#why am i so dumb and why did i not copy it before i uploaded it

[auroracalisto]

tumblr if you don’t stop eating my drafts that i write on mobile and don’t save anywhere else bc i don’t have my laptop i swear to god i will burn everything down

[signed-yours-truly-the-whale]

Babes in Chuckletown

OHO BOY, am I angry.

I was in the middle of a very long chapter in my fanfic when my computer randomly decided to restart, costing me NOT ONLY a very long chapter, but the ENTIRE THIRTEEN-CHAPTER DOCUMENT. I thank god that I uploaded it all to AO3 up until the thirteenth chapter (which is going to be a pain the ass to rewrite), but now I have to go in and copy-paste, re-bold and re-italicize everything.

So that’s how my Halloween is going. Excuse me while I cry.

Anyway. Please enjoy this one-shot I’m making up on the fly about Arthur having no choice but bringing his small child to Ha-Ha’s because he has nobody to watch her. Me being in an angry mood helps me to channel Hoyt’s ... Hoytish-ness. Hoyt was definitely an asshole in the movie, but I feel like the lines “I like you, Arthur” and “I’m trying to help you” flew under the radar in light of his dickishness.

I’ve been wanting to write this for a while, I just have no conceivable idea where this would logically fit into my fanfiction, so I gift it here. I’ll let this be a birthday present for the incredible @funsizedshrimp, since they seem to love my Carrie Fleck as much as I do and I absolutely should return the favor for all the lovely art they gift to me. I love you lots, you wonderful person you.

__________________                ______________               __________________

“Hey Peanut, can you do me a favor?”

Arthur’s voice was soft, nearly indecipherable. The pudgy hand that had been grasping at his shirt collar suddenly pushed against him, exerting the energy to be able to lift her head up.

One bleary eye opened to look at him. Her cheek was rosy from her uneasy resting spot on his collarbone. Neither the time nor the place allowed for such coddling, but he continued to rock her on his hip uneasily.

“Mm?” she questioned.

“Can you put a hand over your ear?” he asked, softer still. “Daddy has to talk to someone and it might be a little loud. Not suitable for a baby’s ears.”

Although Carrie grumbled something that only he could decipher as “Not a baby,” she conceded. The sharp bone in her ear pressing against his collarbone hurt, but in the magical age where she began repeating every colorful phrase she heard from the television, he couldn’t risk anything.

Taking in a wavering breath, clutching the bag in his hand tighter, Arthur opened his boss’ door.

“Oh, how fucking nice of you to ... what the fuck is this?”

Hoyt looked up from his stack of documents -- chiefly the words complaint, absence, and Carnival bore into his head from a yellow slip on his desk -- to see Ha Ha’s resident hooky flinch in protest. What he first thought was an overgrown ragdoll, he realized with some incredulity was a toddler, pressing its head into Arthur’s neck.

“You brought a fucking kid into my shop?” he asked, voice rising.

“Hoyt ... please --”

“Please what? This should be good.”

It gave him no pleasure to watch Arthur be so hopelessly awkward, dropping the paper bag in a vain attempt to hike the kid further up on his person. He knew the guy was going through a rough patch with the wife. That it happened on Hoyt’s dime, though, made him hard to sympathize with.

Fumbling for something to do besides stand uncomfortably and rock his daughter into a sleep that she couldn’t attain, Arthur sat in the green chair across from Hoyt’s desk. He positioned Carrie to be able to rest easier in his lap. At a groggy whimper, his hand instinctively pressed against her arm, hoping it would keep her semi-warm. He didn’t know why Hoyt kept the AC on at all hours of the day.

“Well aren’t you a real mother hen,” Hoyt observed, devoid of anything Arthur could recognize as a positive emotion. “What’s it doing here?”

“I ... I had no other options,” he blurted out. “I can’t afford another day off work, but I have nobody to watch her.”

“Do I look like I’m runnin’ a charity ward, Arthur?” Upon further thought, “You didn’t bring her through the locker room, did you?”

“Nobody else is here,” he said quickly, realizing how bad that might’ve sounded once it reached his own ears. “And I made her close her eyes.”

Two scraggly grey eyebrows rose in vague surprise.

“Your mistake, not mine.”

Arthur felt the tips of his ears burn, unsure if he guessed correctly what Hoyt was referring to. Carrie may have been a surprise, but she was no mistake.

“How are you supposed to keep track of the kid on assignment?” Hoyt questioned, flitting through the ever-expanding pile of papers on his desk. “You’re booked for Amusement Mile today. That’s fuckin’ dangerous.”

Awkwardly, Arthur cleared his throat, feeling unable to meet Hoyt’s disbelieving eyes. His fingers rubbed Carrie’s arm up and down. She burrowed further into the crook of his neck, keeping her hand dutifully over her ear as promised. Her face was hidden from view by a crop of blonde hair -- the little veil he had left that kept work and home as two separate realities.

“I - I, um ...” A giggle got caught in his throat, as thick as a billiard ball. He forced it down. “I was wondering if I could keep her here. Just ... just for --”

“What?”

“Just for today, a -- and tomorrow, I’ll be sure --”

“Are you stupid?” Hoyt cuts in, and Arthur’s hand moves from his daughter’s arm to the small hand over her ear like a reflex. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“W -- well, Randall brought in his kid a few w -- weeks ago ... I thought maybe ...”

“Randall’s kid is twelve already, not three.” Hoyt heard a soft mutter of “she’ll be five soon,” as if it would sway the argument in Arthur’s court at all. “What the hell are you thinking in that fucked-up head? No relatives, no friends?”

“Nobody,” he said, and it surprised Hoyt that he hadn’t seen Arthur ... quite so sad before. He’d been sad, sure, but not pitiful. He couldn’t be more pitiful if he was dressed as Carnival doing this begging. “My -- my wife just left, I don’t know where she is. My in-laws are on vacation in Burbank and my mom is in the hospital. The neighbors won’t take her and -- and the preschool is closed ‘cause of a rat infestation. Hoyt, I’m ... I’m begging you.”

Something about the sight was so pitiful, so unfunny in his desperation, that Hoyt narrowly refrained from cutting back with My mistake for thinking you’d have friends.

“Mmf, Daddy,” the source of the frustration croaked. “My arm hurts. Can I put it down?”

“Yeah, Peanut,” he said quietly. The hand slid out from underneath his warm palm and found its way around his neck once again. A thumb brushed away a few strands of hair from her face, unveiling a curtain for her to view this strange new room.

Hoyt almost let slip a surprised “holy shit” as the kid’s head rose to look around the office, wide-eyed in her wonderment, but he thought better of it. But holy shit, did she look like Arthur, in eyes and face shape at least. Slap on a greasy brown wig and she could’ve been a pint-sized clone.

“A jack in the box,” she said quietly, pointing at the dumb clown statue out of his sight in front of his desk. “Daddy, jack in the box.”

“Yeah, Carrie, I see.”

Hoyt bit his lip, at a loss. It was always harder to turn a kid away when he had a name and a face to set to them. Until then the kid could’ve been a delusion for all he knew, the way Arthur talked about her like there was no god damn tomorrow. Who on this green earth would ever think to --?

Ugh. Fuck.

“You owe me, Arthur. Big time.”

____________________

Nine in the morning rolled around to a relative calm. The kid was, to his relief, quiet and weedy for the most part, like her quiet, weedy father. A long stretch of silence ensued -- half-hour? Two hours? He didn’t fucking know -- where the rhythmic punching of the time cards from the locker room and pen (or crayon) on paper substituted for awkward and mindless conversation he didn’t want to indulge in.

His only indication that she was there at all was the knowledge that his door hadn’t opened since Arthur hurried out to get ready and dropped her in Hoyt’s proverbial lap (had it been a literal instance, he might’ve tossed the kid through the window on reflex), and the occasional kicking of leather sandals and bell bottom pant legs barely visible from his vantage point.

“Hey, don’t get any crayon on my floor,” he warned, wondering internally if she made up for in mischief what she lacked in outward annoyance.

“I won’t,” she replied, too high and cheery for nine in the morning. “I draw pictures to stop Daddy being sad.”

Well isn’t that just fucking lovely. But he had a schedule to amend.

He could send Arthur to the kids’ hospital in Randall’s place -- the kids seemed to really respond to Arthur better ... god, why did Randall have to be such an obnoxious prick of a clown with the kids? It was getting harder and harder to place him--

The rustling of paper and a soft grunt made him look up. Hiding her face from his view, the kid was holding up a drawing of ... colored dots? Big whoop.

She pointed to a bright green one, taking up the center of the page.

“That’s -- that’s my daddy at work,” she explained. He raised a brow. Quite a likeness. “And that’s me, with an ice cream.”

Her little pointer finger trailed to the scribble next to the green -- a flurry of yellow and brown and pink. Was that what she’d spent the last hour on?

“What’s that then?” he asked before he could stop himself, not realizing any words had left his mouth at all until the cap of a chewed blue Bic pen tapped against a blue scribble, neatly tucked away in a folded corner.

“That’s my mommy,” she explained, as casual as though he’d asked for the time. Oh. “She’s taking a break.”

He nodded, not trusting himself to say something he might regret in the hours to come. Before coming to the realization that it was not his business nor his time to care, a question flitted through his mind if Arthur had told the kid about her mom at all.

“I got work to do,” he settled. “Read a book or something.”

____________________

Hoyt never thought he’d ever be disappointed to have a knock on the door that wasn’t Arthur.

“C’min,” he said distractedly.

“Hoyt,” Gary said. “Barney needs the key to the storage closet. Forgot his shoes at home.”

“Second time this week,” Hoyt tutted. Standing up, he allowed himself a stretch that popped his back in several satisfying places, and reached for the key under the strip of tape marked STORAGE. “Tell him this had better be the last damn time.”

“I’ll try.”

Their eyes, as though having just materialized in the room, landed on the girl, still lying on the floor but looking up at Gary, saying nothing. Gary’s face softened.

“Oh, hello,” he said amiably. “Is this your daughter, Hoyt?”

Don’t ever say something like that again --

“Nah.” He shook his head and sat back down. “Arthur’s kid.”

A moment of recognition passed where Gary’s eyes lit up like a damn Christmas tree. His smile grew wider.

“So this is the Carrie we’ve heard all about,” he exclaimed, sticking his hand out. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Fleck.”

At the lack of response, Hoyt looked over the desk. A blonde crop of hair was unmoved, and even quieter than she’d been before.

“Didn’t your daddy teach you not to stare?” Hoyt probed.

“She’s alright, Hoyt,” Gary countered, keeping his eyes on the girl. “She’s still very young.”

No time like now to teach ‘em not to stare

“Thanks, Hoyt,” Gary continued. At the door frame again, he smiled once more at the kid. “It was very nice to meet you, Carrie.”

The door closed. As if cued by the click of the lock, she turned quickly to Hoyt.

“He was small!” she whispered.

“Yeah, and you’re rude.”

“How rude?”

“It’s fuckin’ rude to stare at him ‘cause he’s short,” Hoyt snapped, pulling yet another litany of papers in a barely-together manila folder from an overstuffed desk drawer. “He doesn’t stare at you ‘cause you’re a girl.”

“But that was scary.”

“There’s a lot scarier guys to be on the lookout for, kid.”

“Who?”

Your daddy, for one.

“I don’t wanna be rude,” she said quietly, beginning to stand. She swiped a bit of dust from the knee of her bell bottoms, putting a nagging word in the back of his mind to sweep the office soon. “I wanna be like my daddy. He’s nice.”

He looked at her briefly before returning to his papers again. Crudely and off-tune, he made out that she was attempting to whistle the Andy Griffith theme.

Andy Griffith. Sheriff Barney Fife. God damn you, Gary.

The back of a blonde head was cast in varying shades as she stood in front of the window slats, drawing a little pointer finger over the sharpie-marked letters. MIME. WHITE FACE PAINT

I have no doubt you’ll be exactly like your daddy. Good luck with that.

____________________

Two o’clock gave Hoyt his first opportunity to get a real look at the Fleck girl. That still felt weird to say.

“Here,” he said stiffly, digging into his back pocket to produce two dimes. “Go down the hall ‘til you reach the Pepsi machine and get us two sodas. It’s lunch time.”

She swiped the dimes from his hand. The contact of nails against his palm made him shiver more than he expected. She felt startlingly real.

A few hesitant steps later -- and he really had to question how poor Arthur was that she looked at the dimes like she’d never seen them before -- she turned to look at him. The pink clip holding her bangs back suddenly bobbed on her head.

“Daddy not let me have soda,” she said.

“Your daddy’s out working. Skedaddle.”

“But what if he come and sees?”

She was lucky her little girl charm made up for the annoying inconsistency of her grammar. If there was one thing Hoyt hated, it was inconsistency.

“We got two hours ‘til you gotta worry about that.”

He looked down again, swiping a red mark through Randall’s name. Another complaint from a kid’s parent from the latest birthday party. God damn --

A clanking made him look up, and sigh. She couldn’t reach the door handle.

“Every paper I can’t sign ‘cause of lookin’ after you is coming out of your daddy’s paycheck,” he threatened, standing to open the door.

The kid was made all the more startlingly real, assaulting his senses as he had to grab her arms and push her forward to get her to stop gawking at the animal statues and props in the storage closet that swallowed the hallway. At least the locker room was empty.

What the fuck are you thinking bringing her here, Fleck?

Leaning against the opposite wall, he watched with waning curiosity as she rushed over to the machine, concluded she was too short to reach the buttons, and pulled over a yellow chair (the uneven wobbly one that grated on his nerves to hear scraping against the ground in uneven increments) to stand on. Licks of curls rested on her shoulders, reminding Hoyt of her mop-headed father.

Rushing back to him, she triumphantly handed him a blue Pepsi can, keeping the Mountain Dew for herself. Eh, he’s had worse.

“Stay,” he said gruffly, unsure of what else to say. He was more accustomed to dogs than kids, but felt satisfied by her listening skills when she climbed into the yellow chair next to the black trunk-table.

Two minutes later and he found himself in the impossibly weird scenario of not only having lunch outside of the comfort of his office, but tossing a banana to a kid who, by all the laws of nature, should not really be allowed to exist. Cute as she may be, to see physical proof of Arthur Fleck’s sex life made it hard to look at her for more than a few seconds.

Hoyt looked anyway, a little annoyed at her inability to open the soda can with her frail little finger. Weak like her damn dad. He swiped it, opened it with a secretly satisfying hiss, and watched her take a great sip. Scrunching her nose -- thank god for her, it wasn’t like Arthur’s -- she stuck her tongue out in derision before reaching over to set it on the table.

Hoyt switched the cans. He hated Pepsi anyway.

He also hated bananas, and the leftover couscous his wife made the previous evening. Mentally he made a note to pack his own damn lunches from then on.

So the banana went to the kid, less out of concern for her eating and more as a means to stop any bellyaching from either her or his wife later.

“So your dad doesn’t let you have soda,” he found himself asking. Why his brain was unable to catch up with his mouth, he wasn’t really sure.

Through a mouthful, she shook her head at him. Swallowing down a sizeable bite, she said, “The sugar bad for my heart.”

“Hmm.”

“My mommy let me have soda, though,” she said, perkier now in a way that made him feel a little rigid. “She likes Coke.”

Hoyt held back a snort of derision and surprise. There were funnier things to mock Arthur about than his wife hitting it big and leaving. Coke was for the rich, he knew. Poor people ... drank Pepsi, he supposed, looking at the kid and the soda can again.

She seemed much more content with the Pepsi can. Metaphorical? Maybe. He was never one to think of analogies -- nor did he really care.

At the sound of the entrance banging open, her eyes widened and she went red. Her hands stayed firmly around the soda can as her proverbial cookie jar.

Whatever jaunty tune Randall was whistling as though he wasn’t twenty minutes late was cut short upon making eye contact with the kid. Hoyt saw something that looked friendly, but not in the same fashion that maybe Gary had in mind.

“Didn’t realize you paid for ‘em so young, Hoyt.”

An inexplicable burning sensation flared in the tips of Hoyt’s ears.

“It’s Arthur’s kid, now fuck off,” he said quickly. “And you’re late.”

“Car broke down again.”

“Well get it fixed, or don’t let it break down on my time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Randall sighed, breezing past them with his nicotine-smelling clown suit in hand, chief of the parents’ complaints.

The girl’s eyes trailed after the huge man, staying on the hallway long after he’d left. She leaned in just after he took in a mouthful of cold, crunchy couscous.

“What did he mean?” she asked quietly.

“Don’t ask questions.”

____________________

Hoyt’s leg bounced, eyeing the clock out of his peripheral. If Arthur believed Hoyt was letting himself be saddled with the kid for one minute past four o’clock, he was really out of it.

The kid was getting restless, and relentlessly annoying. She surprised him with her expert knowledge on blowing up and tying balloons -- of course Arthur would teach her that, what a valuable life skill -- but the inefficient scraping of two ends of a tightly-woven balloon into a barely-decipherable balloon animal made him wanna pop the thing right in her face. God damn, why did he keep a pile of them within her reach?

She made a snake, she declared. Or a worm.

Upon reaching for another one, it came with an unnecessary avalanche of wormy friends as the corner of a plastic bag scattered a cluster of colored balloons on the carpeted floor.

“Shit,” he grumbled, rounding the desk to collect them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her put back the one she’d originally grabbed. “You’d better hope your dad has money to pay for new balloons, kid.”

“Shhh ...” His eyes narrowed at her, watching her lean down with him to collect handfuls -- albeit smaller handfuls -- of long balloons. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

____________________

Two minutes to four, Arthur came into the office, looking like a man on a mission. It was to his visible relief, Hoyt noticed, that the kid was happy and very much alive.

“Daddy!” she exclaimed, hopping from the chair to take aim around his pant leg, leaving her picture book on the ground. A hand stroked some hair behind her ear and she smiled sappily up at him. “I drew you pictures and -- and I made you a balloon snake, but it popped.”

Groaning, he pried her arms away and bent down to her level.

“Were you good for Hoyt?” he asked, the faintest smile threatening to split on his face. Eight hours of work would not stop him from enjoying how soft her hair was, or how she smelled like cherries when she hugged his hulking, sweaty form.

“Just aces,” Hoyt smiled cloyingly, twisting a pen cap between his fingers. “Get a sitter for her tomorrow or don’t bother coming in.”

“That good, huh?” Arthur questioned, groaning again in achy protest as he stood up. “I’ll find a sitter for her, I promise.”

____________________

Three hours and two much-needed baths later, Arthur was finding a familiar rhythm in twirling his best girl around their little living room, not minding that he got lost in the mask he wore in front of her. Their old turntable warbled and scratched, but he scarcely noticed.

Carrie didn’t smile at anybody the way she smiled at him. He hoped she knew the flip side to that was true as well.

Que sera sera

Whatever will be, will be

The future’s not ours to see

Que sera sera

“I talked with Mom on the phone today,” he mentioned, watching her face brighten into a widening grin. “She said she wants to meet up with us to take you to lunch on Saturday.”

“Is she come back?” she asked. With her left hand enveloped in her father’s, she shifted her right arm so it rested against his chest and she could lean back to look at him. His face fell slightly.

“No, Peanut, I don’t think so. But you’ve been doing so well with school ‘til it closed, I thought you could tell her all the new rhyming words you learned. You learned what rhymes with bit, didn’t you?”

Her eyes traveled up to the ceiling, scrunching her nose to remember.

“Split,” she concluded, aglow in his proud smile. “Now you.”

“Befit. You?”

“Uh ... grit.”

At a very inelegant dip, which sent her into shrieking giggles as she felt her ponytail brush the floor, he said, “Banana split.”

“That doesn’t count!” she laughed.

“Oh, really? How does it not count?” he humored.

“Cause I said split! No cheating!”

“Then tool kit,” he smiled. “But now you have to think of two words.”

“Quit, and ...” She stopped to consider. “Oh, I learned one today! Shit.”

____________________

“Hoyt?”

“What do you want?”

Arthur looked from the paper in his hands, to the area of space between his person and the paper, filled in by the sight of his feet doing an awkward little soft shoe. Should he even question Hoyt about this? He was as honest as he could be, but something about this didn’t seem to add up.

“It’s just, uh ... my paycheck seems higher than it should be?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Well, no, but --”

“Then what is it?”

A nervous sweat started to form at Arthur’s hairline.

“It’s just that ... I did the math, and -- and it looks like you paid me for one of the days I didn’t work.”

“Are you tellin’ me you don’t think I did my math right? Go get a fuckin’ bank job if you think you know better.”

“So ... I’m -- I’m fine if I deposit the two hundred from the check?”

“Your money,” Hoyt grumbled, signing away another mindless paper. For being a clown business, he sure did have a shitload of paperwork. “Pay your rent, buy a hooker, some booze ... a snazzy divorce lawyer.”

Turning, Arthur felt something air-light in his chest, still disbelieving of the good fortune.

I can pay the rent, he registered. I can pay the rent and I can buy Carrie some new toys.

“Hey, how’s the little ankle-biter, by the way?”

He turned again, slower.

“What?”

“Kelly, the -- the kid you brought in on Monday. Raised hell in my office.”

“Oh ... Carrie?”

Arthur looked down at his shoes again, smiling. Staying with his mom and her newly-broken arm, bellyaching about wanting Hoyt at her babysitter again because “Nana can only make TV dinners.”

“She’s just aces.”

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Oh not again the Paywall!

… Oh boy. This comic will be deader than expected.

When Dobson announced a few years ago he was working on a new comic involving a mountain cabin and supernatural elements, I was at the very least intrigued enough to see where this was going. I never expected it to be a groundbreaking comic or the worst thing anyone has ever done, but considering his track record so far when it came to creating original, long planned out comics, made me at least curious. Would it be better, worse or more woke than Alex ze Pirate. One thing I did however hope for was that Dobson would be for once smart enough to not hide his stuff behind a paywall, which has so far always killed his comics that are neither Ladybug or SYAC related. But hey, unlike Dobson, I can admit when I am wrong with an assumption.

 To be clear here, I am aware that Dobson “hides” the comic behind a 5000 dollar paywall only so that some person who donates to him the necessary dollar a month to see the panels uploaded by Dobson thrice a week can no longer do so and leak them to kiwifarms.

 However, even the dollar per month thing to me is a very, very dumb idea.

 I get it. People want to make money of something they create. I don’t hold it against webcomic artists to sell merchandise/tradepaperbacks of their stuff or create additional content to their regular updated comic pages, that people can pay for to see. But here is a major difference between Andrew Dobson and almost every other webcomic artist out there and which has been a key factor in why Dobson’s career as a comic creator has never taken off to.

 Webcomic artists stay relevant, by making their major comics public.

 I know Dobson’s work for a couple of years and the overall quality (or rather lack thereof) in his work aside, one thing I was dumbfounded the most off was how he basically sabotaged his own “career” in the medium. I have read a couple of sprite and webcomics over the years and even if the webcomic in question was utter bullshit for some reason cough sinfest cough one thing I saw was that in one way or another the comic and its artist would find an audience, BECAUSE the comic was easily to access on the net. You did not need to pay for the privilege of seeing  something someone created out of a whim. You could see the thing develop and go on because the person creating it became aware of people liking it and in doing so getting an extra boost to continue on.

 And by doing so, as time went on those people would eventually manage to make money of their work and even improve at least some aspect of it, may it be the storywriting or just the artwork.

 But Dobson made sure that when he wanted to start off his career, his stuff would not be seen.

 See, before SYAC became the thing he focuses on the most, there were at least two major comic series Dobson created and wanted to make money off. Percy Phillips, a detective comic about a Holmes knock off and Formera, a story about a boy stuck in a prehistoric fantasy world, no one is really sure about where it was heading for (not even the author).

Dobson made sure there was fanart of his characters and at least reading samples of around 10 pages on average everywhere he went to online the most (deviantart and smackjeevee). But aside of that, he did nothing with his creations online. Some random, unregularly uploaded fanart on aside, he would never upload more pages of Formera e.g. on deviantart, nor information about the comics direction, assuring that average interest of people in his stuff and the story was dimished fast. And when people are not interested in your story, they are not interested in you as an artist much. And when people are not interested in you as an artist (and your behavior online starts to additionally alienate them from you even more) it is no wonder your career never gets off. Now some may wonder, if Dobson drew reading samples, did that mean he wanted to draw more? Yes of course he wanted. And he actually did. But you needed to buy the tradepaperback to see those pages.

Basically what he did back then was, that he falsely approached the “webcomic” audience in a manner more suffice for people who want to buy physical copies of comics in bookstores or comic shops. Release a few reading samples, hope they get people interested in you and then make money by them buying this stuff. However, this entire approach was faulty. First off, the general quality of Dobson’s writing and artwork even back then made it not really look in any way worth to buy the comic, when there were way better products to be found either professionally published or online. To give you an example, these are some of the opening pages of Formera, published around 2005-08.

By comparison, that is a page of infamous internet webartist Bleedmann and his Powerpuff Girl comic , released around 2006.

I am sorry to say that, but why should I pay good money for Formera, something that looks like it was drawn by an average 16 year old anime fangirl at the time, when I could have something “better” drawn and designed by others? Even if those others are freaking lolicons.

I mean sure, the backgrounds look okay here and there, but composition wise the thing looks just not good. And that is from someone who went to art school and had the gaul to talk shit about mangas?

Secondly, the reading samples where just the first pages of his comics in general. Meaning nothing really happened in them and with the lack of information about the comics provided, nothing was really there to get others’ attention. Add to all of that the fact Dobson wanted between 10 and 20 dollar for 170 pages on average or less (Look up Legends, the precursor to Alex ze Pirate. Only 78 pages! Formera at least had around 152 per volume at prices between 9,99 and 15$) when you could buy a manga with more than 250 pages for less at the time…

And people said nope and rather looked up what the heck this Sonichu was people talked about.

As a result, Dobson never really sold stuff as proven with deviantart entries like this…

and he cancelled his comics after 1 or 2 volumes, not even wrapping up his stories he was supposedly so proud of and wanted to tell. All because Dobson essentially cared more about “making quick money” instead of telling a decent story he wanted people to read.

By abandoning these projects (and the characters in it) unceremoniously, Dobson had in my opinion also contributed a lot towards his online infamy. After all, what are you supposed to believe about a creator, who abandons his own creation completely instead of at least trying to salvage it (he could have still made Formera publicly readable by making it a webcomic) and has the audacity to call the overall popularity of others (particularly anime and mangas) the reason for its failing success. Plus it seems that their failure was the main reason why he would rather create 4-panel or one page comics instead of stories with more complexity afterwards, which resulted in the way Alex ze Pirate was presented (and is a topic for a later entry) and eventually SYAC.

 Bottomline, creating a “paywall” for his original work resulted in people on average not becoming aware of Dobson as the creator of some okayish comics, because they never saw them and instead would be exposed to other, “inferior” if not outright meanspirited and toxic artwork and opinions. And creating a paywall for Cabin’s Rest, even if as minimalistic as 1$ will just result in history repeating itself. He can claim that he creates a great comic as much as he wants, if we can’t see it for ourselves and judge, we can only say “what comic”? He won’t gain widespread popularity this way, because so far only 13-16 people (the total amount of Patreons he has to my knowledge) even were able to see the comic.

And now not even they can, because Dobson wants to spite his critics/trolls and take away the chance for them to see it, by making it unwatchable for anyone. I know he claims it is only for as long till he finds a way to get rid of the leaker, but that also begs the question: How do you want to do that? How do you want to assure only those who will not leak it, see this comic? You have already so little traffic on the site, you should actually be happy even for trolls paying you, cause at least it pays for a Happy Meal once a month. Dobson, if you really want Cabin’s Rest aka muslim vampire comic to succeed, you should just make it public. I know doing so will mean you are also exposed to all your critics and yes they will find something to mock and criticize, but at least you are out and have a higher chance to find also people willingly ready to support you, cause they want to see it.

[paulisweeabootrash]

2020 mini-review pack

Di Gi Charat (1999)

Episodes watched: 7

Platform: VRV (Hidive)

Di Gi Charat (pronounced like “carrot”) is a series of fast-paced 4-ish-minute shorts nominally about Dejiko and Rabi-en-Rose, rivals trying to be Earth’s greatest idol.  Who are, respectively, a catgirl and a bunnygirl.  Oh, and also they’re aliens?  That’s... uh... certainly a premise, I guess.  The actual show consists of self-contained gag-filled episodes with no ongoing story, in almost a sitcom kind of way, throwing the characters into situations without context, but with a stable “baseline” situation (unlike, say, Pop Team Epic, where the characters serve more as stock personalities playing different roles in different sketches).  Dejiko is a snarky schemer.  Rabi-en-Rose is a snarky schemer whose main activity seems to be bothering Dejiko at work.  Puchiko is a small and quiet child and behaves accordingly.  And Gema is... something?  I have no clue, honestly, and neither does the fan wiki.  Other recurring characters fill stock roles such as “manager” and “otaku���.  A lot of the humor centers around poking fun at fandom.  It’s a show by, for, and about otaku from an era before our current internet culture, and since I’m a millennial and not from Japan, that makes it unusually hard to evaluate.

W/A/S: 8/2?/5?

Weeb: Chibis.  Catgirls.  Idols.  Kappas.  Kawaii verbal tics.  Akihabara.  Low-detail background characters who look like blobs or thumbs with faces.  Kanji left on-screen but untranslated.  Particular sorts of highly-exaggerated facial expressions we may have become familiar with through emoji, but which still haven’t made their way into American media generally.  This is ludicrously Japanese.

Ass: This really isn't that kind of show.  Although it is certainly designed for adults, as evidenced by the presence of phrases like “naughty doujinshi”.

Shit: The art is fun.  It has style shifts from comic strip to watercolor painting to mainstream 90s anime, and looks better than some of its contemporaries that were, uh, “real” shows.  The opening takes up about a quarter of the total runtime and gets annoying quickly (but that's because it’s clearly designed for being part of a broadcast block, not binge-watching).  Still, unless I’m missing hidden cleverness on account of not having the background knowledge, there’s not much to it.  It’s just okay.

-----

First Astronomical Velocity (band, active 2011-present)

Platform: Spotify, surprisingly

Okay, this one is a bit different, and I’m jettisoning the whole format for it.  Remember how I said the music-centered episodes of SoniAni were actually pretty good, even though the modeling-centered episodes were so offputting I never finished the show?  Well it turns out that First Astronomical Velocity, Sonico’s band, has released several IRL albums.  Physical copies may be a little hard to come by, but official uploads of a lot of their music can be found on Youtube and Spotify.  Do your musical interests include at least two of: string arrangements that would be at home in a particularly sappy movie soundtrack, 90s-00s alternative rock, synthesizer beep-boops, and that constricted cutesy Japanese women’s vocal style (you know the one I mean)?  Then this is for you.  They’re a pretty good... uh... alt-pop-rock band, I guess is what I’d call them.

-----

Interspecies Reviewers (2020)

Episodes watched: the entire 12-episode season

Platform: I plead the 5th.  But it’s getting a video release soon, so it will finally be legitimately available in English!

I started this year with a plot-light fanservicey animal-people show, and now I’m ending the year with... a plot-light fanservicey animal-people show.  But unlike Nekopara, this show had me cracking up, eagerly clicking “next episode”, and not complaining about the premise.  I’m sure a lot of people do have a problem with this show’s premise -- which centers almost entirely on various forms of sex work -- and I understand and respect that they will want to skip this show.

But for the rest of you: Interspecies Reviewers is a wildly-NSFW comedy about a group of fantasy world adventurers who gain fame and fortune reviewing brothels of different species.  I expected excessive nudity and fantasy tropes, but I didn’t expect to also get serious thoughts.  Like showing, in the golem and Magic Metropolis episodes, some of the unsettling problems that are looming IRL as deepfakes and sex robots are in development -- note especially the contrast between consensually and non-consensually basing automata on real people in those episodes.  Or the discussion in the last episode of how much riskier sex would be in a world without magic (i.e., ours).  This is a much smarter and more interesting show than you’d expect, considering that it has so much sexual content that it got dropped by two of the networks airing it and even its US distributor.

W/A/S: 5/10/4

Weeb: Although heavily influenced by the Western fantasy media canon of European mythology and Tolkien and tabletop RPGs, familiarity with the tropes of fantasy anime will help you “get” this too, as will familiarity with the -sigh- character dynamics and censorship practices of hentai.  Especially because it’s a comedy, there are probably also instances where I have completely missed topical references or wordplay that a Japanese person would get, but I can’t think of any specific instances right now of “there was clearly supposed to be a joke but I missed it”.

Ass: Look, this could not possibly have more sexual content without unambiguously becoming porn.  Genitals are (almost) always carefully hidden by viewing angle or conveniently-placed glowing (something lampshaded in one episode as an actual feature of one of the species they review), but otherwise, expect lots of nudity and almost nonstop crude humor.  Do not watch this with children.  Do not watch this with your parents.  Do not watch this with friends you don’t know well enough to know how they’ll react to something like this.

Shit: This show is better-made than it deserves to be.  It’s pretty dumb at points, but it’s fun enough to make up for it.  The art is consistent and pleasant, and the opening and ending themes are extremely fun, but it’s not a serious standout in any of those departments.  Also, I swear the background music is stock music, but I don’t remember what other show(s) I’ve heard it in before.

Stray thought: Crim is a precious and relatable cinnamon roll and I love them.

-----

OreSuki OVA (2020)

Platform: Crunchyroll

So, I know I didn’t cover the whole season in my initial review, but I still want to mention the hour-ish-long finale of this show, which was released straight to streaming.  Short version of the rest of the season: Joro starts to actually fall for Pansy, but a new challenger, Hose, appears.  He is irritatingly attractive and effortless at maintaining the right persona for the situation, leading Joro to describe him as “the main character”.  Hose is the sociopathic manipulator Joro wishes he could be, and Pansy, who has a bad past with him, clearly wants nothing more than for Joro to stand up to him.  But, since this is OreSuki, it’s not going to be handled simply.  No, instead, strap in for a grand finale of Joro and Hose competing in, and trying to manipulate through rules-lawyering, an absolutely ludicrous competition to win the right to date Pansy.  And, on top of it, we also get to finally see how Sun-chan got to be the way he is and what happened at that pivotal baseball game that set off the whole plot.  What has Joro learned from the experiences of the past season?  You’ll see!  And you’ll facepalm about it!

Really, you must watch this if you watched the regular season.

W/A/S: 6/5(!)/4ish

Weeb: Basically the same as I said before.  Gags referencing other Japanese media, anime and otherwise, and it's better if you’re familiar with the high school romcoms and harem comedies Joro thinks in terms of.

Ass (and slight content note): -sigh- Why does the camera need to be there?  Also, Joro, you just committed a little bit of sexual assault for the sake of this contest.  Stop.

Shit: I want to rate this overall better than I did the regular season because I think it’s an excellent finale overall because, even though it ends in a very “let’s leave everything unresolved” way that’s common in media that rely on absurd relationships to propel the plot, it does so in a way that makes sense in character.  I personally think it would’ve been stronger if it had, well, confirmed its title, and at least some of the other “challengers” had lost interest in Joro, but I guess they probably want a Season 2, since they have so much more source material to work from.  There are... oh god 14 light novels?!  That is too many.

-----

Your Name. (2016)

Platform: DVD

Two high schoolers -- small-town girl Mitsuha, from Itomori, and big-city boy Taki, from Tokyo -- find themselves in each other’s bodies for a day.  They both think at first it must be a very vivid dream, but when it happens again, and they start finding clues like notes they don’t remember writing and comments by friends and relatives about their out-of-character behavior, they realize the body swap is real.  This begins a relationship of mutual understanding that nobody else can really understand -- or would even believe (except Mitsuha’s grandmother, who is... familiar with this phenomenon) -- and the plot then pivots to a tense adventure where they use their connection, some crucial information Taki has, the skills of Mitsuha’s friends, and the intervention of Itomori’s patron deity, to save the town from an impending disaster.

And that’s all I’ll say about that, because I really do think this is something you should go into blind.  My only remaining comments are that (1) the red string of fate is critically important imagery, and is particularly interesting to me here because, if I took a particular scene correctly, Mitsuha made her own red string of fate from sheer necessity, which is a very different twist on that trope, and (2) I am now curious about the history of the body-swapping phenomenon in-universe.

W/A/S: 4?/2/2

Weeb: As mentioned above, symbolism of the Red String of Fate shows up throughout the movie, as do the occasional distinctly Japanese quirk like a wildly out-of-place vending machine or a café with dogs, and but for the most part it’s a cross-cultural story of understanding and dealing with someone else’s life, and of forming a connection other people don’t -- can’t -- truly understand, and to some extent of divides between urban and rural and modern and traditional that I think could play out in any country with just the local symbolism tweaked.  The significance and content of Shinto beliefs and practices depicted, particularly kuchikamizake, are made pretty explicit, so although foreign to the vast majority of the non-Japanese audience, I feel like this movie also has nearly no barrier to entry for people not familiar with the cultural context, so I don’t want to rate it very high on this scale.

Ass: Look.  It involves teenagers switching bodies.  What do you think they do?  Especially Taki?  But it’s played for laughs, not titillation.

Shit: This movie is beautiful and punched me in the feels and was very satisfying.  The closest I have to a complaint about any aspect of it is that the musical breaks that I guess are supposed to mark acts of the movie almost make it feel like binge-watching a short series instead of watching a single self-contained movie.

[weilongfu]

Wei watches Why R U Ep 2

Okay so we pick back up with our TypeTharn cameo. I guess. Zon is confused as fuck. So am I. This is surprisingly good acting with their expressions. 

Zon, put that weird face away. Why you gotta look at them holding hands funny? I also like that Zon is so shocked, he collapses. That okay sign is not exactly enough though... But wait, if TypeTharn are studying at this school... Then AePete are at this school. Which means Tutor and Pete are at the same school. Which means... I can do my Boyfriend Trap fic! Although, it seems weird that Ae wouldn’t know there’s someone who looks like Pete in his faculty so... Maybe not.

In the library, Tutor is looking for books, looking fly. His friend, Day, wakes up and they have some conversation about what Tutor is up to and might get up to with HwaHwa. Day asks Tutor if he really likes HwaHwa and Tutor asks him why he thinks that. (Okay, but Engineer Saint is... I like this look. He should keep it.) Day says it’s because Tutor doesn’t have a girlfriend, is always meeting up with her, trying to take care of her, and doing what she wants. (Pst, Day, it’s 2020. Boys can be friends with girls and just chill if they want to, okay?)

Tutor is silent and Day takes it almost as confirmation. Tutor clarifies that it’s just a deep bond from growing up together and he’s never felt that way about HwaHwa. Day then says it’s good he doesn’t have feelings for her cause then Tutor would be hurt about never being chosen by her. Tutor just nods and moves on. Saifah then joins and Day chastises him for never showing up for class. Saifah also asks about why Tutor is there and Tutor again says he’s waiting for HwaHwa.

Day then brings up the Cute Boys Page and says there’s interesting news. Tutor asks if Cute Boy is partnering/collaborating with the Football Club for news. The scene cuts away to members of the Cute Boys page doing an FB Live and talking about doing a poll to see which cute boy gets the most votes. Saifah is apparently the front runner. Zon is close behind. One member brings up that, ugh, Zol uploaded a fic with a “no-children” scene, meaning she wrote about her brother doing the dirty. And that’s just... Zol, why? Why would you do that? This is getting so wrong on Zol’s end.

The members speculate about SaifahZon being together and why Zol would write such a fic when the two never meet. Guys, you’ve got it all wrong. They hate each other. Natee and Junior interrupt the two (Soda and Luktarn) to flirt and get in on some screen time and see if anyone voted for them. As Junior talks, the viewer count drops. Apparently who ever wins has to sing and play guitar. 

The next scene is with another one of Zon’s friends who is also in the football club. And about him liking lollipops? What’s wrong with that? The girl in the scene also mentions how it’s a shame that Tutor and Fighter won’t participate in such a thing with the Cute Boys club. Like, just leave them alone?

In class, Junior and Natee come to poke fun at Zon, who is away copying papers, and get admonished for being late. Zon finally comes back as they finish roasting Junior. The gang is concerned with how serious and down he seems. 

Then suddenly someone else walks in and it’s Fuse? And he waves at Tee? From MIR? Am I having a stroke? Did this actually happening? Zon then thinks back to his sister drawing these pairings and talking about them before we continue with TeeFuse being cute I guess. I mean, way to have a blast from the past. Zon shouts out loud in frustration, disrupting class. The teacher gets so frustrated he cancels class. I will say, Fuse’s actor grew up pretty well. I’m getting Newwie vibes though from his hair. 

Zon chases after TeeFuse and the next scene is the two of them feeding each other. And I guess also being dumb and cute together. Although, I’m kind of noticing a pattern for the kinds of ships they’re giving cameos here... Zon interrupts the scene by asking them if they’re studying at the school. Tee tells him if they aren’t, he wouldn’t see them there and so he should think more carefully before walking off. Fuse apologizes on Tee’s behalf since he says his boyfriend has been moody lately. (Props though for Fuse finally being a confident gay. That was one major problem with his story solved.)

Zon continues to wonder if he’s in a Y Fic and starts hyperventilating. 

Tutor is currently doing his tutoring session and interrupted by Saifah. Saifah is so handsome he distracts his student. Tutor asks if he isn’t handsome and his student says he is the cutest boy. Kind of a consolation prize, but okay. Tutor dismisses the student in time for Saifah to sit down. Tutor asks why didn’t Saifah go home and Saifah starts to explain he’s got business when Tutor’s phone starts to ring. It’s HwaHwa! (Also Saifah pointing at himself to ask for attention? WHY IS HE SO CUTE?!) Tutor continues to make plans with HwaHwa. 

HwaHwa is with Fighter and tells him what she’ll do with Tutor. Fighter asks why Tutor is always teaching all the time. HwaHwa says she pities Tutor since he works so hard all the time and explains that he’s got financial problems. Fighter’s expression becomes troubled as HwaHwa explains that Tutor’s house was sold last year because of it. She also explains that Tutor has to move to a condo because of the situation and he’s even considered dropping programs to save money. 

HwaHwa then explains that Tutor is lucky that their school offers a program that lets you get away with not paying for credits if you get enough As. She also talksa bout how Tutor doesn’t ask others for help. HwaHwa then suggests that Fighter study English with Tutor so that Tutor will earn money and Fighter will pass his English exam. Fighter doesn’t agree, but HwaHwa continues to try to persuade him. And then Fighter has more gay panic with how his eyes keep being so shifty.

In the next scene, HwaHwa runs up to Tutor. Tutor chastises her for making so much noise. Before she can explain anything, Fighter comes up. HwaHwa proposes they all go out to lunch together and coerces an answer out of Fighter. Tutor doesn’t want to go and says he has some work to do. HwaHwa asks if Tutor is mad at her since she doesn’t believe him. She also tries to pitch the idea that she’ll make Fighter pay for it all. Tutor persists in refusing. HwaHwa continues to believe Tutor doesn’t have work, but then drops the fact that she’s throwing a birthday party tomorrow and Tutor must come.

Tutor brings up that he’s got teaching tomorrow since it’s Saturday. HwaHwa gets upset about not being important to Tutor. Saifah also brings up that Tutor could postpone his teaching and has done so before. Tutor curses at him under his breath and HwaHwa continues to play the guilt card until Tutor agrees to come. This immediately cheers her up. She then offers to take Tutor back to his condo, which happens to also be in the same place as Fighter’s condo? Saifah also asks if he can go with them and Fighter reluctantly agrees. HwaHwa is happy everyone will go together and she tells the boys to move ahead without her first since she has to go to the bathroom. (I don’t get what’s wrong with her and the table?) As they leave, Tutor gives Fighter the stink eye and Fighter is still repressing the gay panic. HwaHwa hisses over hitting her legs so much against the table. 

In the car, the three boys wait for HwaHwa. Fighter asks what HwaHwa likes since her birthday is coming up. Saifah admits he doesn’t know and that Fighter should ask Tutor. Tutor asks why Fighter doesn’t know these things. Fighter turns around and says he was asking nicely and Tutor doesn’t have to talk in such a way to get on his nerves. Tutor fires back that he’s still asking why Fighter doesn’t know this kind of basic thing, implying that after all the time he and HwaHwa have spent together is amounting to nothing. Before the two can continue arguing, HwaHwa appears, finally having gone to the bathroom. Her appearance breaks some of the tension, but there’s still anger and hurt feelings.

HwaHwa correctly deduces that they were quarreling and asks Saifah to confirm. She mentions that it’s been 2 years and they should be over it by now. She’s answered by silence and asks why it’s so difficult for them to get along. Given the atmosphere, Tutor asks to go home by himself and leaves the car. HwaHwa asks Fighter when the two will stop fighting all the time. She then asks if the problem is her and Tutor’s relationship. Fighter insists it’s not about Tutor at all. HwaHwa explodes asking if Fighter understands what she’s done the last few days. She tells him it’s because she loves him. (Well that was an unforseen bomb.)

We then meet up with the boys in the football club, most of then are Zon’s friends. They ask why Saifah is absent again and get picked on by seniors. They find out that Saifah hurt his leg and won’t be coming to practice until he’s better.

Zon continues to wander around, dazed and confused by the sudden influx of cameos by gay characters from other dramas. Tutor catches up with him and Zon is happy to not see someone in a BL fic and literally says as much. Tutor tells Zon to calm down. Zon asks Tutor if he’d be able to calm down and explains that ever since he made the swear/oath with his sister, lots of weird things are happening. Tutor agrees that he shouldn’t have made the swear. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be so anxious. Tutor tells Zon he’s overthinking and he should go home. Zon tells Tutor than in his sister’s fic, Tutor’s name was also written. Tutor then asks if Zon finished talking and then drags him to go home, but Zon asks that he not touch him. I guess he’s worried about catching the gay.

At home. Zon is napping in a Darth Vader mask. Zen asks if Zon has seen the Cute Boy Fan page apparently he and Saifah are in the lead. Zon then goes back to being dramatic in his mask. 

At Tutor’s condo, HwaHwa tells him not to miss out on going to her birthday party. Tutor says he won’t, but he’s clearly not happy about it. HwaHwa is pleased and tells him to stick to the dress code and that a present is not necessary. Can I also say I appreciate this closeup of Saint’s face? I appreciate it. Tutor then drags Day into the invite before the end of the conversation.

At school the next day, Saifah keeps giving up his spot in line for the elevator until he ends up by Zon. He bumps him to say hi and Zon, being tiny aggro puppy that thinks it’s a big puppy, keeps on escalating until he’s nearly chest bumping Saifah. Saifah is amused and then the two are interrupted by girls who want their photo. Zon says it’s not necessary and Saifah fires back about Zon being too arrogant. The girls bring up that the way they’re talking is like, ugh, Zol’s fic. They also mention that they voted for the two to be the imaginary couple of the university. (Why would you tell someone that?)

Zon denies wanting the position and Saifah says he does want it but Zon is shy. He continues to talk as if Zon is really his boyfriend or something until the girls go. Zon shoves him off but misses the elevator. Saifah asks if he wants to take the stairs and Zon says he’ll take a different way. Saifah, when did you decide to tease him because you like him? I’m getting that vibe more than ever. 

Zon contemplates this as well and hopes he’s overthinking. But he’s once again confronted by Saifah outside. Saifah asks if Zon really doesn’t want to take the position of imaginary couple of the campus. Zon asks himself if he’s in the fictional world or not. When he opens his eyes, he finds he was hallucinating. He then wonders if he should see a psychologist.

At Kea’s cafe, Boong and Tutor get paid for the day. Kea asks them to close the shop and Boong says she has a date, so Tutor promises to close up. Tutor asks about making a cake and Kea promises to let Tutor use whatever ingredients he wants without charge since he’s been working so hard. Tutor gets to work after the two leave to make a cake. now that’s something I needed in my life, watching Saint make a cake. It’s a pretty cute cake.

Day and Tutor show up to HwaHwa’s party and Day prays that Fighter and Tutor won’t have a fight and mess up the mood. Tutor promises he won’t just in time for Fighter to greet them. Tutor keeps his mouth shut, but he does bump into Fighter on their way into the bar. Day asks why he did that, but Tutor insists it wasn’t his fault. 

Once they enter, a friend assigns Fighter the task of bringing the cake to HwaHwa. Day protests, but is lead away. Tutor doesn’t fight it and walks off.

The next scene is Tutor trying to use a lighter, and I did not expect the weird feeling that came over me when I see Saint’s smiling face over fire. That’s... concerning. Tutor asks Fighter to make himself useful. Fighter holds up the candles between his knuckles and asks how he’s not useful. Tutor pulls them out and asks him to put the candles in the cake and light them. Fighter asks if Tutor is pissed since he’s bringing the cake that Tutor made to HwaHwa. Tutor says he isn’t and asks if he looks upset. He then nags at Fighter to make the candles look nice on the cake. 

Fighter then reads the message Tutor wrote in English out loud. He cuts off the last word, “friend.” He then says that Tutor didn’t need to write friend at the end and Tutor asks why. Fighter says because deep down, Tutor doesn’t want to just be a friend with HwaHwa. Tutor insists otherwise. Fighter says he’s sure and Tutor says Fighter has never had a real friend, so no wonder he’s misunderstanding Tutor. Tutor turns around to grab something and Fighter takes the chance to hug him? Tutor protests and asks to be let go, but only manages to turn around in Fighter’s arms. Fighter’s face gets closer and Tutor finally manages to push him away. Fighter leans in again, but says it was just to grab a glass. Fighter then asks if Tutor was so afraid someone would see and Tutor says that’s not it. Fighter then asks if Tutor thought he was actually going to get kissed and Tutor protests again. Tutor offers the cake for Fighter to bring to HwaHwa and the two keep passing it back and forth. Guys, one of you just do it. The candles are burnt down so low already. I feel sorry for the cake!

Tutor is left with the task at last and smiles about it. 

In the room with the party, it looks like your usual stereotypical college party. Tutor brings the cake, now looking like it has new candles to me. HwaHwa thanks Tutor before blowing out the candles. Tutor wishes HwaHwa happiness and HwaHwa is happy before looking at Fighter for approval. Fighter stay’s silent and the moment turns a bit awkward before friends say they should go back to partying and dancing. Day continues to record everything on his phone. 

Later, two people gossip about Fighter being hot and the girl says there’s a theory that could be tested. They mention that a man who has a thick forehead must have a thick... And then they also talk about his nose bridge and jawline. Then they talk about his thumb and index finger as a way to “prove” some of these assumptions about his dick. They speculate it’s nine inches. 

HwaHwa calls for everyone to cheers and drink up in the next scene before she teases Fighter a bit. Fighter is surprisingly cold to her and HwaHwa goes off to sit with friends. When with her friends, HwaHwa’s mood drops. Day then tells Tutor he’ll go sit with HwaHwa. 

HwaHwa’s mood picks up as Day sits with her and drinks with her. Fighter seems to turn and notice that Tutor is sitting on his own doing something on his phone. But instead of going to him, he walks away. HwaHwa notices and gets more upset. She moves and sits with Tutor and asks if she can talk to him for a min, getting the others to go away. HwaHwa asks if Tutor is drunk yet and Tutor says he’s not and can send her home if she wants. HwaHwa says no since she’s still having fun. HwaHwa then brings up wondering where Fighter is. Tutor thinks he went to the bathroom and there shouldn’t be any worries. HwaHwa says he’s been gone a while and Tutor asks what she wants him to do. HwaHwa asks him to bring Fighter back and Tutor asks her to do it herself since he’s not close to Fighter. 

HwaHwa brings up that he’s in the men’s bathroom and she can’t go in. Tutor says nothing probably happened and HwaHwa doubts it until Tutor feels bad and goes. Tutor goes out to search for Fighter and finds him sitting outside. Tutor tries to get his attention, but Fighter doesn’t give it to him immediately. Tutor asks why he didn’t respond immediately and Fighter insists he just did. Tutor asks why he’s sitting there and Fighter said it wasn’t necessary for him to be there if HwaHwa was having fun with her other friends. Tutor says that’s more reason for Fighter to be there to take care of her. He also notes that he knows Fighter and HwaHwa are not together yet, but he should be taking better care of her. 

Tutor then points out that Fighter might not actually like her and thus he should let her go. Fighter argues back that whether he likes HwaHwa or not, Tutor has no say. Tutor says he does because HwaHwa is his friend. Fighter asks again if Tutor really only thinks of her as a friend. Tutor fires back asking if Fighter is dating her because he’s happy or to hide something. Fighter asks what Tutor thinks he’s hiding. Tutor says he doesn’t know, but he knows Fighter talks to a lot of girls and won’t stop being a player. Tutor then asks if Fighter likes boys. Fighter protests, but Tutor continues to press the idea. Cocky Tutor insisting Fighter is gay is cute tbh. Fighter then asks if Tutor means, “like this” and then kisses Tutor. 

This episode is... kind of all over the place. The writing is... not bad enough to be awful but not good enough to be what it could be. Still let down with how much of this revolves around Zol basically writing porn about the people around her.

[marmar-97]

First I want to say thank you @uglynicc-kitchensink for giving me permission to use this pic of your demon Troy drawing, love how you draw him, also got this idea of a fanfic after watching demon slayer and decided on a cross over. HONESTLY THE ANIME IS LITERALLY AMAZING, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T!Sorry this took long Tumblr kept being ass and not letting me upload it. Sorry if it's too long for y'all to read I might have gotten a bit carried away hehe. 😅 but I have a Troy and Tyreen head canon coming sometime this week of their childhood.

To befriend a demon|Demon Troy x fem! Demon slayer

Warnings: blood, biting, smut maybe?

A/N: if you're sensitive to this type of stuff then you probably shouldn't read this 😅

"This is it, final selection. Today I'll become a true demon slayer." You thought to yourself as the ceremony began, although you were a bit nervous thinking you won't make it out alive. You enter and once you're a bit far into the mountains you pick up the scent of two demons as they charge towards you quick. "Pft this'll be easy." You draw your sword out using your technique instantly killing them. "Huh, that was way too easy, they weren't even thinking straight." You walk away putting your sword back and noticed some kid running for his life you saw what he was running from, a demon. He had bat like wings dripping with blood, jet black hair, tall figure, red tattoos in some pattern on his left arm and near his left eye and his jaw was split with blood dripping from it and a long tongue along with razor sharp teeth and he starts speaking. "Every year some dumb child sacrifices their life just to try and kill me? HA! I'm the damn king of this mountain and I'm not going anywhere." The boy falls and the demon grabs his leg with his right arm. "Guess it's snack time!" He says while dragging the poor boy towards him cackling laughter coming from him, screams of terror erupting from the boy's throat as he claws at the ground. "Save him...save him...SAVE HIM NOW!" The little voice in your head said as you jumped out from behind a tree trying to strike the demon but ended up missing as he moves out of the way. He let's go of the person he was about to devour putting his focus on you now. The boy ends up running off on his own now, probably gonna end up getting killed by other demons. "H-hey, don't go off on your own!" You tried calling out to him but he was far gone. "Dammit he got away thanks to you, no matter, I've got new prey now. Heh, more prey asking for a death wish huh? Well then, let's dance shall we? I'll give you a 10 second head start, after that, hide and seek is over, and I'm going to feast on you. Countdown starts... now." You got up and started running as fast as you could away from him. Seconds have passed by already. He was ready for his next treat. "Annnnnd... 1... TIMES UP!" You hear him shout as he extends his wings again and splits his jaw doing the same cackling laugh as before. You managed to jump and dodge tree roots and branches. Taking a glance behind you, you didn't see him in sight making your heart rave a bit. But that's when you knew you messed up as you tripped over a tree root tumbling onto your back hitting your head on a tree very hard. Your vision kept fading in and out as a pair of feet were approaching you. His feet. He had found you. He kneels down next to you. "Well so much for a demon slayer like yourself, heh I could devour you right now but that would be no fun now would it? I like taking my time sometimes when I'm not starving like these other demons out here." You tried moving but he pinned both your wrist to the ground. You tried breaking free from him but he was incredibly strong. You wanted to black out right there but knew you couldn't with a demon around, showing surrender. He saw the blood on your head and licks it. "Ohhh yeahhh that's the stuff, your blood tastes really good, my type of treat." Your body shiver from the feeling of his tongue licking your wound. "Let...me...go!" You knew struggling to break free was useless at the moment since he had a stronghold on you. "Mmm my blood is pumping from the adrenaline, this year's final selection is sure bigger than last year. More blood for me. You demon slayers sure love to come out here thinking you're the shit and could easily kill us demons. Just know that I've survived for so long and became the king. And also..." He shows you his left eye. You couldn't even do anything at the moment but stare at him in shock. He was one of the twelve Kizuki demons, a high ranked one at that. "R-rank 2? S-so who's rank 1?" He must be one of Muzan Kibutsuji's demons." You had a good look of his features up close and noticed how attractive he was, but he was still a demon who devours humans thirsty for blood.

He softly caressed your cheek with one of his sharp nails as his face was inches from yours now as he hovers over you. You closed your eyes thinking he was about to devour you. He still had blood on his face, torso and hands from someone he's devoured before the boy you had seen earlier. "It would really be a shame to actually kill you right here and now, even though I'm supposed to but I think I'm going to have more fun with you. Oh, heh how rude of me not introducing myself, name's Troy Calypso, or demon king, which I go by around here, and what may yours be sweetheart?" He uses his long tongue to clean his face of human blood now. "Ugh, their blood wasn't even good like yours to satisfy my taste." He licks his fingers and hands clean soon after leaving the blood alone on his torso. "Y/N, m-my name's Y/N." His grip on your wrist got a bit tight holding you down still. His lips brushed against yours as he breathed in your scent making you shudder. "Heh, nice name. You smell of, kindness, what a sweet smell." His voice was low and husky. You held your breath as he stared at you with those fiery eyes of his. He held your chin with an index finger and thumb making you look up at him dead in the eye as his lips pressed against yours. Your mind went blank from the move he just pulled. He was kissing you instead of devouring you? You suddenly snapped out of your thoughts and noticed you were kissing him back. Why were you, you weren't really sure yourself. You also weren't sure why he was even kissing you to begin with but you had no other choice. You instead close your eyes as he gets more into it forcing his tongue into your mouth while pushing your legs apart as he moves one of his legs between yours kissing you still. You suddenly let out a low moan from the feeling of his tongue exploring your mouth. He pulls back then sits you on his lap straddling him going for your mouth once more. This time you were whimpering while moaning. You wish you could scream for help but he was preventing you from doing so. After a short while you both pull back to catch your breath. "Guess you humans are worth living sometimes, if only humans and demons could get along somehow."

He goes to kiss your neck or maybe bite it even but gets interrupted when you both hear people shouting for more demons in the distance. You get off his lap as he stands up with his back against you. "How rude of them to interrupt me, well I've got more work to do, maybe when I'm done you and me can continue before you leave this place. Now I must hunt." You see him make multiple copies of himself. "Find them, and bring me their body and soul." They Kneeled in front of him. "As you wish master." And off they went in a flash. He opens up his jaw once more and his teeth get sharp again, along with extending his wings. "W-wait, I can't leave without bringing something back, I-I'll need a head or something to prove I killed a demon." He stops and turns around to look at you. "Fine, here you go." He pops his head off and regenerates a new one shortly after. "You're welcome, now you better go. Don't forget we have some unfinished business before you leave here." And off he flew. You kept the head in a basket as you continued on with your hunt for more demons finally reaching the end. Seems like you've made friends with a demon, or maybe more? You held a hand over your mouth remembering the way he had kissed you. This is a demon you won't forget. You then checked your watch noticing that final selection was over within 2 hours, that also meant the sun will rise up. You've had enough time to wait for other demon slayers to show up. You then saw him him standing there cleaning himself off from the blood that was on him, turning to look at you. "Well I'm full now. Thought you were gonna leave without finishing what we started? You didn't forget our deal now did ya?" You furrowed your eyebrows looking at him now. "I've never made a deal with you." He chuckles low as he walks close to you now. "Oh really? You were enjoying my tongue inside your mouth and didn't fight back so that means you want to continue. You were… aroused. Now, to have some fun, don't worry I don't bite unless you tell me to." You wanted to say something but in one swift move he had you over his shoulder flying off with you now. "What the- HEY WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME?! I-I GOTTA GET BACK BEFORE SUNRISE! HEY ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?! I'M NOT VERY FOND OF HEIGHTS EITHER!" He chuckles while having a smug look on his face that you couldn't see. "You'll see soon enough princess, I'm not gonna kill you if that's what you're thinking, like I said, I'm gonna have fun with you, just be patient." You huffed out in frustration as he finally landed near some cave walking in finally letting you down. You looked past him seeing an exit thinking of escaping but quickly knew it would backfire on since he would actually catch you very easily. "Thinking of escaping? Not possible." He picked up on you looking past him making you tense up. "U-uh n-no I'm just, trying to figure out where I am." You watched as he made his way towards you. "You're not lying to me are you?" He didn't seem a bit angry, in fact he had a neutral look on his face. "N-no of course not, but wh-what do you mean by fun?" You asked just to change the subject, playing his little game now. "Hmmm lemme show you." He picks you up wrapping your legs around his waist pressing his lips against yours in a hungry kiss. You could tell he was waiting to feel your lips on his again. This time you went along with it, not because you liked it, but because you knew you wouldn't be able to beat him in your current rank. Plus you wouldn't even be able to escape. You held onto his shoulders for support so you won't fall.

Suddenly he stops kissing you and changes the inside of the cave into a room. It seemed like it was fit for a king. You look around in amazement at how nice it looked and also from what he just did. "Like it huh? Fit for a king like me. Now to enjoy my time with you." He throws you on his bed not too hard making you bounce a little. It was very soft and comfortable. You watched him as he poked his index finger with his sharp nail on his thumb drawing blood from his finger. He then pressed it against your forehead. Suddenly you felt light headed and numb. "H-huh, what just happened?" You felt like sleeping from the feeling of being on his bed and from being numb. "I don't want you feeling pain from what I'm about to do, plus I want a taste of your blood once more. It's been on my mind ever since and I just needed more. Plus just the thought of tasting your blood while getting intimate with you is getting me all riled up." You didn't say anything as he ripped your dress with his sharp nails. His gaze was hungry when he saw your breasts and he immediately sucked and licked them. You would be lying to yourself saying you didn't like the feeling of his tongue on you. You were getting riled up yourself a bit. He then ripped your bra with his nails putting one of your nipples in his mouth sucking and licking it. You arched your back from the sensation letting out a low soft breath. He then did the same to the other one earning a low moan from you. "P-please, s-stop..." He was enjoying this moment. He bit down on one of your breasts hard drawing blood and drinking it. He hummed in approval sinking his teeth in deeper. He was breathing through his nose as he kept drinking your blood then finally pulling back licking the wound. "Fuck I needed that, but I want more." He goes to your other breasts doing the same thing. You felt his length pressed against your hip while he was enjoying his drink. He pulled back once more ripping your panties then going for your thighs now. He licked one of your inner thighs near your entrance making you squirm a bit. A low chuckle was heard from him as he did it again. And then he bit down on it drinking more of your blood, doing the same to your other thigh. "Mm looking good so far, but you could look better." He pulled you into his lap as his length was pressed against your entrance. He bites your upper arm getting another taste of your blood as you held onto his shoulders for support. You started to grind against him as the pleasure was building up inside you more. And without warning he entered inside of your wet folds. He leaned back propping himself up on his elbows watching you with half lidded eyes as you started to move slow, your blood on him getting him more excited. "yes this is just how I imagined it, you feel amazing." You picked up your pace while having your hands on his chest with your head thrown back as low soft moans escaped from your throat. He helped you by gripping your hip with his left hand pushing you down on his full length. Once you were you leaned in kissing him on the lips as he had a grip on your ass moving you back and forth on him. You moaned into the kiss as his tongue dominated your mouth once more. "Why am I even letting this happen? A-a demon? I should know better than that, but he's just so-" You were cut off when he bit into your upper arm. You hear him groan from both the pleasure and taste of your blood. He sinks his teeth deeper reaching bone and breaks them with one chomp. You didn't feel the pain but knew it would hurt so much if you did from the way your bones just cracked. He bends you over positioning himself behind you as blood dripped from his mouth and jaw. "Don't worry, once I'm done these wounds will be healed right up."

He lightly scratched the back of your neck with a nail drawing out some blood. He leans over you licking your upper back working his way to your neck. You felt him push himself back into you thrusting harshly but slow. You bit your lip trying to hold back your moans but failed when he hit that one spot. You weren't sure how you didn't even pass out yet from all the blood you've lost so far. His pace started getting fast and more harsh. He bit down on one of your shoulders while thrusting inside you still. You couldn't help but moan more getting close to the edge, a knot forming in your stomach. He bit down on your shoulder more breaking your shoulder blade. He finally pulls back from your shoulder admiring his work. He was panting slowing down his pace but his thrusts was still harsh. He kept it up until you finally spilled all over him, your orgasm finally hitting you. He chuckled as he pulled out of you releasing himself onto your back. "Heh you were such a good girl for participating in this sacrifice." You felt more numb than before from all the blood you've lost but managed to speak. "S-sacrafice? Wh-what do you mean?" And that's when you saw him, Muzan Kibutsuji appearing right before you. "Well done Troy, another successful sacrifice, you're close to being rank 1, do your master proud and kill the next victim you bring. This one lives another day." And he's gone in an instant. That's when another demon enters the room, and this one was female with a similar appearance to him but much shorter than him and had white hair to the side covering her right eye? "Were you holding back on this one Troy? What did master think?" She saw that you were still alive and sounded disappointed. "He said the sacrifice was successful but to kill my next victim." She goes over to you now hovering a hand inches from your body and heals your wounds and the same clothing you've had on before. "Well that's good I suppose Troy, alright my work here is-" She gets cut off as you start speaking to her now. "H-how do you know Muzan Kibutsuji?" They looked at both each other giving it the okay to tell you. "We both work for him, and I'm rank number 1." She moves her hair out of the way showing you her right eye with the mark, opposite from her brother's. "So are you two related? But how? I-I thought demons weren't supposed to be in a family." She turned on her heels facing the door now. "Let's just say, we stuck together before becoming demons and our bond never gets broken. Plus we're twins." And she started leaving. You looked at your watch seeing that you've had five minutes left before final selection was over. "Shit I've got five minutes left, I have to get back or they'll think I'm dead." He holds you against him flying with you to the bottom of the mountain where no one could see you both. He landed near a tree placing you on the ground. Before you ran off you felt him grab your arm. "So when will I get to see you again?" Seems like he took interest in you. "I'm not coming back, you know that right?" You actually didn't want to leave him but you had no choice. Seems like you became friends with a demon, though it was against demon corps. rules but you didn't know that yet. "I know but, maybe I could try to see you other than the mountain?" You looked at the entrance seeing everyone starting to leave now. "Sure, now I have to go. Also, I did have fun with you." You smiled at him and he smiled back as you ran to join the other demon slayers who made it out alive. "Guess demons and humans can get along in a way." He says to himself leaving before daybreak.

[jasper-the-menace]

What Really Happened: An Ex-Mentor Versus A Witch Academy

Hello all, welcome to my TED talk about a very recent drama that has cropped up. In this essay, I will explain what happened during the drama, what information I’ve collected, and what the big issues were.

Earlier this very month and near the end of last month, a slew of posts were made from three sides of a drama - @swedishsorceress (Riley), @acturianacademy (during the drama it was mainly run by @starlight-and-coffee, Ambrose, but the other two who run it are Skye and Mickey), and @gingersguide (Sophia). I also collected testimony from @hidingsikki (who we shall call Sikki) and from Ciera on Discord.

I have no connection to any party involved, so my information comes from posts made after the apparent drama. I also reached out to the people involved for more clarification, making it clear that I was a neutral party. Also, I am not making this post just to get attention. I’m doing it so we can all see what happened, what went wrong, and how to learn from it.

The Acturian Academy is run by three people: Ambrose, Skye, and Mickey. Riley was once a mentor but was removed from their position. Sophia was the messenger between the two after the drama escalated. Sikki is another mentor at the Academy. Ciera was once a student of the Academy and is a valued member of my witch Discord server.

I will preface this by saying that everyone I listed was an absolute dear to work with and speak to, and they answered all of my questions and got the screenshots I asked for. Bless them all, and may they not be too angry at me by the end of this discussion/drama/commentary/thing.

(As another thing, thank you to Ambrose for correcting me on Riley’s pronouns when I was unaware of them.)

So what happened? How did this become a drama that dragged a good portion of the Witchblr tag into it?

Let's begin with the posts that were created after the drama from many sides. Note: I didn't go digging through these to see who had the “last laugh”, so to speak, so a few reblogs may end with a different party saying the final thing. https://swedishsorceress.tumblr.com/post/188147771902/oh-thanks-ill-make-a-mental-note-that-the-truth https://swedishsorceress.tumblr.com/post/188149767397/since-youve-had-your-content-stolen-before-if https://swedishsorceress.tumblr.com/post/188149683997/settling-drama https://acturianacademy.tumblr.com/post/188143271075/i-honestly-believe-the-mentor-was-wrongfully https://acturianacademy.tumblr.com/post/188143105825/no-dont-fucking-say-thank-you-for-understanding

As I went through Riley's initial post (the first one I linked), it seemed odd to me that Riley didn't screenshot the folder with their lessons in it. However, they did put all of their screenshots in this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lHVQCJvOXdFfKeQOk9DqNR97I6sRuQv0RWmeIErGN7I/edit

Ambrose and Sophia both stepped in and made their own posts and reblogs. They have something in their mentor handbook saying that any lessons given in the server can still be used by them after a mentor leaves, regardless of circumstances:

Sikki backed this information up by providing me with a slightly different screenshot of the same thing.

Sophia spoke to Ambrose and relayed a message to Riley that said that Ambrose had removed all of the lessons ORIGINALLY WRITTEN by Riley, minus a few that were started by or co-taught by another mentor. I can now confirm that Ambrose did, indeed, authorize this.

Riley did provide screenshots of the messages relayed between them and Ambrose by Sophia, which they put in this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11YeFdTHf581SI0q3qeaDx9tCsUjIJ3fNRM3Hx5NtVXY/edit One part that they made a big note of was the final portion in this image:

I reached out to both Ambrose and Riley about why Sophia didn’t just send screenshots and instead copy-and-pasted messages. Riley didn’t know why. Ambrose said that they (Ambrose) had had their screenshots photoshopped in the past to make them look bad in the past and wanted to avoid that happening again.

So why was Riley let go from the Academy?

The Academy has strict inclusion rules - which is a nice thing, to not exclude witches based on religion, gender orientation, sexual orientation, culture, et cetera. However, Riley is a transmed/truscum - they said so in the discussion I had with them and in headers and posts on another blog of theirs. Photos:

None of these beliefs were ever pushed onto students, but a few anonymous students felt unsafe because of it.

According to Ambrose, the Academy fact-checks to make sure that people making claims are actual students of the Academy. They then privately research the claims brought to them and bring it up with the mentor. I have no way of knowing that this is what happened other than testimony, so I’ll take their word on their method in good faith.

This isn't the reason why the drama started, however.

Riley claimed that one of their lessons was uploaded with their name removed after they left. I spoke to Ambrose about this, who claimed that the Academy removes the ex-mentor's name as they were no longer affiliated with the Academy, and the Academy assumed that they wouldn't want their names associated with the Academy after leaving.

Side note: According to Ambrose, an ex-mentor staying in the Google classroom after being asked to leave the Academy was a violation of their terms. Riley apparently did this to see the lessons, but I can't say for sure as I was not present in the classroom.

Ambrose said that the request for all of the mentor's lessons to be removed is something that doesn't happen in the Academy - in Ambrose's words, “mentors are supposed to leave all of their work with the academy after termination/leaving”. Riley demanded that their work be removed. After a lot of back-and-forths, Riley's lessons were eventually removed.

But wait, there’s more.

I found it interesting that the Statement of Ownership was so hard to find, so Ciera sent me a PDF copy of the student manual (bless her for hanging onto the student manual when everyone else seems to just delete theirs). The 2019 Student Handbook I have access to is 16 pages long and has a great focus on the students, not mixing in the information that’s only for the mentors.

The Academy is very open and accepting, according to their vision and belief statements. However, going through it, the Statement of Ownership is nowhere to be seen, so the regular student wouldn’t know that lessons would be used even after a mentor leaves. It’s not a big deal, but it’s still something to be aware of.

Also if you look in the manual that I’m seeing, you see that one of the teachers is named Jasper, but I swear it’s not me, it’s a different Jasper.

Complaints About the Academy: What You Hear in the Tea Room

This is probably a weird title for a subchapter that has almost nothing to do with the drama itself, but a common complaint I’ve found regarding the Acturian Academy is that they go through mentors like water.

Considering this seems to be a volunteer-based organization, that doesn’t surprise me. Volunteers come and go, and it takes a long time to build a core group of supporters.

So what did we learn?

Well, lesson one is definitely “don’t be shady” and lesson two is “run better background checks”. This situation was caused by miscommunication, flared temperaments, and people being too quick on the trigger on both sides.

“But Jasper!” y’all may be saying. “Who do you think is right?”

I started off in this drama as a neutral party. Through talking with those involved, I reconsidered my stance quite a few times. But now, in the end, I believe I’m right back where I started: as a neutral party who sees both sides.

In the defense of the Acturian Academy, I understand wanting to have an open and safe environment for beginning witches or ones who want to learn things more in-depth. Having a teacher with views on the lines of a transmed goes against that idea and may make students feel unsafe.

But in the defense of Riley, I understand not wanting your hard work to go uncredited, particularly when you run or co-run no less than (in the handbook I’m looking at) four lessons for the Academy.

In the end, this drama was dumb. Credit is due where someone made something, and the Academy taking this “unless they specifically ask us not to, we’re taking their names off of the lessons they make after they leave” stance is something that they should talk about and maybe change. As for Riley, they have their own thing going on from what I see of their timeline, so good for them. Maybe they’ll become a mentor again one day, maybe they’ll start their own academy thing, who knows.

To everyone involved and those that weren’t, see this as just a learning experience. Take what worked, think about what didn’t work, and change yourself and your groups for the better.

Please don’t hate me for making this post, it was an interesting drama and I wanted to dig deep into it.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

~Jasper

[onychaos]

November update log

Moving to Texas has been interesting. We live in a townhouse, me and my grandmother, and have people on the side of us. The area is nice, when I’m not trying to get hit by cars, I’m taking a walk down to the store to get my grandmother some things.

And things we had to deal with.

—

The Townhouse we are staying in had a different service here that we didn’t know of cause the landlord, didn’t check to see before telling us. Which meant we had no internet for 2 days.. but it seems to have an unwanted side effect on our internet.

Can’t be loud in the townhouse on Sunday to Friday or we may / will get put out on the streets, and I don’t want that… So have to change things up or how I do them, anyway.

Our download is great but our upload is awful as it is all over the place in terms of being stable and it’s hard to find the cause of this issue… But have a idea of what it may be. 

It could be the smart TV’s using build in Netflix that’s taking up the bandwidth and that could be what’s messing with the internet and if that is the case, I will disable the net on my smart TV but I doubt that is the cause of the issue..

The next and most likely is that, we have to call our ISP and have someone come out here to troubleshoot this problem as it is not getting better, just worst by the day. The worst case is that there is no way to fix this problem, and we are fucked either way at that point..

Got a weird scar on the back of my hand. It’s not a cut but looks like damaged skin?

But on to happier notes? I been doing some things since we got here in Texas. 

Been going on walks to the store / mini plaza to get little treats for me and my grandmother.

*Almost sorta* got hit by a car. The car was not too close but not too far from me. That was a moment and a half for me. Not enough to make my life flash before my eyes though.

Been using IG (Instagram) more to post pictures of my life. but I think I may post a selfie to IG but that thought that some creep liking my selfie is something else.. You can follow my Instagram, if you like. Feel free to ask me, not going to bite your hand off. lol

I been watching how people act in discord servers. HyperSonic7701’s discord server in particular has been interesting to see how some users act around certain topics. And watching them having said convo about said topic is that of a tire fire. Then things snowball downhill. I know what topics to avoid joining or bringing up, at least around them.

Been playing a lot of smash brothers for the Switch and been having fun. No friends to play with, but that’s why we have internet and that’s ok.

Played Kingdom Hearts 3 for the first time. It’s not a bad game from what everyone made it seem like it. It has it’s moments for sure but it’s fun. I been enjoying KH3 so far. But I think I won’t stream my first experience ever again with drax and his friends..

They took away the first blind experience for me, and I am sad about that. A game that I seen nothing about was somewhat ruined. That SPECIAL Moment of a first playthrough of the unknown, the magical experience just gone. I now know for next time to play games alone.

Been going back to doing things on my own rather waiting for friends who are unavailable. I also stopped asking people and friends* to play games with me, which normally ends up being people who tell me a date to play a game but doesn’t follow through or tell me we should play but nothing comes of it.

I just ask people or friends who I know have time to play or want to play, so it’s not a complete waste of time for anyone or me but most of the people I want to play with are either, too busy, not available, too cool* to play a game with me or just doesn’t want to.

Been watching a lot of Netflix shows and it’s great. Been watching little witch academia, and it’s a fun show. It’s cute, silly, and has charm to it. It’s a fun ride and love Season 2 so far.

Been making the most of my time till I get a job. Been cooking for my grandmother and doing what I can to keep her happy. Things are well and have got much better.

Been staying out of the dumb drama that people and friends get into. A waste of time and energy. Petty drama is the worst kind, you HAVE to be petty to have petty drama with someone.

I watched all of season 1 and 2 of aggretsuko. It left me feeling happy but confused. I can’t put it into words but it’s a great show.

I have been more open with what I feel and think. And in a time and age where people are just / can be assholes who don’t value this or care if you are open about your feelings. I am not sure if being open is good or bad since people seem to only like things when I’m having a bad day, which gives me a bad impression of them

Been using Tumblr more then WordPress. But issues that hold me back from truly enjoying Tumblr. One being trying to find out what links are blacklisted, since some links that have not been whitelisted will hide your post in search and tagged. 

People have made somewhat of a guide of what links that Tumblr has whitelisted and blacklisted.. But these posts are outdated or not being kept up to date anymore.  And there seems to be no way to get Tumblr to whitelist links that are safe to use..

And with Automattic, now having Tumblr under their wings, maybe in a few more months, the issues I have with the site might be fixed, that being the URL ban and maybe ban URLS that are not safe. Crazy idea, I know. :o

If in a few months or a month that Tumblr is still the same, even being owned by Automattic, I will head back to WordPress for my blogging needs and make Tumblr my second blog to copy what I post on WordPress to Tumblr.

Been sticking to my little diet and been getting fit. My stuff for working out got left behind in the old place, sadly. A part of my bike that was made for working out got left. I make due with walking. I will find a workaround for this.

Never gonna post a selfie to Facebook. Feels weird. Facebook feels like a place you go when you become an adult and you share other “funny” It’s not. But I will leave it at that. Not posting a selfie on Facebook. Yucky be Facebook. You can tell I don’t like Facebook that much, no?

I don’t hate Facebook but not in love with it. lol

I got another post in me that I want to make and why I stop being competitive and the post relates to CyberScore in someway, by proxy, quitting CyberScore. This will be a fun post to make and share.

I will go back to YouTube to make some Let’s plays. And now I got a better mic, time to put it to use, I suppose. :P

With free time, I plan on working on the fan game or may start working on an original game of my own and make something fun. I have to see what happens, of course.

It’s crazy to think that it has been 9 months since I truly quit speedrunning. And If I did get back into speedrunning like everyone has done, I would only hate it more at that point. And if a hobby I used to do makes me hate it, it’s a lost cause

Been a while since I made an update like log. Going over things I did or done. Sharing or oversharing. That’s all for now. :3

[goldshaken]

*** A WRITER’S NIGHTMARE***

Hi sweets,

If you’re here from wattpad then I guess you know what this post is for. Get ready cos it’ll be one hell of a rant.

Before we start, some things to put out there.

Firstly, the skull picture on this post does not belong to me. Credits go to the original owner, I just edited the words in cos the graphics basically encapsulate what I felt during this crazy period.

Secondly, ‘Shed a Light’ is basically what I’ll be doing here so that’s self-explanatory.

Finally, I will not be using any actual dates in here just in case the user in question has the audacity to use those dates against me.

Let’s get started, shall we?

In early June this year, I was scrolling through my wattpad like I normally do every other day. Reading comments from you guys and seeing what was up.

It was then I noticed that one of my stories, Worlds Apart was missing from my account.

I did the usual troubleshooting, logging out and back in then reinstalling the app, nothing worked.

I then asked you guys if you could see my story to which one of my readers responded that you couldn’t.

I reached out to wattpad on the day itself to get some help but after almost a week of receiving their automatically generated responses, I decided to reupload my story.

After uploading 3 chapters over the span of the next 3 days, I thought everything would be fine. Maybe what happened was just another wattpad glitch.

But wow was I wrong.

I woke up on the fourth day and couldn’t log in to my wattpad. I checked my emails and found that my entire account was CLOSED.

It was closed with 3 copyright strikes.

At this point, I thought there was some misunderstanding and wattpad copyrighted me against my own work. So I wrote back in to them and asked them what was going on.

When they wrote back I had the worst shock of my life.

I clicked on the link they sent me and I was reading my story, that was somehow up on Amazon? Everything was exactly how I wrote it, but the character names were all wrong. I then noticed that the story was posted by someone else entirely and not me.

Basically, this little lady here copied my ENTIRE story, word for word, switched out the characters’ names and published it on Amazon.

My. Blood. Boiled.

I then called this girl out on my backup wattpad account, @GoldShaken00 and my sister even reached out to her to confront her.

Did she think she could copy someone else’s hard work, change out some names and publish it without getting caught?

Furious and confused, I wrote back in to wattpad with my proof of ownership and they informed me to wait out the legal portion of restoring my account.

You can go on to my account to see how horribly those “friends” and “followers” of hers attacked me. After I tried to end the keyboard wars and said we’ll let the relevant authorities handle it, this follower of hers kept coming at me.

Plus her friend also said that she helped to write the book and even came up with the names for the characters.

What in the bloody hell.

It was one thing to blindly side someone but lying through her teeth and saying that they drafted the book I wrote??

I was dealing with a bunch of ignorant and audacious liars.

Just recalling all the times of how I stayed up at night to get my inspiration down, writing through my lunch breaks and having everything stolen got me so riled up.

Fast forward to a few days after the keyboard wars, I was down and out, I barely even had any inspiration to continue writing my two other books I was working on. This user even updated her books on wattpad and other platforms, saying I was accusing her.

I couldn’t do anything on my end but wait for my account to be restored.

Then one day, my sister informed me that little miss uploaded a new story on her wattpad profile.

Curious and wary, I decided to just take a look at it. No harm no foul right? She wouldn’t be that dumb to continue copying my work right?

*play dramatic music*

WHAT IN THE HOLY HELL.

She copied my work YET AGAIN and this time, she took it from my other story, The Dark Man.

I recognised my writing immediately even with her really bad attempt to paraphrase stuff and add her own words in.

I reported her on the day itself and within the next few days, after wattpad’s investigation, her account was finally closed. Her username is @lipsa2000 though you won’t be able to find her stuff anymore.

It was a huge relief to me, just for this crazy woman to stop posting my stuff on at least one platform. Preceding this, she took down Worlds Apart from her Inkitt profile, most probably because she knew I would report her wherever she had my book up.

This brings us here, with my account finally being restored and returned back to me. I can see you guys vote and comment again.

I have since reported her on Amazon and her e-book has been taken down. I am still waiting for the paperback version of it to come down. It is insane how someone can come in and claim someone else’s work so freely and think they can get off scot-free.

To that follower who claimed I accused this girl, I did not. I cannot accuse her when she did, in fact, steal my work and lied in my face. In everyone’s faces. And to be honest, up until now, you are clueless in this whole situation and you should not have attacked me further when I tried to end things.

To that friend, you did not draft or come up with any ideas for the book. DON’T LIE. Come up with your own story and stop resorting to such low-down methods. Even if you did not copy my work and are just blindly trying to support your friend, you’re a horrible friend. You’re just helping your friend get away with lying.

To my supporters and third-parties who defended me, thank you so much. I had nothing to my name with an empty backup account but you guys had my back.

I never knew how much I missed seeing notifications from you guys until it was so harshly taken away from me.

I hope this explains the reasons to why I had to take down chapters from my books. I never thought I would have to come to this extent to protect my work.

I want my account on wattpad to be free of such drama and have hence decided to rant it out here.

With this, I just want to thank you guys, my readers for sticking by and for my family and followers who stuck up for me when I was caught in the crossfires of crazy allegations.

To end this off, I just want to thank my readers for the support and I want to put this whole saga behind me. I will not let this stop me from writing. I love reading and writing and no amount of drama is going to stop me from doing that.

I have a lot of work to do to get my inspiration running to complete my two in-progress books and to get the rest of my completed books up for you guys to read.

I wish for all of you to have a nice day and God bless!

Sincerely,

24 July 2019, Wednesday

[wilay14]

Adventures in Seoul

I think I have always made clear how much I like f(x), particularly Krystal (don’t get me wrong, I still do), but recently my feelings have started to shift. This happened ever since I got the chance to meet Luna, almost 3 weeks ago.

Coincidentally, she was performing in the reprise of the musical adaptation of Gone With the Wind, playing the role of Scarlett O’Hara. I remembered watching the movie a long time ago, and figured that even without knowing enough Korean, I’d still be able to follow the story... So after much pondering and pretty much almost giving up on going to watch Luna perform, I managed to book a ticket to see her last performance on July 25th.

A lot happened and I was about 10 min late tp the show, so I had to wait outside for a bit before they let me in. Spent the first half of the play on a seat located in the last row. Luckily, the theater was built in a way that even being in that spot, it was still possible to view the stage quite well, so it wasn’t too bad.

After the show, which was quite entertaining, considering I couldn’t understand much of what was being said, I was about to head back to where I’m staying (my “home” for the time being, I guess?) when I spotted a group of about 20 people from afar.

It was pretty late already, but I decided to stick around in hopes I could at least catch a glimpse of Luna and maybe even take a photo OF her (not WITH her cause I am unworthy lmao).

Anyway, we probably waited for about 20-30 min before she came out, and she just started taking selfies with the people who asked for one. I haven’t had the chance to meet that many celebrities, but I know there are people who won’t even acknowledge their fans, so I was pleasantly surprised.

Then, she just walked right into the center of the mini mob we had formed, and started talking with us almost as if we had known each other since forever; as well as saying hi to the fans she managed to recognize. Among the presents she got from some of them, there were several bouquets and expensive-looking cakes and desserts. She seemed pleased. She was also signing autographs for everyone.

The whole 30 minutes we were there, in the heat, surrounded by what sounded hundreds of cicadas being as noisy as ever, I couldn’t stop trembling. It felt like a dream, or maybe even a hallucination.

I hadn’t prepared anything for her to sign -hell, I wasn’t even planning to wait for her-, and I just so happened to have  marker with me. I originally wanted her to sign my passport, and after googling if it was okay to do that only to find out it could get me in trouble, I took the next best thing I had with me at the time; the envelope where my ticket was given to me the day before. A fan from either Taiwan or China told me to move forward if I wanted an autograph. She was carrying a big camera, so I figured she must be one of the few fansites left supporting only Luna. She was nice, but I didn’t even get to ask for her name.

I still kept my passport out to show her how to spell my name, and for her to see where I came from (Mexico). She seemed surprised, and spoke to me in English (basic stuff, cause I’ll later come to realized she’d always said it’s not something she’s good at).

I still wonder if she could notice my legs about to give in due to nervousness. I also wonder how many times she’s seen that before haha.

Anyway, I found my entry permit inside my passport and circled my name, to show it to her so she could sign my envelope -right after our less than memorable conversation-; I only managed to point at the circled word, while she doubtingly asked me in Korean “this one?” to which I just nervously nodded, almost embarrassed.

I was so close to her it honestly still doesn’t feel real. I managed to snap a few shots of her with my shitty phone, thoughn most of them look super LQ or blurry haha.

Anyway, she stayed with us for about 30 minutes, even though her manager had arrived a while ago and was waiting for her to wrap it up so they could leave. Her family was already in the car. She also talked about her upcoming SMTOWN performance, only I didn’t understand it at the time lol. I completely forgot her birthday was coming up soon.

Fast-forward to a couple weeks later, I see the announcement about the application period and guidelines for her birthday party. I apply to BOTH of them and, being the unlucky fuck I am, don’t get selected for either one. I was bummed, but had made up my mind to at least go to the SM building, cause they had mentioned there was a slight possibility of getting in if people canceled last minute.

I got there like 2 hours before it started and, sure enough, people were starting to arrived; waiting until after 5 was nerve-wracking, to say the least.

My Korean is barely starting to pick up, so I can’t have conversations with people. Then again, being one of the more evident foreigners present, they quickly identified me and knew I had no “invitation”. She arrived probably about 20 min before it started, I recognized the van from last time.

Anyway, by the time the selected people had entered, only a girl and I were left. She had been selected, but forgot to bring a copy of Free Somebody with her; without it she wasn’t allowed inside either. She noticed I had brought mine with me, and desperately tried to buy it off from me. I didn’t bulge cause she didn’t have any cash with her at that moment, but I was pretty close to telling her to just take it; I just felt bad because she was about to cry.

Then another girl arrived and a staff member came out and told us to wait a little after 5, and MAYBE they could let us in. Spoiler Alert: they did.

I was number 102/100 haha.

They rushed us inside and quickly sat us at the back, and gave us each a balloon with the Free Somebody logo on it. I was almost next to the camera with which they recorded the video uploaded on f(x)’s official FB page and instagram account. There was a smaller camera too, so I suspect Luna was also recording for her Youtube Channel.

It was a fun party, and I was able to confirm once again how charming Luna’s personality is. I guess this is why they used to call her Vitamin. She kept saying “sorry” with a perfect accent as a comedic relief whenever she did/say anything dumb.

We also got to see the birthday messages from Victoria, Amber and Krystal. Luna started tearing up and her manager had to bring her tissues. She suggested to him we should all record a message for the 3 of them, telling them we love them, and so we did. There wasn’t a lot of space for the manager to set the right angle, so there’s a chance I’m not even featured in it.

We sang happy birthday and she answered some questions. Then there was a lottery among the selected people where they got signed balloons and polaroids with her.

When it was over, roughly an hour or so later, she said she had a surprise for us; she had taken the time to handwrite and sign 100 cards for the attendees. I was given one even though I wasn’t supposed to get anything. I’m glad I did. This marks the second autograph I get from her.

She is a gift that keeps on giving. She’s also super talented and overall such a nice, awesome person; she does hands-on charity work whenever her schedule allows her to. She supports Animal Rights as well as Female Rights; she’s done campaigning for both in the past. 

I really wish more people could see that. I really wish more people could support her, especially her music, which as of lately, is all self-composed and just SO GOOD. 

She deserves the world, and she’s been working her ass off for it. She’s being criticized for an infinity of things. She’s been through a lot since debuting, and finally she’s able to do what she likes most, which is singing/performing. I’m just so glad I became a MeU, and I’ll keep supporting her as much as I’m able to, for as long as I can. 

Please give Luna -Park Sunyoung- a chance to captivate you the way she has done with me, all in the span of these past few weeks.

[aitaikimochi]

The Boku No Hero Academia Season 2 Vol. 8 BluRay/DVD comes with a special Drama CD featuring Bakugou and Todoroki getting caught in a mess with a villain as the rest of Class 1A goes shopping without them. I translated the bulk of the drama track and summarized a few parts! Enjoy~ EDIT: If for some reason the audio is not working, you can listen to the audio here!

The drama track starts off with a villain approaching Tomura and Kurogiri telling them that he will destroy the students of U.A. Academy. He then leaves, and Tomura and Kurogiri muse on the villain’s words before we cut to Deku narrating the beginning of the track. Deku: After our finals were over, in preparation of the forest training camp, we went to the nearby shopping mall to prepare. However, Kacchan and Todoroki-kun did not join us. Since socializing with others isn’t something Kacchan does, Todoroki-kun did not join us because he went to see his mother that day.

Todoroki: Oh, hey sis. It’s me, Shouto.  I just met up with Mom and am on my way home. She seemed okay and even laughed while we talked. Okay, got it. I’ll be back by evening. See you.

Todoroki *to himself*: Oh? Is that Bakugou? Todoroki: Bakugou!

Bakugou: What do you want? Why are you talking to me randomly, you half and half bastard?

Todoroki: Why didn’t you go shopping with the others?

Bakugou: You think I got time for that shit? I said I wasn’t going after all. Why do I have to force myself to be friendly with those dumb shits and hang out with them? They’re just stepping stones for me to stomp over to become the number one hero! There’s nothing else I want to do with them!

Todoroki: But it looks like you’re pretty close with Kirishima.

Bakugou: Are you blind or something? Just where exactly are you looking, bastard?

Todoroki: Oh? I see, sorry for talking to you. I’ll go home now. See you.

Bakugou: Sounds GREAT, hope you fall and die on the way home!

Stranger: Hi, uh, sorry for randomly striking up a conversation, but do you two happen to be in the Hero division of U.A. Academy?

Bakugou: Wha?

Todoroki: Yes, that is us.

Stranger: Oh thank goodness! I’m so glad I did not make a mistake. So nice to meet you. I’ve been wanting to meet a hero from U.A. Academy for so so long!

Todoroki: Why is that?

Stranger: Well, I told someone that I will cause a blood bath to the U.A. students so…

Todoroki: What?

Bakugou: You asshole, are you a freaking villain?

Stranger: I myself do not think so, but I suppose from an outsider’s perspective, then yes, I am.

Bakugou: Well, I’m just going to have TO FUCKING KILL YOU!

Todoroki: Stop it, Bakugou. We can’t use our quirks outside of school, especially not to harm people. If we’re found out, we could be expelled.

Bakugou: What the fuck is that shit? There’s a fucking VILLAIN RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!

Todoroki: But even so, it’s against the rules. Let’s get out of here and contact the cops and pro-heroes!

Stranger: No, you can’t do that! I will be breaking the promise to the person I said I would do this!

Todoroki: Let’s go, Bakugou.

Bakugou: Hell fucking no!

Todoroki: It’s fine, let’s just go!

Bakugou: Don’t fucking touch me! *pushes Todoroki*

Todoroki: What the? My hand!

Bakugou: Can you stop fucking around and let go of me? Wait…what the? I tried to push off this half and half shit but my hand can’t come off of his chest!

Todoroki: It can’t be…is it because of that guy’s quirk?

Bakugou: If you touch something, you can’t let go of it??

Stranger: Why yes indeed. That’s MY doing! A quirk that causes shame- the Untouchable. If I target someone and they either touch or are surrounded by something else, they get stuck to them until I stop the quirk.

Todoroki: So we’re stuck?

Bakugou: This stupid villain quirk is something that’s hard to go up against or something?

Villain: Ah of course. It’s a quirk that is almost impossible to go up against. However, there is an even more formidable part to it.

Bakugou: What the fuck you talking about? You just said that you can hold this quirk against anyone as long as YOU can, but that means all we gotta do is just make you stop using your quirk. Are you fucking stupid? Imma KILL YOU!

Todoroki: Stop it, Bakugou! Stop moving!

Bakugou: My body is stuck I can’t!

Villain: How beautiful! It seems like you two are in a lovely dance with each other! Oh that’s right! To commemorate such an occasion, I want to take a picture! Now then, smile everyone! Cheese~ *snaps picture* This is such a nice picture! To think that two students from the U.A. Academy would just come out and dance with each other after school- it’s a sight you rarely see! Oh but what’s this? Hm, you two seem a bit too stiff with each other. I want to see BIG SMILES!

Bakugou: This fucking villain!

Todoroki: Seriously stop moving, Bakugou! The more you move the more we’ll be stuck like this, all according to his plan!

Villain: Well, everything is already going according to plan! For example, if I just take Todoroki-kun’s left arm position like so. *takes his arm* And then place it on Bakugou-kun’s back like this! Just a touch~

Bakugou: You asshole!

Villain: Muahaha! It really does look like you two are dancing now! But you still look so stiff! Oh I know! I’ll just have you two get even closer! I’ll have you embrace Bakugou-kun’s back even further!

Bakugou: I’m stuck. Get the fuck off me, Half and Half!

Todoroki: I would if I actually could!

Villain: Oh yes! YES! This is so good! So very very good! Instead of looking like you’re dancing, you two look like you’re in a lover’s embrace, striking a vigorous pose of passion! How truly beautiful this looks!

Todoroki: Stop taking pictures!

Bakugou: Cut it out, you shitty villain!

Villain: No, I can’t stop! I absolutely cannot stop~

Todoroki: Bakugou, listen up. Our feet are not immobile yet. When the time is right, let’s run into that alleyway there.

Bakugou: Yeah, let’s melt this little shit’s quirk.

Todoroki: Okay. We’ll run in 3, 2, 1.

Bakugou & Todoroki: 3…2…1!

Villain: Oh by the way, I entangled your legs too, so you’ll probably fall.

Todoroki: Still stuck.

Bakugou: This bastard, causing us to get stuck even down to our feet!

Villain: See? That’s what I said, right! There really isn’t anything that can go against my quirk! To be frank, there quite possibly is no quirk scarier than mine! For example, if I were only to just take out a handgun and point it at you, well, you’ll be finished! The End! HAHAHA oh come now, don’t worry about that! I wouldn’t do such a thing, besides I’m quite queasy when it comes to blood.

Bakugou: Oh yeah you freak?

Villain: That’s why instead of killing you, I’ll just torture you!

Todoroki: What do you plan to do with us?

Villain: Well, how about this? I’ll take Todoroki-kun’s head and have you inch closer and closer to Bakugou-kun! Slow and smooth…MUAHAHA! Don’t you think this will make for a lovely photo? I sure do! Oh, but it would be selfish of me to just indulge in this alone! Maybe I’ll post this on an anonymous forum online and let everyone see this beauty!

Bakugou: Stop it, you perverted freak!

Villain: Oh no, in this case YOU’RE the perverted ones. The peculliar situation you are in will be captured, uploaded, copied and spread all across the world! Even if you continue onto the path of becoming pro-heroes, these photos will forever eat away at your soul! No one would want to believe in heroes who do such perverted things out in public!

Todoroki: I see, so you have done this to many different people and put them into these types of situations.

Bakugou: Damnit! This fucking bastard!

Villain: Oh yes, that’s something people always say. Since I have this type of power, many call me a villain and avoid me. But I just can’t stop this. There’s no way I want to stop doing this~

Todoroki: Fine, then do as you please.

Villain: Excuse me, what?

Todoroki: Take however many pictures you want then. You want us to smile too, right?

Bakugou: Da fuq?

Todoroki: Just play along.

Villain: Are you surrendering?

Todoroki: No, I will never give up on becoming a hero. I’m just saying you can take as many pictures as you’d like! So what should we do? Do you have a request?

Villain: No, I can’t do that! I can’t just let you do that. You have to struggle more! You have to be completely covered in defeat!

Todoroki: You sure are honest, I guess.

Villain: Yes, that is the only way that can satisfy me! I never tell lies.

Todoroki: That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.

Villain: Now then, show me more struggle! More shame! Fill my heart with this!

Todoroki: Bakugou, be patient.

Bakugou: What the?

Todoroki: We’re going to headbutt this guy. Let’s go!

Villain: No! No no no, this is not how it’s supposed to go down!

Todoroki: He stopped his hold on us! We can move now!

Bakugou: Get the fuck off me!

Todoroki: We’re finally free.

Bakugou: Damnit. That took way too fucking long.

Todoroki: We were saved by his honesty.

Bakugou: Nah, he’s just an idiot.

Villain: Nooo! My perfect models!

Bakugou: Just who the fuck are you referring to as models, you damn pervert? I’m going to kill you!

Todoroki: Bakugou, don’t use your quirk.

Bakugou: Why the hell are you still talking about that shit?

Todoroki: Bring him down without using your quirk WITHOUT trying to kill him.

Bakugou: Goddamnit. Okay fine, I’ll go ahead and try…I’ll just hurt you 500 million times more!

Villain: Um…500 million times more?

Bakugou: Prepare to die, you shitty villain! DIEEEEEE!!!!!

Villain: AHHHHHH!!!!!!!

After the encounter with the villain, the scene cuts to Tomura and Kurogiri, and Kurogiri tells Tomura that the villain that said he was going to defeat the U.A. students messed up and was instead defeated himself. Tomura says that he will never forgive the stupid students at U.A. and that it’s all All Might’s fault. He will end All Might if it’s the last thing he does.

Deku then comes back with a quick narration of what happened between him and Tomura at the shopping mall, and he ends with the lines, “We would never have guessed that the League of Villains was only getting started, and our peaceful trip to the forest training camp will be rudely interrupted by villains who will do something unthinkable. *cue Season 3*

—–

T/N: Purchase the Season 2 Vol. 8 BluRay/DVD here! EDIT: I saw some replies to the post in regards to why it’s “perverted” in the BNHA universe to see Bakugou and Todoroki in that compromising position, and it has nothing to do with them both being guys. In Japan, PDA is super super uncomfortable to those around them because of whatever reasons. You rarely see PDA between couples because it’s kind of an unspoken rule that you only show affection at home (stupid rule, but whatevs). Even hugging is sometimes kind of frowned upon, which I personally think is the stupidest thing ever but meh Japan. So by having Todoroki and Bakugou look like they’re making out or doing some intense PDA like rutting against each other out in the open where everyone can see, it’s super embarrassing because it makes them seem like exhibitionists, which is kind of uncomfortable for the general audience. It has nothing to do with the fact that they’re two guys.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

These senior citizen YouTubers are better than anyone else on this hellscape internet

The typical YouTuber is young, obnoxious, and speaks at an above-average decibel level. They love pranks. They love covertly selling you *products.* Even though they're your age or vastly younger, they have more money in their bank account than you ever will.

Thankfully, not all YouTubers like that. This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for the dedicated community of senior citizen YouTubers, here to make homemade pasta, deconstruct mechanical toys, play lullabies on their guitars, knit, apply make-up, and show you how to properly take a dip in the public pool.

SEE ALSO: Logan Paul isn't the only problem. YouTube is broken — here's how to fix it.

If you're going to be an influencer, at least use your power to show Xennials like me how to make proper tagliatelle.

For all their wisdom and *actual content knowledge,* senior citizen YouTube celebrities are nonetheless a rarity. The demographic data tells the story: 96% of youth aged 13 to 17 have used YouTube, compared to just 51% of those 75 and older. Just 67% of seniors aged 65 and over use the internet, and only 4 in 10 own smartphones.

So we shouldn't be shocked that of the biggest names in YouTube — Fernanfloo, PewDewPie, Germán Garmendia, Rubén Doblas Gundersen i.e. El RubiosOMG, VanossGaming, and so on — all are male, and none, absolutely none, are above the age of 30.

That doesn't mean senior citizens are absent from the platform, or that younger generations don't love to watch older folks on screen. I know that I, for one, am not alone in not wanting to hear this guy opine about suicide prevention:

You just have to look a little harder to find the elders of the community, which we kindly did for you. Here are some of the leading senior personalities on the platform:

1. Tricia Cusden, Look Fabulous for Older Women

70-year-old Tricia Cusden formally kicked off her YouTube account and her personal make-up business, Look Fabulous Forever, five years ago. Cusden specializes in make-up made specifically for older women. 

Cusden remembers when her manufacturer told her to put videos of her products on Twitter:

"I thought, that's a really stupid idea," Cusden told Mashable. "Millions of videos are uploaded to YouTube, people just won't see them."

Pretty quickly, however, Cusden's videos started picking up real traffic: 1,000 views one day, 1,500 views on another. It was clear that Cusden had tapped into a real need — and that older women were (gulp!) using YouTube.

Cusden believes she was able to access this demographic because her product line was written up in print publications, which have older followers. These women presumably then followed her to YouTube.

In comparison to other brands that market token "anti-aging skincare" to older women, Cusden hopes to create a positive, stigma-free YouTube space:

"The beauty industry disdains and marginalizes this age group ... [but] we won't disparage you here," Cusden says. "We won't be negative."

Cusden's channel currently has 28,340 subscribers.

2. Judy Graham, Knitting Tips by Judy

In recent years, knitting has had something of a comeback among the millennial Etsy set. But why learn from some dumb book when you can learn from *THE* Judy Graham? 

Graham is a knitting legend. She's now in her 80s, and she's still producing videos nearly every week. In 2015, Graham complained to her son that it was a myth that all seniors hated technology.

"Seniors do know about tech, and they do use it," Graham told her son, who later published her comments in USA Today. 

Not everyone who watches "Knitting Tips by Judy" is older. She has plenty of younger fans (points at self).

If there's anything that Judy proves, it's that you don't have to be a young, terrible California bro in order to be successful on this nightmare platform.

3. Tim Rowett, Grand Illusions

For all the optical illusion and unusual toy fans out there (I'm assuming that's everyone on this list), Tim Rowett is your man. 

Rowett's YouTube channel, Grand Illusions, collects and reviews dozens of random toys. It's whimsical and strange and exceedingly, unexpectedly popular: The channel currently has over 881,000 subscribers.

In 2015, the Telegraph named Rowett one of the best YouTubers over 50 years old. 

The award was well-deserved. Is there anything more soothing than hearing a handsome older British gentleman with a BBC accent examine the mechanics of a bubble blower?

4. Pasta Grannies

There's no such thing as a dream job, except for Vicky Bennison's. Bennison is the founder of Pasta Grannies, a YouTube channel featuring Italian grandmas making their best homemade pasta. 

Bennison, who is 60, literally travels all around Italy hunting for the country's most talented grandmas. Every episode, she highlights a particular grandma and their specialty pasta.

Pasta and Italian grandmas are universally beloved, which is why Bennison's show has such a diverse, cross-generational audience. These women aren't trained chefs, but they're exceptionally talented and they know what a good pasta serving size is: one gallon per person.

"What you see on television requires armies of food stylists ... These are things all people can do," Bennison told Mashable. "[It's why] I do have a broad audience ... My demographics for Pasta Grannies is 25 to 65 years old." 

Some of these grannies are in their late 90s. Yet with more 341,913 subscribers, Bennison has nonetheless been able to build a digital fan base for these women.

Pasta Grannies, you are welcome in my home anytime.

5. Bossa Nakane

Though he probably wouldn't classify it this way, Bossa Nakane makes lullabies for stressed-out adults. This man is a nightingale. His music is delightfully tender: Think Nick Drake, but sung by a human robin.

Why would you ever sing "Happy Birthday" yourself when you can have the Bossa Nakane version instead? He's better.

He currently only has 3,174 subscribers. Everyone, please follow now.

6. ElderGym

ElderGym is the only YouTube fitness series on the web I'm capable of completing. A 4-minute session on how to get off the floor? This I can do. March in place for 1 minute? Hell freaking yeah. ElderGym isn't just for seniors, it's for everyone. 

Squeeze your shoulders for 1 minute. Congratulations! You've exercised.

7. Grandma Shirley

Anyone who's anyone in the senior YouTuber world knows Grandma Shirley, an 82-year-old gamer who records herself playing games for YouTube, among other places. She's best known for playing Skyrim and currently has over 410,000 subscribers.

I've never understood the appeal of watching other people play games (why watch strangers play Grand Theft Auto when you can watch ... anything else) but if I'm going to watch anyone, it will be Grandma Shirley.

8. Grandpa Kitchen

Grandpa Kitchen operates a YouTube channel where he cooks enormous amounts of Indian food and feeds if to local orphans. The channel currently operates a Patreon page in order to fund their operations; however, I was unable to independently verify how that money is spent.

That being said, Grandpa Kitchen runs an excellent show. Look at all those potatoes. How can they not make you happy?

9. Gramma and Ginga

Gramma and Ginga are two sisters, one 104 years old, the other 99. They live a few blocks from one another in Clarksburg, West Virginia. If you're the type of person who loves to see two charming older women bicker non-stop about nothing, this is for you.

Think Seinfeld, but with Grandmas.

Imagine a comedy podcast but the podcast were ... actually funny. That's Gramma and Ginga.

These women currently have 325,684 subscribers. In 2016, they made it to Jimmy Kimmel Live. 

10. Kevin and Lill

I tend to be skeptical of anyone on YouTube who has more than 500,000 subscribers and says they create "comedy." Historically, YouTube comedy is an art form lower than improv.

Kevin and his objectively charismatic grandma Lill are an exception to the rule. We talk a lot about YouTube personalities but Grandma Lill actually has one. 

As the kids say, she destroys me.

Look at her make chocolate chip brownies with her grandson Kevin, then try to pick yourself up off the floor. 

Perhaps my favorite part of the series is when she introduces the episode, saying, "Hi fellas and girls."

Just listen to it instead of reading my far inferior copy.

Grandma Lill says she didn't really know much about YouTube before her grandson turned on his camera one day in the car:

"I was surprised, but I said, 'Hey that's good!'" Lill told Mashable.

You'd think that Grandma Lill would be an inspiration to her friends, many of whom are in the same age bracket.

Grandma Lill doesn't think so.

"My girlfriends if they don’t have grandchildren [with access to technology] — they could care less about what I do! They don't care where I'm going. They don't have YouTube, Instagram."

She also doesn't particularly care how they feel. If there's someone out there she can inspire — even if it's not her best girlfriends, even if it's just herself — she's happy these videos exist.

"It keeps me younger," Lill told Mashable. "I feel like 65 instead of 88 now. Nobody can believe I'm 88 ... We're just so good."

A heartfelt thanks to *65*-year-old Grandma Lill and all the YouTubers like her.

WATCH: 3Doodler Create Plus is the perfect pen for creative techies — Power Up

[tweaksy]

Swedish Girl Creates A Robot To Do Her Homework! You Won't Believe What Happens Next!

Fandom: Overwatch

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787240

Square Filled: My First Time Writing Robot

Rating: General

Summary: Passing grade 8 for Brigitte means acing this essay. Unfortunately, just reading the essay questions almost killed her. Maybe she can think of another way to get through this? And hey- if things don't work out Reinhardt is always there to bail her out!

Word Count: 2095

Written for @biggobingobango

Respond to one of the prompts below in an essay of 500 words or more. Your essay must be peer edited, be free of grammatical and spelling errors, and use transitionary phrases.

1.       A great deal of the novel focuses on Sophia’s blue earrings. How do the earrings relate to each scene in which they are mentioned? (pg. 23, 47, 89, 103, 217) What is the significance behind the colour blue? Would the meaning change if they were a different type of jewellery?

 Brigitte stopped reading and tossed the paper across the room, slumping back in her chair. Writing essays was already awful, and writing essays on a book she hated was just excruciating. While her 8th grade teacher, Mrs. Carnell, was a great teacher, she was terrible at choosing engaging, enjoyable books. Even the students who more keen on literature struggled with her book choices, as well as the writing topics. This meant that Brigitte, who had more of a head for math and science, was doomed. So very doomed.

Ingrid poked her head into her daughter’s room. “How is the essay going, dear?” She asked.

“Great,” Brigitte sighed, scratching her cat behind the ear.

Ingrid looked down at the paper lying on the floor. “Don’t you need this to write your essay?” she asked. She glanced over the paper, frowning.

“Isn’t it bad?” Brigitte asked.

“It’s not… well, it could be worse,” Ingrid said with a small laugh. “I’m going to the store to pick up some groceries, try to get something done by the time I get back, okay? Remember that Mrs. Carnell said she won’t take any more late assignments from you.” Ingrid placed the paper back on Brigitte’s desk, ruffled her hair, and slowly closed the door upon her exit. Brigitte sighed again and picked up the paper.

 2.       Toni makes many references to Shakespeare’s soliloquies while trying to woo Sophia. How do these speeches (pg. 54, 76, 79, 93, 147) match or differ from Shakespeare’s famous soliloquies? How do these change the tension and mood in the scene?

 Brigitte threw the paper on the floor once again. She couldn’t do this. No way. There were still three more topics she could choose from and she knew that just reading through them might actually kill her. There was no way she could do this. But there was also no way she couldn’t do this. Not if she wanted to pass grade 8, that is. Which meant if she couldn’t do it, yet it had to be done… then what if someone else did it. Or, something? An idea came to her.

Brigitte slipped on a pair of shoes and walked to the garage and into her dad’s workshop. He was away for a few weeks; he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed some of his equipment. First things first: some drafting paper and a pencil. Once the blueprint was made, she needed some metal, screws, wires… she danced around the workshop, tossing equipment onto the desk against the wall. A bit of this, a bit of that. Why not this? Oh, we’ll surely need some of that! Once everything was gathered it was time to get to work. That essay would be done by Monday, like it or not.

-----

Ingrid opened the door to the workshop. “There you are!” she sighed, looking at Brigitte’s back. “Supper’s almost ready… shouldn’t you be doing homework?”

“I’m taking a break,” she mumbled around the pencil in her mouth.

“Okay, well, be inside in five minutes. Make sure you wash up, too.”

Brigitte mumbled a sound of confirmation, still staring intently at her creation. Five minutes wasn’t much time, but she could make use of the break. The body was built, the programming was almost ready to go, all she had to do was download the correct files. She clicked on the ones she needed to transfer over. Connect it to the printer, connect it to the internet, upload a digital copy of the book, put in the language file, a few more clicks and… done! The rest of the work could happen during supper. She wiped her hands on her pants, cringed as they came out more black than they did before, and decided it would be a good idea to go wash up and change.

As she exited the bathroom she bumped into her younger brother, who was about to head in to wash his hands. “Where have you been?” He asked. “Remember mom said you shouldn’t use dad’s tools without him around.”

“I wasn’t using anything dangerous,” she rolled her eyes, “just making a simple robot.”

His eyes brightened up. “A robot? What does it do? Can it shoot lasers?”

“No,” she laughed, “but that would be a good idea. Actually it’s supposed to read my book for my literature class, read the essay questions from the teacher, and write an essay for me. So you see, it’s written by me because the robot was created by me, but I don’t have to do the awful work.”

“That’s so cool!” he shouted. “Can I use it for my homework?”

“If it works as well as I think it should!” she said with a wink.

Of course the robot worked perfectly. At least, there was a neat pile of papers sitting at the bottom of the printer, stapled nicely together, cover page and references and everything. Brigitte flipped through the booklet without actually reading it. Yup, that looked like an essay. Good enough. She tossed it into her backpack and pulled out her brand-new copy of Half-Life 3. She had a lot of work to do if she wanted to finish it during launch week.

-----

“So that’s why I built a robot to write the stupid essay for me. And honestly everything was perfect except for one thing- apparently I clicked the wrong language and instead of hitting ‘Swedish’ I hit ‘Spanish’ instead, so my whole essay was in Spanish! So of course Mrs. Carnell phoned my mom and they had a conference and I have to write yet another essay now and she’s all like ‘oh, I know that you hate this topic so let me make it up to you by giving you a fun topic about science!’ since I just like, have to show my writing ability or whatever, so now I have to write a dumb essay about bees.” Brigitte finally ran out of breath and had to stop to breathe for a moment. Reinhardt took this opportunity to speak.

“Aww, I’m sorry to hear that, Brigitte. But you know, you could have just asked me to write it in the first place! I always did great at essay writing when I was in school! And remember, I am always just a phone call away.”

Brigitte’s eyes widened. “Would you, maybe, write my new essay for me? The bee one?” She asked.

“Of course!” Reinhardt laughed. “Just tell me the topic and I will write it for you! The only thing is you will have to translate it to Swedish. So you will still be writing it, right? I’m just giving you the content!” He laughed again.

“Thank you so much!” Brigitte yelled into the phone. “I’ll text you the topic, okay? Seriously, thank you Reinhardt. You are a life saver.”

“Any time, dear. Say hello to your mom for me, okay?”

“I will!”

Brigitte ended the call and hugged her phone. She was going to get through this, no matter what!

-----

Reinhardt pushed open the heavy doors to the public library. He looked around for a moment, then approached the counter. “Excuse me!”

The woman behind the counter jumped, not expecting him to be quite so loud. “Yes?” She asked.

“I need some books on bees- where could I find them?”

“Follow me. And sir, please try to keep it down,” she whispered, getting up and leading him towards the area.

“Sorry, that’s my bad!” He bellowed with a hearty laugh. The librarian sighed.

“Here is our section on animal books. It appears that there are some on bees right here. If you need a place to start, there is also a shelf of encyclopaedias against that wall.”

The librarian left and Reinhardt began to pull any book that looked vaguely relevant off the shelf. Plus some that weren’t relevant, but looked interesting anyways. Maybe he should stop by the sci-fi/fantasy section, as well…

Pretty soon he was standing in the line to check out, a mountain of books in his arms. A young boy looked up at him, in awe by the sheer amount of books he was carrying. Reinhardt smiled down at him. The book he was holding in his hands caught his eye. “Well now, is that ‘Dragon Riders of Riveron’? I used to love reading those books as a kid! In fact, I remember sitting on the steps of this very library, waiting for it to open so I could be the first to get my hands on the new books as they were released! There was a kind old man that used to work here who, whenever the new book came out, he would send me an e-mail and say that he just got the new book in and it would be on the shelf the next day! And I would get in right as the library opened and I would make a beeline to the shelf and usually I would be done the book by that very evening!” Reinhardt laughed again.

Every library patron was staring at the boisterous man shouting in the middle of the library line. Even the librarians were staring, book in one hand, scanner in the other, neither hand moving. They all seemed slightly disturbed, aside from the young boy, who was looking up with stars in his eyes. “I’ve never met anyone else who has read these,” he said. “I always try to get other kids at my school to try them but they make fun of me.”

Reinhardt let out a gasp. “Make fun of you! Well, I’ll have you know that there is nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to good books!” Reinhardt dropped his books down on a counter with a loud crash, grabbed a pen and scrap paper off the desk and scribbled down a number. “Here you go, call me any time you need someone to talk to about them!”

The kid grabbed the paper and gingerly put it in his pocket. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Work slowly resumed and eventually Reinhardt had all his books checked out. Now it was time to return- and get Brigitte her essay!”

-----

Hark! The humble honey bee. Busily she buzzes; to and fro, up and down, elegantly buzzing from flower to flower. But just how does she do that? Such a large, hardworking body supported by such small, fragile wings makes it seem like flight should be an impossibility. But is this really the case?

 Brigitte squinted at her essay. Is this really how you’re supposed to write an essay? Aren’t you supposed to use fancy words and sentences that last half a page, and sound as smart and hoity-toity as possible? She shrugged, Reinhardt was the adult. He knew best. All she could do was trust him, and keep translating this essay.

When she handed it in it was a few days before she heard anything back from her teacher. Finally, one day just before she was about to leave for lunch, Mrs. Carnell caught her at her locker. “Brigitte, I want to talk to you about your essay.”

Brigitte took a deep breath, looked up at her, and asked a small “yes?”

Mrs. Carnell pulled the essay out of a folder in her hands. “Honestly, I have never seen an essay quite like this before. I can tell that you were being very sarcastic throughout the whole thing but even so, it was entertaining to read and possesses a level of engagement you don’t usually see in an essay at this age. Generally students are so invested in trying to show off how intelligent they are they forgo any sort of style in favour of showing off. The content was good, you had great evidence and transitions, and honestly, it was an extremely well-done essay.”

Mrs. Carnell dropped the essay into Brigitte’s hands. “Congratulations, young lady.”

Brigitte looked down at her mark and smiled. It took a few tries, but she got there in the end. And hey, as her father always says, “hard work pays off!”

[fulloflesbeans]

Traveling: A Marshfield oneshot

Waiting at an airport really blows.

The drive to LAX was already torture, next you’re stuck waiting in line just to check-in bags, then you have to go to another line and take off your shoes and all metal on your body, and then you have to rush to put your shoes back on and grab your shit again.

Now, I waited near the gate. It was a one-way fly to Tokyo, on a mission to cross another thing off the bucket list and take as many photos as possible. For the first time, I get to go and travel alone. I didn’t have much of a plan except for aimless walking and restaurant hopping.

I faced myself towards the large windows, looking out to the runways and all the planes arriving and departing. There were already lots of people sitting in these uncomfortable, way too low black seats, eating food from the many available restaurants from the food court or sleeping with their headphones and neck pillows. Times like this felt slow, because everyone just wanted to get on the plane already. Another lucky thing, I sat right next to a couple of power outlets to charge my phone. Social media was my best friend in times like this: Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, even Facebook.

Two hours of nothing passed. I huffed as I went through Tumblr again, refreshing over and over again to see new posts or memes. When I refreshed the dashboard for the fifth time, I put my phone down and observed my surroundings. It was vacation time and seeing so many people in this one terminal, I was convinced this flight was overbooked. On top of that, the letter on my ticket was “D”, the last group of people to get on a plane.

My eyes locked onto someone with blonde hair in a nicely done bun. She sat alone at the end of the row in front of me, looking through her phone and had her over-stuffed backpack on her lap. Right next to her was a big burger pillow.

She’s cute, I thought. I contemplated talking to her, but just like me, she was scrolling through her phone and had earphones in.

“The time now is 10:10 AM. Now boarding Priority on Delta flight 212 to Haneda Airport.”

I stayed sitting down, since my group isn’t until the end. The line in front of the gate was already incredibly long and disorganized.

It took another twenty minutes before it was my group’s turn. I put my backpack on and held my ticket. The girl I saw earlier was holding the burger pillow under her arm and was a few people behind me; she was getting an upgrade for sure.

When it was my turn, there was a longer delay. I watched the various screens of when we board and showing different cities and what the weather was like over there.

“There are no more seats in economy, would you like to upgrade to business class?”

“Oh, yes, that’s fine.”

Nothing screamed “cramped” more than the inside of an airplane. Seeing the rows of blue seats, trying to squeeze in two or three people into a row, having to make personal space to sleep or go use the even smaller restrooms. At least there were TV screens to watch movies on.

My expectations were high for the business cabin, but some perks included more leg room and bigger screens. I was still going to have to sit next to someone, but it wouldn’t be as awkward.

I put my carry-on bags in the cubby above my seat and sat next to the window. My first instinct was to start looking through compartments and try to play around with the screen in front of me. The screen wasn’t working yet and all I found was a manual for the life vests and the Sky Mall magazine.

I went through my phone again, looking through Tumblr once more. I took a picture of my shoes to upload on Instagram.

Heading to Tokyo, I added a little airplane emoji.

A person sat in the seat next to me and I didn’t think much of it until I saw a blonde hair bun in my peripherals.

I shoved the magazine back into the pocket under the TV. I acted like I was looking out the window when I was really looking at her through the corner of my eye. The first thing she did was take a book out.

Like me, she was comfortable wearing a jacket and jeans for the wintertime. She was way more comfortable with the burger pillow on her lap.

I tapped my finger against the armrest as I watched the workers outside driving around with a large container full of luggage and packages.

I had to admit it; I felt nervous. What does one do when sitting next to a pretty girl? Because I have no clue.

I watched the outside, up until we started to move. I thought of every cheesy icebreaker I could think of, but all of them were so bad and would make me feel uncomfortable.

As we were speeding up and lifting off the ground, I decided on something simple and not corny.

“How does takeoff actually work?” I asked. She turned her attention to me right away, raising her eyebrows, and closing her book.

“Oh, um, I think they build up speed and we sort of just… lift up.”

I watched as her hands were trying to replicate the plane lifting off the ground. Her voice was very timid and cute. I was feeling kind of giddy just making eye contact with her. She had bright and sparkling hazel eyes; I almost didn’t say anything.

“Wouldn’t it be crazy if we just went straight up?” I copied her hands, except one hand abruptly went up.

“It would be!” She nodded in agreement. She giggled and smiled, causing me to smile too.

“Um,” I didn’t want it to end just yet, “What are you reading there?”

I leaned over, resting my arm on the armrest. I was invested now and the rest of the ride will become awkward.

“It’s a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while,” She showed me the cover, “It’s a romance book.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about a girl who meets another girl and then they go on adventure together.” She flipped through the pages.

I hummed, “Sounds interesting. Is reading good to pass the time?”

“I personally think so,” She shrugged her shoulders, “It’s not for everyone, of course.”

I would, but I don’t have a book and I wasn’t interested in watching a movie at this point.

“What books are you into?” She asked.

“Love a good science fiction. On a good day, horror is the way to go.”

“I’ve read a few Stephen King novels, but not my cup of tea.”

“You should reconsider.”

“Why is that?”

After this, the whole conversation continued on and on. Our flight lasted for eleven hours, yet neither of us showed any signs of shutting up. Our whole topic on stories and ones we’ve read recently lasted for nearly half of the travel.

“I suggest Misery. That book is good.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Do you want to watch the film adaptation? It might be on these little screens.”

She shook her head, “I don’t want to traumatize myself!”

Our next topic went to ourselves. It transitioned so well, I wasn’t sure when it happened. She started, saying something about her other hobbies like playing instruments and sometimes knitting. I wasn’t sure what to say about myself, but I tried to relate with her with the instrument thing, saying I played guitar sometimes, and watching thriller or cult films. Time went by, unbeknownst to us, and we only broke away when flight attendants asked about meals, snacks and drinks. We still talked even when eating awful plane food about the reasons why we were going to Tokyo at all.

“It’s a bucket list thing.” She answered.

“Me too! Kinda, I do photography for a living, so I love to travel.”

“Sounds exciting! What do you love taking pictures of?”

I hummed, “To be honest, no idea. I just see things and I’m like, “I need a photo of that.’”

This topic went on for the rest of the trip. I paused about halfway through my sentence; I forgot ask the most important thing.

“Wait, damn, we don’t even know each other’s names!”

“That would be important, huh?” She chuckled.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Haneda Airport. Local time is 2:28 AM and the temperature is 41 degrees Fahrenheit.”

We checked our seatbelts and directed our attention out the window. We watched as we had a semi-bumpy landing. It looked like overcast outside and was slightly windy.

“I felt like we just left.” She sighed.

“I know, right?”

On behalf of Delta Airlines and the entire crew, I’d like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you on board again in the near future. Have a nice stay!”

We didn’t talk to each other as we were getting out of the plane. We looked at each other from time-to-time, smiling and nodding at each other. Even though we weren’t saying anything, we were still walking side by side and staying together. Plus, the airport was pretty overcrowded, so it wasn’t like we could split ways. We stopped at the conveyor belt filled with large luggage bags for our plane; it was already surrounded by people from our and other flights.

Our bags happened to be right next to each other and we pulled on them right away to our sides.

I huffed, “Do you know anyone here? In Japan, I mean?”

“Nope, I’m here all by myself. What about you?”

“Me neither, I’m just here alone.”

We both chuckled, but neither of us started the goodbyes or walking away. I looked around awkwardly with the question dancing on my tongue.

I looked at her again, “Would you like to travel together?”

She was deep in thought, judging by the look on her face and her hand on her chin. I wasn’t expecting a yes, because I’m still a stranger to her. She then giggled and nodded.

“You know what? I would love to.”

We started to walk together, dragging our bags and dumb smiles on our faces. Then, I remembered an important detail.

“So, uh, what’s your name?” I asked.

“Kate,” she smiled and held her hand out, “You are?”

“Max.” I grabbed and shook her hand.

As we let go, the smiles on our faces were plastered on.

Traveling alone didn’t seem that fun anyway.

[kennothythebard]

It’s time for Rocktober!

What the heck is Rocktober, you ask? 

Well, let me take you far far back, to a dark time in this world known as 2016. It was the end of September, and the outlook for the world seemed bleak. In my despair, there came a bit of light, and I--

Yeah I can’t keep up that expositiony style. Basically last year I did Inktober prompts but with music. I wrote songs or did a cover based on the prompts and posted a video of that performance nearly every day. And I want to do the same thing again this year.

Great. So why don’t you just piggyback off of an inktober post?

That’s a really good question. The short answer is I was not impressed with the Inktober prompts this year and I don’t feel confident I can make all of the prompts work for my purposes.

So what are the rules for this different from inktober?

A little bit. The time honored traditions of combining prompts, uploading late, or skipping inktober prompts that don’t appeal to you are made a-okay in Rocktober. And with Rocktober the thing you post doesn’t have to be a final product, it can be super rusty if you want. The important thing is that you’re having fun, and stressing yourself for perfection every single day can be notoriously not fun.

Alright, how do I participate? Do I have to be a musician?

You can participate in whatever way you see fit! You can do covers based on the prompts, you can write original songs, you can do a combination of the two (I’m going all out and trying to write all of the songs, but you most certainly don’t have to do that). If music isn’t your medium, you can adapt it in whatever way you want. If you’re an artist you can draw art based on the prompts, or based on songs that fit the prompts. If acting’s your thing, you could do quick scenes based on the prompt (or you could use song lyrics to write a scene). Maybe you like dance and you want to express a prompt that way. Get creative! Rocktober is about showing how you rock! (Granted with a musical twist but still)

Anything else I should know?

If anybody decides to actually participate in this I’d appreciate you tagging me or letting me know because I’d be completely amazed. This years set of prompts has a theme: Musical Theater! My goal for this month is to create a mini-musical based on the prompts. Which leads me to the final bits of information. All prompts are based on TV tropes this year. Subcategories are included in the prompt list to provide guidance, but should not be treated as actual prompts if what you want to do is slightly different. Each prompt in this list is linked to the relevant TV Trope page.

You’re literally just copying Inktober, this whole thing is dumb.

We’ve established both of these things, but this post is as much for me as it is for anybody else who might want to do it. So without further ado, beneath the cuts are the 2017 Rocktober prompts. Have fun, and rock on!

Setting Introduction Song

Welcoming Song

Somewhere Song

Wanderlust Song

Location Song

Parental Love Song

"I Am" Song

Musical Chores

Hakuna Matata

Friendship Song

Sidekick Song

"I Want" Song

Villain Song

Villainous Advice Song

Villainous Lament

Villain Love Song

Villain Recruitment Song

"The Villain Sucks" Song

"Setting Off" Song

Patter Song

Let's Duet

Counterpoint Duet

Distant Duet

Duet Of Differences

Final Love Duet

Solo Duet

Dark Reprise

The Item Number

Irrelevant Act Opener

Torch Song

The Song Before The Storm

Quarreling Song

Musicalis Interruptus

Death Song

Grief Song

B.S.O.D. Song

Sanity Slippage Song

Pep-Talk Song

The Something Song

The Eleven O'Clock Number

"I Am Becoming" Song

Triumphant Reprise

"They've Come So Far" Song

Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number

[ask-art-student-prussia]

The R.R. Phenomena; A Summary and Addition - By Leon Rekjavik

Hello again, ladies, gents. 

Epic-essay writer Leon Rekjavik is here again! Today, I just felt like posting more analysis on R.R.’s posts, because, they’ve quite clearly changed since the last time I wrote an analysis on R.R. 

For those who have literally no idea who I am, a couple weeks ago, I wrote a long essay where I talked about R.R. in general, as a person, everything, and submitted it to the awesome ask-art-student-prussia blog here, because R.R. is only present here, seemingly. This was back when everyone kept doing those jokes on R.R.

Why do I even write this stuff about some random person who anonymously posts asks on this blog? I don’t know actually, I just feel like I NEED TO, for some reason. To serve some justice to this sweet, person…?

Anywho, now onto the analysis!

———————————————————————————————————

Initially when R.R. came to this blog, they were merely someone who posted these asks to this blog talking about how much they admired the work Mun uploaded onto this blog, but at the same time, talked about themselves in a self-deprecating manner. 

Now, when I say “merely”, I don’t actually mean “merely”. When R.R. writes, it’s not just a random ask, they standout with the the things they submit. A lot of time and effort is put into each ask they put through, and they clearly care a lot for Mun as a person, as an artist, etc. There’s a poetic drive of admiration when they send something, yet they always seem to constantly try to remind everyone, that no, don’t see me- see Mun! See how beautiful their art is.

No one knows who R.R. is, which is a shame, but, I think it’s understandable. At this point in time, where a single R.R. post receives 35 notes on Tumblr, anyone who’d claim they are R.R. (even the real one) would immediately be shot down as a fake. Such a case were very prominent some weeks back, when a trashy meme started circling around the blog.

Other than R.R.’s writing prowess, there’s also the mystery of their identity, and that’s what the real interest is with R.R. Who are they? As mentioned in the previous analysis, R.R. loves this blog, clearly a lot, but wants to remain hidden due to their insecurities, however, at the same time, they want some way to be recognised. This is where the signature end to each R.R. post comes, “-R.R.”. This is their trademark, their way of showing the world, yes, I am R.R. and this is the post I send to you, Mun showing my love! In a purely platonic way, of course, or at least assume.

Unfortunately, being the Internet, the trashy-meme became very popular, with people claiming they were R.R., when they clearly weren’t. This wasn’t just a one-off incident. This lasted for several days, and even resulted with R.R. actually writing a post, where they said that they felt that their presence had caused Mun trouble. Now, remember, R.R. loves Mun, this blog, and everything with it. All this attention that had enshrouded R.R. wasn’t why R.R. even began putting posts out with their insignia. They didn’t want attention.They wanted to show their love to Mun and her art. Though, this had an entirely backfiring effect. Now Mun's blog was all about them. 

So, R.R. decided to take LEAVE from the blog.

And tragically, this transpired literally right after the submitted an analysis that was made for people to understand R.R. better as a person and to back them up (nobody understands the crippling deprussian I went through, because of that. However, all this information is dumb and irrelevant, because no one cares about me lololol). 

R.R. decided to take leave from this blog, because they felt that their love DAMAGED this blog and what it was made and known for to begin with. With this, the silence period began. No posts from R.R., not a sound. People began apologising profusely, some people even coming out from anonymity and saying they were sorry. The blog went back to how it originally was- an art-student Prussia blog. However, a lonely ache remained with those who knew about R.R. 

This is a direct copy and past of what R.R. wrote in terms of leaving the blog, in two separate posts:

“I’m very sorry Gil, but this is the last ask I’ll submit. I’m afraid my presence has caused disruption to your blog. Those previous asks from yesterday were not mine. I won’t submit anymore asks after this one with my initials to avoid anymore trouble for you. For those saying I’m doing this for attention, I will probably never reveal my true identity out of fear. So you’ll never know who I am. Farewell, Gil. It was lovely sending asks those few times. I hope you’re successful with your blog.”

“-R.R. (I ran out of characters)”

You see, everyone who posts stuff on this blog either does an M/A! ask, or a question to Prussia or even Mun directly, or just saying stuff, and I quote, “I love this blog. Please have my babies.” No one, and I mean, no one, wrote the way R.R. did. They were special, people loved their pureness, and they missed it. 

And then, it happened. R.R. RETURNED, and they returned in a manner worth bragging about, for centuries to come (I am not exaggerating). 

“Perhaps one day, when time is nothing but the movement of leaves, and the sun’s died, there will be a moment of solace where everything is just everything, and nothing is just something. The next moment in ‘time’, they will not exist, but with lives so fleeting, even a moment is extensive enough. Their last words will be "thank you”, before they’re suffocated by heat and dust. Humanity’s falling grace would have echoes permeating light years away. -The one who left this blog, R.R.“

They came back, with POETRY. And it wasn’t just any poetry- it was MAJESTIC poetry, as you can see above. This piece got 31 notes- it is rare for an anonymous post with no picture underneath, no nothing from Mun, purely the anon, to get that many notes. 

As if that’s not enough, R.R. returned, YET AGAIN!: 

"Fatherland, o’ dear noble creature of war. From the moment of your creation, you struck the soil with the sword of your soul, sending tremors leagues away, notifying every breathing being of your presence. Your tenacious nature and valiant efforts bleed through history’s timeline, embedding itself over the course of countless lives. We shan’t forget your existence, for none would be here now without your cause for our effect. You will return to us again, one day, in solidarity. -R.R.”

Can I say I fanboyed/fangirled when I was this, as unprofessional as it is? 

(and this is where leon rekjavik gives up on professionalism completely)

LOOK AT THIS FINE ART, MY FRIENDS. THAT IS LIFE IN IT’S PUREST AND R.R. IS GODLY POET. CAN WE JUST LOVE THIS HUMAN BEING, LIKE A LOT. YES, THIS IS THE ONE THAT 35 NOTES HOLY ****!

I honestly don’t care what gender, sexuality, species, ANYTHING you are {(unless you are secretly evil like that anon said; 

“…-Anyways, from the very few asks they’ve posted, they seem cute, whether they’re boy or girl. And cute people don’t fake stuff unless they’re secretly evil (omg R.R. please be a pureroll).”}

I LOVE YOUR WORK!

(and this is where leon rekjavik gains their sanity again)

Excuse me for that.

Of course, the R.R. hype sort of came back, with people all but screaming in the ask-boxes about R.R.’s comeback, poetry prowess, just everything R.R. There were some sceptics, but that’s just the general Internet. Everything was back in the flow. Then, some people began to ask… questions. Like, what’s R.R.’s sexuality, what do you think R.R. looks like? I think R.R. is a boy/girl! No, they’re not a boy/girl, come fight me.

And then, R.R. replied, in the most sweetest, most serene way humanly possible:

“To those who wish to know my face, look away from hither, for you shall not find the answers you seek for. Whether I find myself interested in boys or girls is nothing special. For now, why not enjoy the sweet summer that rains down from the sky, for it only lasts a few months before it’s a memory again. Leave your homes and walk bare-foot on the grass, feel the wind on your face, hear the nature around you. We don’t know if we’ll have a future where such luxuries exist. -R.R.”

They have talent, and I don’t care what anyone says. Fight me. 

This new era of R.R. is obviously a way of R.R. showing their love to this blog, by submitting a form of art, poetry! And Lord, does it compliment the blog so well with the was they weave the words…

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I wanted to write more, but I can’t…

Anyways, that’s a summary/analysis/explanation thing for R.R., for now, from Leon Rekjavik!

I was thinking of actually making a master-post for the R.R. asks, if Mun would be okay with that. I’m just another visitor to this blog, who likes your work a lot, but I couldn’t help but notice the amount of times someone posted an ask asking who is R.R. It may help clear some things up, and just help the people catch up with the entire R.R. phenomena.

I don’t know why I do these, even now… mysteries are just so fun to look through I guess?

I’m sorry if this wasn’t written as nicely as the other one I did. This is a link to the previous one if anyone is interested, it explains everything R.R. to the point, like it’s a must read:

https://ask-art-student-prussia.tumblr.com/post/162708791482/the-case-of-rr-an-analysis-by-leon-rekjavik

I’m not doing this in any form of promotion or attention. If you look at my Tumblr, I literally have nothing in my posts. It’s because I just like looking for cool blogs like Mun's here, and don’t feel like posting anything I do personally. 

I just want R.R. to be understood a bit better, that’s it. Also, I have a little too much spare time on my hands… (at the moment. Just wait for college to start).

I hoped you liked it.

Bye.

-Leon Rekjavik (it’s still not my real name, try finding me, stalker!)

P.S

Mun, please accept my humble submission! Don’t throw it in the reject pile!

how the fuck did you write all this what the hell oh m y hofdod?