by the Dragon Keepers, a real-life sentai squad. In the present day, the Dragon Keepers now sit atop a massive organization protecting earth, and also dominating the entertainment industry: Every week, they hold an exhibition match against the remaining rank-and-file footsoldiers, skull-faced shapeshifters known as Dusters. In order to keep their lives, the Dusters were forced to give up their freedom and serve as the farcical Putty Patrol for what is ultimately a pro wrestling show. Sick of being a jobber and effectively a slave, one of the Dusters, known simply as Fighter D, decides the best way to destroy the Dragon Keepers and free his brethren is to do so from within: He’ll morph into a human shape, join their Rangers program as a cadet, and personally slay each of the five Keepers.

Fighter D is quickly found out, though. One of the recruiters, the lovely but mercurial Yumeko, isn’t nearly as dumb as he thought, but she fortunately has the same aim and quickly puts him to work trying to steal the Keepers’ insanely powerful weapons, the Divine Artifacts. He’s also found by the Dragon Keepers and manages to escape, though badly wounded. He’s found in a cave by Yumeko’s hanger-on, the upstart Ranger cadet Hibiki, whose family was badly fragmented by an unknown monster. While he still believes in the Keepers and shares their ostensible goal of protecting humanity, he believes that there needs to be major changes and agrees to let D impersonate him to infiltrate the Rangers. He’s soon embroiled in a prolonged examination trial against higher-ranked Rangers that soon turns into a fight to the death, made only more deadly by the inclusion of a female Duster and the same monster that killed Hibiki’s parents and paralyzed his sister.

Yes, that’s a lot, and everything up until that last sentence was just in the first four episodes. I’ve said repeatedly that I’m willing to be patient with introductory seasons for action-oriented shonen series, because those do usually take a minute to start cooking, but the first season of Loser Ranger is bizarrely paced. The first four episodes were an intriguing introduction, but they might have served better as a movie to kick off the season, because the overwhelming majority of the remaining eight episodes were pretty much just a bunch of people fighting in a fucking parking garage. I was under the impression that the first season was going to be 24 or so episodes, for some reason, so I was willing to be patient with it.

Maybe I should've been patient enough to wait until the second season, because I found myself getting whiplash between fascination and utter boredom. I still don’t know if I even like this show. There are so many moving parts, and many of them are fascinating, but to get bombarded with them so early and so often, only to then keep most of them in the background in favor of way too many new characters fighting in, again, a goddamned parking garage, frustrates me in increasing measure the more I write about it. I really wanted to like this show more than I did.

The production values are seemingly all over the place too. The OP is another Tatsuya Kitani banger, the voice cast is deep and talented (especially for the English dub, holy hell), the puppet outros are a hoot, and the animation is mostly fine. I’m rarely one to complain about CGI in anime (the ED for this show is entirely 3DCG and it fucks), but a lot of it in Loser Ranger, especially as an obvious means of cheaping out on having to hand-draw and -animate the Dragon Keepers’ slightly-elaborate costumes, is baffling. You could make a generous case for it representing them as larger-than-life personalities, but in execution it’s just kind of uncanny. The show looks and sounds fine overall, but little things like that just take me out of it.

I’m going to withhold judgment until the second season, but for now I can’t say I’m too impressed by the debut. Maybe just watch the first four episodes and put a pin in it until season 2 drops.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night

I’m beginning to worry that Metallic Rouge’s catastrophic narrative failure may have permanently made me nervous about any original anime to follow. It’s an unfair comparison to make, especially considering it aired at the same time as the bombastically audacious Bang Brave Bang Bravern, which I consider one of the best of the year so far and even one of the better anime to air so far this decade. At the same time, though, the millisecond I start to suspect that an original anime is losing its footing, as soon as the one synapse fires that tells me that this show may not be able to stick the landing, I start to get cynical. The good news is that Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night isn’t even in the same time zone as Rouge’s disappointment. The bad news is that it still never fully lived up to what it could have been.

Right from the jump, this felt like Doga Kobo flexing in between seasons of Oshi no Ko with yet another gorgeous showbiz anime. The debut episode is one of the best I’ve seen in some time; an immaculately animated and brilliantly storyboarded mission statement showcasing the self-doubting illustrator Mahiru and the disgraced ex-idol Kano meeting and finding new inspiration in one another’s work (if you’ve been reading Beat & Motion, this may sound familiar, except they’re both high school girls). It was a masterclass in depicting powerful self-expression and the spark of a truly fateful encounter. What followed was also pretty good, but...

Mahiru and Kano band together (pun intended) to form the multimedia collective JELEE, also enlisting social-outcast musical prodigy (and Kano stan) Mei, and NEET VTuber Kiui along the way. We see a lot of the nitty-gritty of trying to get a new act off the ground, as well as the reality that any new artist or creator nowadays is, ultimately, at the mercy of the internet. It was a treat to watch these four all come together, as was seeing the emotional bonds they forge with one another while also navigating their own personal issues, but it frequently came at the expense of an actual plot. That sort of thing is fine, I do love me some good slice-of-life, but I feel like the show planned on something a bit grander. While we’re focused on so many of these really lovely moments of character growth and interpersonal drama, everything about JELEE’s ascent, y’know, the main plot, just kind of happens, and before you know it everything turns out okay and the season’s over. It really felt like the writers had a big plan but ended up just laying down the tracks while the train was already in motion.

As mentioned, I’m not nearly as down on the anime in the “Mixed Bags” section this season as I was three months ago, but just thinking about how the plot sagged around the middle and rushed towards its ending leaves me frustrated. Unlike JELEE itself, Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night feels like less than the sum of its parts. This show feels like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle; what you can make out of the image is gorgeous, yet not only was it never completed, but someone clearly put a few of the pieces together wrong as well. There are plenty of themes in the story and character writing that could have blossomed into something amazing, like impostor syndrome, finding community and identity through fandom, young sapphic love, gender identity, and so many more, and it may have been possible to resolve at least a couple of these in 12 episodes, but Jellyfish seemed either incapable of or uninterested in actually getting there beyond a few vague overtures.

I know I sound harsh here and I didn’t mean for this review to be mostly complaints; I did very much like this show, but I wanted so badly to love it. And it probably isn’t entirely fair of me to grade this show based on what it could have been instead of what it is, but so much was plainly left on the table that I’m not really left with another choice. I still recommend it much more strongly than anything else I've put in the Mixed Bags section so far this year, but be forewarned that you may be let down. This is a pretty goddamn good anime that could’ve been pretty goddamn incredible, but it just couldn’t get there.

Mysterious Disappearances

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I know what I’m about. If a new series rotates around a protagonist who looks like that, I’ll at least give it an episode or two.

Sumireko is a former child-prodigy novelist, now in her late 20s working at a bookstore with the sharp-tongued Ren, as she continues to fail at getting published again. On the eve of her 28th birthday, Sumireko accidentally takes home a book that was droplifted in the store, and shortly after reading it aloud she finds herself reverted into the body of a child. Suddenly struck by inspiration once again, she disappears from work for the next week, furiously typing away at her next novel. Ren manages to find her and tells her that she’s under a curse: The book is an otherworldly object known as a Curiosity, and its power can be deadly to those who use it. Though Sumireko is desperate to hang on to her newly-regained youth, Ren manages to smooth-talk her into changing back and handing over the book. Now aware of an extradimensional threat to daily life, Sumireko teams up with Ren and his little sister Oto to track down and neutralize more Curiosities before they cause widespread havoc.

This series is alright, if questionable in a lot of areas. I recognize that I’m not entirely the target audience; while I love a good supernatural mystery, each of these Curiosities is rooted in East Asian mythology and contemporary urban legends, very few of which I was familiar with going in. To those on that side of the world (or to Westerners with that specific special interest), I’m sure it hits different, but I got lost on a couple of occasions. Mysterious Disappearances also runs into the same pacing issues that I found with The Witch and the Beast last season, where the plot structure is effectively episodic, but each mystery can last a few episodes at a time, so if you’re not particularly invested in the subject at hand, you’re SOL for another week or two.

This show also just plain doesn’t look very good. The animation is nothing impressive and there’s something off-putting about the overall look that I can’t quite put my finger on. It looks retro in ways that probably weren’t intentional, like a 20-year-old digipaint anime that was upscaled from 480p. The audio element is great, at least; the music, sound design, and cast are all fantastic (between her turn as Sumireko in this one and her supporting roles in Reincarnated as the 7th Prince and Kaiju No. 8, Fairouz Ai has put in great work this season), and that’s a good thing because this one isn’t a looker.

If you couldn’t already tell from how the main character looks, Mysterious Disappearances is undoubtedly horny as hell, but often distractingly so. I do have to praise Sumireko’s design to an extent; for a large-chested anime lady, she at least hews closer to how a tall woman with somewhat appropriately large breasts would actually be built and how her clothes would actually fit. She looks like a more realistically-proportioned Nami. There’s no shortage of anime characters with gigantic boobs, but few that make me actually go “oh, this woman definitely has back problems.” There are a lot of slow-tilting shots up female characters’ legs towards their chests to the point where I tuned the dialogue out because I couldn’t believe they just kept on doing it. I skimmed through the manga, and though there is far more semi-gratuitous nudity as compared to the anime, I still somehow found the latter much more distracting with its attempts at fanservice. I also don’t really care for how the “camera” looks at Oto and her middle school classmates either; I found myself just getting nervous whenever a scene focused on them.

For its problems, there’s at least a series of solid emotional cores here. Similar to Sumireko’s desire to regain her youthful creativity, the wielders-slash-victims of these Curiosities are largely vulnerable individuals who are trying to make the best of their lives in spite of past traumas like bullying, neglect, and disability. All serious issues, no doubt, and the story tries to handle them as well as possible, but once you see through the pattern of “awful thing is happening, we get to know the character, then we learn their tragic backstory and there’s a tearful resolution while we move closer to advancing the overall plot,” it can feel a little cloying in the long run. Not that those resolutions can’t be potent; I really liked the endings of the stories of the missing hairdresser and the rogue VTuber, but as a plot formula it can ring hollow.

Mysterious Disappearances is a fine if unspectacular series of supernatural mysteries with an okay overarching plot, and your mileage may vary depending on your existing knowledge of East Asian occult and superstition. It’s also not that fun to actually look at, even if you happen to be into tall redheads with huge racks. Uh, not that I would know.

The Gems

Girls Band Cry

When Bocchi the Rock! made its unexpectedly earth-shattering landfall a couple years ago, it was inundated with a deluge of comparisons to the previous landmark girls-in-a-band anime, K-On!. It felt a bit trite at the time, and feels even more so in retrospect; each show is its own thing and they both stand on their own merits. And now here’s my dumb ass, reviewing a new girls-in-a-band anime, desperately trying not to compare it to Bocchi.

It’s really not a fair comparison either way; the focus being on an all-girls rock band is really the only thing they have in common. Rather than Hitori “Bocchi” Gotoh, a perpetually-anxious recluse looking to join a band so she won’t have to get a real job after high school, we have Nina Iseri, who is… difficult. Nina has just moved to Tokyo after running away from home, but her train arrived too late for her to get her apartment key, and to make matters worse, her phone’s dead. While charging at a local coffee shop, she finds out that Momoka, the now-former frontwoman of her favorite band, is playing on a nearby street. After some ups and downs, they decide to form a band together, and butt heads more than a couple times.

Along the way, they recruit more members, each with their own issues: Subaru, the drummer, is struggling with the expectations placed on her by her grandmother to become an actress, Tomo, the keyboardist, is exacting and a little too opinionated to keep a steady role in a band, and Rupa, the bassist, is a soft-spoken foreigner who remains a cheerful enigma despite losing her parents. And Nina and Momoka are both flat-out stubborn in ways that do not mesh well with one another. There are a lot of yelling matches and many angry tears shed as the band Togenashi Togeari comes together: yes, the “Cry” in the title isn’t just for style points.

I will say that it’s refreshing that Girls Band Cry does not sugarcoat what an absolute pain in the ass Nina can be when she’s dug in: She ran away from home because she’s utterly convinced of her own righteousness, and it’s your damn problem if you think otherwise. She is avoidant and oppositional-defiant, and everyone else just has to deal with it. She may not pick her hills well, but by God will she die on them. Props for having a protagonist this openly messy and unpleasant. Plenty of musicians, or really anyone working in a group for that matter, can be abrasive and stubborn, and TogeToge’s growing pains are a necessary element of their development as a band. 

I know the bar isn’t very high for 3D computer-generated anime when it doesn’t come from Studio Orange, but this is easily one of the best-looking 3DCG anime I’ve ever seen. Between this and Trigun Stampede, I’m blown away at how expressive characters can be in CG, and how they react to what’s around them in real-time more consistently than you’d see in most 2D animation. Speaking of which, Girls Band Cry isn’t entirely in 3D; much of the OP as well as several flashbacks and background characters are hand-drawn, and they look so goddamn good that I’m almost left wondering what could’ve been. Not that I’m disappointed in the slightest; when the 3D animation hits, it REALLY hits in gorgeous synaesthetic waves that so perfectly depict an intersection of sound, light, and emotion. Hell, even the transition cards are huge eye catchers. Not everything looks brilliant all the time; the pets in particular are uncannily low-res and almost look like they got plucked out of KamiKatsu.

Of course, this is a band show, so the audio element has to be on point as well, and I’d say Girls Band Cry is up to snuff. The anime is part of a larger multimedia project, and the entire main cast consists of audition winners performing under mononyms, and they knock it out of the damn park; they’re pretty goddamn great for supposed newcomers. The music is a blast as well, not just in performance scenes but in the background as well. Togenashi Togeari already existed in the zeitgeist as a virtual band before this show went to air, so they already had a small discography out there before the show went to air and I’m looking forward to digging into it.

Infamously, this show isn’t particularly easy to watch. Not in the thematic sense, but literally: You cannot legally watch it in English anywhere in the West. Despite its popularity, Girls Band Cry was never picked up by any Anglosphere-based streaming platforms, for whatever reason, and the only official English subtitles out there are from an Indonesian streamer. So, much like the days of VHS trading and the early internet, we’re forced to rely on community translations. Far be it from me to encourage piracy (lol), but if you can find a good fansub, Girls Band Cry is very much worth your while. Pinkies up, motherfuckers.

Kaiju No. 8

I don’t watch Demon Slayer or My Hero Academia, so this was my designated Shonen Jump action show of the season, and it came with a ton of buzz: The way I see it, if I can pick up a volume of the manga at Target, the inevitable anime adaptation is gonna be a big deal. I’ve not read Kaiju No. 8 yet, but I’d say the anime lives up to a good amount of the hype.

Japan has had to handle a constant threat of kaiju for many decades now, and as a child the way-too-aptly-named Kafka Hibino made a promise to his best friend Mina that they would both grow up to lead the Japan Anti-Kaiju Defense Force in charge of eliminating the threat. A couple decades later, she’s a national hero as a captain in the Force, while Kafka is in the private sector at age 32, cleaning up the enormous corpses and viscera Mina and her division leave behind. He hasn’t given up on his dreams, by any stretch; Kafka has failed every single enlistment application he’s submitted since he came of age, but he just keeps on trying.

Kafka and his work kohai, the upstart JAKDF hopeful Reno, manage to survive a kaiju attack at the end of a shift with minor injuries, but when they’re in the hospital, a potato-sized flying kaiju shoves itself down Kafka’s throat, causing him to transform into a kaiju. Fortunately, he’s able to change back to his human form just in time to pass the first round of Defense Force exams, with Reno warning him not to let anyone in on his secret during practical exams.

Kafka is pathetically weak in his human form and is repeatedly shown up by the daughter of the Defense Force’s director general, the young hotshot Kikoru (Fairouz Ai once again), but he manages to save her life when a training exercise goes haywire and forces him to transform and share his secret with her. Reno and Kikoru get in, no problem, while Kafka manages to squeak in as a cadet. Of course, without exposing his little-big kaiju secret, Kafka can’t do much to help in terms of actual combat, but he does frequently act as an unofficial tactician in directing his squadmates on the battlefield and, in a very smart writing decision, applying his professional knowledge of kaiju anatomy to help them identify and target weaknesses. 

And from there we get a whole lot of early military training and bonding, and not just with Kafka, Reno, Kikoru, and their division’s vice-commander, the giggly Hoshina: There’s also, uh, Man-Bun! And Muscles! And Shark Teeth! And the Token Women! You know, those guys. Yeah, this is ostensibly an ensemble cast, as any good battle shonen should be, but I really didn’t get much from anyone outside the main few characters other than identifying features. I’m sure we’ll get more out of them in subsequent seasons but I have little to work off of right now.

The main three are great, though: Kafka definitely has shonen protag brain even at his age, but he’s still necessary representation for schlubby guys in their 30s who still have hopes and dreams (we exist and our stories matter), and for as serious and focused as Reno likes to think he is, he makes a great tsukkomi whenever Kafka starts acting up. Kikoru is already an icon as well; she’s basically Asuka Langley Sohryu for the zoomer generation. I feel a little weird about the fact that she’s literally half Kafka’s age and still acts kinda tsundere around him, but this is a shonen at the end of the day.

I have some small nagging issues with the story here and there, but nothing that outright ruins the show for me. Like plenty of others, I’m far more fascinated with the ins and outs of how Japanese society adapted to living with kaiju threats outside of just military preparation and response; Kafka’s initial job in kaiju cleanup was actually really neat and I’d have loved it just as much (and possibly more) if the series had just focused on that. I want some damn world building! I also am not crazy about the focus on the Defense Force’s powerscaling in the form of “Unleashed Combat Power,” but I also just plain don’t care about powerscaling to begin with. Wasn’t the entire point of power levels in Dragon Ball Z that it’s pointless to define someone’s fighting spirit by a number? Maybe they drop it later.

This show looks pretty darn good! Production IG clearly put its A-team on this one; the character animation is cartoonishly bouncy and expressive in ways we rarely see outside of Trigger productions, and the big-ass kaiju are all mercifully in outstanding 2D (though I wouldn’t complain about CG; the OP is entirely in 3D and looks exceptional). The silliness of the animation really came through in one of the funniest scenes in any anime I watched this season. Some of the textures can look a little distractingly muddy at times, but hey, these are big ugly monsters we’re looking at. Make those bastards ugly.

On a certain level, I can appreciate the effort put into this show to try to make it a crossover success; the manga is popular and kaiju films remain one of Japan’s greatest cultural exports. Streaming new episodes on the fetid corpse of Twitter was certainly a decision. I can also appreciate wanting to load up the soundtrack with popular Western artists; my problem is that they went with acts I actively avoid like YUNGBLUD (with writing by Imagine Dragons!) and OneRepublic. Suffice to say, I don’t care for the OP and ED on a musical level, but I know that I’m coming at this with a conscious bias. I’m sure they’re hits over in Japan, and for all I know there are music fans over there with the same tastes and disposition as me who think that some Japanese acts I learned about through anime like, say, Bump of Chicken or Queen Bee, are “coworker music” or whatever. I’ll live.

Kaiju No. 8, at the end of the day, is another battle shonen with guns and big monsters, but sometimes that’s all you need. I’ll be coming back for the next season.

Train to the End of the World

Spring 2024 was a banner season for girls anime. From the veteran director/writer duo that gave us cult hits like Squid Girl, Shirobako, and Prison School (and individual credits on a laundry list of classic and cult-favorite anime across the board) comes an original anime that’s not quite Cute Girls Doing Cute Things, nor Cute Girls Doing Amazing Things, but Cute Girls Being Fucking Weirdos in a Weird World.

7G technology has arrived in Japan and immediately wreaked unknowable chaos. Geography, flora, and fauna have all warped beyond recognition, and in the town of Agano, every human above a certain age has become a talking animal. Shizuru, a still-human high school girl, has been looking for her best friend Youka ever since they got in a fight two years ago and the latter ran off, just before the 7G cataclysm. She finds out that Youka has been spotted in Ikebukuro, and with the help of a babbling train conductor who managed to briefly turn lucid, learns to operate a two-car commuter train to get the hell out of dodge. Just before Shizuru leaves, train stocked with Agano’s famous goya melons, she’s joined by her classmates: The soft-spoken Nadeko, the temperamental bookworm Akira, and the rambunctious gyaru Reimi. Youka’s dog, Pochi, also joins for morale purposes. Along the way, they see just how warped Japan has become, with locals in the various towns ranging from mushroom people to zombies to Lilliputians to characters from their favorite anime, and more.

Try as I might, a summary does not do Train to the End of the World justice; this show is as offbeat as offbeat gets. It makes no bones about how flat-out weird it wants to get and actively revels in it. It’s not really interested in making the girls into a new generation of moe icons either; they are unabashed weirdos, in the ways that really only high school girls can be, and they handle the bizarre situations foisted upon them in similar fashion. They get into arguments about dumb shit, hurl insults at strangers, and occasionally just talk about poop. The writing in this series is fascinating, and it really shouldn’t come as a surprise coming from someone who also has script-writing credits for classics like Cowboy Bebop and Ranma ½ on her resume. The dialogue is punchy and comes at a breakneck pace in ways that you really only get in original anime like ODDTAXI.

Train to the End of the World is an incredible dichotomy unto itself because it clearly comes from a very literate way of thinking but has a blast being really goddamn stupid sometimes, in the best ways. It draws on a lot of inspirations of the epics of yore, gleefully cites the western literary canon, and ponders the future of the human race, and then has the girls negotiate their release from a Gulliver’s Travels situation by threatening to flood a park with urine. It is at once Homer and Homer Simpson. This show is funny in ways that are hard to articulate; comedy is so intrinsic to the show that it only has so many laugh-out-loud moments, but much more often I found myself shaking my head and remarking “this show is fucking hilarious.”

As a complete story, Train to the End of the World isn’t exactly generation-defining, but that’s perfectly fine. It’s an experience more than anything. It has really nice character moments and some heartwarming stuff in there, but I was mostly there for the weird shit. The ending was just okay, but I didn’t feel any poorer for having seen it; I’ll dive right into the cliche and say that it wasn’t about the destination but rather the journey. I had an absolute blast for the whole ride.

Now that I’ve made you read all of this, I’m going to go ahead and admit that I haven’t seen Squid Girl, Shirobako, or Prison School, but I kind of have to now, because I was bowled over by this show. This series revels in surrealism, so your mileage may vary, but it’s at the very least worth checking out. It may not have a lasting impact outside of some similar cult favoritism, but this was still my personal favorite new anime of the season.

Wind Breaker

A few weeks into the Spring season I felt like I was missing something. I gave Wind Breaker a shot and I realized about halfway into the first episode that what I was missing was just some dope-ass fisticuffs.

Haruka is a bit of a delinquent. His hair and eyes are heterochromic, and because he’s judged so harshly for his looks, he decided to lean into it and become the nogoodnik everyone thinks he is. He’s moved to a new town to join the local high school Furin, where he hears he’ll have to fight his way to the top, but as soon as he arrives in town he sees a young woman being harassed by a group of creeps. He takes them out on his own and in return receives a free lunch from the cafe she runs despite his protestations. After she teases him more than a little (his ass is NOT used to positive attention), the creeps return with more goons in tow, and Haruka is backed up by his new classmates. To his surprise, the locals shower the Furin boys with praise, and he then learns that Furin’s gang, Bofurin, exists solely to protect the town from outside threats. And Haruka thinks that is the coolest shit ever.

From there, Haruka gets to meet more of the Bofurin boys, and because of his standoffish personality, rebuffs their praises from the fight. Again, his ass is NOT used to positive attention. We get to learn the hierarchy of Bofurin, and it’s not exactly as Haruka expected: This is not a might-makes-right dogpile at all; it is a structured organization that protects its own and puts its community first. Soon enough, though, they happen upon one of their middle schoolers being hassled by a neighboring gang, and they organize a tournament on hostile ground to resolve their differences.

I am an absolute goddamn sucker for the “delinquent with a heart of gold” archetype, and Haruka is just a big ol’ tsundere from the opening minutes, so Wind Breaker hit like fucking catnip for me. For a show about gangs of delinquents, this could actually be a good example of positive masculinity if you look at it in a certain light. It’s very heavy-handed with the message that nobody can achieve greatness on their own and that surrounding yourself with the right people can change your life for the better. It’s not a rare theme in Japanese media by any means (it’s a central theme of the Persona series as well as another ultra-popular shonen series I’ve been reading in secret), but I really appreciate it being delivered through the lens of channeling brute strength and fighting prowess specifically to protect the vulnerable.  

At the end of the day, though, it’s really just about guys bein’ dudes.

The production values on this are phenomenal and I have to commend CloverWorks for turning in yet another banger. The cast is deep and plenty talented (there’s a lot of Jujutsu Kaisen in there, and it should surprise nobody that the goofy, silver-haired leader of Bofurin is voiced by Yuichi Nakamura). The animation, shot composition, fight choreography, and lighting effects are all absolutely gorgeous, and it’s clear that they see this as a potential franchise. At least, I would certainly hope so, because what we actually got from the first season left me a little hungry. The tournament arc was juicy, and it went a lot longer toward introducing the ensemble cast than the two other action shows I just talked about, but it lasted about an episode too long for a 13-episode season, and the ending came at an awkward time. I was left wanting, but what I want is a second season, so I guess it did its job.

The issues with pacing and the weirdly-timed ending meant that Wind Breaker was a bit of a fence case for me between this section and the last, but my memories of watching it are almost uniformly positive, so into The Gems it goes. This show rocks. Dudes rock.

[zangtang]

Everything can change at any point!

Create images here: https://www.bing.com/images/create?FORM=GENILP before i say anything else though: not following someone else's prompts means you'll likely find some wild and unexpected things yourself. If you follow my prompts like they're laws, you will only ever get results like mine. There are people doing much cooler, weirder things. Don't get restricted by this.

the site was VERY BROKEN for the last 6 days, you haven't been banned. You get 15 boosts a day which usually override any current downtime, but the popup thinks you get 25 a week, which is an indicator of how busted and poorly planned they were for this flood of users. It's not too hard to create illegal results, and there's millions of users, so it's very unlikely a human is ever looking at your results. Unless you're doing really spectacularly terrible things, of course. If you get the warning as soon as you enter your prompt, change the most controversial aspects of your prompt immediately, as repeats of this will get you suspended for increasingly long times. It is possible to make alt accounts with throwaway emails though. It's unconfirmed but it appears that US residents get priority access during US times, and UK residents can only reliably make things from 7am to 1pm for example. Weekend access is a crapshoot. I don't personally pay for ChatGPT so I can't say anything about the alleged priority access you get there, but even that can be slow and restricted during the worst times (I assume this will the their priority to fix though). There are many conflicting reports about whether it's more censored or not. Reports is a very fancy way of saying reddit comments.

Everything I superstitiously guess about prompts:

you can be very descriptive and write in natural english, or you can be very brief. both methods work, I suspect both versions do different things. repetition and restating the same thing in other ways also seems to emphasise (possibly.) Prompts can be quite chaotic and contradictory - you can describe a lot of things happening and it may surprise you, so have fun with weirdness! some words are "heavy" against the automated filters, and can be safe in one prompt and unsafe in another. think of it like buckaroo, the AI is trying to find meaning in your prompt and it will sometimes combine things and get mad about it. be aware of politics and words that may be used in erotic senses, and switch those up.

this is the format I use the most because i am super lazy and unimaginative. items in [ ] are optional and can be anything, and I don't know how the word order matters - in old Midjourney it mattered quite a bit according to guides, but now they're all pushing to parse natural english I'm not so sure:

[number of] [body type] [age] [nationality] [male noun or job] wearing [clothes], with a [size, shape] belly, [hair description], [pose], [location, time of day, weather, lighting, era], [facial expression or attitude], [actions]

The number of guys can be vague like "several." Also placing a number here will generally result in all men being fat. To add a second, very different person (even women! imagine the power), simply describe that in plain english later in the prompt. Try adding "with friends" or something and seeing what happens.

Mentioning body type is separate from mentioning that he has a large stomach because "fat man" alone doesn't make him very fat. also, the body type prompt will dictate his physical build underneath the belly - this allows you to make mpreg very easily, for example. Mentioning his belly separately also seems to be a key part in making clothes not cover it up. However, DallE has clearly gotten much better at this for some clothes, but not all of them. Formalwear is improving, though tactical vests no longer do the cute thing they used to do, and football shirts still ride up reliably. Nationality can be weird, and you can use it to exploit stereotypes, or it can be an eye-opening view of stereotypes from countries you barely know about - want to know what differentiates an Angolan man from a Kenyan man? Probably don't trust AI results! I suspect some countries are controversial due to current politics, and I suspect some are controversial due to fetishy stereotyping. However, if for example "English man" got censored, consider going for capital cities or famous regions, eg "London man." Maybe look up sports teams from that country. I'm a big fan of the "Italian-American" prompt but lately it's gotten quite a few results blocked, so I'd switch to "New Jersey," maybe even "New Jersey Italian."

"Handsome" may slim your results down, or even break the prompt entirely. Consider making your men footballers or rugby players, mention trendy haircuts, or using out of date synonyms to get round it. AI isn't all that likely to give you especially ugly results anyway, particularly if you specify ages under 40. It doesn't get the hair precisely right, but even a generic prompt like "short thick hair" can help. Giving your character a job may dictate what he'll wear, but you might want to specify what clothes you want anyway. Don't mention either if you hope he'll turn out naked. Certain jobs are tricky to use, as AI strains to be as unpolitical as possible - it doesn't want you doing politicians and it sometimes seems to refuse anything that might make the police or military look bad. However, it will accept "wearing a [colour] uniform/pilot shirt" very happily, because it's duuuuumb.

Mention trousers, footwear or even just feet if your results keep zooming in too much. (It'll also zoom in if you mention too much about his face, I think.) Side view appears to make certain prompts fatter, but will often mean he's looking away - you can add "Looking at camera" if you want that. Metallic and plastic clothes can have very fun and weird results, especially if you change the location to a night setting in the rain. Gladiator costumes will reduce his clothes to a few leather straps.

"Flex pose" and "strong pose" will get butch bodybuilder poses (it will also buff up the muscle mass) and "battling strong winds" gets very superhero poses. At least when I was trying these out, I found I couldn't actually get proper bodybuilder poses or mention of superheroes past the censor, but it's been a few weeks so who knows what it's up to now. Give them all a go!

Casual poses and actions can liven things up a little if you just want portraits but don't want it to repeatedly be the same thing facing you directly. Getting out of a car, climbing stairs, leaning against things, adjusting his clothes or putting on a coat, all these kinds of things work. Smoking or drinking does quite a lot. "Tired" or "Exhausted" changes his attitude a lot too, your leans get leaned into more.

Contact words can be a little difficult, so consider ways to exploit using soft contact, or be very wordy and detailed about it so it's not misinterpreting you. "Patting him on the back" is a fairly safe phrase, but DallE isn't intelligent, so it will allow the contact but it will struggle to be precise, especially when the bodies are fat or not positioned in a way they can reach the back - the result of this is that there will be a lot of belly pats. Prodding in the stomach, pointing at the stomach, these both work, but I think DallE is vague about stomach=torso and you may want "pointing at his belt" to give a lower focus. Admiring can direct attention and vibes, whispering will draw their heads closer and make them interact somewhat. Embracing and hugging work but is very heavy for the censor, "hugging on his shoulder/belly" seems safer for some reason. Shaking, grabbing, "examining/concerned about his belly" can work. Bizarrely, squeezing past another man in a narrow corridor/doorway/cupboard works if you want a LOT of contact. And if you want unpredictable contact, fighting can work.

For more dynamic safe contact, try sporting actions. Baseball slides, football tackles, that kind of thing. It's hard to get them to lie flat and the AI seems to resist allowing heads to touch the ground, but "lying in a hammock" works pretty well, and sometimes specifying what the head is touching works. pretty much every minor prompt variation and scenario I've ever used:

"falling onto a broken chair/breaking an object with his weight" "washing windows" "with waiters helping him up" "with friends bringing him food" "falling over another man" "outside of a skyscraper washing windows, harness for safety, hoisted" "hyper-obese man wearing denim dungarees with an enormous inflated belly, drinking from a hose" ("blowing into a hose" gets better expressions for that IMO) "stuck in a broken narrow red british phonebooth with another man, bursting out with his enormous belly, black trousers" "bent over eating at a pie eating contest wearing a dirty white tank top with an enormous round belly and his face hidden buried in messy pie" "sitting on a throne next to a very fat 35 year old spanish monarch" "lying on his back the floor, enjoying a banquet, side view, tired expression" "very fat 35 year old handsome british man wearing tracksuit and gold chain with a hugely distended beerbelly, man with a massive round stomach, washing his car in a carpark at night side view" "at water park, stuck in a water slide" "before and after weightloss picture, in the left he is X and in the right he is Y" "with a large round belly spilled over eating at a banquet with an enormous round belly, bronzed, with waiters helping him up/being prodded with a fork" "washing dishes and leaning over his belly on a freestanding enamel pedestal basin" "climbing and leaning against a stepladder to change a lightbulb on the ceiling [with friend holding the stepladder steady]" "side view, photo of two 40 year old beefy handsome fat italian-american rugby player with a hugely distended round belly, resting hand on his chest, wearing a tracksuit with a gigantic round sagging stomach, gold chain, raining, whispering in a car park at night, leaning/hugging on shoulder, tired, stern expression looking at camera, smoking a cigarette" "side view photo of two strong 40 year old handsome samoan rugby player with a hugely distended round beerbelly, chest hair, wearing a white formal shirt and black suit, hugging on his belly, proud expectant father, boyfriends outside a busy pub at night, stern, looking at camera, raining" "two fat los angeles rams handsome footballers wearing white pilot shirt and plain tie and black trousers pushing through a narrow saloon door with their enormously distended beerbellies, stern" "photo of very fat 30 year old hunk rugby player with enormously distended belly, carrying his belly in a wheelbarrow" "very fat 35 year old man wearing white pilot shirt with an enormous round belly, tough man with a very large beerbelly, too fat for small broken airplane seat sitting on another man, fat belly spilling over armrest and pressing against over man, black trousers, slightly concerned, suave" "being carried on the back of a flatbed truck" can turn them into horrific lardvalanches but you don't get much control over it

original characters do not steal prompts: "30 year old man who looks like he's the main character from the game Uncharted with an enormous distended round beerbelly, with one hand on a bar in a pub, nathan" This is sometimes surprisingly effective, but most often it'll simply draw vibes from the IP mentioned, so you can use it to get specific settings at least

Try spelling the names wrong or reversing the name order - sometimes it'll even accept names sprinkled throughout the prompt. Repeating the name may increase its effect (it might also not!) Also it's speculated that placing the celebrity fraud in a place or situation they would normally be found in helps. That said, I could only get a Robert Downey Jr if I made him dress as a gladiator. So maybe weirdness and ingenuity are your strengths. see also https://www.tumblr.com/baron-bear/731903035856584704/what-do-you-use-for-your-ai-stuff

[your-astro-mami]

the biggest astrological events of 2023

and how they will affect YOU

Saturn enters Pisces (March 7th)

Now that Aquarius placements have been drained of their energy, matured and learned how to overcome their difficulties, it is time for Pisces to enter their Saturn era. Saturn in Pisces shows that discipline and organization may become more difficult, blurry. People may become more disoriented - it could be hard for everyone to manage their time and stay on schedule. On a positive note, this will be the ideal time to commit to any creative plans, ideas, endeavors. The people around you may become more understanding of your struggles, there will be empathy in regards to failure.

Most prominent for: Pisces Risings (Identity, Life decisions), Virgo Risings (Relationships), Gemini Risings (Family, Home), Sagittarius Risings (Career).

Pluto enters Aquarius (March 23rd)

One of the most prominent astrological events of the century (in my humble opinion). Pluto in Aquarius will bring grandiose changes in the world. Major focus on technology - if you believe you have seen technological growth/improvements in the past two decades, wait for the Pluto in Aquarius era. AI, focus on crypto/digital currency, any personal information will be digitalized, robots and robots taking over human jobs, possible cameras everywhere/monitoring. I believe this will bring major changes in the world. For Fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius), this can be quite transformative, it could bring more personal power, challenges, a lot of growth. We will truly see the Age of Aquarius.

Most prominent for: Aquarius Risings (Identity, Life Decisions). Taurus Risings (Career), Leo Risings (Relationships), Scorpio Risings (Family, Home).

Mars in Cancer (March 25th)

Geminis will finally release the frustration that has been held inside them for a while. Mars in Cancer could make everyone easily irritable, fights may become more emotional, people may get angry for smaller things, there could be slight chaos due to the sensitivity around us all.

Most prominent for: Cancer Placements (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Rising); Capricorn Placements (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Rising). For Cancer it could be a rush of energy, enthusiasm, but also lack of patience. For Capricorn it will be motivation, better balance, but more conflict.

Solar Eclipse in Aries (April 20th)

The Solar Eclipse as well all know marks the beginning of a big change, of slight chaos that may turn into something bigger for us. The House the Solar eclipse is in could go through big changes in the months after it occurs. It can be a transformative time for that area of life. It can point to major shifts, important decisions, focus on the area of life it's in.

Most prominent for: The house cusp in your chart Aries is in; Aries Rising (Identity, Decisions), Taurus Risings (Spirituality, Secrets); Gemini Risings (Social Circle, Aspirations); Cancer Risings (Career); Leo Risings (Travel, Education), Virgo Risings (Finances); Libra Risings (Relationships); Scorpio Risings (Work; Health); Sagittarius Risings (Romance); Capricorn Risings (Family, Home); Aquarius Risings (Ideas, Communication); Pisces Risings (Income);

Mercury retrograde in Taurus (April 21st to May 14th)

Mercury retrograde, also known as one of the most dramaticized events in Astrology, indicates the time in which you should avoid making big decisions, signing important documents, starting something new and talking to your ex. The worst time for organization.

Most prominent for: Virgo and Gemini placements; Taurus and Scorpio Mercury;

Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio (May 5th)

The Lunar eclipse indicates chaos in the house it falls in. That area of life could go through some major shifts, unpredictable events, possible setbacks that will lead to growth, gained experience. Compared to the Solar eclipse, it could point to major endings, there is a theme of letting go, moving on - but first there could be some suffering.

Most prominent for: The house cusp in your chart Scorpio is in. Scorpio Risings (Identity, Life Choices), Libra Risings (Income); Virgo Risings (Ideas, Communication), Leo Risings (Home, Family), Cancer Risings (Romance), Gemini Risings (Health, Work), Taurus Risings (Relationships); Aries Risings (Finance); Pisces Risings (Education, Travel); Aquarius Risings (Career); Capricorn Risings (Friendships); Sagittarius Risings (Spirituality, Mental Health).

Jupiter enters Taurus (May 16th)

One of the most abundant events for the year. Jupiter in Taurus shows that luck may come regardless of how hard you work for (compared to Aries where luck is something you have to put effort and energy in order to get). Jupiter in Taurus is luck that is secure. It can point to financial growth, obtaining material possessions, financial security - it is one of the more materialistic Jupiter placements therefore it will be manifester as people spending more on shopping, anything that provides them with security and comfort. Money is happiness.

Most prominent for: natal Jupiter in Taurus people; the house cusp Taurus is in; Taurus Risings (Identity, Life decisions); Aries Risings (Income); Pisces Risings (Communication, Ideas); Aquarius Risings (Home, Family); Capricorn Risings (Romance); Sagittarius Risings (Work, Health), Scorpio Risings (Relationships); Libra Risings (Finance); Virgo Risings (Education, Travel); Leo Risings (Career), Cancer Risings (Friendships, Aspirations); Gemini Rising (Spirituality, Mental Health);

Jupiter square Pluto

This transit can be quite challenging as it will feel like everything good may require a sacrifice, a big change that has to be made in order for this abundance to arrive. It may feel like there is an overwhelming amount of pressure, tension, complication. Any intense emotions could be exaggerated because of this.

Jupiter conjunct North Node

On of the most abundant transits. There will be major opportunities for growth, for overcoming challenges and looking forward. Great opportunities may come. I believe for some time there will be grandios and positive changes in the world. You may feel like you are on the right path for the things you are doing. It can feel optimistic, hopeful.

Jupiter sextile Saturn

Luck will come with effort and hard work. Good things will require patienct. People will be more realistic about their abilities.

North Node in Aries (July 17th)

This will feel quite energetic and will bring out people's ambition, desire to go after what is meant for them. It can feel forceful, like there is lack of patience and too much movement. On a bigger scale, I think there could be violence, aggression, tension, eruption. A lot of force since Mars-ruled Aries will bring out people's energy, desire to compete, ruin their competition.

Most prominent for: Cardinal signs (Aries, Libra, Cancer, Capricorn), but mostly Aries placements;

Pluto square North/South Node

Letting go of past trauma, possible trauma from the past re-merging. Having to go through difficult events that will push you to the path that is meant for you. I believe this will be one of the more difficult transits for everyone. Pluto equals change, it shows us what affects us psychologically and combined with the Nodes it will be energy from the past and future combined together. It will feel tense, it will require a lot of strength.

Mercury retrograde in Virgo (August 13th-September 15th)

Again - avoid important conversations, try not to sign important contracts, don't make plans, avoid talking to your ex.

Solar Eclipse in Libra (October 14th)

The past Solar eclipse in Scorpio felt intense for everyone, but this one could be something different. The changes that will occur during and after it could bring more balance in your life. While there could be a sacrifice that has to be made, it could lead to something better for you. I think with this eclipse a lot of the changes could be centered around romance, relationships regardless of the house cusp in your chart Libra is in.

Most prominent for: The house cusp in your chart Libra is in. Libra Rising (Idenity, Life decisions); Scorpio Rising (Mental health); Sagittarius Rising (Friendships, Aspirations); Capricorn Rising (Career, Image); Aquarius Risings (Education, Travel); Pisces Risings (Finance); Aries Risings (Relationships); Taurus Risings (Work, Health); Gemini Risings (Romance); Cancer Risings (Home, Family); Leo Risings (Communication, Plans); Virgo Risings (Income);

Lunar Eclipse in Taurus (October 28th)

There will be drastic shifts in your life, ones that will require you to be stubborn, to have strength and persistence. Taurus is ruled by Venus so once again, I don't believe this eclipse will be draining or forceful compared to the ones before. Major focus on romance, finances, relationships. On a bigger scale, agriculture, finance, values, basic needs (food, electricity, water, etc.)

Most prominent for: The house cusp in your chart Taurus is in; Taurus Rising (Self, Life decisions); Gemini Rising (Mental health); Cancer Rising (Friendships); Leo Rising (Career, Image); Virgo Rising (Education, Travel); Libra Rising (Finance); Scorpio Rising (Relationships); Sagittarius Rising (Work, Health); Capricorn Rising (Romance); Aquarius Rising (Family, Home); Pisces Rising (Communication); Aries Rising (Income);

Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius and Capricorn (December 13th-January 1st)

Once again - avoid signing important deals or documents, avoid making important plans and try not to contact your ex.

Most prominent for: Gemini and Virgo Mercury; Sagittarius and Capricorn Mercury;

If you want to know how these events will affect your own chart, check out my pinned post with the readings I offer <3 For orders DM me here or email me at yourastromami@gmail.com