#2nd favorite classic novel of all time

[a-lone-echoviolet]

Ok i was gonna finish this before posting any info but no one knows me enough and i dont have free time rn

Plus i really wanna talk about thiss

So i have an AU im working on called ‘Booktale’ (original wow)

I have a story planned out, character info and stuff but school and exhaustion keeps getting in the way

So instead of letting it collect dust like i normally let it do, imma show you guys some stuff about it!

Character designs and some general info! (that i was able to sketch out)✨

Here are the ones ive sketched out! I havent gotten to asgore , gaster or muffet yet tho :((

-Asterisk (frisk)

- ambrovert

- Gender fluid

- Soul is perseverance

- Best friends with chara

- Reads: fairlytales,mythical books,urban legends,and adventure books

-Character (chara)

- Introverted

- Gender fluid

- Soul was determination

- Best friends with frisk

- Their soul was put in a container before breaking completely

- Their determination was strong enough to keep them as a ghost that is stuck underground, only able to observe everyone go by with their lives without them

- Mostly a guide for frisk

-Symbolism(Flowey)

- Flowey is an Anemone flower, it symbolizes death

- Reads: ######s older logs, history(doesn’t read often)

- Knows about the multiverse theory but is unsure if it’s true

- Hes great at acting all sweet and nice

-Moral(Asriel)

- Extroverted

- Reads: kids books, fairytales, art books

- Always wanted to be a hero

-Exposition(toriel)

- Loves to cook and bake

- Favorite thing to bake: pies and cupcakes

- When exiting the ruins, instead of wanting to force you stay, she will test if you truly are strong enough to leave, to be on your own, and basically teaches you how to actually fight

- Despite being so kind and motherly <3 she can put up a good fight [if she needs to]

-Script(sans)

- ambrovert (hes ok with talking with everyone, but he is a bit ackward when making friends [mainly cuz hes both kinda excited and shy to meet people and doesn’t know what to say)

- Reads: science books, jokes books, ######’s old log books, fansty books (almost every type but mostly reads these types)

- Spars with papyrus, to both help paps train and to let sans get out of the house and use his magic more

- Works in the library

- Not as lazy as OG, rather is just more layed back and is actually willing to do physical work

- Makes puns and jokes but his favorite ones are definitely the ones about magic (and dark humor)

- Best friends with alphys

- He helps alphys in her work (and before, also ######)

- Knows about the multiverse and wants to travel through and know the different versions of him and others, and all the stories that are different from his

Plot (papyrus)

- Extrovert

- Reads: cook books, action books, Fantasy books and puzzelbooks

- despite sans not being as lazy as Classic, papyrus is more responsible in this AU

- Hes part of the royal gaurd! Being 2nd in command

- he acts before he really thinks, it has its pros and cons, being able to react fast to save anyone in danger

- Hes a great cook! and does cooking hang outs with undyne(undyne adding the fun and action while papyrus makes sure its edible and tastes good)

- His favorite thing to cook is lasagna

- He’s already quite popular and loved but it doesn’t matter so much to him, the love from his friends and bro are enough (tho he does love the attention)

-ellipsis (alphys)

- Shy ambrovert(shes ok with talking to a big public crowd, but talking one-on-one/ face-to-face, She gets real shy)

- She seems shy at first, but once you get to know her, she’s quite a chatterbox

- She knows how to be calm, collected, serious and calculated when needed

- She used to be friends with ######, because they used to be Co-workers (‘But who is ######? Ive always worked alone’)

- Reads: Manga, Romance novels, Science books, and ######’s old logs(for research)

-conflict(undyne)

- Ambrovert

- Leader of the royal guard

- She’s great at healing physical wounds and serious physical damages

- She’s a real smack talker (she can practically roast anyone if she so pleased)

- Even tho she’s good at trash talking, she’s just great with words in general( whether it be advice or confessingherfeelings)

- hiatus(napstablook)

- shy introvert

- He is a writer

- He never finishes any of his books (but he always leaves the end of every chapter open ended

- He enjoys writing angst and ventish books

- He’s anonymous online and no one knows him in real life

- He’s a well know and loved author (even if his books are unfinished)

Typewriter (mettaton)

- Genderfluid

- Extrovert

- Is a host of a talk show/interview show/drama show (they also are a news anchor)

- Their very protective over anyone close (especially alphys) and it takes a while to truly get on their good side

- They can be quite pushy when it comes to questions, even when the person seems uncomfortable (however they do back down after they’ve realized they pushed to far)

- You can catch them snooping around the lab for some ‘secrets’ (tho he could never find anything serious, just alphys’s anime collection of anime)

- He isn’t mean but he is quite cocky

(The ones I haven’t Designed yet)

-Rhyme (Muffet)

- Shy extrovert

- Mute by choice (tho whenever she does talk, she often rhymes)

- Reads: baking books, Anything with fluff, romance, fantasy, and horror

- She knows ASL

- Very sweet and friendly. however, can be hostile if you hurt spiders, her pet, anyone who is defenceless, or when needed

-ɱɪșșɪɳɠ fɪʟɝ(ɠɐȘ┳ɵʁ)

- extrovert

- A very smart guy with a great sense of humor (hes the one who got sans into puns)

- He knows ASL

- He used to be great friends with Asgore (and tori),Sans and alphys

- He isn’t a skeleton, he is actually more of blob of matter

- He can shape shift, however he cannot change his head or hands and he can’t change colors (so he stays white and black)

- Before he entered the Void, he took the shape of a tall slender human. Some mistook him for a skeleton because of his human like shape and white form. Tho when he entered the void it became harder to hold any shape other than a blob

-Resolution (king asgore)

*(i havent made any info on him just yet :(( )

#echo-violet rambles #violetdrawings #undertale #undertale au #Booktale #utmv #utmv au #utmv oc #another undertale au? omfg #undertale fandom #undertale alternate universe #it actually started because of an ink battle i saw on yt 6 years ago #it was just gonna me sans at first but it branched out #idk.. even if i flesh it out i feel like it will flop and i’ll just a a drop of water in the sea #its fun tho :) #i wanna have fun with you guyss😭😭 #plss everyones AUs are so cool

[jenoutof10]

Hi.... If you don't mind me asking, can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....

hi! i definitely dont mind, this is such a fun ask so i'm SO SORRY ive only answered now 😭 also im horrible at explaining my thoughts so please bear with me...

1. jujutsu kaisen

i can go on and on about jjk but I'm trying to keep this short so I don't go on an endless rant. OKAY. i love the power system of jujutsu, it's simple but also pretty flexible and creative, i love the historical and traditional aspect of it + how it ties into clan culture, i love how it branches into barrier techniques, reverse cursed technique, binding vows, etc. for characters like gojo in particular i love how he's pictured as the strongest and how akutami shows the gap between him vs all other sorcerers, like he was in a whole different league and how his birth changed/tipped the balance of the world of jujutsu. i love the whole "saving others" thing like how yuuji wants to save everyone, megumi wants to save good people, nobara wants to save the people who mean alot to her, gojo thinking abt how he can only save people who want to be saved, geto wanting to save sorcerers from non sorcerers, etc. i like how the series has aspects of history (like how sugawara no michizane was a sorcerer and how his descendants include the gojo clan is ⅓ of the three main clans of the series, and basically the entirety of tengen (lol)). i love the anime adaptation and how crazy the animation is (when s1 came out i was alr baffled but after watching s2 and looking back at s1 im even more impressed at their development), the manga's artstyle i was a big fan of but now not so much (the scratchyness and alternating thick and thin rough lines around the time of shibuya arc were PEAK). besides that as a buddhist myself, the multiple buddhism references in the series really cemented my love for it as it felt familiar and it feels like ur getting a shout out esp since most shows feature themes of catholicism and christianity.

2. blue lock

i'm honestly unathletic af idk why im here. i think what hooked me was the whole individualistic + egoist concept and the elimination setting (like squid game) 🙏 for me blue lock's prime is [2nd selection, 4v4] until the end of [u20 arc], i really liked the art style during that period! sadly, i feel blue lock has fallen off ever since the current NEL arc, it feels as if theyve deviated from the original ego concept (fuck this whole "protagonism" thing man wtf) and the artstyle has undergone changes im not particular to. also the anime wack af.

3. bungou stray dogs

im going to be honest. i did NOT like bsd. s1-s3 was too all over the place for me and i really did not get the series at all, i actually thought it ended but then they released s4 & s5 in 2023. almost a year since s4 came out, i came around to watching it and i got HOOKED, i think a big factor was that there was less fillers and a lot more action scenes, plus the detective vs mastermind thing truly popped off in s4 + s5. besides that, i enjoyed the introduction of new cast and the return of previous ones (now as allies). sure, there's plot holes and the anime cuts off a handful of scenes but it WAS an incredibly enjoyable watch. plus i'd say bsd has mountains of content (atleast in comparison with other serieses) because besides your usual manga, anime, and occasionally stage play adaptation. you have the alt univ. BEAST, light novels like stormbringer or 55 minutes, wan!, and even bsd gaiden (which has nothing to do w the main series)

4. haikyuu

THE classic. it was the first anime i got into when i started quarantine and it brought back my animanga phase. i love how the characters all have interesting stories to tell, their own motivations and personalities. lots of teamwork, teambuilding, found family(?) aspects, plus all the themes have their own specific themes which i dig a lot (ex. inarizaki and their foxes + shrines). plus i love how this series captures the thrill of watching sports, it MIGHT be overexaggerated to some but i get lightheaded when theyre at match-point and on the verge of losing so it does provide some kind of high. OH and i like that they show realistic wins and losses.

5. hunter x hunter

i have not read the manga but this show was serious to me. i'm a sucker for meta and power systems, and nen is like... actually insane. i love the characters SO MUCH, the variety of designs and appearances, how the series shows the way they grow throughout their adventures and experiences, the way they show a character's relationship with the rest of the cast, etc. it also gives a somewhat nostalgic vibe? i love the opening, endings, OSTs + narrator. it truly does feel like ur tagging along on their adventures, it was a real tearjerker for me tbh.

6. avatar: the last airbender + the legend of korra

i think atla is an amazing show bcs 1. cool setting and world building 2. the cultural references 3. cool dynamics 4. character personalities and development 5. cool power system and fighting styles 6. found family etc etc... ITS A COMPLETE PACKAGE. im p sure not much are fond of tlok but i love it. i think some reasons include the fact that korra isnt like aang, but i think thats what makes tlok interesting, korra is 17 when the show starts and the show continues to follow how she grows and develops into a fully realized avatar both physically and spiritually. i also think its bcs of how they modernized bending and how lots of the cultural aspect is lost but i think its an incredible and interesting way to showcase real life modernization.

7. jojo's bizarre adventure

jjba CHANGED ME 😭 this series is actually insane like if it was a person please get it to a mental ward. i think as an artist, it holds a very dear place in my heart. the show itself is absurd and unbelievable so it keeps you on your toes (dont mind the plot holes and inconsistencies, at some point you're just gonna have to live with it). but the selling point for me is the characters, everyone has amazing, colorful and distinct designs that match well with their personalities and overall air. not to mention the artstyle and references in everything to everything? lol. the show's different parts also feature different main casts, dynamics and storylines, sometimes they do a callback to a previous part.

okay! it was very hard choosing between the 7 of them but i think they actually were the ones that truly left an impact on me. thank you so much for the ask i finally got the chance to ramble about the stuff i consume 😭😭😭 there's a lot of media I'd love to talk about and mention so maybe one day ill make a post on hopefully all the media ive consumed.

honorable mentions:

genshin impact

i started genshin in 2021 when 1.3 came out, i was dead serious about this game during quarantine. i love liyue so much its what truly got me hooked (everything from the music, the sights, etc. for me liyue/pre inazuma was prime genshin), i enjoyed building characters and doing showcases too. started losing interest when sumeru came out and slowly stopped logging in/playing daily. the reason i wont put this in the actual list is bcs im pretty clueless about the new characters and story, nor do i have much interest in them. (i came back to do the lantern rite event, love the new liyue regions!)

detective comics

i love action and fights, especially when they feature powers, so liking superheroes makes sense 🤷 DC gets shit on alot bcs of the DCEU but the films aside i like DC better than marvel. im particular to gotham and the batfam, it's just more dark and gritty, plus there's lotsa drama going on LOL. the gotham knights cast also branches alot like to young justice (I LOVE YOUNG JUSTICE 😭), teen titans, titans, birds of prey, and ofc justice league.

chainsaw man, mob psycho 100, code geass, assassination classroom, neon genesis evangelion, trigun, fairy tail

#ONCE AGAIN THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ASK I HAD SO MUCH FUN HAHAHA #🍑 ask jen #🍑 jen geeks

[rooftopvibes]

Books I read in February

Jon Fosse / Morning and Evening🎣

A child is born, a man dies, that’s the cycle of life. Fosse gives us an insight in the metaphysical world of a man who is dying and the magic of a child being born surrounded by the calming atmosphere of the Norwegian landscape.

I loved the beginning of the novel, it was my favorite part. It reads like a work of classical music, the music starts softly and gets louder and louder always interrupted by soft tunes in between which seem to sneak around the room. It’s a very smooth book to read. By the 2nd part I was a little confused since I didn’t know what it was about and I thought the protagonist is just hallucinating. Overall it’s a nice book to read and very smooth.

Dostoevsky / The double 🎭

On a mysterious night Golyadkin meets his double on a bridge. They become friends, they fight, Golyadkin‘s identity gets stolen. It’s an endless search of the real identity and the question remains „Who am I?“ We do not know for sure if Golyadkin is going insane but he seems to be very paranoid and insecure which are his main traits, so seeing a double of himself who is liked by others brings him into rage.

I couldn’t get into the story, I couldn’t focus, my mind was wandering off the whole time and I don’t know if that was because I couldn’t focus in general or the story didn’t catch me. I think both play a role. So I was confused the most time and didn’t know where the people were and what is going on but maybe that also represents Golyadkin‘s state of mind. To me it really came through how the weather reflects the inner state of the main character in this novel. Also I felt like there was, despite the very unfortunate situation, a lot of humor in the novel. I also think the topic of identity is very interesting so maybe it’s just how it is being told which kind of bored me because the story itself sounds interesting. I liked the beginning since it’s very mysterious and we don’t know what is going to happen but then the novel lost me. I personally didn’t find it too interesting since it’s a lot about the main character‘s work place and to me the other characters weren’t as lively as I am used to when reading Dostoevsky. I might give it a try some time again since, like I said, focusing was very hard at the time I read it. But it’s totally normal and can happen sometimes that you read a book and your mind wanders to different places and it’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just happens.

Dostoevsky / The gentle one 🎀

In „The gentle one“ we get a look into a pawnboker’s mind moments after his wife’s suicide. Everything starts out very chaotic since his wife is still lying in the apartment and it is no wonder that it is difficult to think in such a situation. Throughout the novel we get a clearer view on the situation, like the narrator says, he wants to tell the truth. Soon we realize that his mind is clouded and didn’t see moments like they were. So it’s the readers task to look through his words and see how the situation actually is, which isn’t always easy. Keeping in mind that the pawnbroker is much much older and his wife is a young girl in need, having nearly no money, we can assume the power this man has over his wife and the fear she must have felt. But the narrator tells the story in a whole different tone, almost like he was the victim.

Albert Camus / A Happy Death 🌌

„And all those who had not made the gestures necessary to live their lives, all those who feared and exalted impotence— they were afraid of death because of the sanction it gave to a life in which they had not been involved.“

As the title says, the main question of the novel is „How to die happily?“ There are two parts in this novel. The first part is about Mersault‘s „ordinary“ life. He doesn’t have enough time or money, he isn’t living he is rather just existing. In the 2nd part Camus shows us how it can look like to be happy. We see Mersault freeing himself of all these circumstances that made it difficult to be happy. In the novel we can find many connections to his other work The Stranger, even though there are also many differences, but I see it going together since it is said that The Stranger grew out of this novel.

A happy death is my favorite novel by Camus, i love the atmosphere and it gets rid of my fear when I read it. I read it around two years ago for the first time and it changed the way I think and feel about certain aspects in life. It helped me to get out of the state of existing and start living and feeling (even though I have to mention that by only reading the novel, it won’t do that for you but it definitely helps). It can teach to live no matter the circumstances, it can teach be to feel happy (but not joyful) even if you feel miserable. To take every every bit of nature into your body. And it teaches how you don’t need to be successful, how you don’t need anything to be happy. It gave me a different view on happiness but it was only the base. This book has such a great impact on my because of what I made out of the knowledge. I enjoyed the chapters where Mersault was just walking around and living his life because it had something so relatable. My favorite parts are the ones in the house above the sea because it seems so nice there and I also want to live there! Of course the last chapter is also my favorite since it makes me feel calm. When I think about death I (no longer) think about fear, I think about peace.

Stefan Zweig / The Heart‘s Impatience 🫀

„For the first time I began to perceive that true sympathy cannot be switched on and off like an electric current, that anyone that identifies himself with the fate of another is robbed to some extent of his own freedom.“

The heart‘s impatience is the longest novel of Stefan Zweig. Hofmiller, a young lieutenant visits a wealthy family who‘s daughter is paralyzed. His main motivation for visiting them is the feeling of compassion. Condor a doctor treats the daughter and reveals some interesting facts about medicine like the treatments are mostly there to motivate the patient, not to cure the illness. Everything ends in a tragedy since Edith, the paralyzed girl is in love with Hofmiller which turns into an obsession (Zweig‘s common topic in his novels).

I have to admit that I expected more from this novel. I found it not so interesting, only the last few pages really got me. The doctor is a very interesting character and I also liked Edith but I wish that Zweig would have gotten deeper into those characters. Also it made me question the feeling of compassion a lot and that it might not always be the best thing to show to people, maybe the harsh truth is better and would have avoided the tragedy. It has some good lines and the topic is interesting but the story itself and how it is being told didn’t catch me.

#classic lit #literature #dostoevsky #stefan zweig #Camus #jon fosse

[youthofpandas]

Kris year in review (in which i talk about everything i remember that i watched and played and read) bc I like to talk about things . this is so incredibly long do not feel like you have to look at this okay guys. okay. I already wrote this up so im just gonna post it

Games I played:

AI: The Somnium Files - a fantastic game I highly recommend if you like weird characters and stories and are a fan of visual novels/adventure games <3 super fun

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - AMAZING cast of characters and fun gameplay I didn’t want to stop playing, great plot I will be thinking about forever…

Bugsnax - very funny and cute and I loved catching every bugsnax and the fun characters I want to play the 2nd one when it comes out

Psyconauts - a cult classic for a reason. Loved it’s style but the final level is so bad I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. Looking forward to finishing 2 one day

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - I haven’t gotten to finish this one yet (I got 80 hours in okay??) but I’m incredibly excited to get back to it. GOTY BABY!!! GAME OF ALL TIME!!

Nier Automata - ALSO THE GAME OF ALL TIME this is a must play it broke me it healed me it made me see the beauty of art and story telling that games are capable of it’s really just fantastic. for the love of god do not stop after ending A. Love this game so much.

Ongoing Manga I am currently reading

Chainsaw Man - starting off with the best one. CSM is so incredibly important to me and one of the best stories I have ever read. if you have talked to me at ALL you know how I cannot shut up about Denji and i AM NOT SORRY!!!

I Want to Hold Aono-kun so Badly I Could Die - fantastic supernatural/horror themed romance and one of my favorite romances I read this year

Black Clover - made me realize how truly trash bnha is at writing women lmao. Good battle shonen but nothing overwhelming special about it. It understands the basics and does them all well

D Gray Man - didn’t catch up on this one yet but it’s got great characters and some of the worst action paneling I’ve ever seen.

Dungeon Meshi - y’all were right it’s funny and can be very touching at time

A Condition Called Love - I can fix him romance but make it not feel toxic the manga. Super cute I love them.

Toilet Bound Hanako-kun - I feel like I started this last year but I know that can’t be true… supernatural + romance + cute art. It’s made me cry.

Jujutsu Kaisen - loved this baby and then I caught up to the current arc and it was the worst shit of all time. Megumi my depressed king.

Frieren Beyond Journeys End - fantastic please read it I love these bitches so much

Spy x Family - it’s SxF it’s good we all know this

Manga I finished reading

Cardcaptor Sakura - I think this is my first CLAMP manga I finished. LOVED sakura and shaoran they are so small. so many good aspects to this series and then all of the age gap bullshit is there so IDK hard to recommend but I enjoyed reading all of the parts that weren't about horrible relationships

Horimiya - CUTE I love romance where you get to follow them as a couple <3 there were a few bad spots in it (miyamura's piercings being compared to self harm in that one chapter.......???????) but over all a good read

Astra: Lost in Space - fun scifi adventure with good characters. pretty short and easy read. its fun

You Got Me, Senpai - SO CUTE one of the best relationships I've read in a manga. adorable.

Drowning Love - verrry good and complex, a mature story with darker elements (check out trigger warnings for it) and a very engaging coming of age story about two kinda horrible kids with too much attention pointed their way living in a small town. anime adaptation WHEN

Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty - super cute romance, supernatural elements. loved it

Orange - think this would be a perfect read if the time travel element wasn't explained like That and also Suwa >>> Kakeru and what they did to his character in that bonus story was just mean

Goodbye, Eri - everyone should read this. beautiful, stays with you. fantastic exploration on what arts purpose is

A Kiss, For Real - it was cute. the summary makes it sound more romance focused than it actually is, there is a lot of focus on the MCs journey of growth and what she wants to do with her life. Romance was cute but not exceptionally so

Takopi's Original Sin - overhyped as hell. depressing outlook on life. thought some of it was fine but it is overall too cruel to say i enjoyed it, especially with a cast this young

The Girl From The Other Side - I actually 100% cannot remember if I read this last year or not. anyways. BEAUTIFUL art, great characters, compelling mysteries

Junji Ito's Dissolving Classroom - not his best work by far, but it is one of his earliest so I don't care too much.

Spotless Love: This Love Cannot Be Any More Beautiful. - I haven't been adding the ones that aren't popular unless I really enjoyed them, but idk this one is just so wild I felt the need to throw it on here. girl who loves to clean x child assassin is certainly a relationship dynamic. they're funny

Anime I watched <3 THIS SECTION WILL BE LONG SORRY

Akiba Maid War - this is not very good but it is entertaining so...

Ano Hana - rewatched this one finally! still one of the best dramas of all time. did you know childe and jintan have the same english VA bc I know. I know this now.

BNA - the plot point about how the furries were victims in the literal real world holocaust made me kind of hate this I won't lie. also the best friend fox girl Nazuna is one of the most unbearable characters ever. when you lead a cult pretending to be an important religious figure to a culture you are not part of because you like attention i guess?? it is not a good look in a show that already deals so heavily in antisemetic themes & imagery for it's villains.... sorry to whoever recommended this to me :( great animation

Dance Dance Danseur - did not like the MC but I did like the FMC and Rival character, good animation. I read the authors shoujo title Drowning Love this year and it should've gotten the adaptation TBH but this was fine, last few episodes carried

Death Parade - rewatched this one this year and it is still amazing. OP is still one of the best out there.

Do It Yourself!! - not incredibly remarkable yuri bait with a fantastic art style. its fine if you like cute girls doing cute things while being gay genre

Erased - for a mystery story the culprit is laughably obvious. the rest of it is pretty good though. oh lol other than the weird jokes about the protags taste in girls but it never followed through on anything so compared to other series im too tired to care

Keep Your Hand's Off Eizouken - starts off strong but I couldn't keep caring by the end tbh. it does not help I started it and then stopped for like 7 months and then finally finished the show so that's probably rly affecting my feelings

Today's Menu for the Emiya Family - certified apron boy moment

Fire Force - do NOT fucking watch this show is is so actually bad. However. Arthur is so funny I have to finish the series

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works - rin best girl. maybe fate isn't so bad after all.

Fruits Basket (2019) all seasons - LOVE ME SOME SHOUJO!!!! it slays everyone needs to watch this NOW

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 - fantastic movie i need to watch it again

Kaguya-sama Love is War - only watched the first season but it's fun, not the best without breaks. the people saying this is the best animanga romance need to read more shoujo though

Mob Psycho 100 s3 - I cried. It's beautiful. I don't need to say anything else

NGE - this was a rewatch a long time coming. Truly didn't understand shit watching this as a teenager lol. it's better than I could've imagined and a lot of the criticisms i used to have were actually stupid and a byproduct of not understanding what it was doing

Sarazanmai - 10/10 gay kappa connections cycles trauma love mafia boxes cops otters I WANT TO CONNECT, but.........

spy x family s1 - its good its sxf

Zombieland Saga + Revenge - first idol anime I watched. the main girl was way too relatable for comfort. good time.

Movies I watched (I am bad at talking about movies sorry)

Turning Red - super good loved the everything I can’t believe it came out this year. I’ve watched it 3 times.

Scream (the entire movie series) - it’s scream baby idk what else to say. First one is fantastic the rest are okay I guess but man… that first one is just sooo good it’s hard to live up to it

The Sea Beast - fun movie! Almost forgot I watched it

Monster High: The Movie - perfection 10/10 high art it should’ve been called Monster High: The Film

Skinamarink - loooove me a horror movie that says fuck doing what other movies do I am doing my own thing. Did not actually love the thing it did but it’s definitely not a bad movie

Wendell & Wild - STOP MOTION SWEEP !!!! Great movie I will return to on future Halloweens. Think the plot got a bit too big for the movies runtime or whatever but I really don’t care bc it was good so whatever

Disney’s ZOMBIES trilogy - bad.

Disney’s Descendants trilogy - bisexual. Less bad than zombies

The VelociPastor - a masterpiece baby!!

Glass Onion - absolutely fantastic, words can’t describe how fun this movie is

Pinocchio - stunning stop motion and a beautiful story that brought me to tears. icon.

#kris actually talks #posting this at 4am hoping nobody will notice it

[rachelbethhines]

60 Years of Doctor Who Anniversary Marathon - Martin: 2nd Review

Cold Fusion - Full Audio​

Now this was a pleasant surprise. I was initially dreading this audio as I disliked the novel that it's based off of. But the audio adaptation managed to fix some of my biggest issues that I had with the original. Spoilers below for a 30 year old book and 5 year old audio ahead.

So one of the things that angered me so much about the original novel was the ending where the doctor's wife was killed for seemingly no story reason other than to give the main character more man pain that he didn't need. It was a classic case of fridging; introducing a female character just to be a love interest and then killing her off for sake of the male character's development. Oh I still hate it to this day!

The audio changes this up somewhat. It's not a perfect solution, but instead of getting murdered by the bad guy, the character of Patience disappears in a time vortex. It's still removes her from the narrative abruptly without closure and is confusingly presented on audio, but at least it doesn't kill her off. Her fate from that point is left ambiguous and she can be brought back later if anyone wants to. And as I like the character, I do hope she comes back. Patience is given so much more personality in the audio that was missing from the book, and I enjoy the idea of the doctor running into a person from his past that he can't quite remember, but knows he has a connection too. At least conceptually I like it, poor execution can drag this idea down hard. (glares daggers as River Song and Moffat)

But on to other things I liked, I liked how the Tardis crews were presented and how they all had things to do. Adric was my personal favorite and it was good to hear him back. I liked his chemistry with everyone, especially with the Seventh Doctor. Speaking of the Seventh Doctor, I have never really cared for the New Adventures take on the character, and there are still things here that annoy me slightly, but McCoy breathes so much life into his performance that I can manage to swallow some of the more dodgy aspects of the character. It's not a major improvement, but it is an improvement.

I also didn't even mind the Other or the Looms this go around. For one, it's left ambiguous as who's memories we're really seeing, and it's hinted that Patience may be from another dimension entirely. One where Gallifrey was destroyed by the aliens that are invading reality/time. If taken to that conclusion, couldn't the Other be a Doctor from another universe? One who has a different history to our own? Our even a connected one, if you prefer? Anyways, I like the headcannon and I'm keeping it.

COLD FUSION: by Megaplumfinity

Now on to what I didn't like. Even at six episodes, the story was rushed. The one advantage the novel has over the audio is that things can breath more.

The ending suffers the most as the weight of things, (Patience's 'death', the villain reveal and his comeuppance, the Seventh Doctor's betrayal, ect.) doesn't have time to really be felt by the audience or the characters before we're off the next thing. Furthermore the wrap up is, well, a bit fanwanky and fails to provide conclusion to the Doctor's new found animosity towards himself. And it all ends rather abruptly without any real closure. Meh... Still this doesn't hamper the lead up to the final episode which is still loads of fun, and that's what good Doctor Who should be, fun.

#doctor who #The Other #classic who #nuwho #jo martin #fugitive doctor #the timeless child

[longmonthartist]

A Brief History of K18 Fanfics Part 2

Preface

I just want to say I’m so happy about the positive response to Part 1. I was afraid the whole article can be a bit too self-indulgent or that authors aren’t really interested in what happened some two decades ago anymore. Needless to say, I’m relieved by the show of interest from the K18 community. Now without further delay, here’s part 2, which will cover the late 2000s to mid 2010s. I’ll also be covering a few major names I accidentally left out from the inactive old classics.

Inactive Old Classics Continued

Before we continue with old classics I missed out let me just say that the reason why the earliest K18 fics are labelled Android 16 and Krillin is due to how Android 16 – 18 shared the same label in earlier versions of FF.net, so once they all get separated, the 16 – 18 tag became Android 16.

CSHayden

I can’t believe I missed this one. Thanks to Cj4Dj by the way for reminding me of this classic. CSHayden is still active on FF.net but has since moved onto other fandom. This being said, this author was a famous K18 writer back in the days and has been contributing since the very first beginning.

Capable of writing both in-depth analysis of the couple as well as more humorous pieces that still captures their essence perfectly, CSHayden has written all-time favorites such as “The Morning After” and “Washed Away”. Their most famous piece, “Mrs. Chestnut, about your daughter...” is arguably the best story involving grown-up Marron as it perfectly describes how Krillin and Eighteen would’ve raised their daughter and how our favorite Mrs. Chestnut would’ve done to anyone who dared touching her daughter. For K18 fans wanting to get a sense of what first generation author is capable of, CSHayden’s works are must-reads.

Juu

Another famous writer who has written some impactful K18 stories in the past, Juu is capable of writing some very deep and reflective pieces involving our characters. While not always easy reads, Juu’s most famous story such as “Love Juuhachigou” and “Thank You” portrayed how Eighteen viewed her family when no one’s watching and is capable of bringing out emotions with few selective words.

Cold-eyes-for-you

I knew I missed someone from my last post cause I kept on remembering there’s a famous writer with the word “Cold” in their pen name and indeed, I missed Cold-eyes-for-you. While more of a Dragon Ball generalist and more specifically, Marron pairing specialist, Cold-eyes-for-you has nevertheless written some all time K18 classics such as “He Can’t Handle It”, a hilarious piece involving how Krillin proved all his friends wrong by having a good time with Eighteen.

Tim333

This author is known for one fic and one fic only, the epic “Kuririn: Only Human”. Known as the most comprehensive Krillin life story back in the day, “Kuririn: Only Human” remained a golden standard on how to write character analysis even to this day. It’s totally worth checking him out for this 160k words long novel alone, which covered Krillin from his early childhood to fatherhood. Also, I believe it had been translated into Spanish due to its popularity, showing just how impactful this story is. K18 fans can also enjoy this piece as it later touched up on how Krillin viewed Eighteen from the very beginning.

ALF

A very early K18 author starting in 2000! While ALF has since moved onto other fandoms and hasn’t been writing since, their story: “The Dance” is an incredible K18 story that portrayed the characters without using one single dialogue. Now that’s impressive and definitely a treat for people wanting something not so dialogue and thoughts heavy.

Juu-chan2002

The last old classics I swear, Juu-chan2002 is yet another author using Eighteen/Juuhachigou’s name in her pen name. all 3 of her stories are worth checking out as all contained solid storytelling.

2nd Generation K18 Writers (Late 2000s to mid 2010s)

In this section, I’ll be loosely compiling all authors who aren’t exactly first generation, but came into the fandom several years later. By the time these writers start with their stories, they already have a lot of classics showing them the way and therefore, inventing new concepts is becoming harder but nevertheless they managed to come up with some very interesting plots. It is also worth noting that by now, fanfic format has been standardized more or less so 2nd Gen K18 authors do not suffer from the issue of formatting compared to 1st gen authors. Also taking place during this time period is the airing of Dragon Ball Z Kai, a cleaner version of DBZ airing in late 2000s and early 2010s that revitalized the fandom.

I’d also like to point out that I’m largely off from FF.net during this time period so there’s a chance I’ll be missing quite a lot of 2nd gen authors. Do let me know if there’s anyone who should be added to this list.

ChronicallyinFlaming

An incredibly diverse author who has written some major K18 works, ChronicallyinFlaming’s K18 stories are either very steamy, reflective, or a combination of both. One thing that stood out about ChronicallyinFlaming’s works is their interesting if not whacky premise. Definitely worth checking out if one wants some K18 stories with different take. I would especially recommend stories such as “As a Joke” and “Overwhelmed”, two stories of vastly different tone but are equally enjoyable to read.

Thegoffietwerb/gremlinloquacious

Thegoffietwerb is also known as gremlinloquacious on Ao3. She’s another versatile author who has written stories in many fandoms. In the K18 fandom though, she’s known as for “Fools Fall In”, a humorous K18 story with unique premise. The story’s still ongoing despite first published way back in 2010 and, just like other authors who has been on the site for a while, one can see the progression of her writing throughout the years. Definitely worth checking out.

SuperWG

SuperWG is more of a Dragon Ball generalist than K18 specialist but like many versatile authors, has written some good K18 stories. Known for his love for overlooked characters, SuperWG tries to paint misunderstood characters in positive lights and his stories often contain strong themes. “Waltz”, his latest story is quite a calm enjoyable piece while older stories such as “What’s In His Heart” and “Worst Nightmare” can be viewed as trying to correct fan misconceptions of K18 or 17.

Do give this author a try especially if one doesn’t like how certain characters are presented by the fandom, as his stories will make you clap for dismantling wrong portrayals of not just K18 but other Dragon Ball couples.

Buttercup12490

The best way to describe Buttercup12490 is the humorous but still reflective tone in their works. “Oh Brother” is a collection of K18 one shots featuring some very good snippets while “Observations” is probably the best and only K18 story featuring the infamous Brianne. It’s definitely interesting looking through K18 through their most adamant fictional hater: Brianne and see how the couple can turn someone’s view with their love for each other.

Doccubus

Probably the most famous K18 lemon author in the 2010s, this author has written some of the most eye-opening steamy K18 contents. While not for readers unprepared for some major rated M contents, for those liking lemon, Doccubus’s stories, all of which are very humorous if not slightly outrageous in additional to their lime, will more than satisfy you. Just make sure not to read at work.

Koinekid

Koinekid has been on ff.net since the early 2000s but he falls under 2nd generation K18 author due to start writing this lovely couple in the late 2010s. Perhaps due to his decades of writing experience or his English focused education history, all of his stories are well formatted and structured while also demonstrating good plot progression and interesting twists. It’s rather hard to recommend any specific K18 stories since, well, all his 4 K18 stories are worth reading. I’d definitely check out Koinekid’s writing not only for his creativity and but also just to see how paragraphs and sentences can be stringed together in one seamlessly fluid writing.

 Well, that’s it for A Brief History of K18 Fanfics part 2. For the next part I’ll cover some contemporary writers (the 2020s).

#K18 #krillin #android18 #Android Eighteen #dragon ball #fanfiction #fanfic

[officialao3fandomlastforever]

Been thinking about books and the joy of reading a bit lately, and I just wanna share something with y’all about my current standard about some books. By talking about how my dad destroys some books. 

I know it sounds bad, but please, let me tell you about it. 

My dad loves mysteries. Thrillers. The occasional horror. He really likes crime procedurals. He also loves some good superhero stories and spy movies. He’s down for fantasy and sci-fi too. One of his favorite shows for a while was The Wire, then NCIS, then Law and Order. He enjoys movies like R.E.D. and Deadpool. He grew up with things like Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and for a while watched Game of Thrones week by week when it was originally airing. He’s seen IT, and isn’t overly queasy with some more graphic material. 

Knowing these, I’ll sometimes lend him a book. But usually, if there’s a book I think he’ll enjoy, I’ll try to buy him a copy for himself. Sometimes he’ll not enjoy it and set it down, never to pick it up again. But most of the time, he’ll read it to completion with a smile. 

My dad has been gifted many books over the years. My brother has bought him Halo and Warhammer novelizations. He’s read many different crime and thriller book. He’s read some classic detective stories. He enjoy Star Wars and Star Trek novels. He’s enjoyed all kinds of novels and enjoyed them all to different levels. 

But the thing that tells me he really, truly, is enjoying a book, is when he takes it to work. 

My dad works driving trains. He wears heavy steel toe boots and often comes home covered in muck and oil that paints his blue jeans black. He works late at night, driving out to where he needs to go before moving trains back and forth. He usually packs a book in his bag if he’s in the middle of reading it, and wants to keep reading it on his breaks. 

These books come home in okay condition. Pristine, clean, newly brought home books soon become dirty with the same muck and grime on my dad’s hands and clothes. Hardcovers editions lose their paper sleeves. They come home with dog ears and the occasional lunch or coffee stain. Sometimes there’s a tear. But they’re still readable. They’re still able to be kept and read again and again. They just aren’t in the same condition they were in before. 

The most recent book I’ve seen that’s received this treatment was a copy of “Killers of a Certain Age” by Deanna Raybourn, which I had gifted my dad from my Book of the Month club box in September in hopes he would enjoy it. Brand new hardcover. Crisp and clean. Still in okay condition, but is now covered in dirt and smells of oil and coffee, and the sleeve bent to hell and has a noticeable shoe print on it from where it probably accidentally slid off the book and onto the floor. Last I saw it, it was still in his car with a paper napkin sticking out of it that had a clumsily written “2nd read” on it. 

But that, in my personal, heartfelt opinion, is more than okay. 

My dad was enjoying the book so much that he brought it to work with him, wanting to keep reading. He couldn’t just wait until he got back. And he kept it in his car to read again. 

When dad doesn’t like a book, he puts it down and forgets about it. 

When my dad likes a book, he smiles as he reads. 

When my dad loves a book, he takes it to work on the trains with him. 

Its important to take care of your books so that they last and you can read them again and again. 

But I think sometimes, somedays, it’s okay if the book gets damaged and dirty. 

I hope any aspiring writer out there someday writes a book that is so enjoyed that dads take them to work clean and they come back looking just like dad. A story so enjoyed that it can’t be put down, even at risk of dirt and muck, wear and tear. A story so enjoyed that knowing it made their dad happy brings a smile to the kid that gifted it to him. 

A book so enjoyed, it stays in the car with a napkin book mark that says how many rereads we’re on now. 

#fandom rambles #fandom writes #books #writing #okay to reblog #been thinking about that a lot lately

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this Week #121 (Year 3/Week 17):

This week I watched more “Foreign” films (19) and more films by female directors (15) than usual. The best ones were: Lynne Ramsay's 'Gasman' and 'Ratcatcher', 'All night long', and 'Summer 1993'.

🍿  

Carmen Jones squarely belongs to the beautiful Dorothy Dandridge, for which she was nominated for Best Actress Oscar, first for an African-American. Harry Belafonte played the sap who falls for her, is betrayed by her and who finally kills her in a jealous rage. The song numbers were all done in single shots, and the opening title sequence was the first one created by Saul Bass.

RIP, Harry Belafonte.

“About my own life, I have no complaints. Yet the problems faced by most Americans of color seem as dire and entrenched as they were half a century ago.”

🍿  

Scottish Auteur Lynne Ramsay X 7:

She only made 4 feature films and before this week I’ve only seen her most recent one, the dark and ‘Taxi Driver’-violent ‘You were never really there’, which did not speak to me. But because I keep reading that she’s one of the most important female directors of our time, I wanted to check out the rest of her work.

🍿 Morvern Callar, her second feature, took a while to get me. Driftless, precarious supermarket worker Samantha Morton seemed to have no center. One Christmas morning she finds that her boyfriend had killed himself on their kitchen floor, and like Meursault in ‘The Stranger’ by Camus, she’s overwhelmed by her inability to process her emotions. But he left her a manuscript of a novel, and she replaces his name with hers and sends it to a publisher mentioned in his suicide note. Another modern classic it resembles is Antonioni’s ‘The Passenger': As she reinvents herself with his persona, she travels from her small Scottish town south to Andalusia, and eventually finds herself in the middle of nowhere, on a dusty mountain road without any plans, or idea what to do. By the ‘Dedicated to the One I Love’ ending, it all falls into place.

🍿 Her early, 15-minute masterpiece Gasman became an immediate favorite. A poetic gem without a single unnecessary frame or word. An 8-year-old goes to a Christmas party at the local inn with her dad and brother, and on the way they meet a woman who leaves 2 other children with the dad. The way the story discloses that the girls are half-sisters is silently and unbearably heartbreaking - 10/10!

🍿 “The very thought of you”...

Things left untold in the haunting short Swimmer, pure cinematic poetry in motion, all exquisite allusions without any explanations. 8/10

🍿 All her early shorts won prestigious awards and established her as a superb visual filmmaker. Small deaths was her film school graduation short. It captures a young girl’s pain. 

🍿 But only when watching her poetic debut feature Ratcatcher, that I understood why Lynne Ramsay is considered to be one of world cinema’s best visionaries. Not knowing anything in advance about it, I was not prepared for its visual gut punch. Beauty and misery among “the garbage and the flowers”. The non-redeemable, poor children of the working class neighborhood in 1973 Glasgow. Mesmerizing pain, transformative guilt, transcendental grace - one of the best well-made movies I ‘ever’ saw!

🍿 I was reluctant to finish with the depressing We Need to Talk About Kevin, since I’m not big on dramas with Omen-like psychopath children, school shooting tragedies and damaged, long-suffering mothers. Throughout the movie, mom Tilda Swinton is washing blood out, trying to atone. Disturbing and not a pleasure trip for sure.

🍿 All her films are about parental abandonment and existential sadness. Now that I’ve seen them all, I can understand her appeal. So meanwhile, here’s Tony Zhou, of ‘Every Frame a Picture’, talking about The Poetry of Details of Lynne Ramsay (From 2015).

And I can’t wait for her next feature “I feel fine”.

🍿

Ang Lee’s 2nd feature, The Wedding Banquet, part of his early “Father Knows Best” trilogy. Surprisingly, it’s another unapologetic mainstream story about a gay couple, done more than a decade before his ‘Brokeback Mountain’. It tells of a young Taiwanese immigrant in Manhattan, whose parents want him to marry a nice Chinese woman, not knowing that he's been living with his boyfriend [Roy Lichtenstein’s real son] for the last 5 years. Like Peter Weir’s Green Card, he agrees to fake-marry a nice woman who needs a green card, but his parents come and throw him a huge party. It gets a bit implausible.

🍿

2 surprising Othello adaptations:

🍿 My second intelligent enigma by forgotten British director Basil Dearden! A week ago I discovered his seminal gay blackmail Noir ‘Victim’ about closeted barrister Dirk Bogards, and I promised myself to look for other works by him. His very next All Night Long did not disappoint.

It re-creates Shakespeare's ‘Othello’ in a 1962 Swinging London jazz jam. Patrick McGoohan is drummer Johnny, a scheming, pot-smoking Iago who prowls the party stirring up jealousy and fear to tear the interracial couple of regal bandleader Aurelius Rex and his wife Delia apart, so that Delia will sing with Johnny when he leaves Othello's band.

It’s a superbly tense tragedy that takes place in one location and in the course of one evening, It mixes a thriller with authentic jazz performances and score, and it casually presents Race (2 mixed race couples are treated in matter-of-fact way) as well as marijuana usage which is part of the plot, but used without any comment.

With young Richard Attenborough and several prominent Jazz musicians including Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus. There’s also the majestic performance of black lead actor Paul Harris as ‘The Moor”: Magnetic and unforgettable!

The trailer. 9/10!

🍿 Desdemona, one of the earliest screen adaptations of Othello, a silent film from 1911. It was directed by August Blom, a pioneer of Danish ‘golden age’ of erotic melodramas. Hard to figure out what’s happening, but what great hats the dames wore.

🍿  

My first by Danish director Martin Zandvliet, A funny man (”Dirch”). It’s a traditional bio-pic about legendary local comedian and actor Dirch Passer. I loved the way it depicted theatrical life in Copenhagen of the 50′s and 60′s. With good performances by current stars of the Danish screen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Lars Ranthe and Lars Brygmann. A solid, personal 8/10.

🍿  

The 2 award-winning Catalan dramas made by Carla Simón:

🍿 Alcarràs, a Spanish drama about a family of Catalan farmers, whose peach orchard which they had tended for 2 generations is sold from under them to be uprooted and used as a solar farm. Played convincingly by non-actors, especially the little girl Iris was pitch-perfect. Some scenes (like the family singing) were superb. 7/10. (Photo Above)

🍿 Her debut feature Summer 1993, was a heartbreaking story about a 6-year-old orphan who has to live with her uncle’s family in the country, after both her parents had died of AIDS. It’s a tender and intimate description of small gestures and inner turmoil. Tremendous “acting” by two little girls, the main subject, as well as her new 3-year-old step-sister.

100% ‘Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes from 97 reviews. This film is also auto-biographical, as Simón’s real parents also died from AIDS when she was 6, and she had to live with her uncle's family in Catalonia. 9/10.

🍿 

Fat, Bald, Short Man, my second Colombian film (after the masterful ‘Embrace of the serpent’). A singular animation feature, using minimalist, nearly abstract, rotoscoping. A story of an invisible middle-age salaryman, Antonio Farfán, who is hampered by his ordinary looks and low self-esteem. 5/10.

🍿  

2 more by Sarah Polley:

🍿 Her debut feature, Away from her. Adapted from the Alice Munro short story, another difficult topic: Julie Christie suffers from Alzheimer's and must be put away in a home. There’s no surprise here, and it goes only in one direction.  

🍿 Take this Waltz, a standard Ménage à trois romantic comedy whereby Michelle Williams is happily married to chicken cookbook author Seth Rogen, but falls in love with the rickshaw driver / hipster-artist across the street. It’s hard to take husband Seth Rogen seriously, and even the Leonard Cohen montage doesn’t elevate the story to more than what it is.

Now that I’ve seen all four of Sarah Polley films, her documentary ‘Stories we tell” is the only memorable one, in my eyes.

🍿  

“The gorillas beat him to death before the zookeepers could gas them all...”

“Frag Waving” Team America: World Police, one of the few action movies I can stand, a vulgar satire of Bush’s militaristic war on the “Terrorists”, and a parody of cliches for everything from Hollywood to politics to American values. The version I saw did not have the complete X-rated puppet sex scene I remember from before, but oh well. Still 7/10.

Also: “You are worthress, Arec Barrwin!”

🍿

2 by french director Rebecca Zlotowski:

🍿 Grand Central, my 14th infatuated film with Léa Seydoux (who seems to have a permanent clause in all her contracts that she must have at least 2 crying scenes in each - not that I mind). She starts a lukewarm romance with some block, an unskilled laborer with no personality, while living with the guy’s supervisor in a trailer next door. At the same time, they all work at a French nuclear plant, as manual sub-contractors, without having any qualifications, and get exposed to dangerous radiations all the time. Two arbitrary and unconvincing plots that fell flat. 3/10.

🍿 Zlotowski’s latest drama Other People's Children was better, because it had a more ‘normal’, adult story. A childless 40-year-old woman falls in love with a divorced man who has a four-year-old-daughter, and tries, unsuccessfully to fit in their lives. 5/10.

🍿 

I was the biggest Beatles fan there was in the 60′s, but I never saw the reconstructed, cheesy Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with Peter Frampston (?) and the Bee-gees before. Embarrassing and Disneyland-style kitschy, it made me ashamed to be alive during the excessive 70′s. Many atrocities involved (George Burns ‘Fixin’ a hole’, Donald Pleasence as a pimp, Steve Martin in Maxwell Silver Hammer, Aerosmith ‘Come Together’, nearly every other “parody” song), with zero redeeming qualities. 1/10.

🍿  

Cracks, the only film directed by Jordan Scott, Ridley Scott's daughter. The genre of British period films about Boarding School for Girls is not my strong cup of tea, and neither is this one. A lesbian love triangle and sexual jealousy between a teacher and her two students on the diving team ended up clichéd. With young Juno Temple and neurotic Eva Green. 2/10.

🍿  

Re-watch: Play it again, Sam, an early and typical Woody Allen comedy, written by him, starred by him (together with past and future girlfriends), but directed by Herbert Ross. 50 years later, it’s dated and unfunny. 2/10.

Should I now re-watch ‘True Romance’, my favorite Tarantino film, in which he based Val Kilmer’s Elvis on the Bogard character from here?

🍿   

There were already 70 Covid-19 films, according to Wikipedia. Of the ones I saw, ‘Bo Burnham: Inside’ and ‘Locked Down' were my favorites.

But the new Life upside down is not. I only watched it because it was directed by a woman, and starred Bob Odenkirk. But these 5-6 shallow LA-characters were tiring and uninteresting. The only innovating aspect of this boring film was disclosed during the end credits: The fact that it was shot remotely over Zoom. 2/10.

🍿  

(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

[marjaystuff]

Guest Review:  Where the Sky Begins by Rhys Bowen

Where The Sky Begins

Rhys Bowen

Lake Union Publishing

August 2nd, 2022

Where The Sky Begins by Rhys Bowen is another home run regarding this historical novel. The reality of World War II plays a huge role in this novel.  Readers will take a journey with the characters as they see families separated when the children are sent to the countryside, husbands being called to fight in the war, the high casualty rate of RAF fighters, the societal class system, the civilian casualties after the German bombings, and the rationing of food.

“I thought of this woman, Josie, who grew up in London and was pulled from the rubble with nothing.  She had to start over with nothing. She was taken to the countryside where her life took one step forward. Because she was situated next to an air base, she became conscious of the war all the time. Every night the Germans had these waves of planes coming over London raining bombs on everybody. Many parents put their children on trains headed for the countryside even though they did not know where they were going. A small child was sent to people that were complete strangers.” 

Readers meet Josie Banks in 1940 London.  She has an overbearing husband who likes to emotionally harass her.  After he is called into service their home is hit by a German bomb.  Luckily, after sifting through the ruin of rubble and ash they find an injured Josie. Evacuated to the English countryside during her recovery, Josie ends up at the estate of aristocratic Miss Harcourt, a reluctant host to the surviving Josie.  

“Josie is resilient, honest, sarcastic, hopeful, spirited, kind, and smart.  She had a desire for beauty. Josie had perseverance and came through with everything life throws out at her.  My favorite scene in the book is when she realizes she is stuck with a bullying badly wounded husband. As the bombs were being dropped, she yells ‘take me, here I am.’ I found it very emotionally overwhelming to write the scene.” 

Josie shows her traits of courage, cleverness, observation, has a big heart, a sense of right and wrong, and her love for reading.  Slowly she and Miss Harcourt form a bond of sorts.  This irritates Kathleen, the actual mansion’s servant, who resents Josie and is jealous of her. Because the estate is adjacent to an air base, Josie gets the consent of Miss Harcourt to open a tearoom, bringing a feeling of home for the airmen. One of those she meets is Wing Commander Mike Johnson, a Canadian pilot who shows Josie respect and kindness.  As both grow fond of each other Josie must figure out how to deal with the conflict she is having between desire and obligation.  

“The books expanded her life.  The Nine Tailors was set in that part of the country; Little Women was a classic children’s book; and The White Oaks talks about a family in Canada. The book library was the first realization where Josie and the upper-class woman, Miss Harcourt, she was staying with, had anything in common. Remember when Josie first arrives Miss Harcourt says, ‘we will have to decide your duties.’ Josie immediately replies that she is willing to help, but ‘I ain’t no servant.’ Seeing Josie in the library for the first time allows Miss Harcourt to realize that some of the barriers can be broken down.” 

This is a riveting story with many twists and turns.  The bonus is that readers learn the character’s personal emotions, challenges, and struggles.  The characters come alive as the story progresses.

[belle-keys]

"Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you - haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe - I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)

#2nd favorite classic novel of all time #all of my book moodboards can be found by searching the book moodboard tag on my blog #wuthering heights #emily bronte #wuthering heights aesthetic #heathcliff #catherine earnshaw #catherine linton #books #book moodboard #books and literature #classic lit #classic literature #dark academia books #dark academia aesthetic #english lit #book blog #moodboard #yorkshire #gothic #literature #favorite books #booklover #bookworn #book quotes #quotes #favorite quotes

[coolgenie]

This is my 1st time ever actually participating in a tag game! Thank you to @7nessasaryevils for tagging me <3 Will only include explicit BL content here so as much as I love The Untamed, Guardian, etc. I won’t be including them.

1. your all time favorite bl and why

Bad Buddy. I remember when news, promo pics, and trailers 1st dropped for this series in December of 2020. I spent the majority of 2021 WAITING and had begun to think it’d be delayed but then it finally premiered and holy crap it did NOT disappoint! It’s such a refreshing take on a classic story. Our leads have phenomenal chemistry and they’re allowed to be casually intimate in ways that REAL couples are. They’re also the healthiest couple I can recall ever having seen portrayed in media. Their communication is so sexy. The story itself is progressive in how it subverts, actively addresses, and debunks typical and often toxic BL tropes. I could honestly go on forever. Needless to say, this BL has raised the standard for all shows that I watch.

2. that one bl that scarred you for life

Haven’t had any Thai bl scar me yet. That honor primarily goes to Taiwan and 2 come to mind for different reasons.

The 1st is History 4: Close to You. Ye Xing Si and Fu Yong Jie are the most toxic couple I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing. Watching their entire dynamic made me extremely uncomfortable and angry.

The 2nd is History 3: Make Our Days Count…If any drama should be paying for therapy bills, it’s this one. If you know, you know.

Honorable Mention: Guardian. Know I said I was only gonna include explicit BL content but this one hurt me too much not to acknowledge. I read the nearly 1000 page novel immediately afterwards to heal my bleeding heart.

3. is there any bl that made you feel very single?

Kieta Hatsukoi (aka Vanishing My First Love - aka My Love MixUp!). They were just so sweet and soft and normal. There were no supernatural elements or dramatic setups. Just 2 lovely people getting to know each other and coming to love and respect one another.

4. if you could change one thing from a bl, which one would it be?

“I’m not gay I just like this one guy…” Fuck right off with this bullshit. Being gay is not a sin and bisexuality (& pansexuality) exists!

5. That one bl you detest (don’t hold back):

EDIT - Whoops! Missed this one! THARNTYPE! Actors have great chemistry but the characters and their relationship are toxic as fuck byeeee

6. your top five:

This was hard and honestly subject to perpetual waffling after the 1st 3 that I’ve listed.

Bad Buddy - My #1 <3

I Told Sunset About You - I mean the TENSION. You could cut it with a knife. Great storytelling, directing, cinematography, acting. It drags you through the emotional ringer and it’s worth it.

Sotus - Look. Quality wise…I know it’s not necessarily amazing but those characters hooked their claws in me and I still love them to pieces.

We Best Love (season 1) - As I’m writing this I’m just now having the revelation that I am apparently obsessed with “rivals to lovers” storylines lol It just makes for such a fun dynamic. This drama is short and sweet and such a comfort watch for me.

My Engineer - Absolutely hilarious with such a great cast of characters.

7. that trashy bl that you lowkey like

In direct contradiction to my previous answer about History 4: Close To You scarring me…Xiao Li Cheng and Teng Mu Ren were super likable and had great chemistry. No idea how the same writers who created this delightful couple ALSO created the aforementioned toxic couple from hell.

8. your favorite korean bl (it’s important we know)

Where Your Eyes Linger. It was the 1st Korean bl I saw and I believe among the 1st made. The chemistry between the two leads was just too good. The way Kang Gook quietly yearns in silence for years while Tae Joo immediately starts toeing the line (much to Kang Gook’s torment) as soon as he realizes his own feelings. The way Tae Joo is technically in a position of power since Kang Gook is essentially his body guard but how their years of friendship muddy those waters. Tae Joo’s emotional vulnerability in contrast to Kang Gook’s surface level stoicism. Ugh. Fucking love it.

9. but also your top 3 for kbls

Where Your Eyes Linger

Light On Me - 10 out of 10. So sweet. Perpetually on the verge of edging WYEL out of the #1 spot.

Color Rush - I didn’t love the execution but I loved the concept and the leads were great.

10. season 2? which one?

My Engineer!!! I need more RamKing and also Thara and Frong. I’m still reeling from Thara’s oblivious “brother” bullshit. You know Frong be listening to Nanon’s “Just Friends” on repeat after that lol The sheer ridiculousness of this show brings me so much joy. I can’t wait for more.

11. a bunch of dramas will air soon. which ones are you the most excited for?

KinnPorchse - The development hell this drama got stuck in has had me stressed! Thankfully it seems to be coming along now.

Check Out - Just from the promo pics, the chemistry between these leads already looks great.

12. tag them!

@gguklita @jemmo @actually-yikes @yukikinns @asliceofoceanmist @ilove-gaycouples @that-bl-bitch @gracethegriffin @vaipou @gguklita @topcatnikki

#ohmnomnom #tag game #bad buddy #bad buddy brain rot #bad buddy fandom #where your eyes linger #wyel #i told sunset about you #itsay #sotus #kieta hatsukoi #vanishing my first love #my love mix up

[pvrrhadve]

I trust ur taste in books, so can you recommend some? 🥺🥺🥺

yes absolutely!! this turned out obnoxiously long so i'm putting it under a read more

at this point you definitely all know about 2 of my favourite series, the queen's thief and the locked tomb

on the jellicoe road, also by melina marchetta. my fav ya contemporary, about a girl at a boarding school in the australian bush trying to figure out where she comes from, where she belongs and how to heal. marchetta's writing style can be a little difficult to get into for some people but she really really does it for me.

while tqt is my #1 favorite series, my 2nd favourite is melina marchetta's lumatere chronicles which is both kinda dark and full to the brim with love and hope and healing. some of my fav characters ever are in these books and the ending is so warm and radiant it straight up made me weep. some tw's that i go into here

the darkest part of the forest by holly black. ya fantasy. she wrote this specifically for girls who absolutely would've bargained years of their life away to the faerie king to become a monster-hunting knight when they were 11. black's magnum opus.

the girl who drank the moon by kelly barnhill. mg fantasy about a little girl who is accidentally given magical powers by a friendly bog witch. reads like a ghibli movie.

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone. a lyrical and devastatingly beautiful epistolary sci-fi wlw love story about 2 enemy time travellers.

abhorsen/old kingdom trilogy by garth nix. a ya fantasy classic about grief, duty, dead things and primordial cats and dogs. definitely holds up.

tess of the road by rachel hartman. ya fantasy. one of the best books i've read this year, had me completely emotionally invested by chapter 2. tess is SUCH a good character and her arc is so beautifully done. a companion novel/future series to hartman's seraphina duology but imo you don't need to read them first to enjoy this (you can ofc, but while the 1st (seraphina) is a really good scholarly fantasy about identity and also dragons, the 2nd (shadowscale) sadly didn't do much for me). tw for sexual assault (recounted as a memory, not graphic) and religious abuse.

the colours of madeleine by jaclyn moriarty. young ya/older mg contemporary portal fantasy. i picked these up on a whim a couple years ago and didn't expect much from them but was very pleasantly surprised by how fun and original they are. i reread them this summer and they're just as good the 2nd time around.

in other lands by sarah rees brennan. ya portal fantasy deconstruction. it's borderline satire and one of the funniest books i've ever read but it's also very sincere and intelligent in how it deals with its main character and his struggles.

middlegame by seanan mcguire. fantasy/sci-fi. honestly could not explain the plot of this book to you or why it's so good but there's psychically linked alchemically engineered twins who have various and sundry powers and i loved it.

sunshine by robin mckinley. paranormal urban fantasy. another book that i cant really explain but love anyway. i mean it's in the very general neighbourhood of "vampire romance" but like... weirder and frankly whatever you're expecting it to be it's probably not that.

keturah and lord death by martine leavitt. fairytale-like and haunting. every hades and persephone retelling wants what this book has.

the scorpio races by maggie stiefvater. her iconic standalone horsegirl fantasy <3 deeply atmospheric and about how being stuck on an unspecified celtic island in an unspecified but vaguely modern time could understandably be enough to drive you to fuck around with the local carnivorous water horses.

braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer. honestly if i could make everyone read just one book off this list it would be this one.

lab girl by hope jahren. beautifully written memoir about life, love and botany. one of my fav nonfiction books.

#also it's almost entirely fantasy lmfao i HAVE been branching out last couple years but ugh.... her hold on me #asks #anon #books

[itsnothingofinterest]

I think this fandom needs more villainous Christmas content, and also we really need some light Villain content right now; so since the PLF were formed and Shigaraki was still with them for last Christmas, here’s what I headcanon Shigaraki & the lieutenants got each other during their tense first few days after the merger.

Shigaraki

He get everyone video games. And also personal consoles for each and every one of them. Now Hero Aca is 200 years in the future, but I’m gonna list specific games & series anyway and just say if it still exists, it’s the latest game from that series, if not, it’s something similar to that series. With that said, here’s what he got everyone.

Dabi: Doom

Toga: Assassins’ Creed

Spinner: Grand Theft Auto

Twice: Animal Crossing

Mr. Compress: Mario

Geten: Dark Souls

Skeptic: Professor Layton

Trumpet: Command & Conquer

Redestro: X-COM

Attitude after merger review: Good marks; no noticeable signs of favoring old friends over enemies turned allies. Good job hiding that animosity Tomura!

Dabi

He went to a book store and got everyone books; because they’re good gifts that still allow him the opportunity to knock everyone’s literacy skills by saying they should read more. It’s an important balance for him to strike, getting good gifts without appearing friendly in the slightest. Anyway, here’s the genres he got everyone

Shigaraki Edge action adventure

Toga: Romance

Spinner: Action adventure YA novel

Twice: Slice-of-life comedy

Mr. Compress: murder mystery

Geten: University-level math textbook

Skeptic: Sci-fi navel gazing

Trumpet: Political theory

Redestro: Suspenceful Thriller

Attitude after merger review: Would’ve been fine if not for that dig at Geten’s uneducated status. Try harder next year, please.

Toga

Reminiscent of her pre-quirk Christmases, she decided to make homemade gifts for everyone using whatever she had available. Which was a lot, actually, since she was not afraid to spend Redestro’s money on supplies. In fact she went out of her way to get the most expensive supplies available at every opportunity.

Shigaraki: A grim miniature carnival ground where action figures of All Might & other pros are tortured and mutilated.

Dabi: a miniature statue of him made out of platinum and then crudely painted.

Spinner: An origami model of Stain with a vast arsenal of origami swords.

Twice: a Hand-knitted toque just a bit to big for his head.

Mr. Compress: A collection of new masks in fancy paints.

Geten: A mountaineering pick-ax with a handle in his color scheme.

Skeptic: Just a piece of paper saying “I know about the neck snapping. I look forward to working with you.”

Trumpet: A Trumpet.

Redestro: A bust of his head made of solid gold and smiling his to-wide fake-y smile.

Attitude after merger review: Also docking points for a dig at a former adversary, and what’s worse is it wasn’t even in the form of a proper present. Also losing points for going out or your way to spend Redestro’s money, which granted, everyone else was doing too, but you were a bit upfront with it. Employ more subtlety next time!

Spinner

Spinner also got everyone video games like Shigaraki did; however he looked into indie games. Gotta support the little guys, y’know? That said, indie games 200 years in the future are nearly equivalent to AAA games now in all the ways that matter, so there’s not too much of a difference except it’s all spiritual successors, no franchises. Huge selection though, and there’s successors to everything so Spinner’s set.

Shigaraki: Metroid

Dabi: Mario Kart

Toga: Danganronpa

Twice: Rayman

Mr. Compress: Clunhouse Games: 51 Classics

Geten: Celeste

Skeptic: Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.

Trumpet: Call of Duty

Redestro: Roller Coater Tycoon

Attitude after merger review: Full marks just like Tomura, as expected of his closest lieutenant. Excellent gifting Spinner!

Twice

Now that he has money, he just went on some Amazon-esque website and got the first thing he saw the reminded him of everyone. As such, his gifts are the most sporadic & random.

Shigaraki: A bottle of Kurogiri’s favorite wine.

Dabi: A quality pack of cigarettes.

Toga: Hairclips with characters from an anime she liked growing up.

Spinner: One of the spinning whetstone things for sharpening blades.

Mr. Compress: A new hat.

Geten: a pair of mittens.

Skeptic: Several Spools or wire + a pair of wire cutters.

Trumpet: A maintenance kit for trumpets.

Redestro: A $1000 donation to a quirkless rights movement in his name. (Can you tell he’s still mad about Giran?)

Attitude after merger review: Once more, major marks docked for taking a dig at an enemy-turned-ally that you can hardly even pretend is a proper gift. Once again; if you can’t do anything nice, be more sublet when acting mean.

Mr. Compress

He frankly wanted to see if he could get anyone into his hobbies, or at least get them something to remind them of him, so he robbed a magic store for magic trick-based toys & performance tools.

Shigaraki: One of those things where you saw your assistant in half (complete with saw).

Dabi: Those weird orb things that slid around your hand.

Toga: One of those boxes you have your assistant stand in and then stab them (complete with knives).

Spinner: Fancy deck of cards

Twice: Yo-yo collection.

Geten: Hula hoop

Skeptic: Semi-transparent Mirror

Trumpet: Bracelet things where you put one inside the other.

Redestro: Fog Machine

Attitude after merger review: Nearly full marks, but it is rather noticeable how League members got, on average, much larger presents than the MLA alumni. Still, the plausible deniability is worth something here. 

Geten

He just went to a store to get whatever he could find. He did not try very hard for the League. Or Skeptic & Trumpet for that matter.

Shigaraki: Santa hat

Dabi: Snow globe

Toga: Chocolate Bar

Spinner: Elf hat.

Twice: Bag of candy

Mr. Compress: a $20 gift card.

Skeptic: New tie.

Trumpet: A wallet.

Redestro: A Blue-Ray collection of a movie series he’d been meaning to see.

Attitude after merger review: Absolute lowest marks; the fact that he got bad gifts for fellow MLA members does not hide this fact as well as he may think it does.

Skeptic

Not really knowing enough about any of these guys enough to really think about what they want, but still wanting to show off; he hacked into the personal bank accounts of several heroes & famous figures and, using each one, got a ¥ 1 million gift card from this store franchise that doesn’t allow any kind of refunds.  Here are the corresponding accounts used to make each person’s gift (he did at least put thought into who each recipient might like to rob).

Shigaraki: All Might

Dabi: Endeavor

Toga: Best Jeanist

Spinner: Wash

Twice: Yoroi Musha

Mr. Compress: Edgeshot

Geten: Mirko

Trumpet: Some political opponent

Redestro: The HPSC president

Attitude after merger review: Both thoughtful and balanced between old & new partners, full marks for one of the last people you might’ve expected. Way to use that pride, Skeptic!

Trumpet

A rather materialistic fellow, he got everyone some new tech or item of convenience.

Shigaraki: An expensive watch.

Dabi: A temperature-controlled water bottle

Toga: A big make-up kit

Spinner: A nice suit

Twice: An Ipod.

Mr. Compress: A nice suitcase.

Geten: A mini-fridge.

Skeptic: A new laptop.

Redestro: A new phone.

Attitude after merger review: Full marks, I suppose, if only because he equally half-arsed it for everyone. Not even out of malice either, he just didn’t try all that hard for anyone.

Redestro

The richest of the lot: he also just got everyone some piece of technology/luxury rich person thing, with the difference that his presents were really big & expensive. He was rather invested in endearing himself to the new team.

Shigaraki: A kind of really big yacht, one with windows around the deck to keep people from seeing him. Imagine a cross between a yacht & a limo, actually.

Dabi: A stupidly big TV with like 10 different streaming services pre-paid on it. 

Toga: A self-driving car.

Spinner: One of those 4-wheeled dirt bikes

Twice: His very own mountain lodge.

Mr. Compress: His very own hot tub.

Geten: His own private jet, complete with a walk-in freezer installed in the back.

Skeptic: A warehouse & collection of those big data storage units; enough to back-up all the data his company had ever collected.

Trumpet: A new van

Attitude after merger review: Full marks and well earned; because even if they weren’t always the most personalized, they were too high quality for it to matter. And for once the expense wasn’t a mark against him because he was spending his own money!

Final review: Toga got everyone the best gifts, with Twice taking 2nd place, because theirs were both thoughtful and unique. Even the non-gift to Skeptic & Redestro couldn't bring them below anyone else’s score. Everyone else sucks at this. 3rd place goes to Redestro though, because “money can’t by happiness” is a phrase that doesn’t apply to poor people.

#bnha #paranormal liberation front #PLF #shigaraki tomura #dabi #toga himiko #spinner #jin bubaigawara #twice #mr. compress #geten #bnha skeptic #bnha trumpet #redestro #league of villains #lov #meta liberation army #mla #christmas

[lairn]

2, 4, 5, 9, 24 and 25 for the bookworm asks please :)

Yay, thanks! 2. Favorite classic book? I thought of it when I saw you said it's only so-so, but I really like The Great Gatsby. Typically books about miserable mean people being miserable and mean are a hard sell for me, so I had to read it twice before I could enjoy it. Lord of the Flies had a huge impact on me in high school. Also, not a book really, but I love King Lear.

4. Most overrated classic book? A classic I hated reading was Madame Bovary. It's so mean-spirited. That said, I could tell the writing was very well crafted.

5. Most overrated modern book? Like you, I found Name of the Wind insufferable. And Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Took me all summer to crawl through that one. I think those both feature annoying Mary Sue-type men who are meant to be utterly charming.

9. Do you finish books no matter what? I used to, but it wasn't fun. I still don't like dropping books because when I do sometimes it derails me and I can't read anything for a while. Stilted writing and pretentious men are usually what make me quit a book.

24. Favorite book title? Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is a lovely, poetic sort of title. Suitable for a philosophical sci-fi novel. I would like to read more Delany works.

25. What books do you read over and over? I keep reading Realm of the Elderlings. There's a lot of wonderful detail and I have a poor memory if I'm not actively highlighting or underlining passages in a book. I have also read Mort several times. I like the scene where he visits The Queen's/Duke's head and drinks scrumble. As a kid I read The Hobbit on repeat for three years. I would also re-read specific passages from Harry Potter books (rip) too. I liked the bits where Harry seemed kind of evil in the 2nd book, haha. In general, I like re-reading.

#ask game #books-and-doodles

[meimae]

Look at me, not being on time for my April Immersion Overview as is the usual. (・w・;

First, little blog updates to get out of the way:

I reached 100 followers! Got an influx of people checking out my 1 year update post, and got plenty of nice compliments on my data collection.

For those of you wondering just why I keep up with so much data, it's mostly because it can get really hard to notice how much you're improving in a language especially with something like immersion learning that for people who don't get it feels like a waste of time or a time sink.

Graphs showing consistency, improvement in reading speed, increasing vocabulary counts, and generally just seeing numbers grow turns language learning more fun and motivating for me, and if as a bonus, it encourages someone to try immersion learning then that would be cool!

With that said, whether you're here as a fellow language learner, graphs enthusiast (笑), or just want some Japanese media recommendations, ようこそ! 

Also, made a tiny DP change - it’s チト from 少女週末旅行. Pretty sure it’s the first manga series I ever finished in Japanese (not the first one I started since ちはやふる is still ongoing), and I always felt a bit of a ☆connection☆ with  her - between her book-loving personality and being a no-nonsense kind of person, there was no way for me not to enjoy her character. Great beginner anime/manga if you’re not into most beginner recommendations.

-☆-

April has been a pretty good immersion month, as I was able to dip my toes in a variety of media. A bit competitive, too! The club I joined has been pulling all the stops to get to the Top 20 Immersion Leaderboard in it’s first month. I was able to snag the 9th spot among a bunch of people of different comprehension levels (the majority being N1+ since they’re able to comprehend much more and in turn stand longer immersion hours). Lots of tiny complaints though of potential “whitenoising” content (”listening” and “reading” but not comprehending very well just to get a large number to post), but really what can you do? People lie all the time on the internet. Besides, it’s internet points that doesn’t do anything beyond being a little shiny I guess.

Enough about that, let’s get into the nitty-gritty details you came here for!

ANIME

フルーツバスケット

Might need to rewatch this one. Felt like I didn’t connect with the characters the way the rest of its fandom has. I’m kinda sad about it, since I normally love Slice of Life and Fantasy, and I know this is one of my friend’s diehard shows.

ラブライブ! School Idol Project S2

A filler anime to watch tbh. Nice and easy enough to follow for beginners. Pretty good songs. With regards to it being a show about music and moe, I still 100% prefer K-On! if I’m going to be honest, but for a show about non-toxic idols, it’s good!

魔法少女まどか☆マギカ

First read this as English translated manga when I was 13 or something. Mistakes were made. Let’s all just agree to throw キュウベえ into a pit of fire and never talk about it again. Great ending and a show that really reworked the magical girl genre. But seriously, I was traumatized by マミ’s death then and now, help.

四月は君の嘘

Already knew what was going to happen even before watching this so I didn’t ugly cry like I was expecting. Still got that awful sinking feeling though. 10/10 would recommend for a good cry. Also, I’m planning to read the manga, might enjoy that more, because I’ve always liked it more than anime actually. *shocked pikachu face*

ホリミヤ

Watched before I even finished the manga which felt like a mistake at first until I realized that it perfectly stops where I stopped reading. Nice and comfy anime, the kind I would have loved as a teen. Fun animation too, making parts very dramatic even though it wasn’t really that deep of an issue even in the manga. Just teens feeling feelings. Still salty that we lose bad boy styled 宮村, but I get why it had to happen.

AUDIOBOOKS

氷菓

Second re-listen. I understand it fine, but it’s very easy to drift off when you can’t catch all the words so I had to replay often. Will have to mine more from the anime/book.

君の名は

I mined from the anime, and was really pleased to be able to follow all 6 hours of this audiobook perfectly fine. Will need to read the book, because I realized just how seamless reading it would be after listening to it with hardly any issue.

BOOKS

キッチェン

Completed! Read my thoughts about it and see my stats on this post.

君の膵臓を食べたい

Still trudging on with this one. It’s not a bad story, it’s pretty well written actually, I just made the mistake of watching both the anime and live adaptation first, so I know exactly what’s going to happen and it’s killing my motivation to keep reading. I guess reading the book first before watching the movie still applies in any language with me. Really need to 頑張れ and finish so I can move on. 

三日間の幸福

Started reading towards the end of the month, mostly because I realized that every chapter is only 5000-15000 characters long, and I was able to read up to 40k in a day with Island most days. Only two chapters read so far though because I got distracted by manga, but it’s shaping up to be a really good plot and potentially a really sad one, too, so I’m interested.

DRAMA

花ざかりの君たちへ イケメンパラダイス

Heard this was a classic so I gave it a try. Loved 生田 斗真’s character in this one the most especially all his internal dialogue acted out. Also, 小栗 旬 in anything is bound to be a good watch. Simple and fun watch. They dragged the ending so much though lmao 

ごくせん

Look, I see 松本 潤, I click. Definitely the kind of show you should watch for some great life advice. Planning to watch the 2nd and 3rd seasons even if there is a terrible lack of 松本 潤, because I love my strong female protagonists, and man, ヤンクミ is such a great character. Need to read the manga, too, if I can find it.

極主夫道

Oof, this was kind of hard. The yakuza talk was throwing me off, but the rest of it was enjoyable. Not really plot heavy as I thought it was going to be. The comedy side of it was fun and predictable after the first few episodes. Overall, pretty good slice of life, family story with a twist.

MANGA

Read a bunch of manga this month, mostly because I am struggling to find the next vn to read.

おやすみプンプン

Read a couple of volumes (6-7). This manga is so good, but it’s so depressing I need to stop to take a breather every once in a while. Please don’t leave any spoilers. The club has been reacting to me reading this, and it has mostly been a lot of crying emotes. It’s both been enjoyable to see and really worrying. 笑

チェンソーマン

Club recommendation. Only read the 1st volume so far. I really need to get into more 少年 anime/manga. That’s currently my 苦手 genre which is awful because literally all the top anime/manga is 少年 help. I just can’t enjoy it much still even though it’s comprehensible to me.

ちはやふる 中学生編

Read Vol. 1, chill read to me at this point after reading 45 volumes of the regular manga. Look, it’s my favorite 幼馴染 manga in baby format, of course I’m going to read this! 太一 has been a flake way before season 3 confirmed. Don’t come at me たいちはや stans bc I also like his character.

約束のネバーランド

Volume 7. I’m taking my sweet time with this one, because I heard the anime for season 2 sucked, so I’m avoiding it like the plague. This is 少年 how am I enjoying this and not everything else what.

ヲタクに恋は難しい

Enjoyed the anime hated the movie why did they make it a musical that sucked (ps i normally love musicals hated this one) 

The オタク jargon is kinda hard to read suprisingly but I do enjoy this ship very much. It’s a lighthearted take to otaku culture which is great because seriously it’s scary out there.

ツバサ -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-

It’s my childhood ship, obviously I will read this again (read in English several years ago). Still as plot twisty as I remember it being (now at a bonus hard level reading it in Japanese 笑). Really enjoyed reading this one (I finished it this May).

-☆-

I’m starting to really dislike furigana in manga. It was a great help as a beginner, but now it’s like training wheels that you can’t take off. I feel like the gains I’m getting from manga is much lower than it was when I first started which makes me both proud of how far I’ve come, but also sad because I love manga. Sad that I might have to start choose VNs over it, because it’s not going to challenge me as much going forward. I mean it didn’t stop me from reading a lot of it this month, but you get the picture.

VISUAL NOVELS

ISLAND

Completed! See my stats and read my long spoiler filled post here.

ファタモルガーナの館

Picked up this VN and finished two doors (15 hours) before stopping. On the fence about it, because it has been kind of predictable so far, and I don’t particularly enjoy the horror genre. That said, this is more psychological than anything, so it’s probably not that that’s putting me off. The language is not exactly difficult, too - maybe some oddly specific words because it is after all historical fiction (which is one of my favorite genres, btw), and 敬語 is definitely interesting to read for once after encountering so many お嬢様 characters in anime/drama so far. 

I think maybe it’s the conversations that are kind of dull - dots (silence) every few clicks that keeps breaking the flow of reading. Probably judging it really harshly too early, because it’s rated so high everywhere, and I just have high expectations. Definitely not dropping it yet though, just taking a break and testing a couple of other VNs before I settle with whatever I end up choosing. It is, after all, going to be another 50+ hour read, and I just don’t want to not enjoy the process, because having fun with the process is a huge part of immersion learning.

Let me know if you’ve read Fata and if I should continue! 

-☆-

That’s it for this month!

If you have any suggestions on what to watch and read next, please send me a reply, especially for VNs because I’m struggling over here.

#language learning #japanese language #language acquisition #study blog #langblr #studyblr #japanese #japanese studyblr #nihongo #anime #manga #books #audiobooks #visual novels #jdrama #oyasumi punpun #chainsaw man #chihayafuru #wotakoi #the promised neverland #tsubasa reservoir chronicle #fruits basket #love live #mahou shoujo madoka magika #horimiya #shigatsu wa kimi no uso #hanakimi #gokusen #gokushufudo: the way of the house husband #island visual novel

[nico-drives-badly]

All About Rose (DMC OC Week — Days 1 & 2)

(This is an early character study I did of Rose back when I was first designing her, which has been copied and pasted directly from my Notes app with minor adjustments here and there. Since I’ve been having trouble coming up with new content for DMC OC Week, I figured I may as well share some behind-the-scenes content instead. Enjoy!)

Basic Info

Rose Martinez is the young, quirky bookstore clerk who helps V recover his spellbook in Life Rewritten, and quickly becomes one of his role models for compassion and selflessness. In future installments, Rose is V’s closest friend and ally outside of the Devil May Cry crew, eventually becoming his love interest and — later — his girlfriend.

Appearance

Rose is a 2nd-generation Latina POC, with mocha-colored skin and warm, cocoa-brown eyes. She has shoulder-length dark-brown hair that is dyed maroon and worn in double buns, with short tendrils framing her face in front of her ears. She has a relatively small stature compared to most Nascitian women her age, standing at roughly 5’3”.

Her typical outfit is a white sleeveless denim jacket layered over a bright purple T-shirt, black skinny jeans with a gray belt and silver buckle, and purple converses.

Rose’s Ace Ring

Rose’s most prized possession is her signature ace ring — a black ring made from Hematite worn on her right middle finger. Rose has not fully “come out” to her family as asexual because she fears it would disappoint her father and Abuela, so she wears this ring as a subtle way of proudly expressing her identity without upsetting her family. In the beginning of the series, Rose also keeps this a secret from V, worried that no one would ever love her unless she was willing to have sex with them.

At some point before V and Rose start dating, her ace ring gets shattered by her father, and after a heated argument that involved several hateful and aphobic comments, Rose leaves Sapere City and drives to Red Grave in tears. She arrives at Devil May Cry unannounced and tells V what happened, and V offers to buy her a new ring; however, because her argument with her father all began because he offered to do the same thing, she decides to simply tell V the truth about the ring’s importance to her, and how it can’t be replaced with just any old ring.

Much to her surprise, V is completely understanding and accepting of her asexuality, and he immediately goes out (in typical over-the-top V fashion) and buys her a replacement ace ring that is shatter-proof. He gives it to her as a promise ring, as a confession of his love for her, and as a symbolic way of saying that her identity will never be a burden to that love, but an integral part of it.

Once V and Rose officially start dating, Rose wears the ring V gave her, which remains throughout the rest of the series.

Personality

Rose is a playful, quirky, and energetic young woman with a curious mind and gentle heart. In many ways, Rose’s interests parallel V’s: she is very intelligent and insightful, she enjoys reading books in her spare time (her favorite being fantasy novels), she loves animals, and she has displayed extensive knowledge of classic literature and its history. Rose has also been shown to have a photographic memory; she can tell a customer the author, publisher, and year of publication of any book in Novela del Lago just by looking at the cover.

Rose has a generally fun-loving and playful spirit, riding the rolling ladder in Novela del Lago just for fun and giving V the playful nickname “Sonnet Hater.” However, she also has a selfless and kindhearted side, offering to help V recover his memory in any way that she can; Rose even lets him keep his spellbook for free, despite the bookstore’s implied financial hardship. Rose’s selfless and caring nature is further demonstrated in Chapter 12, when Rose immediately travels to Tumult City and attempts to evacuate her grandmother amid the Hydra attack, even though she knew it could potentially put her in danger.

Rose’s cowardice in the face of danger is also evident in Life Rewritten, as well as her lack of combat knowledge; whereas her Abuela attempted to join the fray by striking the Hydra with a bullet, Rose spent the entire battle running, screaming bloody murder, and ducking for cover, until V eventually teleported them out of harm’s way. She is also shown to get short-tempered when placed under stress, as evident by her frustration with Abuela’s reckless actions and constant reprimanding throughout the battle. Rose is also implied to be an animal lover, particularly cats.

Education and Career

Beyond the scope of Life Rewritten, Rose’s backstory reveals that she is a recent graduate from Red Grave University, having received her B.S. in Demonology (the literal study of demon biology) in May, just days before the events of DMC5. She planned to further her education by applying to RGU’s Ph.D program in Demonological Research the following semester, but the University was destroyed by the Qliphoth before she could begin her classes in the Fall.

On top of limited alternative options, difficulties obtaining her full transcript, her family’s financial limitations, and being forced to pay back her student loans much earlier than she had planned, Rose had no choice but to postpone her graduate studies to pay off her debt. She was technically unemployed when V met her in Novela del Lago, since she refused to let her family pay her and insisted on paying back the loans with her own money. She was actively searching for jobs outside of business hours, but she chose to volunteer as the bookstore’s clerk to help take it off of her parents’ plates; after all, they had their own financial problems to worry about.

Once Red Grave City is open to the public again, Rose decides to move there and look for work amid the reconstruction; due to the Qliphoth wiping out the city’s population, several job openings that were normally outside of Rose’s qualifications were now begging for manpower, and she’d be an idiot not to take advantage of it. She ends up being hired as the head librarian of the Red Grave City Public Library, due to her experience as a clerk at Novela del Lago, but ends up practically running the entire facility by herself.

In future installments, Rose uses the library’s numerous resources — as well as her own extensive background in Demonology — to provide critical information to the DMC mobile branch, acting as a free alternative to Morrison for Nero, Nico, and V. Potentially, Rose may also begin to conduct her own experiments in the remnants of RGU’s research labs to help gather information.

Skills and Abilities

[This section has been redacted and will be released during the “Abilities/Weapons” day of DMC OC Week.]

Relationships (Connection to the cast)

✧･ﾟ:* V *:･ﾟ✧

During Life Rewritten

When Rose first meets V in Life Rewritten, she also immediately realizes that there is something different about him, though she doesn’t quite figure out what. When she discovers that V’s spellbook — a mysterious poetry book that was donated anonymously one week prior — once belonged to him, she initially comes to the conclusion that his name was Vergil Sparda, due to his name being written on the inside cover, but V quickly rejects the idea. Nevertheless, Rose is familiar with the legends of Sparda, and the demonic runes in the back of the book further feed into her silent suspicions that V isn’t entirely human. These suspicions are eventually confirmed during their second encounter in Chapter 12, when V uses magic to teleport Rose and Abuela to safety.

With the exception of her first few moments of shock, however, Rose is completely unfazed by the revelation, and she accepts V’s identity as a demonic sorcerer without question. In contrast to her idolizing grandmother, Rose‘s friendly and down-to-earth attitude towards V never changes after discovering his abilities; she even greets him as “Sonnet Hater”, the playful nickname she had given him at the bookstore.

Although it is never mentioned outright in Life Rewritten, Rose offers to keep in touch with V after they part ways, by giving him a business card with Novela del Lago’s address and phone number.

Post-Life Rewritten

It is implied that they have called each other at least once between Life Rewritten and the second installment (WIP title “Family Reunion”), and they have agreed to start writing letters to each other, as well. By the third installment, Rose and V are actively sending letters and calling each other every night.

With each interaction they have, their feelings for each other slowly become more apparent, until V eventually confesses his love to Rose and they officially start dating. As of right now, it is currently undecided whether Rose moves to Red Grave City before they begin dating or after, since a timeline of future installments has not yet been outlined.

Romance

As V’s girlfriend, Rose’s attitude towards him stays relatively unchanged; she is still quirky and playful and energetic, but there is a noticeable touch of intimacy to her cheeky nicknames and goofball antics. Due to her asexuality, Rose is indifferent towards sensual pleasure and repulsed towards sexual intimacy, so their physical relationship is purposely subtle.

To help communicate what is okay and what is off-limits, they’ve established this golden rule: if V wouldn’t feel comfortable with doing a certain intimate action in public, then Rose might not be comfortable with it, at all; therefore, he should always ask for her consent first, and he should always respect her decision.

The emotional aspect of their relationship, however, is much deeper than their physical intimacy, and that’s where their romantic investment truly lies. V has grown to mean a lot to Rose at this point, and he has essentially given her life direction after the Qliphoth tore it apart. She has also become more confident and accepting of herself and her asexuality, as V is the first person in her life who doesn’t treat it like a myth or a burden.

Nicknames

Rose’s primary nickname for V is Sonnet Hater, based on their first interaction in Novela del Lago, when V openly mocked Shakespeare in response to Rose offering him a collection of his sonnets. Rose uses this as a playful pet name and cheeky reference to the first time they met, and is the most casual.

Once V and Rose start dating, Rose comes up with a second, more intimate nickname for V — Vitale, often in the form of her directly calling him “my Vitale.” Vitale, in the context of DMC’s geography, is a traditional Nascitian name meaning “vitality”, so Rose is essentially calling V her lifeblood, the vital force that gives her life meaning. Due to Rose’s bilingual tongue, she pronounces Vitale with a Spanish dialect rather than the traditional Italian — she says ‘vee-TAL-eh’ instead of ‘vi-TAL-ee.’

V personally finds the nickname and pronunciation charming and unique, and when V finally bothers to get a real government ID for himself so that there’s some legal record of his existence, he incorporates it into his full name — Vitale Sparda.

✧･ﾟ:* Nero *:･ﾟ✧

Initial Interactions

Rose doesn’t personally interact with Nero until post-Life Rewritten, likely after she moves to Red Grave and assists DMC mobile branch as an information broker. At first, her opinion of Nero is neutral at best, often times border-lining on negative. This is due to Nero’s reckless and impulsive nature, which gives Rose the impression that he is stupid and immature. Language isn’t Nero’s strong suit, either, so Rose often gets frustrated that she has to “dumb down” her scientific terminology just to explain it to him. Nero also asks her to translate her randomly dispersed Spanish words more often than the rest of the group, and he tends to completely butcher the pronunciation when he tries to learn them himself.

Over time, Rose slowly learns to be more understanding and patient with Nero, and their relationship starts to improve from there.

Later Interactions

As an acquaintance, mutual friend, and ally, Rose has a positive relationship and genuinely friendly attitude towards Nero, not unlike her initial relationship with V in Life Rewritten. Their relationship is entirely platonic, since they both have a significant other and they really aren’t each other’s type anyway.

They also share several interests with each other — namely in the cartoons and movies they watch, music they listen to, and video games they play — and since V is still relatively new to the modern world and has no real concept of popular culture, Rose talks to Nero about these interests, instead. They have developed a mutual bond over things like Steven Universe, Panic! At the Disco, and Pokemon, and they both find it equally amusing to tease and confuse V with their overly-contextual references and memes.

Oh, and the day Rose suddenly learns that Nero is lowkey a human calculator? She cried. She cried happy tears and dragged him into her lab to help her with dilutions and deadass locked V outside. (“Sorry, Dear, but I need to borrow Nero’s Brain for a hot minute because he can do math and you can’t.”)

Nickname

Rose’s nickname for Nero is “Lizard Boy”, due to his ability to dissolve and reform his right arm.

✧･ﾟ:* Nico *:･ﾟ✧

Rose has a high level of respect for Nico’s engineering skills and knowledge of machinery. Rose is fascinated by Nero’s Devil Breakers and their versatility in battle, and when Nico offers to let Rose use some of her old demon samples for research, she makes out like a bandit.

When it comes to Nico’s crude humor, though, it’s hit-or-miss. Rose loves a good jokester as much as the next person, but when that humor starts to turn sexual, Rose naturally starts to feel alienated; taking Nico’s frequent euphemisms in DMC5 into account, you can see how this quickly becomes a problem. It’s not a big enough deal to harm their relationship, of course — she’s dealt with sex jokes enough in her life that she’s mostly able to just shrug them off — but it’s still a noticeable barrier.

Nickname

Rose, knowing all about the hazards of smoking, had a hard time coming up with nicknames for Nico that weren’t condescending — “Black Lung” and “Nicotine” being the major no-nos, although “Smokey Bear” almost got approved.

Eventually, however, Rose witnessed her horrible driving firsthand and gave her the nickname “Leadfoot.”

✧･ﾟ:* Vergil *:･ﾟ✧

Rose doesn’t find out the truth about V’s past right away. Fearing that Rose would grow to hate him because of who his progenitor was, V largely kept his complex and slightly awkward origins a secret; he did tell her about the Yamato and all the basics about his creation (Rose was pretty awkward about it at first, but she eventually shrugged it off), but he purposely never mentioned the name Vergil. It wasn’t until she moved to Red Grave and arranged for her parents to meet V’s “father”, however, that she met Vergil face-to-face, and when she finally put two and two together, all hell broke loose...literally.

She was absolutely disgusted with Vergil and his actions as Urizen, and she scathingly chewed him out for being a murderer and destroying her career. Not that Vergil didn’t deserve it, mind, nor were Rose’s colorful obscenities by any means inaccurate, but it still created a rift that V had tried so hard to avoid.

Fortunately, Vergil was able to prove his redemption and ongoing atonement to Rose, by preemptively sensing a demon attack on her apartment (via his demonic sixth sense) and saving her right in the nick of time.

After this incident, Rose begins to see V’s progenitor in a different light, even though she still only trusts him as far as she can throw him — which, given how small and weak she is, isn’t very far. She also still holds a deep grudge against Vergil for destroying her university, and she certainly isn’t shy about reminding him of it.

Surprisingly, meeting Vergil had no affect on Rose’s view of V whatsoever; Rose could already see how different LR!V was from his progenitor, and she considers him an entirely different person — the only character in the entire series to do so.

✧･ﾟ:* Dante *:･ﾟ✧

Rose’s relationship with Dante is minor and has not been fully established as of right now.

#dmc oc week #dmcocweek #dmc oc #dmc rose