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cassidymb121 · 18 days

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OMG It’s You (Part 6)

YouTube! Fem reader x Stray Kids

Summary: Y/N’s YouTube channel is taking off after her reactions to Stray Kids MV God’s Menu. Now she’s making videos nonstop along with working a full time job. What would happen if she got offered a job of a lifetime and met the boys of her succession?

⚠️Warnings⚠️: rambling, rambling, and more rambling

🏷️: @laylasbunbunny @weirdowithaphone @silverstarburst @jusanontstuff @anxiousskylar @drewsandsebastianswife @amararosesblog @niaalove (Taglist open)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 2.5 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6.5 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

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Y/N’s POV

I felt a sense of being overwhelmed as I attempted to set up the PO Box address. Gasping for breath, I went to my desk to power up all the necessary devices. I sank into my chair while waiting for my computers to boot up. I had just started reading an email when I received a call from the post office. After logging into my laptop, I returned to the email to continue reading.

Dear Y/N,

We closely follow your channel and greatly appreciate your insightful reviews on K-pop albums. On behalf of everyone here at JYP Entertainment, we are pleased to offer you exclusive access to Stray Kids' newest mini album, Oddinary. We kindly request that you refrain from releasing the video until the official release date. We would also request early access to the video to arrange for Stray Kids to watch it together before the release. We sincerely appreciate your continuous support for Stray Kids. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Park Jin-young

I almost wanted to roll my eyes when he asked me not to release the video until everyone could access the mini-album. Like, I would even think about doing that anyway. I click on the attachment below where the mini album sits, waiting to be listened to. I look back at all the stuff I brought from the post office and drop my shoulders. ‘Do I want to record this video first, or wait and make a video about all the stuff I got from the fans?’ That thought alone was already making my head hurt. “On one hand, if I go ahead and listen to the mini album, all I’ll have to do is edit it. However, I’ll have all these packages and letters littering my room.

On the other hand, if I do the stuff from the fans, I might be unable to record the mini album video before it releases.” I say aloud to myself. I knew that no longer sitting here would prevent me from doing anything.

After making up my mind, I decided to make a short video showing all the stuff I got from the post office and then review the mini album. So that way, I can edit it and have it ready. In the meantime, I can start opening up the mail I’ve gotten from the fans. Satisfied with the plan I’ve conjured in my head, I get started on executing my plan.

Before I go any further, I type up a professional email to JYP thanking him for the access and promise not to release the video until everyone else has access.

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After creating a brief video showcasing the items I received and promising to film myself opening the packages, I uploaded it to my channel. Next, I retrieved the attachment for the mini album. I reached for my headphones from the rack on my desk and plugged them into my laptop. After conducting thorough sound checks to ensure the viewers and I could hear the music clearly, I proceeded to freshen up and grab something to eat once everything was set up to my liking.

Returning to my seat, I feel refreshed after showering and having a satisfying meal. I lean back and settle in, cleaning my teeth thoroughly with brushing and flossing. I need to present myself well to my audience, and I want to avoid any distractions, like food stuck between my teeth, that could detract from the experience. The thought of it gives me chills.

Grabbing my favorite pair of over-ear headphones, I carefully place them over my ears, ensuring they fit snugly. I double-check the microphone to ensure it's picking up my voice clearly, adjusting the distance as needed. Taking a moment to compose myself, I settle into my chair and take a deep breath to calm my nerves. With everything in place, I press the button to turn on my camera and count to five before flashing a warm smile and beginning my address to everyone watching.

“Hello Lovelies! So, I have some fascinating news for all of you. I received an email from a certain company and have been given early access to this artist's mini-album. That’s right! JYP has given me early access to Stray Kids newest Mini Album!” I start excitingly clapping to myself and smiling as wide as I can. “Now, while I may be getting to listen to this early, this video will not hit my channel until the actual release date comes. I will also upload this video once everyone has access to it. As most of you know, I listen to the whole album and then talk about it—what I like about it, what stands out most, etc. Still, in the end, I will give this album an honest review and rate it from 1 to 10. So, let’s get started.”

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Third Person POV

The boys were called into one of the offices, and you could say they did not feel this would be a good meeting. Even when they get to the room, they see their boss already there with a laptop. Chan, getting ready to take the heat from their boss for the group, gets stopped by JYP. “I didn't call you here because you did anything. I called you here for quite the opposite.” The boys were about to ask him what they were called in for, but their boss beat them. “I have something that I want you boys to watch. I think you will enjoy this. Leave the laptop when you’re done and press play when ready.” He tells them, leaving them with the laptop. Once he leaves the room and the boys can no longer hear his footsteps, they rush to the computer. They hesitate before pressing play, but what they see leaves them speechless.

It’s a video of Y/N, and they see that their boss gave her early access to their comeback album. Before they get too far into the video, they get chairs to be comfortable while watching her listen to their music. Changbin brings up the idea of connecting the laptop to the projector so it's not crowded around a small screen. They all agreed and fixed everything; all they had to do was press play on the laptop. Once everything is set, Chan clicks on the play button. All attention turns to the screen showing their favorite YouTuber.

“So, Stray Kids newest comeback album is called Oddinary and I will edit in a picture of what the cover looks like.” Before talking about it, she adds a picture of what their cover looks like. “Just from looking at it, I would say it looks pretty dope, like a screen-like mannequin head with screws showing out of it. Their color scheme is green, black, silver, and maybe purple. The titles on the album are, in order, Venom. Maniac. Charmer.Freeze. Lonely St. Waiting For Us with Bang Chan, Lee Know, Seungmin, and I.N. Muddy Water with Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, and Felix. I like all these song titles. Waiting For Us will be a tearjerker, so I must have my tissues on standby.”The boys start laughing and nudging each other. She bites her bottom lip while moving her cursor to the first song. “I’m going to listen to the songs in order, and I might save Waiting For Us last since I want to make sure Muddy Water gets a fair chance. Plus, I would cry in the end. Okay, without further ado, let’s get started.” The boys watch and gauge her reaction to each song. She tells them that she will talk about each song after listening to them all. When she reaches the end, she stops playing the last song. “Wow. I’m trying to save all my thoughts until after I listen to Waiting For Us. Why am I so nervous about listening to this? I know it will be a good song, but this one might knock it out of the park.” She shakes her head. “Alright, let’s do this. I’ve got my tissues on hand.” The boys laugh with her. The music starts to play, and her reaction changes right away.

Chan sees her go ahead and grab a tissue. Lee Know sees that her eyes start to look shiny. Changbin says that she’s gripping the tissue in her hand tightly. Hyunjin notices that she’s trying to keep her face neutral but fails to smile. Han watches as a stray tear falls down her face, even though she’s happy. Felix’s eyes follow her hand as she wipes her face with the tissue. Seungmin looks as she replays the song again. I.N. watches as she closes her eyes, listening deeply to the words, and tears stream down her face. At the very end, she removes her headphones, looks off to the side, and then laughs.

“I told you I was going to cry. I knew it was inevitable.” The boys smile at the girl on the screen, waiting for her review. “I will give this mini album a 100 out of 10. It has some great aspects to it. I love how each song fits and feels with the album title. There was a reason why I left Waiting For Us last: because I knew I would fall in love with it and did not want to listen to the other tracks. As it turns out, I was right.” She and the boys laugh.

“One thing about listening to a song for the first time is that not all click with you immediately. Everyone is different. Sometimes, it may take a few listens before you think, ‘I dig this song.’ Others will like it right away. I would say that I loved each song, but a couple of songs that didn’t click right away were Venom and Muddy Water. Now, does that mean I don’t like those songs? No, I enjoy them. That’s like the IN LIFE album. At first, The Tortoise and the Hare didn’t click with me. I loved the lyrics and the music, but a couple of parts in the song threw me off. Now that song can be put on repeat, I wouldn’t get tired of hearing it repeatedly. The moral of all the nonsense I’m saying is that sometimes songs don’t click right away but end up promising.”

The boys, watching her intently, wait for her final words. “I made two edits of this video since I knew I wanted to send one to the guys.” The boys freeze up as she looks straight into the camera before continuing. “Stray Kids. If you’re watching this right now, I want you to know how proud I am of all of you. You’ve come this far, and you’re still doing an amazing job. You keep showing Stays daily that you still have tricks up your sleeves.” She smiles at them. “Keep up the good work, but take care of yourselves. That means taking breaks, ensuring you eat, and getting the necessary sleep.” She points at the camera, “That means you too, Christopher.” She raises her eyebrows. “Don’t make me fly over there and force you to sleep.” The boys start to tease their leader with her mocking words. He waves their hands away, trying to listen to what she has to say. “Well, that’s it for the video! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did until we meet again. Bye!” She smiles, waving at the camera.

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(A/N: I decided to add this in because why not 🤷🏻‍♀️ The reader gets first access to Stray Kids mini album and Stray Kids get early access of the reader reacting to their newest comeback. I’ll be doing a second part to this chapter specifically to the reader videoing herself opening the packages from her fans (Including the boys 🤪)

(With a special surprise 😏)

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legendary-guest · 27 days

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Commenting/reviewing fanfiction is a sure fire way to ensure that a fandom develops a community, which in turns encourages authors, from beginners to veterans, to continue writing. So, how do you engage with fanfic authors in a way that's meaningful and reflective of your appreciation for their work? - Read a fic more than once: Perhaps the best piece of advice I can provide to prep anyone for reviewing. You don't have to do it right after a first read (but hey, some stories are just that good!), you can wait and come back to it. A few hours, a day, a week, maybe longer depending on the time you have. When you return, read again or skim through, and jot down your thoughts. You will find they are much more coherent, and potentially constructive, than on your first reading. - Whatever sticks out to you, mention in your review: This will naturally happen in your time away from a fic, even if you forget the whole story. This is a pretty good sign that you enjoyed it! You should share this enjoyment, and with wild abandon, in your review! - Speculate and ask: If you have questions, ask them! If you are speculating, if you have a particular reading that you have lifted from a story, mention it! Authors, on the whole, tend to be very receptive to alternative views of their work. The exciting part in reviewing publicly is seeing what other readers have noticed that you haven't. It helps to generate a buzz, a hype, especially for multi-chapter fanfics. - Improvement doesn't happen in a vacuum, provide constructive criticism: Now, con. crit. has been deemed a social faux pas in the past decade or so in fandom that originates from this website. However, if you enjoy a story from an author but they have spelling errors, grammatical errors, even something more 'serious' like aspects of a story that aren't working, you should mention it, because it will stop them making similar mistakes in future. They can improve faster with your input. It also shows other fans that it is okay to make mistakes. Some authors take con. crit. poorly, either due to their age or other factors. You can usually tell the general maturity of an author by their writing and if they have responded to other commenters. Either way, their reaction to your con. crit. is their own, not yours. - Only review what you like: Reviewing should be enjoyable for you, the reader. Just like rambling on your Tumblr blog about character of the week, reviewing/commenting is your opportunity to do this on the website the fic is hosted on, whether that's AO3, FF.Net, or, reblogging a fic and adding your comment/review in your reblog. For you, the reader, it is there to develop a deeper appreciation for the story that you have read. You provide a knock-on effect in helping out the author, helping out other readers and fostering a community of people who can be open with their opinions, viewpoints, which in turn, generates more public discussion, more fan work, etc. Who should be reviewing fanfic? Everyone that reads fanfic! A more realistic answer would be people who have time to read fanfic but not write their own. Reviewing is a good way to engage in community without devoting a lot of your own creativity to it - you can even remain totally anonymous, depending on the platform. Reviewing can take a long time, or a short time, depending on the story. It's fun to find out! But remember, you shouldn't rush to get a review out for anyone, you work on it in your time and on your terms. Reviewing is for you, too! This is your chance to talk about what you love with someone who will be receptive to your enthusiasm - the author. If you want to get into fanfic, but have no idea where to start, I would suggest reviewing first! You will develop an eye for the style of writing that you like, particular characterisations you enjoy, amongst many other things. You might be inspired by other fanfics, too! Have an idea for a prequel, sequel, midquel for a fic you've read? What about an idea you saw in a fic that you'd love to explore more?

Or an alternative path/story that you saw but the author didn't take? Reviewing will help you to realise this.

You will enjoy fanfiction a lot more this way, too. Legacy fandoms, such as that of Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. have more staying power due to, not just the constant influx of official content, but because the people that write fanfiction have people who review them, and who review and critique them, respectfully.

I would love to see more people review! It's a really powerful gift that is at your disposal, dear reader. Who else can claim to bring those back from the dead? It could be you, it could be you…

#fandom culture #ao3 comments #ao3 #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic writing #fanfic reviewing #archive of our own #fandom #fandom community #legendary advice #I write this as someone who reviews! Not from the perspective of an author at least here #What the Hell do I even tag this as #What do I even tag this as for my reference/for the purpose of this blog #Hell if I know

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shinakazami1 · 6 months

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TSP ramble: TK and the Narrator's relationship

@stelar-time was thinking about TK and The Narrator so I decided to make a small ramble about one of the ways I see their relationship

TL;DR Narry and TK might actually tolerate each other and have found a common enemy

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The Narrator seems to look at everything in his Parable as his original creation. TK is no different, as we already have the admission from Davey himself that TK=432. But just like you change the lore of your OCs, the fact the games could be stretched for 10 years does show how much could have been changed in The Narrator's perception.

We meet TK in the form of The Settings Person but the way TK presents himself later - it seems the 432's travel beyond dimension gets him beyond the Narrator's reach too...Which is fair, as we never see the Narrator really interact with the menu- or...does he.

Bumpscosity. One small tiny gag but the implications of it are massive. Like sure - the Narrator and Cookie9 maybe forgot you can mute the Narrator in-menu, but Narry reacts to the level of Bumpscosity you set and has a full achievement for checking all the settings.

Now why would he know only that and not TK's existence? There is that issue of Narry not being omniscient and often showing he doesn't know shit (Broken achievement) but...he made the world of the Parable, possibly. He made all these NPCs and he, in some way, made Stanley, too.

So - why since TSPUD is overall a love letter to both Player and Stanley, let it be to Parable, too? To a representation of the most tormented OC yet? But now - the thing about Memory Zone is that it wasn't meant to be decay. It's what the name says - a sanctuary for memories.

Look *where* it is though. This part isn't in the original Memory Zone. There are reviews that weren't there before and that proves something - that the Narrator purposefully put them. And at the end, at the very end of the road - there it is.

The only room not covered in sand.

And yet somehow - this is the computer TK is in. It could have been any computer at all in the Parable but TK is there, waiting for you patiently, in the room best preserved, with its own light.

For me - the Narrator doesn't hate TK. Even if TK seems to resent him.

The Narrator knows he can't escape. He wants to move on yet - seeing how long he was in the Skip Button, I think he already tried everything. So, when he was waiting for us to return - that was plenty of time to get out of the bounds. To revisit old projects and make new ones.

But look at TK's lines in this part.

Did you read what the developers said?? "Preserve the integrity of the franchise"?! You see, that was the Narrator's problem. He was so obsessed with what people thought of his work. Don't make his mistake. Don't cling to the legacy. Let it burn.

He talks about the Narrator in the past tense. This can be seen as a critique but I think it can also be seen as a warning of something he and the Narrator talked about since the Narrator wanted to let go. He learnt from his mistake.

Why was Narry then so surprised about the broken achievement? He possibly worried about the devs being brought back. About him thinking he got everything in control by making new versions of the endings and already discussing it all behind the camera with TK and then leaving them

But that's just a theory. A shina-way-too-long-once-again-at-2-am-fuck-me-why-do-I-do-this-to-everyone theory.

#my ramblings #tsp #theory #tk #narrator #timekeeper #settings person #the tettings person #432 #the narrator #tspud #the stanley parable #nobody gonna see it but my brain is fire

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e-adlirez · 2 months

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Thea Stilton Treasure Seekers Review/Ramble

Behold, an impulsive ramble about a possibly-obscure trilogy that's been translated to English during quarantine-ish, adding to the obscurity.

So the Treasure Seekers, huh? :3

Coming out a little prior but more or less over the course of quarantine and thus a lot of people not having ready access to it, the Treasure Seekers is what turned out to be a trilogy of what it says on the tin: the girls hunting down cool treasures as a result of going down the world's biggest and highest-stakes scavenger hunt written a hundred-ish years prior to the present time.

Gonna be giving MAJOR spoilers for the first book in the trilogy, and there'll (probably) be one post per book in the trilogy. If you haven't read the book, here's a copy on the Internet Archive you can read before skipping ahead to the review, enjoy, it's pretty good. If you've already read the book or don't care about spoilers, please proceed below the cut :3

The story begins with the girls on summer vacation in Scotland. Shenanigans get started when they meet this old hermit woman who has in her house a mysterious heirloom tapestry with a mysterious poem on it.

The tapestry has this poem that talks about a place with sweet winds, petals that will lead you to something beneath them, something about midnight and birds, and an alabaster garden created for the "jewel of the palace" (like me to you), that is guarded by a friend with deep feet. Sounds like a whole lotta cryptic shnit the theory heads would enjoy :D

Anyway so the girls go visit Beitris (the hermit woman) the next day to return something they borrowed from her only to walk into a holdup :D

Said holdup-ers are these two grunts led by this mysterious lady hiding her identity under a black fedora and thick-framed Ray Bans. The girls deal with that situation real quick and get the guys to scarper (if you're wondering how they did that, "the police are coming"), and once it all blows over, they find that the thugs only stole the tapestry despite ransacking the entire place like raccoons. Such a realization leads to a revelation on Beitris's end, so she entrusts the girls with the tapestry's backstory in a segment I will describe as LAAANNNEEEE LOOOORRRREEEEEE (said in a MatPat voice, we'll miss you king :'])

The tapestry was a family heirloom passed down to Beitris by her grandmother Petra, who got it from her older sister Aurora Beatrix Lane, who is basically British Amelia Earhart. Wasn't into girly shnit, liked being outside and also archaeology, studied in the University of Cambridge as an Archaeology major and learned how to fly a plane, all while punting early 1900s gender norms into oblivion with her pants and motorcycle. Motorcycle queen, plane queen, archaeology queen, but then everything changed when this British Amelia Earhart did a British Amelia Earhart.

The context behind Aurora Beatrix Lane's disappearance is something relating to her work with her mentor Jan Von Klawitz, who was doing archaeology things with her and probably got up to some wild shnit, but we would never know because Aurora is very secretive about her plans and her destinations, and she only came home to the UK once, after her first trip, and that was when she gave smol child Petra the tapestry to guard because it led to "a very precious treasure", but she can't show it yet for the time being. The vibe was Aurora was planning on using the tapestry to show the treasure it hides once she's done with her archaeology shenanigans.

But then she did an Amelia Earhart but completely untraceable since she never revealed her destinations, so uh there's that :D

Back to the present, this little storytime from Beitris has gotten the girls sucked into a rabbit hole. They are now hyperfixated like nobody's business and this Aurora Beatrix Lane is JUST LIKE THEM FR, and as a result they decide that y'know what they still have a few days before classes in Mouseford starts, and while they're at it, they're gonna find Beitris's tapestry and maaayyyybeeee find the alabaster garden. First destination: Girton College at the University of Cambridge, Aurora Beatrix Lane's alma mater.

The girls take a quick jaunt to Girton by train and then by bus to have a lil' chat with the dean, who reveals to them that they're looking for the central archive if they're gonna be looking for the deets on a student from a hundred years ago, but uh the archive is closed for the day, please come tomorrow. (Wonder why, maybe it's because they rode from Scotland to Girton by train which takes a shnitload of time. /nsrs but fr tho I wonder if the original Italian had them drive over there by car-- they did rent an SUV, and going by car would be way faster, like it'll only take a seven-hour drive faster) They come back the next day, are let into the archives, and oop, they find a well-preserved diary with Aurora's initials hidden in the Stanley Library.

Y'know what that means, LANE LOOORRRREEEEE

So two months into her accompanying Jan on his excavations, she notes that Jan's been acting a bit sus lately-- being very nervous, being extremely protective over his luggage, being weird about hiding some of the relics he's found, and also a weird-ass incident where while exploring a small village's old castle, Aurora found a hidden chamber with a tome inside that Jan immediately snatched and was like "I'll take care of it don't worry, don't worry about the protocol stuff I'll be fine I'll take care of it". And then he went back to "normal" after that. Hmmmm.

A month later, while Jan was talking with one of his collaborators on their train to England, Aurora stumbled into the tome again, suspiciously in Jan's personal luggage instead of being properly archived and catalogued like it should've been. She read it, saw a thing about the Seven Treasures of the World, and that caused her protagonist genes to kick in since now she's now very tempted to look into finding them and showing them to the world.

After that, she went to some libraries to investigate and eventually decided to confront Jan about the whole treasures thing and his first reaction was he was pissed, calling Aurora a snoop and everything poking into his things. Then after calming down he said "just pretend to not see", but oh no, dear reader, Aurora was not gonna pretend to not see. She ain't gonna pretend to not see the fact that her mentor was actually a treasure hunter and collector who'd been using his occupation as an excuse to snatch some nifty treasures and keep them to himself like every European country who's stolen artifacts from Asian countries ever, ohohohooooo noooo, she's gonna do something about it.

The girls scuttle on over back to Scotland and Beitris, to find that uh oh dear, the thugs came back again and this time they were asking about the girls specifically. Beitris pulled the same trick the girls pulled to get them to leave. So NOW the thugs are looking for the girls for whatever reason and wanna know their deal. Anyway, the girls show Beitris Aurora's diary, tell her about the summary, and also that unfortunately some of the pages are missing, and the diary doesn't say shnit about the tapestry so far. Beitris helps by giving them a letter that Aurora sent to Petra about the tapestry and its treasure, but interestingly mentions that she should "only trust Robert".

Since I haven't mentioned him before, Robert Neville was Aurora's flight tutor, a flying medic, and was toootttallllyyyyy just friends with Aurora you guys they were totally just frie--

He is dead in the present time, but his nephew John Neville is a (former) lighthouse keeper for the Ar-Men lighthouse in the IÎe de Sein, Brittany, France. So the girls head on over there, land in France, insert a thing where Vi feels like she's being watched but is like "maybe it's just a me thing, I dunno".

They head over to the Île de Sein, find an old man who turns out to be John, are invited to his house, tell him about their situation, and John mentions that he himself has been researching like crazy too about Aurora ever since hers and Jan's simultaneous disappearance over the same place at the same time in the same terrible storm. And also the fact that Robert was totally devastated when he got the news and spent years looking for her. He gives them his notes that he's accumulated over decades of researching in his pastime (which amounts to just Aurora's trip to Mexico), and tells them that since Aurora was looking for seven treasures, they'll need to find out where her seven trips took place, which will not be easy because Aurora was extremely secretive, and she only made her first trip even remotely public.

First place is Mexico so might as well head on over-- oh god the holdup-ers are back to holdup.

The thugs snatch Aurora's diary and book it before the girls can do much besides get an impromptu ocean bath, and oh dear, the thugs' boss has them now, and it's not the mafia cosplayer lookin' woman. But that's something I'll address later :3

Nonetheless, they carry on since the thugs never stole John's notebook, and they use it to go to the Puuc Route in Mérida, Yucatán (sounds very specific until you realize that Mérida is the capital of the Yucatán, and one thing everyone and their mother knows about the Mayan ruins there like Chichen Itza) to find more clues.

They do some more research on the Puuc Route, find some clues about "an invisible place, guarded by the chattiest of creatures", discover that it means they have to go to Uxmal, get a dub against the unfortunately acrophobic thugs, and realize that yes, Aurora did in fact sneak another one of her diaries in there.

This one doesn't have as much Lane Lore to contribute besides a clue that the girls find leads to Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, India, a city known for its perfumes :3 sounds like "sweet winds", doesn't it? Oh and there's also something about a place with two lakes, which turns out to be Lakh Bahosi, a bird sanctuary about an hour's drive away from Kannauj. The girls head on over and try to do some investigating, but it doesn't take them that long to find a pair of grunts struggling under the weight of a very familiar tapestry while their boss was struggling to supervise them with her heels constantly digging into bird sanctuary dirt.

Anyway so the girls concoct a little scheme to steal the tapestry and the thugs fall for it like fish for a fishing lure, and they managed to scatter with the tapestry. After getting to a private space in the sanctuary, they find a clue that leads them to a set of coordinates that they find is a beeg tree. Oh and the treasure seems to be a present that was made for someone close to Mumtaz Mahal, as in "the jewel of the palace", the woman the Taj Mahal was made for; and the tapestry has a set of coordinates that is leading them to a beeg tree, with deep roots/feet. Oh hell yeah it's all comin' together.

They get to the tree, deal with the mafia lady for a little bit, find the treasure, and it turns out it's a very exquisite perfume bottle made of alabaster called "The Perfume of the Earth". They find a little note from Aurora explaining the treasure and its value and the significance of finding it, and now the girls have found the treasure Aurora had been searching for, and now's the time for a villain reveal?

So I haven't talked about him yet and have glossed over this guy for the entire ramble. See the mafia lady, Cassidy? Yeah she's not the big boss here. It's this guy who has a whole secret base in Denali National Park, Alaska, and has been overseeing everything behind the scenes. And by everything, I mean everything: He was alerted to the whole thing with Cassidy's first raid of Beitris's house, found out about the girls' involvement, and for a good half of the book, was trying to figure out what the girls' motives are for interfering with his line of work and what they might know about this whole thing he's looking for, which is the alabaster garden.

This guy has been keeping tabs on the girls through Cassidy and her thugs, who've been stalking the girls ever since France. He and Cassidy figured out in Paris that the girls are Mouseford students on vacation, and he was the one who gave the orders to snatch the journal from there. He was the one who told the goons to tail them to Mexico, and he was the one who managed to look up the girls' names, backgrounds, reasons for being in Scotland, all from the comfort of his base in Alaska. And only then, only then did he go to India himself to supervise and put a cap to his goons' buffoonery.

Who is this guy? Well, he is a treasure hunter who just wants to enjoy the treasures Aurora Beatrix Lane has hidden from his great-grandfather a hundred years ago. That's right, meet Luke Von Klawitz, the current heir to the Klawitz legacy and the treasure trove Jan Von Klawitz left behind in spite of his disappearance. Unfortunately Jan was better (and old enough) to secure a family legacy of greedy artifact hoarding.

So while the girls were in Lakh Bahosi, Luke was too with the goons and Cassidy (who is not his right-hand man and more just... a subordinate trying too hard to impress him), being the babysitter with these guys on leashes, as he tries to keep their stupidity under control. He intercepts the girls as they're about to leave Lakh Bahosi, blocking their path, and asks about the alabaster garden. The girls obviously don't spill and prolly would've gotten themselves blackbagged and interrogated had a friend they made prior to Lakh Bahosi not shown up in her dad's truck and came in clutch. (It sounds cliche and like it came out of nowhere but trust me it makes sense in-universe-- after the girls left the friend's family restaurant that they were hanging at, Luke's goons came over to interrogate them about the girls and where they went. Subtlety, who is she?)

The girls bring the perfume to a nearby university so it can be brought to a museum, send the tapestry back to Beitris, and return home to Whale Island, to read the last bits of Aurora's second journal and presumably to

So that's the book :D I put in a LOT of spoilers, but I'd say that reading the book is still worth it because you'll be able to get the connecting tissues that tie the organs of this story together. H-hopefully this all made sense . .'''

First things first, if you're not used to how Scholastic kids' novels are written, then uh, you might wanna get used to it, because the English translation of Thea Stilton is very... that. It's not beating the kids' book allegations in English, unfortunately. On the brighter side, though, it's pretty good for Scholastic standards! The pacing's very fast, but it feels about right-- gives me the same energy as diving deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole and going to all sorts of places because of the hyperfixation responsible for consuming their sanity for all of a week or so. The dialogue isn't nearly as atrocious as the worst it's capable of being (oh trust me we'll get to that). The tapestry puzzle and how the girls work towards solving it is very coherent and logical for the situation they are in at the beginning, and it's very satisfying to see everything come together and for things to slowly make more and more sense in the poem despite it being as vague and puzzle box-y as it was.

The Lane family lore is very well-thought-out, and Aurora Beatrix Lane is the perfect spiritual predecessor to the girls, what with her love for adventure, love for travel, strong moral compass, and the strong compulsion to elbow drop every single feminine social rule under the sun. I can totally buy her being someone the girls would totally hyperfixate on researching, because she feels like that kind of compelling character-- a passionate young archaeologist who decided to put her own safety on the line for the sake of what she believed in and to dunk on Klawitz and his selfish (and very illegal) goals of hoarding the treasures of the world to himself.

As for the villain, I'll be real gamers, Luke Von Klawitz is probably the most intimidating if not terrifying villain in the entire franchise. He has drones spying on every corner of the world for him, he has goons he can contact at any time and have them do his bidding (to mixed results it seems), he has cutting-edge technology that he uses for terrifying means, all in the safety and comfort of his secret underground base in Alaska where he has his little basement filled to the brim with historical artifacts he's kept all to himself to enjoy. Lemme run this through you again:

He was able to learn the girls names, the university they're studying in, and why they were in Scotland in the first place, all without ever meeting them face-to-face or having his goons interrogate them directly. All he needed to learn all of this was the (not very helpful) research by Cassidy, and a few commands put into his world-connected supercomputer.

Are you intimidated yet? I sure hope you are :D this guy's got a lotta potential is what I'm saying. He's a bit of a brat who wants what he wants and wants it immediately, but he's also a bit of a chess master who looks over things in the background while his minions do all the work for him. Really the only thing holding him back is the incompetency of his goons, and technically it's not even that they're very stupid-- Cassidy and her grunts Stan and Max are very good at swooping in out of nowhere to wreak havoc, dip in and get out before anyone can do anything about it. They're decent if not good at the job they're usually assigned: low-level grunt work. Unfortunately they're not good at much else, which drove Luke insane this entire book, haha.

The girls' dynamic with Cassidy, Stan and Max was refreshing in the sense that the girls aren't always getting punted by them, and the goons aren't always taking Ls just from physical contact with the girls. Cassidy and the goons always had the element of surprise on their side, being able to show up out of nowhere and do their thing before the girls have time to even blink; but once the girls figured out their whole shtick, it was easy to learn that they are easily outclass-able by five mouse Oxford students in braincell count and thus act accordingly. They force the girls to think fast and come up with some snappy plans on the spot, and the girls force Luke to realize he hired Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, and Tweedle Dummy as goons :D

Now uh, I have been complimenting this thing the entire time, but there is one little thing I have an issue within this book, and that is the whole... Power of Friendship thing they've got going on throughout the book.

Yes, unfortunately, the Friendship Curse has claimed this hardcover series too, and while it's not the worst here, it's still... it's still a bit atrocious :D

For instance, the conclusion Cassidy and Luke come to for the girls' reasons for interference is "friendship". Literally, Cassidy literally says to Luke, "It seems they did it out of friendship, Sir", and then Luke responds with an evil cackle and is like "FRIENDSHIP? THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP DOESN'T EXIST IN THIS WORLD! AIN'T NO WAAAAYYYYY THEY'RE NOT FIVE SCHEMERS WHO WANNA GET THE TREASURES THEMSELVES", which is like... I don't get that vibe from Luke anywhere else in the book? Luke values efficiency and getting what he wants-- he's not hired Cassidy to be all buddy-buddy with her, he hired her for a job and she has to work to fulfill said job. He just wants competent employees, and y'know what, that's valid. Not a single part in that have I seen "ew power of friendship". It's very villain for the sake of villainy kind of energy, which I don't think fits Luke with the other bits of information we get of him? He's following his great-granddad's footsteps-- not a single minute of that did that mean "the spirit of friendship doesn't exist get yo head outa the cotton candy"

Then there's... how this applies to the girls.

inhales

WHY DID THEY MAKE VIOLET THE GROUP'S FRIENDSHIP PROPHET GRAAAAHHHH

I probably would make a full-blown rant about this at some point, but one thing I never liked about any of the hardcovers was how Violet of all people is the group's assigned friendship prophet. She'd occasionally make a comment about how uh something something the power of love is the strongest of all, and every single time I don't like it :D

Sure fine you can chalk it up to character development since her early months in Mouseford, but in the earlier books it's heavily established that she's the pragmatic one, the braincell keeper, the one who keeps the girls' group ADHD on track or the one who reminds them that "hey we've been at this for a really long time and it's now 2AM, we should really turn in now". Being a friendship prophet is a Colette thing, not a Violet thing, and I'm not trying to insult Colette or anything like that. I would be far more okay with it if Colette was the one to go on about the "power of love" because she's literally the HOPELESS ROMANTIC! She's the one with her head in the clouds, the one most likely to fangirl about ships in movies, the one who chooses to ship Romeo and Juliet and pretend to not see the entire second act of said play for the sake of believing in love.

If Colette had a line where she gushed about the power of friendship, I would've just chalked it up to "that cheesy-ass statement is something she'd totally say ngl", as opposed to the jarring whiplash I get from seeing Violet of all people call upon the Power of Friendship.

Again, probably will rant about this at some point (lemme know if you're into that idea), but yeah -m-

Literally just chuck the power of friendship bits and replace them with something more practical/realistic/grounded/whateveryouwannacallit, and it's basically perfect! Even the bits where the girls make friends on their journey is believable! Those don't have to be altered at all! Geuh it drives me insane, almost to the point of wanting to do something about it....

Well, that's enough rambling for today. I can't use up all my steam on this first book-- I plan on making ramblings for the second and third books, after all.

See ya Stilton fans, and for the newcomers from Twitter, welcome :D I hope you enjoy your stay :D

#geronimo stilton #thea stilton #thea sisters #book review #book rant #book rambles #unfortunately treasure seekers 3 isn't available on the archive as far as I'm seeing :'3 #which is disappointing because GWAAAHHH #not gonna give any spoilers but it and book 1 are tied for my favorite in the trilogy #i remember reading the first treasure seekers and immediately feeling nostalgic because i severely missed the girls treasure hunting #high stakes and all that crazy stuff that the older books delivered #tangoing with some crazy villains with some hella power and not like the latter four graphic novels did #i missed that a lot so having it in treasure seekers made my at-the-time 15-year-old self very happy #ipads dieded rn but once i get it back and fixed and hopefully not factory reset i should draw some treasure seekers doodles fr #maybe something like i dunno aurora beatrix lane #who knows :]

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chickenstrangers · 5 months

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2023 gifs in review tag game

tagged by @khaotunq (here!) to post my favorite/most popular gifs throughout the year. thank you!!🩵🩵🩵

I only started making gifs partway through this year, so there was a big learning curve and i still think i'm pretty newbie but it has been a lot of fun and it's nice looking back on how much i think i've improved, though i have so much left to learn next year

i am going to ramble too much because this is my post, fair warning, forgive my self indulgence

april

this was the very beginning, back in the photopea days before i tried photoshop (i am still quite fond of photopea, 1. because it is free and 2, for stills i think it's just as good as photoshop, but i could never figure out how to make gifs look good with its dithering system. i have seen some remarkable gifmakers using photopea tho so that's a my limited skill problem, and i'm glad i used it to dip my toes into the process!)

i only posted 1 set for abaab this month which looks not good but is still a very fun scene, but this was not actually the first thing i made (see below).

may

most popular: msp finale, tinn knowing all the words to gun's song <3

favorite: moonlight chicken, my first ever gifset and the reason i got into gifmaking because i wanted to capture the way moonlight chicken visually returned to locations and shots to underline its theme of loneliness being replaced by community, which is the mlc repetitions series

june

most popular & favorite: kiss me again (2018) and the lovely way june say's goodby to his friends (i learned how to add text to gifs for this one, and not only that but timed text! i thought it would get like 5 notes. it's very messy and doesn't look great, but i'm proud that i learned something with it, and i think its very funny and that's all that matters to me)

july

it's photoshop time now!! photoshop beloved you make such beautiful gifs and also you are So Slow and my computer cannot handle you.

most popular: only friends original trailer set

favorite: jimwen looking at each other set (the start of my most belovedest of series, the followup to the first ever meta i wrote)

august

most popular: part 1 of the can't i look at you edits, cool tones edition

favorite: part 2 of the can't i look at you edits, warm toned edition (i love them both but this has two of my all time favorite wen faces)

hey its my profile picture and also i find it very funny that the Os line up with his eyes, and the second gif i love how impossibly happy they look

september

my busiest month in terms of gifs, in large part due to only friends

most popular: topmew and fire

favorite: alanwen poetry edit i spent soooo long learning keyframes for the heartbeat effect and then the ghosting effect was a happy accident thank you person in the background walking past at the right moment

(i also love my charn laws of attraction set because he was a surprise favorite character this year, i loved collecting the quotes for how he speaks of himself)

october

most popular: only friends sandray finale parallel set (it is. very very close to 1k which is. so many).

favorite: he's coming to me edit because it was so fun to make for @dudeyuri

november

most popular: not me sean and black getting along super duper well!

favorite: moonlight chicken haunted house edit, accompanying this meta/creative writing thing. i loved choosing liminal feeling shots for it and i liked how the simple typography turned out

december

most popular: a little jim and wen set i am very fond of

favorite: the moonlight chicken new years set i posted today. i love this little chicken diner

hey look i managed to mention moonlight chicken almost every month (i swear, i watched so many favorite shows this year but i loved making mlc gifs so much)

and that's that! thanks for reading if anyone read til the end.

no pressure tags for some amazingly talented creators who have made some of my favorite sets this year (if you feel like talking about some of your highlights, whether monthly or not, because you all make so much incredible work and i'd love to hear about it) : @hoppipolla @sollucets @icouldhyperfixatehim @celestial-sapphicss @chinzhilla @krystaljungs @moonkhao and anyone who wants to, consider yourself tagged <3

#tag game #bl superlatives 2023 #rambling rambles #*mine #this was a fun retrospective!#thank you to all of the amazing creative people in this community that inspired me and taught me so much

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hopeymchope · 1 month

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True confessions from an RE:Zero convert

This might be more of a ramble than my better-organized reviews, but I have a lot to get off my chest.

Personal Backstory: The stuff you skip when reading a recipe

For a long time, I avoided isekai stories. They were so pervasive in anime/manga that I found them quite annoying.

When I first caved, it was only for comedies. I figured that, hey, they're taking the piss out of the genre; that sounds up my alley. So I felt it was safe to enjoy Konosuba. After that, I fell in love with Trapped in a Dating Sim... and to my surprise, it wasn't solely engaging for its overarching comedy. There was more characterization and interpersonal relationship stuff that grabbed me in that one.

That's probably what made me feel more receptive when I saw a couple of people call out Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion as an underappreciated anime highlight of 2023. I gave it a shot one afternoon with only mild expectations for it, and guess what? I adored it.

Yet despite ALL THAT? My expectations for RE:Zero were close to the floor. Raeliana had opened the floodgates, leading me to try some other isekai stories... yet I repeatedly found the ones I tried quite lacking. Furthermore, almost everything I'd read about RE:Zero over the years had been resoundingly negative in spite of its seeming popularity — a real "Sword Art Online" situation, basically.

But eventually, I was curious enough about why some people are invested in these characters that I started giving it a watch. These low expectations left me perfectly disarmed when it began to weave its spell over me.

Storytelling and Worldbuilding: Returning by death

You can neatly divide the show into story arcs, each representing a unique event/hurdle that the protagonist has to get past using his unique power.

The first arc of the story is mostly just setup for some of the important characters and the basic conceit. Our freshly isekai'd Japanese protagonist, Subaru, meets and bonds with a half-elf girl named Emilia, only to soon get tragically murdered. However, he just restarts his life from roughly one day earlier. He can go back in time by dying, giving him a new chance to take new approaches to situations and to accumulate knowledge via loops. Eventually, his "save point" advances to a new point in time... but what causes that to happen is left unknown for now. Making matters even worse is that if he tries to tell anyone about this superpower/curse, he feels intense chest pain as though he's about to be killed... so he has to keep this under wraps. (Though I still wish he'd try to tell people that he can't tell them. We never see if that'd work.)

With Subaru and Emilia established, the second arc introduces the most important supporting characters — Beatrice, Roswaal, Rem and Ram — and also puts one of them through a significant stretch of development. And finally, the third arc takes up the bulk of the series' first season, dealing with... frankly, a LOT. There's a lot crammed into it. You could even argue that it's got multiple smaller arcs stacked inside of it, and that would make complete sense. The third arc definitely does the bulk of the world-building/stage-setting for the future of the series, but there are details and background provided all throughout to get you up to speed on how people think here, how the government works, some of the existing races, etc.

I was initially taken aback by now blasé Subaru is about being transported to another world. This isn't a "death and reincarnation" thing like I've seen in most isekai stories; Subaru just blinks, rubs his eyes, and suddenly he's in a fantasy world just like that. And he... is completely unconcerned and unimpressed by that? It's a weird choice. Combine that with a point late in the first arc where he literally talks to the camera, and I thought maybe we were getting some kind of Deadpool-esque comedic commentary on isekai conventions.

It's the severity of the violence and related agony that makes me take it more seriously than that. I still find animated blood and gore extremely affecting — moreso than fake blood in live-action. That's probably because I was raised on Western animation that contained little to no sign of such violence, whereas Western movies and TV are full of corn syrup and other blood stand-ins. I'm just saying that when the deaths/kills come around in RE:Zero, they hit hard and often quite intensely. They're not showing entrails hanging out (even if they talk about it), but you can expect to see snapping bones and arterial spray. It's still a minority of the time, though; this is NOT a gorefest, and it's better off for that fact. When you suddenly get two minutes of ultraviolence after four episodes of relative peace, that makes it feel all the more effective.

It's not lookin' good there, chief.

I'm an easy mark for this stuff. Some of my primary entry points into anime were horror anime, so playing up this kind of horror gets me to sit up and take notice. It's not going to be anywhere near enough to keep my attention, though. I've certainly watched AWFUL horror anime that had nothing to boast about beyond their gore levels. That's where the quality of RE:Zero's character writing really saves the day.

What's really important to understand is that, through the strength of its gradual buildup of intensity helped along by showing the repeated consequences of failure Re:Zero manages to make some of the big anime shōnen battles EXTREMELY hype! And yet, thanks to the great characterization? One of my favorite episodes in the whole show is an ep where two characters are just talking the entire time from a single location. THAT is the mark of something I love: If two characters holding a discussion for nearly half an hour has me COMPLETELY GLUED to it.

I've glossed over season two here because, although it still has some excellent moments, it's just not as good as the first. A big part of that is because it's just one giant-huge arc that covers all 26 episodes... and that's a LOT of time to spend on a single ongoing challenge/hurdle. It not only becomes exhausting and kind of boring to be confined to this problem/situation for so goddamn long, but it also makes it extremely obvious when Subaru is going to reach his final time loop and succeed. So once you piece together that the entire season is going to be stuck on this one arc, you realize you're stuck just waiting for him to get close enough to the season's end to finally achieve real progress. Once he does, though? It weirdly manages to feel like it's too soon -- like he didn't do enough to prepare all the problems at hand and somehow just won this time around because he tried super duper hard. There's also the fact that my favorite character from the first season is entirely sidelined (and apparently won't be in season 3 EITHER) — and nobody new manages to step into any similar shoes to pick up the slack.

Sounds like a good time to talk about that that character... as well as the rest.

Characters: The value of growth and change

One of the reasons I got into this so much is because the characters have flaws, go through changes, grow and develop. Rem is an early standout of this. As is apparently a common opinion, she quickly became my favorite character. Her shift from being suspicious and disdainful of Subaru to being 1000% supportive of him is EXTREMELY well-handled, and her sympathetic backstory is also one that we get before most other characters share their own. But when you get down to brass tacks, the main reason I think she's great is because she flips out and goes into violent combat mode whenever anyone she cares about is threatened. :D That's always a favorite archetype of mine. I love me a bloodstained hero or heroine who will march through hell and take any measure of punishment to save someone. Honestly, it makes it hard to understand why he'd so hooked on Emilia when Rem is so peak. And as I mentioned above, a big downside of season 2 is that Rem is completely absent past the first episode. In fact, she won't even be in the upcoming season 3!!! Alas, there is no "person who absolutely tears shit up and covers themselves in the enemy's blood to protect the ones they care about" character who steps in and picks up the slack, so I'm missing my favorite archetype after the first season. TSK.

She's not a princess (a lot of anger in it). Not your cutie girlfriend, oh no, don't you know?

I find it literally depressing that, to date, Rem is STILL not truly back in the cast of the source light novels - not in any way that matters. She makes her cameos via illusions or flashbacks or what-have-you, but she's not really there until she's physically AND mentally present once again. So until she returns to the team with all her memories (and therefore, her all-important character development) intact, I must legitimately ask: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, NAGATSUKI?!

Enough about Rem: We need to talk about the lead protagonist. Subaru is pretty brave throughout all this but really has to grow over the course of the first season and learn to be less self-serving and invest a lot harder into self-improvement. It's nice to see someone who clearly has blatant personal flaws but also is never a detestable person. I actually first saw him when I watched a few episodes of Isekai Quartet a couple years back, and frankly? I found him pretty loathesome over there. I was fully prepared for him to be a shitheel that I was inexplicably expected to like. I'm so glad that this isn't the case. In fact, I love having a character who wears his heart on his sleeve. He's not too manly to weep openly, and he's not afraid to act like a total doofus... or maybe he’s not smart enough sometimes to realize when he does. And although he may be frequently selfish and kind of stupid on multiple occasions, he never becomes one of those perverted male characters or too egotistical. Well... he gets a bit egotistical at times. Too much for someone like me, but... still not overmuch compared to many, many anime protags.

Panic! After Repeated Trauma

And yet... he does get a bit exasperating by the end of season two, imo. Partly because he doesn't grow too much in season two. At least he gets to confront his bottled-up feelings over leaving his homeworld behind, so that's nice. But otherwise, he's pretty much treated as this perfect man whose only major remaining flaw is a lack of combat skill. By the time you've got him convincing yet ANOTHER long-lived character to never give up and put all their faith into him personally just like he's done multiple times before, and it yet AGAIN works? The swelling music and the emotional reaction of the characters to him speechifying about how he'll always be there for them and needs them... that lands well maybe two times, but by this point — when he's talking to a character who has mostly treated him with disdain/avoidance and whom he's only hung out with maybe five or six times — it's pretty hard to swallow, honestly. But I'll try not to hold that against Subaru... I just want him to show some more flaws in future stories that go beyond just "He's not good at fighting." I want him to lose more arguments again. Besides, one of the best things in season two is when his mind starts to crack under the stress and pain of all the deaths he's endured. I think we should dig deeper into that.

I honestly love seeing a hero begin to crack under the pressure.

I kinda cheated by talking about Rem before Emilia. Emilia's the main female lead, after all, whereas Rem is a supporting player. The thing about Emilia, though, is that she's good and noble and pure-hearted from the start. She doesn't grow at all during season one, though at least she does show us a different side of herself when she questions Subaru's behavior during their argument. Season two sees her face her past and gain new inner strength, but she still undergoes far less change than Subaru or Rem in even just the first season. I'm glad they took the time to show her failing and then needing to learn in order to move forward, but Emilia's maybe just a little too perfect, y'know? One thing that garners her a lot of sympathy is that most everyone who meets her dislikes her just for being born a silver-haired half-elf. So many people associate that with one of the gravest threats to ever exist in this world that Emilia has to endure a lot of racism, and honestly? Confronting that racism is when the character is most engaging. So while Emilia is clearly likable and not totally uninteresting, she's not as interesting as a lot of the other players in the story. Most of the characters run deeper than her or have more mysterious goals. Compared to them, Emilia is an open book who rarely changes. The author of the books has said that Emilia is his favorite character, and maybe that's why he never sees much need to develop her. I think it does her a disservice.

On top of being beautiful and kind and intelligent, Emilia is also a powerful combatant. Because of course she is.

Her relationship with Subaru is a major focus, but it seems sort of hollow at first. Subaru admires her kindness/helpfulness and thinks she's beautiful, so he follows her around and dotes on her as much as he can. It's easy to see why he'd admire someone so good-hearted, but it starts to become a little cringe just how obsessively he dotes on her... and that cringiness peaks right around the moment when the two have a big argument and a falling out. It's an important scene that helps both characters, because it shows us Subaru's flaws on full display and also makes him confront just how cringey his devotion to Emilia can come off. Emilia, meanwhile, walks away to spend time without him for a while... though she never really rejects him, either. She really struggles with being independent. She keeps thinking about him and wishing he'd come back and make up with her. Clearly, she's gotten addicted to having a Hype Man around... and goddamn, I can't even blame her. Subaru looks at Emilia the way Stilgar looks at Paul Atreides. Who doesn't want that level of positive reinforcement available 24/7? By the end of season two, although both of them have grown, Subaru's still relentlessly hyping her up. He did criticize her (softly) in one major season two moment, but despite his claims otherwise, he still acts like she's an angel on Earth. And so, although he pool of their romance has grown deeper, it still feels like we've stepped out of the kiddie pool and into the shallow end. It means a lot more to see a character and their feelings grow and change over time, y'know? I suppose part of why we don't see that happening much is because Emilia is treated as so flawless to begin with.

Something I love in a long-running story is when a minor background character slowly starts to appear more frequently until - surprise! - they become a major cast member and full-time supporting player. Season two does this very successfully, and I love the character they expanded and brought into the cast. I feel like I shouldn't say too much about them for anyone who's a newcomer, because the gradual increase in their presence is so enjoyable. But it's a character who first appears in season one and has to wait numerous episodes of season two before they become important enough to get a front-row seat. It's very satisfying to watch them shift slowly from "fifth-tier supporting character who shows up for two scenes" into "major player."

Other characters? Ram is Rem's sister, and she's... not exactly a wealth of depth. Not yet, at least. She's mostly there to act tsundere. Her exact relationship with Roswaal remains hazy by the end of season 2, but she's clearly devoted to him and he's clearly doing... something for her? Roswaal and Beatrice both get by on acting mysterious. We learn a lot more about them in season two, and what we learn makes it hard to tear your eyes off Roswaal especially — he's a fascinating and weird bastard. Puck is a cat-like spirit with a lot of power and a very mischievious attitude. There's a surprising darkness lurking within him that keeps him from being some cute mascot-type. Season 2 also brings us some new characters whose long-term presence among the cast is still in question, but Echidna (not an Australian monotreme) is a standout. She really made me question everything I thought I understood about the moral good-and-evil situation in this reality.

Get those eyebrows under control. We ARE on television, y'know.

Serial Killin'

The series a whole is SO serialized and SO intense that it's really hard to watch it with gaps in-between episodes. Even taking one day off from the show mid-viewing proved too agonizing for me, so I was really grateful I could tear through seasons 1 and 2 in a rapid binge. I say this because... yeah, I don't see myself watching season 3 as it airs. Maybe I'll do a binge for each story arc it contains when they wrap up, or maybe I'll just wait for the whole season to conclude. But either way? This is something that demands to be binged in rapid succession.

I guess you get my point by now. I'm pretty hype about this series in spite of it holding some noteworthy flaws. I'm surprised I can still get so invested in something that dates back as far as 2016 that I haven't seen yet... and that gives me hope for what else I might discover going forward with my anime viewing.

#re:zero #re: zero #rezero #anime reviews #anime #isekai

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my-jokes-are-my-armour · 11 months

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The witcher S3 volume 1

Oki this is my "detailed review" of S3 volume 1. Or should I say thoughts and comments.

Here is the short version so you can choose to step away : I really liked it.

Why do I feel like I need a shield ? Well, because out of my bubble here, the sound of the masses makes my opinion seems like an very unwanted one. It seems very important to dislike this season by all means.

As always I share mostly a gray opinion. Meaning : I have my feelings and within those, I say both what I find good or bad without shitting on everyone and everything. "I like this because... but... I don't like this because... but...". This are my basics. And I try to stay as neutral as possible in the way I say things.

But I won't lie, this time I have some difficulties because there is too much toxicity around and, what I thought was impossible, it finally affected me while watching the show in a very bad way. And for that I am angry. You can tell as I recently put an almost agressive rambling against some review.

I try to stay away from comments or reviews and stuff but sometimes I tiptoe into just just to see another reality. And although I found constructed things in the bad comments regarding S2 (even in BO), although this time this is more a game of pure destruction. And as much as I am angry, I will try not the play the same game that only lead to hatred. So I will try my best to illustrate what I am saying and not just throw feelings at your face.

To be clear also, I don't defend blindly the writers here, I am taking the final product as it is in my analysis.

Spoilers of S3 vol 1 under the cut. I won't speak about what would probably happen in vol 2 though. So if you have seen vol 1 but not read the book, this is safe.

First of all I will say it.

- No, the show doesn't follow stricto sensu the books but more in the S1 way. Though it has many scenes almost taken from the pages, or in the spirit of it.

- Yes, there are some plotline additions and more twisted ones but for me it helps building intrigues more than running to the opposite of characters from the books, giving more relief to some of them and link stuff that needs pages and pages to get through. So I don't see them in a bad eye.

My point of view.

The first sequence with Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer is an example. For me this corrects a lot of bad done during S2. It is not like in the books at all, even if it uses the "dear friend" letter as a trope, but it lands on a relation more in phase with the books. We have trust and tension. And Geralt and Yennefer reconnecting. Of course, this shouldn't had to be necessary at all in the first place but seeing their relation building up put a smile on my face.

My only complaint will be that we still just have glimpses of how magic works in this universe. In the books, Yennefer teaching Ciri magic is THE moment we learn the most of it. So just having crumps is frustrating me.

For Geralt, I had a great time with the fight sequences and the relationships he has with Ciri, Yennefer and Jaskier. The feeling is closer to the book version for me. And I have to say, I really liked the whole sequence in Anika's hut where he learns about his mother. This and the fact that he discovers the false Ciri and the experiments are a twist from the books but it connects a lot of further plotlines. Also when he learns that his mother has died and he has still ressentiment for abandoning him leads to a great emotional side of Geralt and builds the fact that this is the reason why he will never abandon Ciri in return, whatever the coast. And I was missing those kind of vulnerabilities in Geralt that were so nice to read on a "brute" stereotype. So it gives depth to the character. It was not what I was waiting for but I take it as well.

For Yennefer, I connected less with her this season but I loved the growth and the parallels with Ciri. She has learnt from her mistakes found her purpose. So while normally it's not her to prepare the conclave, from where she is coming from in S1 and S2, it is almost the only way to reconnects the dots. I really wish we didn't need this to repair everything, but all considering, it was OK. From her part I mostly liked the journey with Ciri to Aretuza and the humorous parts with Geralt.

For Ciri, I connected more with her this season. Like she finds herself more at ease in a witcher (male) version of her world. That speaks to me a lot. Although I gender myself as a woman my brain doesn't work usually like the "typical" woman. Or at least those I met in my life. I have the typical you are a "garçon manqué" (which I don't know how to translate in English) said about me very often. I was with more men during my student years and at work so learnt to navigate them more than groups of women. I was a bit like Ciri at Kaer Morhen. I have experienced the more frontal, direct approach of men vs the shady, smile in the front, stab in the back approach of women during conflicts, especially at work, too many times so I can relate to Ciri when she can't bare the company of the sorceresses, who are all facades. And I love what she learns from that, in the end.

For Jaskier, I am very pleased that the trauma of the torture was addressed and became a motive of certain "bad" decisions he made. He still has heart to protect those he loves and do what thinks is good for them. Which is basically what he does all the time in the books, especially in the Baptism of Fire, so we kind of see this trait ealier. I liked the honesty between him and Geralt and his relation with Ciri is heartwarming. Now the development of his love life is something I could talk all day (and I probably will later). The Radovid plot, I was nervous at first but I loved it because it has layers and some speaks to me a lot. Basically the whole plotline of Jaskier is a mixture of inventions and scenes from the books but it is coherent with the character in his whole and connects efficiently the dots from Redania politics to the found family.

In a way, I find the spy element of this Jaskier more grounded here than the one in the books, where it has like no explanation except "i am a patriot" 🤷🏽‍♀️.

Then, am I going to address the elephant in the room ? The pansexual Jaskier. Yes I am gonna do it, but I want to finish with the characters and the bits that I want to talk about first.

I liked the interactions between Philippa and Dijkstra which helps building the politics from Redanian side while enveiling progressively some leads to the final reveal of who is the bad guy. The only sequence that bothered me was the bdsm thing. Except to re-enforce the dominatrix trait of Philippa personality, it adds nothing more to what was shown before, except this face 😬 on me lol.

Speaking of the leads to the final revelation, I liked that this was made within different characters' journey, connecting the dots step by step. So sure it shifted some narratives but it was fluid and paced the whole thing without having big revealing time, except the whole episode 5 where they tried something in the structure, to make it more digest. But for me this is the episode I liked the least because of this artifice exactly. The loop was too repetitive in its first iteration and it made my attention drop seriously for the next part. But it was interesting on a technical point of view. They like to play with past and present a lot in this show and here it was well done as it was treated like a rendition of Geralt and Yennefer side of the event, confronting what they learnt from the people they talked to. And they mixed it with some "hot" moments, that I think may have pleased a lot of people.

Well, for me the complicity and complementarity was more rewarding but I don't see it as a bad thing. That echoes their relationship in the books but overall I am not very interested in that. The playfulness between them during the ball was more attractive to me. But I am aware that this is a very personal take of it as I tend to loose interest the more I see "love" scenes lol. The shorter, the better 😅.

For the other characters, I was not convinced by Fringilla plot, but I dug more into Cahir's whose faith is shifting badly.

The White Flame had little exposition but help filling the blanks a little bit for his story and I am surprised they are seemingly running down the hill of this incest plotline from the books. It will be certainly different, but the first hints are there.

On the brotherhood side, I don't have much to say for the moment. I think I will elaborate more after vol 2, especially on Vilgefortz. Just I note that Istredd connects some things with BO. This is very short and maybe confusing for those who having seen it but it makes sense within this version of the story. And I like that Stregobor that is set up to be disliked from the bigining is just a false thread to find the real bad guy.

From the elven side, I feel this is rushed. The jumps from S2 to S3 isn't hard to understand but the struggle connecting with Nilfgaard is due to the strange plotline of S2 again. Gallatin helps connected things together but it shouldn't have been so convoluted in the first place. Yet I understand where it leads later for Francesca.

I have like the use of certain minor characters like Aplegatt who had a running gag with the arrow until the futur Ciri foretold happened which leads to consequences we will see in vol 2. I didn't like the "professor" though who had the trash mob treatment. You recognise him and seconds later he is dead.

And I found Valdo Marx hilarious. His song his catchy and even if it is not subtle for the plot it gives a real rythme to the ball iterations.

This is pretty much my global thoughts on the volume 1.

Now what's in the books ?

Here is the resume of each chapter of Time of Contempt to the point it stopped for the show :

- Aplegatt is doing his job being the messages between kingdoms. He meets on the road Yennefer and Ciri who prophetised his death and more things. Geralt visits Codringher and Fenn to have informations about Rience. A lot of political stuff and schemes are discussed and bits of False Ciri. Aplegatt dies from an arrow.

- Yennefer and Ciri are in Gors Velen. Yennefer goes to the dwarven bank (politics politics schemes schemes). Ciri visits the city with Fabio and... kills the wyvern in the monster show. While she tries to escape she bumps into Tissaia and Margarita Laux-Antilles. Politics and schemes at the baths. Ciri flees to find Geralt. The wild hunt appears in the sky. Ciri rushes toward Geralt's position who is with Jaskier. Yennefer saves her. When reunited Geralt and Yennefer are arguing. Ciri watch from afar with Jaskier explaining they love each other.

- Jaskier babysits Ciri while Geralt and Yennefer go to the Thanedd ball. A lot of dialogs there that set up everyone's position. Hot scene between Geralt and Yennefer.

- In this chapter the only thing I can take is Codringher and Fenn killed and burned by Rience minion.

Well everything seems here, with changes of course, but I guess we covered it all. But there is more. So what's more that are in the books also.

Here is what is from The Last Wish incorporated in S3 (what I remember)

- Belleteyn

Here is what is from of Blood of Elves incorporated in S3 (what I remember)

- Shaerrawedd story, even if the set up is twisted.

- Geralt leaves Ciri with Yennefer so she can teach her magic while he is tracking Rience. The Dear Friend letter (but we know it is used differently) .

- Jaskier has some spy duties (the set up is entirely different). And some more politic stuff.

(The scene with Vespula is from The Sword of Destiny.)

So now, I know everything is twisted because they chose to tell the story differently. But all the bricks are here with some pretty close to the books moments and everything is set up almost properly for what's to come. That's the reason why I like this season and I don't find it outrageous.

My rambling.

Now... This is the part where I will be less tempered.

You may noticed that I have kept Radovid almost away from the equation. Well because... this is where I can loose myself because of the bad comments. Not just the ones on the divergence from the lore only. I includes what comes usually with it. The pan Jaskier and people of color kind of divergence from the lore comments.

Last week I lost my temper on a review using false book accuracy arguments to justify a rant about Jaskier been queer in the show. The person wrote incorrect things, stated them as truth, for their readers. So angry people could find examples of what was so wrong in the show using their anger to validate their lies blindly [x].

I don't go much to see the comments and the reviews because it hurts me most of the time. And I am someone open to critical stuff. But you know statistically if people were fair, I should find perfectly argumented rants about the show along with the blind rage ones. For S2 and BO it was the case.

Here, the vast majority of what I read are just "the show did wrong" without any argument. "They are not faithful to the source material" without any example. Some are openly racist or queerphobic. Some hide behind the things like the reviewer I was angry about.

I am sad to see an actress had to justify her portrail of her character because she doesn't look like what people expect, to say it politely, and because she made some artistic choices that are not european coded [x].

I have seen many comments with bollywood memes under the first twit of RI reporting that Anya chose to incorporate Indian dances moves to her magic. She wouldn't have said it, except for the battle in Shearrawedd, I am sure no-one would have noticed. And for those who are angry about those cultural inserts, please explain me what looks like a perfect european magic move. Show me then the problem in Anya's portrail.

I am sad to read bad things under the Valdo Marx extract, because the actor is black.

I am sad to read homophobic comments on Joey's insta (but extremely proud and moved by the Dear Hearts response to that).

And I am angry that people don't even try to understand what are the stories told. They are on a hate bulldozer and simply crush everything under.

Is the show perfect : NO ! Is the show deviating from the source material: YES ! I already said it. But this is still WAY closer than the former season (cf my preceding point).

I took time to say in my first point what I like and dislike, pointing purposely things that diverged from the books in their structure or narratives. And there is a lot as you can see, and I didn't say it all.

Maybe you miss Geralt hitting on many ladies, even while being officially with Yennefer, and hyperfixating on boobs sometimes (while they blinked politely at it in the show this time) ? The more classic family portrait adaptation doesn't hurt anyone's feelings apparently. Or that least THAT kind of divergence doesn't come front when it comes to book accuracy.

Why is it always the "race" and the queerness ? The real question is : where does the hypocrisy ends ?

The Radovid part and pretty much all of Jaskier's plotline this season are invented. It has anchors in the books in some scenes but, like the rest of the divergences, this plotline setup many things that are more a lot of dialogs in the books.

They use this Radovid and his relation with Jaskier to show the con games of Philippa and Dijkstra in a more easy way to absorb in a tvshow. But I guess you sure want 10 min straight of people throwing names and places you don't know about and learn about them 5h later. It is sure not easier to have the whole thing built slowly over the course of the 5h.

They also used Radovid to put some new layers on Jaskier with the romance. Those layers includes his pansexuality, sure, but there is more. Things that have been played but not said are out up front now. His extreme empathy that helps him read people. It is his superpower and his weekness. We see a more clever side to him too. We see him trying to navigate with Radovid to find solution for Rience and maybe safe conduit for Ciri. And this is a part of how he has now a place in the found family and how he connects with them, which was inexistant in both S1 and S2.

This is not just about sexuality. But apparently it overshadow everything else. So...

For those who found the kiss coming from nowhere, I invite you to listen and watch more carefully.

For those who found Jaskier too promiscuous this season, I remind you that Jaskier is known to have multiple affairs in the books, and this is mentioned in the show as well in S1, and teased in S2, so this is not new. This is just the first time it is shown clearly.

For those who simply cannot bare the view of two men kissing, just close your eyes, you have plethora of heterosexual book accurate relation in the next episode.

And you know what :

We know little about love. Love is like a pear. A pear is sweet and has a distinct shape. Try to define the shape of a pear.

Jaskier

#tws3 #tws3 spoilers #not tagged properly on purpose #long post #rambling #critical #review

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blackkat15 · 11 months

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The Stanley Parable made me cry and here's why:

I go into The Stanley Parable to follow Adventure Lines™, shut down mind control facilities and hide in broom closets.

I didn’t expect to actually cry over a game.

I haven’t done that since the ending of Doki Doki Literature Club.

I didn’t expect The Narrator to show me reviews from Steam.

He got so hooked on the fact that he can’t please everyone so he created a skip button to try and make everyone happy.

He cares too much about what his audience thinks.

He doesn’t realise that you can’t make everyone happy.

And so, when he locked me in a room and prompted me to press the skip button, I felt unsure.

But I had to do it. There was no other way.

The first skip was fine. The Narrator was happy.

After the next skip he started rambling on about how Cookie9 could change their review.

The third skip was when I started to feel bad. The Narrator had sat there for around 30 to 45 minutes and he said for me to not press the button while he tried to find a way out.

I actually waited for a solid hour.

I pressed the skip button again and the time that had passed had increased to 12 hours. I started feeling worse. The Narrator said that he couldn’t find an exit and then he started to ramble on about the negative reviews again.

The next skip had two weeks pass. The Narrator’s panic was starting to build and so was mine.

The next skip was a year apart. I listened to every word The Narrator said. He was losing himself. He was losing himself to silence.

The next skip I don’t hear his comforting voice and I start to panic more. Where was that voice that I enjoyed so much?

The next skip has the smoke alarm go off, it startled me and I stared at it until I could press the skip button again.

The next skip I arrive in the middle of a rant that The Narrator was having. I listened to him all the way again. He was really stewing in those negative reviews. He doesn’t acknowledge that I had returned. My panic rises.

The next skip I don’t hear him again and water starts to drip from the far corner of the room.

The silence is so loud.

The eleventh skip was the worst. The Narrator has gone insane. I don’t know how long it’s been. He’s muttering “the end is never the end is never the end” over and over. The water damage gets worse and so does my concern for the disembodied voice that I grew fond of.

The next skip I don’t hear him again. The water continues to drip.

The silence is louder.

The next skip happens and the ceiling had collapsed. All I can hear now is howling wind.

The next skip has light shine through the new hole in the ceiling. I start to worry even more for The Narrator.

The next skip calms my nerves as I see plants growing and birds chirping. I take a moment to enjoy the tranquillity before pressing that damn button again.

The next skip plunges me back into a state of fear and panic. No more plants just darkness and otherworldly noises outside. I rush to press the button to try and get away from the noises.

The next skip actually traumatised me. Those high-pitched screeching noises scared the hell out of me. It’s at this point that I silently plead for it all to end.

The final skip leads me out into the desert. I stood there staring at the room from outside as the music played. It was at this moment where I actually cried at my desk.

I had killed The Narrator. He was a great storyteller who let one measly bad review eat at him until he eventually died from insanity. I regret pressing the button and not resetting the game.

Reading trivia for this ending broke my heart even more. In the thirteenth skip the noises out in the dark are actually The Narrator calling out to Stanley. He had used the last bit of his strength to call out to me and then he had given up and died the next time I pressed that button.

During the Epilogue I nearly screamed when I saw I was in the desert again. I literally had to pause the game and calm myself down just to continue. The silence is too loud. That desert is nothing but a bad place for me.

I picked up the bucket and I felt a little better. I was glad that I put it in the escape pod otherwise I wouldn’t have made it through the Epilogue.

The Stanley button actually made me cry again. The Narrator was right. It does hit harder the second time when I needed confirmation that what I had heard was correct.

I hate the skip button ending, I have never felt such fear and panic in any horror game I’ve played. The emotions that ending provoked in me were just terrible. But it’s okay to cry.

I never want to do that ever again.

I don’t want to suffer through the silence again.

The Zending was another ending that made me cry. I didn’t keep flinging myself off the platform when I noticed that The Narrator was very worried again. I don’t understand how some of the YouTubers that I watched could just do that. I sat there in the room with the pretty lights and enjoyed a silence that wasn’t scary. It was a comfortable silence.

In other words, I cried over a game.

I cried over a game that has multiple endings and messages.

I cried over a Narrator who wouldn’t hesitate to kill me in some runs.

If I didn’t have a thirty-minute vibe session with him in the elevator I don’t think I’d care as much. When he’s not being a sadistic egotistical jerk, he can be a funny and caring dude.

My heart fluttered when he said he was proud of me and I nearly cried again during the ending where I just went up and down the elevator to the mind control facility to mess with him.

I’ve never cried over a game as much as I did with The Stanley Parable.

I love this game so much.

Rant over. I’m going back to the elevator with my favorite disembodied voice.

#the stanley parable #the stanley parable ultra deluxe #the narrator #stanley #employee 427 #kat says stuff #i fucking cried #This game does shit to me

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homoqueerjewhobbit · 1 year

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can u say more about how the writing in ted lasso changed this season? i’m tryin to put my finger on just why it feels so off…. i read a review on NPR that season 3 was relying on too many outside stories for an already sizeable ensemble cast, which i definitely felt was true for the first half of the season, but that’s less the case now and it still feels stilted to me. i’m sure this season must be someone’s cup of tea but it’s not mine!

I think there are a lot of things that are off, and I fully admit I'm gonna regurgitate some stuff I've absorbed from reading other reviews and Ted Lasso think pieces. Also, I'm gonna keep watching the show. I don't like hate it.

First of all, Bill Lawrence stepped back on the show to work on Shrinking, leaving Jason Sudeikis alone in charge of the writers room. And I'm sure his extremely ugly and public divorce is affecting his focus on portrayal of Ted's divorce. Can we leave the "dating the marriage counselor" trope behind, please? And he hired a PI to stalk his ex-wife through Paris and we're acting like that's OK?

I think the biggest thing for me, though, is that it's just not funny the way it used to be. There are whole storylines and subplots and even episodes that are completely laugh-free (for me, YMMV) and kind of go nowhere. Was Rebecca's fling on the Dutch houseboat funny? Did we really learn anything new about her character or did she grow and change afterward?

The show has also, imo, crossed the line from wholesome to saccharine, with little to know internal conflict about the social issues that arise. The reaction to the leaked nudes in the locker room was basically lecture. The reaction to Colin's coming out and Sam's restaurant being vandalized were just telegraphed "aww" moments that didn't feel earned.

I'm not entirely sure what Ted contributes to Richmond anymore... Roy seems to do all the coaching and Ted's basically a life coach and somehow in all this time has still failed to learn anything thing about football? I do think they're building to firing him or him returning to the US voluntarily. Also, he should have gotten to do real drugs.

WTF is going on with Nate? His girlfriend is a cardboard cut out and he was from creepy borderline stalker to getting the girl extremely rapidly. They've basically abandoned the evil Nate plot. I'd rather know how he fares coaching on his own and how his aggressive style evolves without Ted to push against than watch him make a diorama to flirt or assemble a faux Diamond Dogs to talk about his very underwritten girlfriend.

Keeley is off on her own and "love-bombing" is a form of abuse and cult recruitment not your rich girlfriend buying you a lot of presents. I guess they're pushing her back to Jamie now?

Give Trent a storyline!

Sry for rambling I guess?

#And let Trent kiss Ted. And let Jamie kiss Roy #asks answered #Anonymous #Ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #Ted lasso season three #post o' mine

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nodirectionhome-ao3 · 3 months

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ATITA.

My goodness, you have an incredible talent with characterization and setting up the story and dialogues and inner thoughts. I know it’s hard to accept compliments at times because everyone goes through self doubt in writing.

I hope you know that you always have my full attention with your stories, each and every time. I’m grateful that you share your stories with us.

I reread the first chapter three times and each time i saw a different style of writing. I don’t have issues in quoting the lines in the comment section

Narrative

Poetry

Character Study for Peter!

Amazing, as always. Just know I read it slowly and I had to put my phone down each time because the way you wrote Peter made me so frustrated. Oh my gosh. It’s a compliment, really it truly is. I know each writer has their own way of portraying each of the Marauders and when it comes to writing Peter Pettigrew it’s always so tricky.

Like, we know what happens in canon of course and that can steer our minds to only think of him as the person who betrayed his friends (Snape is equally at fault! Just laying it out there) and tend to forget how his personality and feelings had started to change.

So having the story start from the “beginning” during the sorting hat ceremony, it really shows who he was. Then along the years, up until we see a complete disconnect between him and his mates. Even the moment when the group all were going to join the Order, and he was the last one to speak up.

That spoke volumes, even Sirius zoned in on him, because why was he taking a long time to answer? It made him skeptical, but Peter managed to fool all of his friends, I feel like the sorting hat made a huge mistake in having Peter go into Gryffindor. He is the least to be expected from the group and from the looks of it he was very hot-headed and vindictive, the list goes on.

I’ll definitely leave a review on ao3, but I just had to come here first. 💕

NENA. 😭😭😭😭

You continue to be the absolute sweetest, thank you SO much!!!!! God. This just made me so happy, you have no idea!!! (Also, I am notoriously bad at accepting compliments, so just know that I am over the moon even though I'm not great at putting "thank you"s into words!!😅)

I'm so happy that you're enjoying Peter's characterization in ATITA!!! I definitely dislike him immensely and think that he's a backstabbing little shit, but I also think he is so interesting from a character analysis perspective!

I've said this a few times I think to people I've chatted with about Peter, but basically I think his level of cunning is very under-appreciated by the fandom in general. Like...he obviously was very cowardly, but that wasn't his only character trait y'know? If it was, I think he would've booked it out of the country on his scampering little rat legs and never come back after Voldemort was defeated the first time, instead of hanging around and waiting for him to return. Also, nobody held a wand to his head in GoF and forced him to resurrect Voldemort; even Voldemort himself wasn't strong enough to force him. He resurrected Voldemort out of his own volition, and my belief is that he wouldn't have done that if he didn't, in some way, enjoy being a Death Eater. (Also, Peter was the one who made that potion that resurrected him, which is why I hc that he had at least some talent in potions...which is why I had him be the one to brew the Animagus potion in ATITA!)

Anyway, sorry, this is just me rambling at this point😂 But I'm just so excited by your reaction to the chapter and so grateful that you took the time to share your thoughts with me. Thank you for your kind words!!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

#a tide in the affairs #chapter 1

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horsesarecreatures · 11 months

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Book review: Gallant by V.E. Schwab

Not a bad book, but I didn't get as into it as I did with The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It was characterized as a young adult book, but to me it seems more appropriate for the middle school demographic. It was just a lot shorter and less detailed.

It’s about a girl named Olivia Prior who is left at a place called Merilance School for Girls as a baby with nothing but her mother’s diary. It is unknown whether the mother is dead, abandoned her, or was forced to give her up. The diary is full of the strange ramblings and illustrations of someone who has gone off the deep end. She grows up there without making any friends or substantial connections. It is grim, strict place, and Olivia cannot speak. One day the head matron calls Olivia into her office, and tells her she must leave. The matron had received a letter from an uncle Olivia never knew about, saying that he’s been searching for her for years and wants her to come to his house Gallant at once.

A car drives Olivia hours away to Gallant, which is way beyond the city, on the edge of wilderness. It is dusk when she arrives. The house is grand, old, and slightly decaying. Two servants let her in, but they do not know who she is. She shows them the letter from her uncle, but it turns out he is dead, and no one knew about her or that he was looking for her. Olivia’s cousin Mathew, the master of the house, walks in. Angry, he declares that he is the only Prior left, that his father would never have searched for her, and that she must leave. Olivia is heartbroken and vows that if she does have to leave, she will not return to Merrilance. The servants remember her mother, however, and want Olivia to stay.

Olivia stays at the house for the next several days. Everyone seems to fear the dark, and closes all windows and shutters in the house at night. There is a large rose garden outside with a crumbling wall with a door beyond it. It is beautiful, but there is something strange about it. First, there are pale weeds with sharp thorns that seems to spring up everywhere, no matter how much Mathew tends to them. Second, there are no animals or wildlife anywhere on the property, which is unexpected because of the rural location. Third, the wall has no shadow.

Olivia is intrigued by Gallant and wants to stay. However, she starts having vivid and sometimes terrifying dreams, even though she has never dreamed before. Her cousin Mathew is haunted by dreams as well. Olivia finds another journal of her mother’s, and begins to learn that all the Priors connected with Gallant have gone insane. Yet she is not deterred, and one day she decides to go beyond the wall. Danger follows.

............................................................................................................................

I liked The Secret Garden vibes that this book had, and the mystery was intriguing enough to keep me reading. But as I said above, it feels more like a book for a middle schooler, and I found the lack of details towards the end a little unsatisfying, especially because the beginning had a good build-up.

#gallant #v.e. schwab #fiction #fantasy #novel #book #bookblr #book review

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hyperfixation-stations · 2 years

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It’s that time of the year folks where I give my ramblings and general thoughts, feelings and ramblings on the Tony Awards. For those of you who are new to this account or follow me for other reasons, this used to be a musical fan page and even though I’ve evolved and post other things we always return to our roots during Tony Season.

Thoughts:

I love Ariana Debose as the host. I thought she was a natural and did the best work I’ve seen since the 2013 Tony’s where Neil Patric Harris hosted. I think that they should continue to have “Broadway people” host because there is such more love and enthusiasm for hosts that have really strong ties to the business. Hell you could run Ariana Debose back for the next five years and I’d probably be thrilled.

I’m always sad that they moved all of the technical awards to the broadcast prior to the awards actually starting. I was a theater tech throughout high school and it holds a special place in my heart and I miss seeing at least some of the categories live. As for the actual winners, I generally agreed with all of them. I really enjoy Six so I was happy to see them get recognized for score and costumes.

The music man performance was lackluster and I’m glad that it didn’t win any awards. It just felt so odd because it’s a huge ensemble show with historically great dancing but it just felt kinda boring and way longer then it was. Now I do love to see a good tap number, especially on the Tonys, but I felt like they could’ve done more, especially as the opening performance.

Now I haven’t seen any of the nominated shows (other then a six bootleg), so some of my thoughts on things like the acting categories are just going to be based off things I’ve read/heard. For the best supporting actor and actress in a play I don’t have super strong feelings. I wish L Morgan Lee had won for her role in A Strange Loop, but also Patti Lupone in company has received rave reviews the entire run of the show so I’m not entirely upset with the outcome. As for featured actor I was really pulling for either of the guys from Paradise Square, but like with Patti Lupone Matt Doyle has received rave reviews for his performance and I haven’t seen the show so I can’t say it was “undeserved”

MJs performance was a little weird for me at first because I had literally no idea what the show was about, but I ended up really enjoying it. Myles Frost as Michael Jackson was electric and his dancing was next level. I also thought the ensemble was really strong and it was a really good performance.

I was a little surprised that Company won Best Direction if a musical, I really thought it would go to one of the original new musicals (specifically A Strange Loop). But I do enjoy seeing women directors win and get recognized for their work.

I think Mr. Saturday Night was the next performance and I was a fun little performance. It highlighted the best of the show with having Shoshana Bean sing and Billy Crystal do stand up. Idk if I’d personally ever seen the show, but I wouldn’t be shocked if ticket sales were boosted during that segment.

I know I mentioned this before, but I’m going to talk about it again, Ariana Debose really was a great host. And I think that the is was really shown in the in between when she had her little bits, skits and monologues to kill time. It’s so easy for those moments to become filler or seem so fake, but she kept it really and entertaining and I really just love her.

A Girl From North Country performed. I thought it was good, I like Bob Dylan’s music but I don’t shit about the show. It felt like it needed a fiddle or something (though maybe that’s the Irish in me coming out). It was definitely the weakest performance of the night for me, and it wasn’t even bad just kind of boring

Sondheim’s tribute was really well done. It was nice to Bernadette Peters perform, especially given how many of his shows he was in (which is why I’m sure she was asked to perform in the first place). I know some people wished they had done a different song rather then Children Will Listen, I’m not shocked that’s what they went with and I thought it was fitting (especially given the context of the song within Into the Woods ).

It was at this point in the night that I started to get a little nervous for A Strange Loop because they hadn’t really won anything yet and I was worried that they weren’t going to get recognized (though what would’ve won over them, idk). But then they won Best Book and all is well in the world. I was so happy that they won and it.

Then a Strange Loop performed and I just about died. Now I’ll admit I was not as familiar with this show (or really any of the shows) coming into this season, so I was seeing a lot of things for the very first time. And I had heard such great things about the show and their performance was probably the one I was most excited for. And they did not disappoint! I really love that they got to perform Intermission/Today and got to call themselves a big black queer ass show (or something along those lines, someone please correct me if I’m wrong I’m doing this entire thing from memory while commuting). This is a show that I was worried wouldn’t get love because the Tonys are glorified marketing ploy and I thought they’d go the safe route with one of the more “broad appealing shows) and I’m so glad they didn’t. It’s so important to have this kind of representation because it will continue to inspire new generations to become performers or write shows and I know that some kid out in the middle of no-where saw that performance and feel in love with musical theater.

Now that my gushing about a Strange Loop is over (for a bit) we’ll talk about one of the weirder parts of the night and that was the Spring Awakening performance. It was good, but the entire time I wanted to know why they were performing, it just felt like time that could’ve been dedicated to an additional category or allowed for winners to speak longer. Idk I could’ve lived without it.

Then Company won best revival and that was pretty much expected. I was really just glad to see that Music Man didn’t win (god I hate that show). Though I do wish Caroline or Change had been recognized a little bit more. I thought it was a great show from what I’d see/heard and I wish it had been celebrated a bit more.

Paradise Square performed and I just about lost my shit. That was probably my most anticipated musical coming into the season and the highest on my list of shows that want to see and that performance really solidified. I loved the bit of Paradjse Square they did to highlight the ensemble and joaquina kalukango started let it burn and I just about starter convulsing on my floor. I would pay obscene amounts of money to see that show

Best Actor and Actress in a musical felt like the only other categories with high stakes other then best musical. And it was with good merit both of those categories were stacked with talented performers. Best Actor in a musical I was surprised went Myles Frost, simply because I thought it’d go to Jacquel Spivey for A Strange Loop. But after seeing his performance I’m not shocked and I thought it was a well deserved, also I can’t believe his only 22! As for best actress if the award didn’t go to joaquina kalukango, I would’ve burned something down. She should’ve won the award based on the Tony performance alone. I was also really glad to see two POC performers sweep the best acting category, even though the show and awards could’ve been more diverse this is an important step into getting more representation (at least I hope)

Finally we got to the final performance of the night from Six the musical. I always feel a little bit bad for whoever gets stuck in this time slot because everyone just wants to finish the ceremony at that point I imagine and a part of me wondered if they were there in an attempt to hype the crowd back up and infuse some energy back into the show. But Six is a show I really enjoy and i will be rewatching their performance for days to come. This cast has been through so much shit since they beginning of their run in Chicago from injuries to Covid happening on their opening night, so I was glad to see them finally make it and get recognized. I also loved the shout out of Mallory Maedek and how she was the dance captain and got inserted into the number like that morning.

Then finally it was time for the big award of the night best musical. I was a little nervous for this category I’m not going to lie. I though A Strange Loop was the front runner but given the night at that point it was hard to tell. The only other shows that I thought had the potential in terms of quality and marketing I’d seen were Six and Paradise Square which are also diverse creative teams and storylines but A Strange Loop really deserved it and luckily they won! This was such a deserved win for that cast and creative teams. It has one of the best concepts I’ve seen in years and they story they are telling is vitally important.

Overall I thought it was a solid night and they honored the best of the season (which is something I can’t always say coming out of the awards). I like that the awards were spread around to a collection of different shows and the awards they were winning made sense, at least to me. This season really made me excited about the future of musical theater in a way I hadn’t been in a few years. We had a lot of original material from diverse creative teams and the best shows were being honored and not the ones they thought would see the most tickets.

If you’ve made it this far through my ramblings, then congratulations you are just as much a nerd as I am and thank you for making your way and attempting to decipher my loosely connected thoughts. If you disagree with any of my takes or what to discuss other things feel free to message me or comment. I love talking about theater so I could really go at this for hours.

#the tony awards #six the musical #six broadway #MJ #A Strange Loop #paradise square #the music man #company #caroline or change #girl from the north country

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ben-wisehart · 2 years

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i've been running into 'shen yuan is only HIMSELF with sqh' and it baffles me. most of the time shen yuan is just verbally leaving sqh one star reviews on goodreads. that is a very specific mood and no more than 60% of anyone's full identity.

...LISTEN. Listen. Of course it's fair to say that SY/SQQ isn't able to fully express his true authentic self for much of the novel due to the role the System places him in! But "Peerless Cucumber" isn't his true authentic self either. It's just the side of himself he expresses most easily around Shang Qinghua. Am I only myself when I post memes on the internet?? Are the people who read my ramblings on tumblr dot com about one specific Chinese novel the only beings alive who truly know me, better than my own mother??

People are complicated! And it's just baffling to me because the side of himself that SQQ shows around SQH REEKS of performative masculinity. Does anyone ACTUALLY think "You don’t push down the righteous empress, are you fucking kidding me? Airplane, hand over the girlfriends, I’ll eat this book raw" is SY being himself?? His "true self" (whatever that is) does bleed through, especially in the way he talks about Binghe, but that's definitely not the self he is actively choosing to present the world.

I like SQQ and SQH's friendship well enough for what it is, but I've never really understood why they get portrayed as having this, like, deep and universe-defining connection. I can see them having fun together and bonding over their shared history, but come on. They're not soulmates. They actually don't even know each other that well. Shang Qinghua was literally the LAST person to figure out that Shen Qingqiu was gay. Throughout the entire novel I barely got the impression that they even liked each other; when Shang Qinghua gets given the option to return home in the extras, the fact that he would never see Shen Qingqiu again doesn't even cross his mind, only Mobei-Jun.

idk. I DO think they're friends and have a certain fondness for each other, especially post-canon, but I just don't buy that it's somehow more special than SQQ's relationship with any of the other characters in the novel.

#not tagging this because it's pretty negative and I try not to make people read my negativity #but I might tag it later after a bit of time has passed #for sorting on my own blog purposes #anti cumplane #im truly sorry if u are a fan of this ship and I made u read this #I promise I am actually very calm and chill t-t #and I support u #u absolutely don't need my blessings to ship a rarepare but you have it anyway! go nuts!#I just. I am a very opinionated person at the end of the day #I am still like normal about it because I'm also a regular well adjusted adult #but talking about characters is fun for me and sometimes that involves going on unsolicited rants about fanon I don't like #anyway yeah thank u for the question anon just realised I didn’t actually reply to u I just went on a tangent #I agree #svsss meta

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marksarmel · 1 year

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What I've Been Consuming 04/31/23

Bitten by the Covid bug was I! It felled me, but I struggled mightily to consume and now I return, fatigued, but still bug-eyed and bug-eared. Read on my fellow insatiable media gluttons.

TV:

The Bad Batch - Episode 12 - “The Outpost”. While I’ve been loving Season 2 of the Bad Batch I wanted to review this episode singularly because it was full of so many good things. This episode focuses on Crosshair and the dark dark side of the Empire. And there is nary a Sith Lord in sight. And yes, I meant to use two darks in a row. This episode continues Crosshair’s arc in which he comes to understand the cruelty of the Empire and how their war machine shows no mercy, even to its own soldiers

Our favorite brooding clone, Crosshair, is being sent to help secure an outpost on Barton-4 that has been the victim of numerous raids. Before we get to the meat of the episode Crosshair witnesses a group of clones being forced into retirement. Another bit of evidence pointing to the Empire’s disdain of the clones. Crosshair observes this with little emotion, but we know it’s breaking down his already shaky belief in the Empire. Also, Lieutenant Nolan openly despises clones. Also, also, this guy is a total pain in the ass.

At the outpost Crosshair meets a broken down skeleton crew of clones who have been tasked with guarding unknown cargo at the outpost. Their leader, Mayday, is an aged veteran clone, with little respect for Nolan’s upturned nose. Mayday and Crosshair set out for a tour of the depot as Mayday explains that their equipment and infrastructure is long past its expiration date. And that his requests for updated equipment have been ignored. It’s not long before the outpost is attacked and after a brief skirmish that ends with a few dead clones (and Crosshair picking off a raider), Lieutenant, the Prick, Nolan sends Crosshair and Mayday out to recover the stolen cargo.

Things soon go sideways and our new duo find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into a hopeless situation. After another brief battle they discover the cargo that the clones have been guarding (and dying for) is newer updated equipment for new non-clone soldiers. The very same equipment that Mayday has been requesting be sent to them. Crosshair gets to add another entry into his pros and cons list for the Empire.

Before they can secure the cargo an avalanche nearly kills both men, but Crosshair manages to drag Mayday back to base. Lieutenant, the Ice Queen, Nolan, is none too happy to see the two broken soldiers arrive sans cargo and even refuses medical aid for the nearly dead Mayday, calling them both expendable. As Nolan rambles on pitilessly, Mayday dies. Nolan orders the nearly dead Crosshair back to work. Unfortunately for Nolan, (but goody for us!) he’s unaware that he’s talking to a clone that now gives absolutely zero fucks. Crosshair gives Nolan an early retirement courtesy of a blaster shot straight to the chest. He is quickly arrested by the new clones. There’s a sort of twisted parallel here to when Crosshair, upon orders, killed the defenseless Governess, and rebel to the Empire, Ames in “the Solitary Clone” episode. Here in this episode, Crosshair finds himself killing someone on the Empire’s side. Makes you think perhaps a better name for Crosshair would have been Crossfire, because he’s definitely trapped on both sides.

Crosshair awakens to find himself not in jail but in a somewhat cushier environment where he is greeted by Dr. Emerie Karr, the clone scientist that we met a few episodes back, who was part of the team holding the Kaminoan Lama Su captive. What she has in mind for Crosshair isn’t quite revealed, but whatever it is Crosshair is a clone forever changed.

This episode also had really spectacular animation. The snowy world of Barton-4 made me snuggle deeper into my blanket and Crosshair’s face ran the gamut of emotions throughout the story. Damn what a fine piece of work.

The Mandalorian - This season has been good to Mando so far. In a show packed with so many enjoyable characters, like Bo-Katan and Grogu and Greef Karga and the always welcome Amy Sedalia as Peli Motto and the Mandolorian convert it would be crazy to introduce a new storyline, but that’s just what happens in episode 3’s the “The Convert”. After a blistering opening where our trio of Bo Katan, Grogu and Mando barely escape Mandalore we are dropped into a brand new storyline that is honestly quite jarring. While it’s not technically a brand new storyline and I’m sure it will connect to the larger Mandalore story I was a bit bummed to have this episode spend so much time with a character that I had little interest in. Episode 5 “the Pirate” gets us right back to old times and gives us some great cameos as well. I’m still super high on this show so I can forgive a little excursion from our main storylines.

Chris Rock comedy special - Chris has always been a pretty steadfast comedian in my opinion so I was eager to see how he rebounded after “The Slap”. I wouldn't call this great, barely good. It lacks the sharp observations on racism, relationships and life that Rock normally hits. The setups seem to be there, but the punchines just don’t land that hard.

In the end he does go after Will and Jada and this is where things start to pick up. He’s open and honest and actually quite angry. He was bullied by a much larger, much more powerful man, in front of millions of people, why wouldn’t he be? Did he go too hard on Jada? Maybe, but Chris’ talent is words and that’s what he has to use to make his way in the world. It’s unfortunate that Will Smith, a man who is quite the wordsmith himself, chose to attack Chris physically, but love makes us all do strange things. Nobody wins here. Everybody loses.

The Last of Us - You can save the world, if only you give up your first born. While not quite Joel’s first born Ellie is enough of a stand in that Joel is completely unable to fathom giving her up. The final episode of this show continues wrecking our hearts and forcing us to watch these two become more and more emotionally anchored to each other. All this only to see them be hurt in ways much deeper than any physical wound. Joel goes full on John Wick Terminator Boss Level mode to save Ellie one last time, but it may not be what she would have wanted. This final decision is one that has already been debated since the first game came out, but the show's creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay fill it with such emotional weight that it would be foolish to think that either side is fully right or fully wrong. Ultimately the trip this show took us on is one of super heavy emotional weight and I’m actually glad that I’ve got some time to recover before Season 2.

Superman and Lois - This show is good! During a battle wherein I finally was bitten by the Covid bug I had nothing to do but be miserable and watch tv. Superman and Lois popped up in my searches and my hazy mediciney fogged mind decided to pass the time with some mindless tv. Only this was anything but. First off this series looks fantastic. The pilot episode does a great job of quickly summarizing Superman’s early days and then quickly adds in something different. This series gives Superman kids, a set of twins, one of which may have powers and the other which is dealing with a very modern issue, social anxiety disorder. All of this sets up a new framework for Superman that feels both nostalgic and new. As I said earlier this show looks great and the opening episode gives us some truly iconic shots. Though it does lean a bit too heavily into the modern style of some shows by looking way too dark and desaturated, it doesn't take away from all the good things about this show.

MOVIES:

Shazam 2- Look, this movie was about what I expected it to be; light loose, fun and breezy. There are issues big and small with this movie and I’m sure some fans of the first one went in with high hopes that were soon dashed, but that is the state with DC right now. Here’s to hoping Mr. Gunn can work his magic going forward.

Overall my biggest issue is that the movie was either miscast or poorly written and most likely both.

MUSIC

Niia - I - Another artist I recently stumbled across on Spotify that turned out to be quite the gem. The soft and simple album opener is the perfect aural pallet cleanser for the rest of the album of groovy sultry jams.

Kimbra - “Save Me” - Do you remember a little ditty “Somebody That I Used To Know” from a long time ago? Well Kimbra is the other singer on that song. I really didn’t keep with either artist after that huge hit, but I found this while rooting around. While the whole album is pretty listenable this moody hypnotic track grabbed me by my earstems and wouldn’t let go.

#tv review #the last of us #the mandolorian s3 #Chris Rock #The Bad Batch #shazam 2 #kimbra #niia #movie review #music review #what I'm consuming

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